Observations

[larryJ]

My daughter-in-law returned from her trip to China last Thursday, safe and sound.  She has a half-brother and a half-sister that live in Toronto.  Both were present when my son married her.  I have seen the half-sister in the last year, but the half-brother has not been here since the wedding five years ago.  He is here for a visit this week and they came over yesterday to drop off #3 granddaughter, who we get to take care of two days a week.  He is a really nice person and easy to talk with about his comings and goings.  He mentioned that, in addition to visiting his half-sister, he came here from Toronto to buy a suit. 



It seems that a suit that he wants costs almost three times as much in Toronto as it does here at an outlet store.  So they went to some outlet stores and he got his suit and daughter-in-law bought some clothes for herself and for the baby.  He says that a lot of people in Toronto will go across the border into New York state to buy things, because the prices are lower.  Plus the sales tax in Toronto (I think I heard him right) was about 13%. 

The observation:  When I thought about it, I realized that as those in Canada would travel across the border into the U.S. to buy things cheaper, it is not any different than those of us that live in Southern California going across the border into Mexico to buy items cheaper in price than here, although that is not that important.  Making a run for the border to Tijuana to buy stuff is more of a "something to do weekend" more than necessity.  We haven't been in a long time.  I do remember going one time and buying some really nice blankets (king size) that were cheap in price, but not in quality.  This was over 30 years ago and we still have those blankets and they are still as good as ever.

So I shouldn't be surprised that Canadians would do the same thing.

On another note.....somewhere along the line, my daughter-in-law decided that I needed a Starbucks coffee cup collection.  While they were on their world trip three years ago, I began to get packages with items that they wanted to have, but didn't want to carry around with them.  Included in those packages, sometimes, there would be a Starbucks coffee cup.  She sent one from Starbucks in Bangkok and an island just off the coast of Thailand, one from the Starbucks that was in the Forbidden City in Bejing just before the Chinese decided to close it as it was not "traditional" and a couple of others.  When she came home this last time, she brought me a cup from a Hong Kong Starbucks.  We are becoming overrun with coffee cups, but I really kinda enjoy having these cups because they came from many different places in the world and brought to me by my daughter-in-law whom I love very much.

Larryj

[Bullwinkle]

    I bought a couple pair of Levi jeans at Pennys the other day. One pair was made in Cambodia, the other in Bangladesh. From the weight of them, I figure they won't last a year.

    I hope someday we get back to making things here in the USA.

   Something I've always wondered, why can't we make a good cigar here ?

[jarhead]

Slick Willie Clinton said there are good American made cigars. Take a White Owl and make it Monica Sweet and puff away

[Bullwinkle]

       That .........  is a good one ! 

[larryJ]

Well, we have returned, unscathed, but rested.

I have observed that I can actually go 2 1/2 days without my computer.  The withdrawal was tough the first morning but I was able to handle it.  It was eased somewhat by the fact that my phone gets my e-mail and Facebook notifications as well as text messages. 

Going to Ventura normally would take less than two hours.  There were several traffic jams and it took almost three hours to get there.  We were worried about having to pay an early check-in fee (check-in was 4 PM), but as it turns out we didn't arrive until after that time.  Coupled with that was the anticipation of getting there.  We checked in and rested for a while and then drove around the harbor to the Harbor Village where our favorite seafood restaurant is located.  We can actually see the Harbor Village from our room.  The Harbor Village is an L-shaped area with a promenade along the harbor.  We strolled along the promenade for a while and then on to the restaurant.  We had stopped for lunch and weren't all that hungry so we shared a plate with snapper and potoates and I had french fries.  Even then we couldn't eat it all and had to take a box back to the hotel.  One of our favorite things to do here is to go to the end of the buildings where there is a bench.  Sittling here gives you the view of the harbor and as it gets dark the lights come on and reflect across the water............a beautiful sight.  The last restaurant at that end of the promenade is called Blackbeard's BBQ.  They had a live band so we were enjoying some oldies while sitting on "our bench."  However, it got a little breezy and chilly and even though we had sweatshirts with hoods, it was time to head back.  As we passed Blackbeard's, the door was open so that we could see the band.  There were two guitarists and a drummer and a girl singer.  Just as we were walking past, the band announced that there was a special guest in the audience.  So we stopped along with a few other people to see who this special guest was.  This is for you old-timers...........Remember "Tallahassee Lassy" or "Palisades Park"?  Yep, it was Freddie "Boom-Boom" Cannon himself.  The band asked how many remembered him (show of hands) and many of us on the sidewalk raised our hands and Freddie looked out and was laughing.  Then he sang "Tallahassee Lassy" and covered a Chuck Berry song and then introduced two of the members of the band as his sons.  It was really pretty neat.

On Sunday, we had thought we were going to spend it on the beach, but our room and the surrounding area was so nice we never left the parking lot until it was time to go to dinner.  Then it was off to the restaurant and again we split a Mahi-mahi with some clam chowder (she had Manhattan and I had New England) with potatoes.  It was really windy and cold so we opted to go back to the hotel.  Once in the car we discovered the battery was dead.  We hadn't left anything on so there was no reason for the battery to fail.  I always buy Sears Die Hard batteries for my cars and rarely have a problem.  So we called AAA and waited about twenty minutes until the guy showed up.  He tested the battery and it was okay.  He jumped it and off we went to the hotel.  But then we had to sit out in the parking lot for about thirty minutes with the car idling to restore the charge.  I will be going to Sears in the morning to complain about the failure of the battery. 

We watched a lot of the Olympics during the two days out.  Today, we left around noon and thought about going to the local state beach, but then realized any delays would land us right in the middle of rush hour while driving through Los Angeles, so we just drove home.  It's no big deal about the beach because we can go whenever we want and beaches are pretty much the same.  And, we encountered little traffic coming back. 

All in all, it was a great weekend, but like always it is nice to be home to our own bed, our own house, etc. 

I've observed that a few days away can be restful and refreshing, but then I already knew that.

Larryj

[Diane Amberg]

Thanks for sharing with us Larry. I always enjoy what you write.

[Ms Bear]

I enjoy it too, and this time it made me homesick for Ventura.  Lived there for a couple of years when my kids were very small, almost 45 years ago. 

[larryJ]

In light of my recent weekend birthday event, I now know how many kids it takes to open the presents for one kid.  Besides my three granddaughters, there were three neighborhood kids who, after the first few presents were opened by the birthday girl, decided to give her a "helping hand."  One of the presents was a Justin Beiber doll which was way too advanced for a four-year-old, but the seven-year-old just loved it and I have heard since that there is a lot of fighting over this doll.........the seven-year-old because she knows who Justin Beiber is and the four-year-old because it is her doll. 

I do most, if not all, of the grocery shopping.  I may have mentioned this before.  I don't mind and I enjoy going out and getting the things we need..............Okay, I like watching people, not just the pretty girls, but all the people.  It's a kind of "seen at Walmart" experience.  For instance, I have seen women who, through no fault of their own, run out of beer and chips and have to throw on some kind of cover over their swimsuits, grab their flip-flops and make a beer run.  The men can't do this because (A.) they are too soused to drive or (B.) the game is on and they don't want to miss anything and the wife is not watching it anyhow.  The point here is the coverup doesn't really coverup making my shopping experience a little more exciting. 

Then there is "senior day."  This used to bother me and I knew that the local store where I do most of my shopping seemed to be over run by senior citizens on Tuesday mornings and I would plan appropriately not to go there then.  However, I, too, am a senior citizen, but hopefully not as lost and confused as some of those shopping in that store.  I swear that I have encountered some elderly lady in one aisle not moving out of my way or going very slow.  I switch to another aisle about three aisles over and, lo and behold, there she is blocking the aisle.  I know I move faster than she does, so how did she get there so fast?

I rarely shop at Walmart.  We do have some of the biggest ones around here.  But, I find it difficult to shop there when some "associates" are blocking the aisle unloading boxes of merchandise uncaring that customers might want to get through.  And then there are those three or four "associates" standing in a group discussing their intimate experiences from the night before and can't be bothered if asked where something is located.  (Who came up with the term "associates" anyhow?)  They are just store employees, or clerks, or workers.........

Given the large population that we have here, and I have mentioned this before, you can see just about any weird thing or person there is to see.  Many men and women, boys and girls, like to get tattoos, some discreet or small and others who, if they laid down, could be mistaken for a sidewalk chalk drawing.  I saw one young lady walking by me who was very beautiful with a nice figure and wearing a nice, albeit, short dress........wonderful makeup job and nicely styled hair.  I'm thinking "there is a beautiful young lady."  Then she turned to go the other way and the whole side of her visible body from the neck to the floor was covered with a huge mess of tattoos, totalling destroying any beauty she had going the other way.  Don't get me wrong.  I am not against tattoos.  I have seen some great ones.  Years ago, on a trip to the beach, I saw a young lady in a bikini who had a long stem rose beginning at her ankle and growing all the way to the top of her left breast ending in a huge rose.  Now that was tasteful.  One of these days, when I get the courage or have a death wish, I am going to ask some woman who is sporting a tattoo on her breast and wearing a top low enough to expose the upper part of the tattoo, if she would mind showing me the rest of the tattoo.

Nah, that will never happen.

Larryj

[larryJ]

I forgot to mention that if you are there, in the store, early enough before the mini-bus from some assisted living facility drops off some 10 or so senior citizens, there is a mad "dash", if you could call it that, for one of the three motorized shopping carts that the store provides.  I have seen some, shall I say, near brawls over who gets one.  I suppose the store could have more if they had the room to park them, but they don't.  Nothing against motorized shopping carts.  My wife uses one whenever she goes to the store.  I try not to be near her or even in the store when she has one of those carts.  She has had her share of knocked over end displays or running into someone because she pushes the wrong button on the cart.  Then there is the problem of the cart running out of power and having to get one of the boxpersons to come to the rescue with another cart and pushing the dead one back to the charging station.  This is one of the biggest reasons I do the shopping.........alone...........by myself......

And this is the woman who drives whenever we go anywhere as she can't stand the way I drive!

Larryj

[Warph]

Speaking of OBSERVATIONS... how about this fellow in this video?

2 fighter jets escorted a UFO: