Some Blog Site

Continued from last week

Day 6

This was a day of more bus rides. We started out with a good breakfast at the hotel, albeit very crowded. Then off to the street behind the hotel to catch the bus out to Ballard. We hopped on, rode for a bit, made a transfer, rode for a little while more, and ended up at the entrance to the Ballard Locks and Botanical Garden.

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Continued from last week

We drove from Santa Cruz, CA to Monterey, CA. It was a little over an hour, if I remember correctly. Not much to see, other than farm fields and the occasional glimpse of the ocean. We made it to our hotel in Monterey without any incident.

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Continued from last week

We flew from Phoenix, AZ to San Jose, CA. It was a quick simple flight, but a little later at night. We arrived in the evening, got another rental Dodge minivan, and headed out to Santa Cruz. Since our hotel was to have a fridge, we stopped at the grocery store on the way. Probably about 9pm, so I stayed in the minivan with one sleeping kid and one not-wanting-to-walk-around kid while the others went shopping for the next couple days worth of snacks and lunches. I’m sure I stood out as a non-local, because I was not driving those hilly curvy roads as fast as the other vehicles.

We checked into the Seaway Inn around 10pm. On the plus side, their front office is open 24/7 so check-in was not a problem. On the minus side, they have a small parking lot, so we had to unload and then I had to park around the corner.

In the morning, I took the younger two kids down to breakfast. We were there just after they opened, because we weren’t quite on Pacific time yet. We then went back up to our room, told the others we were going to the ocean, and left.

This is the view from our window: across the street was another hotel, and beyond that hotel was the ocean.

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We took a longer vacation this year, so there are a lot of photos. I won’t share all of them, but it should be enough for you to get a feeling for how it went.

First off, a flight to Phoenix. The plan was to have all carry-on luggage, nothing checked. So everyone had one large (carry-on size) bag and one small (personal item size) bag.

The fun started at the airport parking. Because we were going to be gone for about two weeks, I parked offsite. So we parked and then had to get in the shuttle – 6 people and 12 bags. The kids obliged the driver and gave him a number of bags to load in the back, which meant I had to give him a number of dollars for a tip. I saw that as a learning opportunity for the kids – one of the many new experiences they would have.

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We were at some place that wanted to indicate what certain areas of its establishment were for.

Of course I’m posting this because I thought they worded it oddly.

Do they really think women want to give birth to 4-year-olds? It’s enough work and pain to bring forth a 0-year-old. Multiply everything by about five (weight, height, gestation time) and I think no one would sign up for that. Plus there was no privacy and it was fairly unsanitary as far as maternity wards go.

No wonder that section was empty.

In case you’re wondering, I think they meant “A space for 0- to 4-year-olds” or “A space for kids up to age 4.”

Sometimes people say “We’re all the same inside” to remind others that all people are human and deserve to be treated with kindness and respect.

While I appreciate the intent, I do find fault with the statement. For instance, roughly half the population is born with some different internal organs than the other half of the population. And even then, many people are different inside.

One woman might be different from another because she had knee-replacement surgery and now has artificial knees. That makes her different inside from most people.

Or one man might be different inside from another because he had his appendix removed so he’s missing an organ. That makes him different inside from most people.

“No,” you may say, “not physically the same, but emotionally and stuff. Everyone has the same non-physical needs.”

Then I have the same objection. I know some people who are natural optimists and others who are natural pessimists. Or morning people versus those who stay up late. Everyone is different – different hopes and dreams, different likes and dislikes, and so on.

“But Shakespeare!” you may object. To which I must assume you are referencing the line “if you prick us, do we not bleed?”

And my answer is that there are multiple blood types – we do not all bleed the same stuff. It’s close though.

We’re similar inside, but not all the same.

I was shopping around for a new curtain rod for the shower and I noticed that they were all titled “tension rod”.

They were titled that because they are held in place by pressing against the walls, rather than by being fastened to the walls.

But from what I learned in college, that’s wrong.

The curtain rod is pushing against the walls so it is being compressed. It should be a compression rod.

A tension rod would be somewhere that needed to prevent two walls from spreading apart.

Maybe a better way to do this is to picture a spring in the middle of the bar. To get the curtain rod to stay in place, you wedge it in place – what happens to the spring compared to its normal state? It is compressed. When a tension rod is in use, it is experiencing compression.

Whoever named that thing a tension rod has some explaining to do.