Update

Well, we did the tech fair, & it was good. Then we saw a movie -- the Adjustment Bureau. It was excellent.

The neatest thing at the fair, for me, was a Hackintosh made by Chuck of the SPCUG. It was a Dell Mini 10v - running Snow Leopard!
Here's what it looks like -- cute as can be --->

It only took him a couple of hours to hack the $300 Dell NetBook to run the $30 Snow Leopard upgrade. Appears that it's become pretty easy now with the Dell Mini 10v and Mac OS 10.6 -- most of the time spent is waiting for it to set itself up. I want to make one.
See comment - update

Time has flown...

I've been spending most of my time on the Strait Mac User Group (SMUG) here, getting a booth ready for a tech fair that's coming up tomorrow in Sequim. And, my typing of the Senior Center newsletter 'job' has continued. It was supposed to be for just 2 or 3 months.

I've tried to keep up on the AskGeneva website, but there is still much to do. All the specs have changed for the MacBooks. And, of course, the iPad 2 is here.

The new Mac OS X system is coming... OS 10.7 named Lion. It's presently in beta for developers only, but I couldn't resist this photo.

I had a horrible toothache -- the kind that starts on Friday and you suffer agonies until you can get to the dentist on Monday, then it stops hurting. But he said it was infected, and gave me a prescription for antibiotics. I was so beaten down that I actually took them. I haven't done such a thing in at least 40 years. It made me sicker than anything -- coughing, nose running, fever, etc. I'm just now getting over it. Never again. .

Happy New Year everybody!!

Activities

I have a couple of new "jobs" (no-pay). One is typing the Senior Center Newsletter and the other is VP of the Strait Mac Users Group.

As typist: The Senior Center uses InDesign for the page layout -- I find it much like Pages, but the differences are in Pages' favor IMHO. ID looks too much like a MS product. Anyway, it's done for Feb and I want to change it over to Pages before it's time to start typing the March issue.

As VP: It's my job to arrange the programs. Luckily the 1st 2 were done already, since I missed them both! January because I was in Hawaii, and Feb because I was sick (still am, but it should be over soon). I have also been given the job of coordinating arrangements for the MUG booth at a Tech Fair that will be happening March 19. For that, I set up a wiki, but, so far, only 4 members have contributed.

Christmas in Hawai'i

I (Manfred), too, can't believe that we lived here so long. The island of Kaua'i where we are, is much more built up from when we lived here but at the same time, I must say, that most of it is still very much he same. The same underdeveloped roads & single-lane bridges, the same 40 foot MATSON containers that bring in practically everything from the Mainland US, the same vegetation, except more so, with it's flowering trees and bushes and most of all the same friendly and seemingly very happy people.
We were fortunate to be invited by our long time friends in Princeville on the north of the island for Christmas dinner and had a most wonderful time.

The weather is another thing all together. It's too hot . . . . . at least it is for me now, it must not have been then, age has definitely something to do with it. In the last few days we had a storm system coming through here lots of rain complete with lightening and thunder in the distance. This made it a couple of degrees cooler but also more humid.

Christmas Dinner in Princeville

We had an absolutely fabulous Christmas Day, visiting our best friends, Jan and Ken Bernard in Princeville, Kauai. We had a fantastic Christmas dinner, with turkey, lamb, with all the fixin's and then some (portobello mushrooms, orange-glazed carrots, and great desserts and sweets).

Then, after dinner, we viewed a spectacular performance of fire dancing, done by their son, Jake, in the street in front of the house. What a sight! Who knew?

Then we played music, talked story and played games until late. What memorable a day!

Wonderful Garden Ponds on Kauai

Today we went to visit Garden Ponds Kauai, near Princeville, owned by our friend Ken Bernard. What an amazing place. The pictures can't show the feeling of peace and tranquility that this place gives you. You just have to see for yourself.

Celebration of Life - Richard Shen

A Celebration of Life was held for Richard Shen (my ex) at the gazebo he designed on the KCC campus. It rained hard all day, except for the 2 hours that we were there. It was very nice.

Lihue

Hard to work on the computer - it is so hot. I don't know how I ever lived in this place. That's my excuse for not getting any new posts put here, & I'm sticking to it.

In Hawaii

We are in the town of Lihue, on the "Garden Island" of Kauai. Very beautiful place, but sooo hot.

We'll be here until Jan 5, back in Port Angeles Jan 7, as shown in last post.

We didn't get to fly in the little Cessna - I was disappointed, but Manfred was glad it was a jet. Go!Makulele Airlines was very good, unlike the negative comments on the internet.

Heading for Hawaii

We are leaving tomorrow for Lihue, HI, to visit Aida Shen for the holidays. Her husband died a few weeks ago.
We fly to Honolulu Saturday and get to visit with my sister, Jan, and my #1 son, Richard.
It will be a happy/sad time. Not a good time for us to leave, but necessary.

Here's the plan, in case anybody cares:
December
10 Fri - noon take bus to Seattle, stay night (tomorrow)
11 Sat - 9:30 am fly to Honolulu, arrive 1:35
. . . . visit w/ Jan at airport
. . . . 5:20 fly to Lihue, arrive 6 pm
12 Sun - visit w/ Rick & find out what Aida needs/wants.
13 Mon - Rick flies home
January
5 Wed - we fly to Honolulu, stay the night, visit Jan (& Darrel?)
6 Thu - fly to Seattle, stay the night
7 Fri - take bus to Port Angeles, home

We are taking a big chance on the flight Honolulu to Lihue, going by Go! Mokalulu airline. Tiny (9-passenger Cessna) plane, and notorious for canceled & delayed flights. Living dangerously -- we'll see.

Skipped a lot

OMG - this is so far behind.
We got on the cruise ship in Venice - Norwegian Cruise Line Norwegian Gem. Nice boat. Stopped at some places in the Mediterranean, then sailed across the Atlantic to NYC. Took 14 days. Had only a couple of rough-sea days. Otherwise good EXCEPT that they charged a horrendous fee ($.45 per minute on a very slow network) for internet access. So I couldn't update my blog, which I had been planning to do.

From NYC we flew to LA, where son Robin picked us up, since he was there anyway. We had to go to San Francisco because my ex, Richard, had died and both sons were going to be there to be with his widow, Aida, to put the ashes in a cryp there. We had a sort of sad family reunion, but it was good anyway.

We stayed with Robin & Virginia until the Black Friday, the cheapest day to fly to Seattle. We just got a few things done about the house we have for sale, and now we are going to to Hawaii to be with Aida during the holidays.

I'll try to fill in the gaps and get some photos in there while we are Hawaii. .

Cruising the Atlantic

Our cruise was quite nice. Bad thing about it was we couldn't use their internet -- too expensive. It was so good to be on a boat again. Here are some photos.

In Venice

We got up at 5 a.m. to catch the train to Lisbon so we could get on a plane to Venice. Flying is so horrible, especially compared to train travel. I never want to fly anywhere again - but I'll have to. We changed planes in Barcelona and arrived in Venice about 5 p.m. We had booked an airport hotel, which is quite nice, but it's a good thing we're here only about 24 hours - everything is so expensive.

And we just learned that we will have to walk about 1 kilometer, lugging our bags, to get to the ship, because no roads or boats can go there. !!
'nother lesson: never book a cruise that starts in Venice.

Bill is still suffering from his cold, I hope he can make it.

Train trip to Coimbra

Today we wanted to go to the Portuguese town of Porto, where the Port wine is made, but it looked like it would take too long. At least 3 hrs each way on the train. So we went to Coimbro, instead. It is a very old college town. The old campus is very interesting, especially the library. No photography allowed, so I got these photos from the internet.

I has 40,000 very old books, that can still be used for research.

Sintra, going to the beach

Today we took the bus to the beach. Weather was cool, but nice. Spent a lot of time waiting for buses.

In Sintra, Portugal

After spending 3 days in Barcelona, we flew to Lisbon and took the train to Sintra, arriving quite late. Today, we visited the 2 palaces here, quite spectacular.

Troubles getting online

Have been having problems getting online and this blog was taken offline and German keyboards are different, and our Firefox is broken. So, no updates for now. These photos were added later.

We have just been for 3 days in Vienna -- great place, and we attended a super concert (all Mozart). Saw the Spanish Riding School training, and the palace.

Tomorrow morning we will fly to Barcelona, stay 3 days. Then fly to Sintra.

I'll write more later, when we have better internet. We have lots of photos, but I'm using the hotel computer so I can't put any on here.

In Heidelberg - heading to Rothenburg

I had the same title for a blog post last year... We got away from Bacharach later than planned. The train trip was good. Took a taxi from the bahnhof (train station) to the youth hostel where we are staying. Then a bus to the old university part of the town. Not much time but we had a good German-Mexican meal. Bill is holding up marvelously -- better than we are, sometimes. I wasn't able to get online much, so I wrote up some notes offline which I will put in now in the appropriate dates.

And yes, we did find the key. It had fallen out of my pocket while sitting on a bench waiting for the boat.

In the castle, finally

Bacharach - Stahleck. Wandered around the town, took lots of photos, taxi up to the Burg Stahleck. Lunch? Ate dinner there, not very interesting. Our rooms were in the part behind the tower, with narrow old stone stairways. Bill’s bathroom was on our floor, but his room was one flight up. Reeely tiny rooms, bunk beds. But it was lots of fun anyway, plus the awesome views.