...the annual family trip to Long Beach Island starts on Saturday. With the nephews both college age and over 6 feet tall, and the niece in her terrible twos, we've finally outgrown the beach house we've been renting for almost a decade, and have found a new place right by one of our favorite beaches on the island.
Sadly, if the contract is correct, there's no wifi at the new place, but we have some workarounds for that, so hopefully yours truly won't entirely disappear for a week. But in case I do, rest assured I am doing so in a pleasant sea breeze, with my kindle in my hands.
EDIT: Oh, and BA? You were worried a year ago that my brother and sister-in-law teaching our niece Vivi Ameslan would impede her verbal skills. No such luck. She's been forming full sentences for the last few months now.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Have fun!
___________________________
"I've always wanted to be somebody, but I should have been more specific." - George Carlin
Quote:Bob Schroeck wrote:
EDIT: Oh, and BA? You were worried a year ago that my brother and sister-in-law teaching our niece Vivi Ameslan would impede her verbal skills. No such luck. She's been forming full sentences for the last few months now.
Took me a second to correctly parse that with two proper nouns together like that - Vivi Ameslan looked like a full name for a second. :p
And I said that? Huh. Guess I was having a moment of stupid.
EDIT: Bob, I'm sure it's been mentioned before, but you ever consider picking up one of those mobile hotspots? They're starting to get pretty reasonable in price now. (I absu-fucking-lutely loved the one I had in Japan. Kept me sane the times I was on restriction.)
I think I still have a 56k modem you could borrow. It might even still work.
Enjoy your week off!
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Actually, our smartphones can act as mobile hotspots, and we have one other option as well -- Comcast's Xfinity network of hotspots, since we're Comcast customers. In fact, I'm going to make sure of my id and password later today.
And yeah, BA, you did express some concerns last year. I got curious after posting that initial message and went searching the board and came across the post you made last year when I mentioned that Dave and Amber had taught Vivi sign language. As it happens, it turns out I've used the title "It's that time of year again" as the title of a post about our LBI vacation for well over a decade now... and that judging by the messages I reread last night, we hadn't been renting the old beach house for almost a decade, but more.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
On the topic of sign language/speech, it doesn't really help or hurt one way or the other. By the time they are old enough to produce any sort of meaningful language (about 12 months), they can learn to speak about as well as they could learn to sign. Any delay in speech caused by teaching to sign is somewhat illusory - It's not a failure to learn, but simply unwillingness to deviate from prior experience. Unless you do something phenomenally, monumentally, unfathomably horrible, kids are absolute language sponges around 2-6 years old and will learn what ever languages they are exposed to on a regular basis.
---
The Master said: "It is all in vain! I have never yet seen a man who can perceive his own faults and bring the charge home against himself."
>Analects: Book V, Chaper XXVI
And this year we are so much better organized. The car is already 90% packed, with basically just the perishables we're taking with us and the toiletries to go. Soooo much better than the years when we're desperately packing in the last couple hours and then shoving stuff into the car any old way as the temperature and humidity both enter the 90s, in a desperate race to be on the road the same time Peggy's family wants to leave... My god, we'll even get to eat breakfast this time...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
* Dartz looks at my habit of just slinging shit in the boot will-nilly in ten minutes after getting home from work on a Friday before blasting off and shames.
Also, locking myself out of the house in the process and having to use a broken plank of wood to pikey my way in, getting cautioned by the local police for breaking into my own house and finally getting on the road at 8:30 in the evening for a high-speed gas-blast run South, realise after a half hour that I left the keys to the other gaf behind, turn around, grab them, and the finally make it down at 11:30 in the evening.
Least it has 4g
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
Quote:Bob Schroeck wrote:
Actually, our smartphones can act as mobile hotspots, and we have one other option as well -- Comcast's Xfinity network of hotspots, since we're Comcast customers. In fact, I'm going to make sure of my id and password later today.
Well, goody for you, you might be able to catch it when I update
Dear Sweet Kami-sama this Friday!
I certainly hope so! Turns out that the house has WiFi after all, which is good. Turns out, in fact, that while the house is very nice indeed, there are several inaccuracies in the listing (at least one of which -- a lack of beach badges -- was suspiciously corrected online at about the time we asked the realty where they were...). Nothing that would turn the week into a horror show, just small things that are annoying.
One good thing, we're miles to the south of the WWI armaments dumping site, so unlike our old beach house in Surf City, there's no
nearby sign warning about coming across century-old explosive devices on the beach.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Took a tumble on the slick concrete in the house's driveway tonight after a rainstorm blew through. Sprained my hand, scraped up my knee, and somehow exacerbated a patch of poison ivy so it started weeping a little bit of blood along with the plasma (?) it had been weeping all day. Not fun at all.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Ouch.
I'd suggest keeping that wound clean (to heal more quickly) and covered (to protect against getting any worse)...
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."
- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012
Yeah, I had the same thought. Peg's insisting I take Benadryl, too, to treat it. However, the bloody weeping seems to have stopped overnight, so that's good.
I'm sore this morning but not as sore as last night. The hand may not be fully sprained, as it's mostly pain-free and I can type with it -- it's only when I try to straighten the hand completely flat that I feel any pain, and even then not much this morning. My brother-in-law Ed says it looked like I instinctively distributed the impact along the length of my body, which probably saved me from a broken wrist or worse.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Have you ever used
Tecnu to clean up after poison ivy exposure? If not, it might be something to keep in mind for potential future exposure.
Never used Tecnu, no, although we've made use of Zanfel (and occasionally Ivarest).
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
And it's the last night. Take-out dinner, packing the cars, and crashing early(-ish) are on the menu. Got some good pics, a couple of which I'll post after I get home.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.