Life's Adventures

This, That, and the Other

2012-02-06T15:36:00.000-06:00

It's been a while since I've posted here. A long while. I just wasn't inspired to write. I'll pretend nothing happened, and just pick up from today. Maybe I soon write one post to recap the last 5 weeks.

Because of the stress I felt due to the events of the passed 5 weeks, I decided I really need some time off. The weather was uncertain, as is common this time of year, so we waited till the last few days before making final plans. We finally were happy with the forecast not to be a total wash out, and reserved four nights at the Log Country Cove. I went there, long time ago, maybe even 10 years ago, but I remember having a great time with some Bosnian friends. I liked the cabins, the nature, the water,... and I know that setting was the closest to camping my mom would want to come. So, I got us a cabin there from Tuesday to Saturday. I am so happy I did this, and we both had a great time.

We actually had great weather. Half the time we were in just short sleeves. We even took Ciro with us on the walks, even paddle boat, in a little open-top box. There were just a few other cabins rented, so we were able to enjoy some privacy but at the same time not feel totally isolated. We went on walks couple of times every day, from walks around river to hiking through nature trails. In the evening we enjoyed camp fire, bbq, and s'mores. It was such a relaxing time, which is exactly what we were going for.

Christmas Is Here!

2011-12-28T19:03:00.003-06:00

Or should I say: Christmas Is Here?!

Where did this month, this year go?!

I really was not in the pre-Christmas spirit this month. It started with the car thing, which happened on the first Sunday of Advent. The next two weeks were packed with stress and drama. Looking for the car, making decisions, pressure of finite time with rental-car, having to think about it every day, knowing that Zoran will be leaving soon and I would have to make the final decision myself,.... Then the stress of Ciro being worse and worse, taking him to the vet, feedings, nightly seizures, lack of sleep,....

It dawned on me that Christmas was almost here on the fourth weekend of Advent, when my mom arrived and had me box the presents she brought, and I didn't even get her anything! I realized this year we have the longest Advent, with Christmas day falling on a Sunday, and was greatfull for that extra week to try to get into the spirit.

On Saturday, I made myself finish decorating the tree and putting up the lights outside.
On Sunday, we went to the Christmas concert at the Capitol.
On Monday, I went to reconciliation and to the Celtic concert at the Cathedral.
On Tuesday, mom went with me to that same concert.
On Wednesday, I did some Christmas shopping.
On Thursday, I went to see some weird Christmas lights displays on the 37th street with my friend Joe.
On Friday, mom and I drove through some neighborhoods in Round Rock, like we did last year, that had great lights and even synchronized with music.
On Saturday, we did some baking and I went to Midnight Mass at the Cathedral.

Packed week! I had to force myself to do some of these things. I was going to have as good of a time as I make it.

Christmas day was rainy and cold, perfect for staying inside and relaxing. We had a late start (since I didn't get to bed till 2am) and took our time with coffee and breakfast. Opened presents. Cooked a nice meal. Sipped some wine. Cleaned the fridge to fit all the food. Watched some movies.

It's still hard to believe that in just 3 (!!!!!!) days it will be 2012!

Where. Did. The. Year. Go?!!!

First Week of Mom's Visit

2011-12-22T14:11:00.000-06:00

It has been a week since mom arrived. And it's been a busy one. We are adjusting nicely.

She is still a bit jet-legged, but is almost on Austin time. Every year when she arrives, the first thing she wants to do in the house is wash the windows. :) I never do it, but back in Bosnia that is at least a once-a-month chore, and since she notices dirty windows, she was cleaning one a day for the past week. A little exercise she calls it.

Our first outing was her second evening here, and we started with Costco and HEB, of all places. We are trying to figure out our meal and desert plans for the holidays, but didn't do well on the planning, so we had to go back shopping again few days later.

Saturday we had an early start. I finally finished decorating the Christmas tree, which I did in stages Then we went down south to the tint shop that did windows on my new car. There were few little bubbles they needed to fix, but once I was there I noticed even more bubbles on the read window. They said they would want to redo the entire window, instead of just touch up, so I'll have to come back in January. Good thing I have lifetime warranty on those.

Since we were already on Lamar, I wanted to stop at some food trailers for something sweet. I was looking for the one with those big, fat doughnuts, but couldn't remember its name or location. We went up and down Lamar, Congress, and 1st, asked few people, until we finally found Gourdough's back on Lamar just a few blocks from where we started. But we got a free doughnut for our effort! It was a nice day to sit outside and enjoy our desert.

We somewhat rushed home for an English class that was supposed to be at the library at 4 PM, but it got canceled. I then went to Mass and even though I was supposed to go to a birthday party that evening, I felt so tired that I just stayed in.

On Sunday we went to a concert at the Capitol. Austin Philharmonic Orchestra did a great job, and made it entertaining and engaging. After a short tour of the Capitol afterwards, we continued onto a shopping spree for another 3-4 hours, interrupted just by dinner in between.

Monday evening I went with friends to Celtic Christmas concert at the Cathedral, which was just a spectacular performance of pipes and drums, traditional Celtic instruments, music, and dance. I loved it so much that I had to go again the next evening with mom. She managed to stay awake till 10.45, which is when we got out of the church. It was a long night!

And so all of this fun would be more enjoyable if my little bird Ciro was not feeling so sick. He is getting worse and worse, barely is able to stand without falling. He has seizures almost every night, which keeps me awake. I feed him with baby food and baby bird food in the morning, to give him a jump start, although he eats throughout the day. It's just a sad, sad situation at home, and our hearts ache to see him that way. :(

$93 For One Hour Parking!

2011-12-15T12:13:00.000-06:00

That's what they tried to charge me last night at the Austin airport. Yup, $93! And with a straight face!

I went to pick up my mom late at night. 11:50 PM is what the entrance parking ticket said. The Bergstrom airport no longer has 30min free parking, and their hourly rate is $3.

They were delayed getting off the plane. By the the time we were at the parking exit ramp, it was about 12:47 PM, just under an hour. As I handed the booth clerk the ticket and my credit card I asked smiling "did we make it in time" - thinking did we make it under 1 hour. To which she replied (after getting out and checking the temporary licence plates on the back of the car): "That will be $93". Um, what?! We were there for under an hour! She changed the digital display on the ramp to read 93.00.

She then said that the car has been parked in the garage for several days, they have patrols that monitor cars, and they have in their system my car VIN number. "Well, it's not correct," I replied, "we were here just tonight."
Her response, "it is correct! We have it here in the system."
I told her I do believe her that she has something in the system, but that it is not correct. I just came tonight. She asked if the car was at the airport at any point that week, and I said no.

She then said that she needs to call her supervisor, to which I replied "You better call him" She didn't like that response, and said "I better?! The only think I better do is charge you $93." Where does she get that attitude?!

When she got off the phone, she checked the plates again, didn't say anything, just changed the display to 6.00, and handed me back my credit card. I asked how much was it, and she said $6. I asked why not $3, but she said it rolled over and hour (while she was trying to sort their wrong information in the system!). It rolled over by 3 minutes. But I was there in under an hour, to which she replied: "Yeah, well that's your defeat!" What's her problem? What did we do to offend her and provoke that kind of attitude? No, "I am sorry for that issue, we messed up,..." No, no, none of that. She just added "Well, there is a number on there if you want to complain." I sure will, I said, and left the place.

I was so tired at that point, and had enough stress in my life to add another drama to it. $3 is not worth it. (a certain Frasier episode came to mind when he didn't want to pay for parking he didn't owe...)

What a disrespectful person!

The moral of the story: Do not give the parking booth clerk your credit card until you know how much they want you to pay.

Introducing: Pearl

2011-12-11T19:43:00.001-06:00

Finally, I have a car! My car! My brand new car!

This beauty is 2012 Iridescent Silver Blue Pearl Hyundai Sonata, or simply: Pearl.

The two week long drama of looking for a car is over. And I am very happy with the choice.

I was looking for a sedan. A bit of an upgrade from my old Corolla. The cars that I considered were
Toyota Camri - Didn't like cheep knobs, handle in the middle of the arm rest on the door.
Honda Acsord - had a tremendous central console and overall 80s interior look
Nissan Altima - Liked overall look but didn't higher price with lesser warranty
Mazda6 - central console not too appealing, lower visibility in blind spots, and not perfect reviews
Ford Fusion - this was the only one I didn't test drive. I guess it wasn't a real contender after all.
Hyundai Sonata - excellent reviews and warranty, but lower blind spots visibility.

I started the process thinking I want a slightly used car, up to 10,000 miles. You know, because of that saying that new car looses 20% of its value when you drive it off the lot. But my experience with these low millage cars was not such. The price difference was just about $3K. Then I also realized that many car warranties are not transferable to the next owner. So then I considered both used and new.

I had my eye on a 2011 Sonata for several months. Pretty much this last year since I started thinking about a new car. And from the beginning I was just concerned with the high side and rear windows and how that affects the visibility. Well, that and just the fact that it's a Hyundai, a brand not that familiar for its quality and with some really annoying, cheep commercials (at least here locally). But my mechanic was advising for that one over Toyota, Honda, and Nissan saying how Hyundai quality went up and for these others it went down. Plus, the warranty was fantastic.

I first looked at the base Sonata model, GLS. It happened to be a used one, and even though it was base, the interior looked great. But at another dealership they showed be used high end model, Limited, and that one was awesome with all the upgrades: leather seats with warmers, lumbar power support on driver seat, navigation system, sunroof, .... all the bells. Those limited's didn't have my ideal color options, they were dark colors, or had high millage on them, so I kept looking. I was getting more than a little stressed out about it because dealerships didn't have used car I wanted and the time on paid rental car was running out. I would have extend for a week or so, but still it was a waiting game for the perfect used car to arrive.

About that time was when I started considering new cars and I realized I could have color and feature options if I get a new car. And, really, the price difference was only few thousands. And the warranty on a new car is 60K miles bumper-to-bumper, but on used one just 36K, minus the miles already on the car.

My friend Maggie suggested I look for new cars through dealership internet sales, instead of visiting them personally. For her it took a lot of pressure on price negotiations, and it worked great for me too. Since the price of new Limited was above my budget, but the base model didn't have some features important to me, like good seats, I started asking about the middle model, SE. Within a couple of days we agreed on the price and they were able to find that model in Houston. I paid the deposit and was supposed to pick up the car on Thursday.

Then I got an urgent message to call them about the car. Apparently the guy I talked to last about it (with internet sales they work as a team, not just one sales person) ordered a car with some upgrades that I didn't ask for, namely trunk spoiler and homelink feature. Now, I didn't know what a spoiler is. I googled some images and was shocked when those big, racing car trunk additions appeared. I had them send me a picture of the car they delivered, and it only had a subdued trunk lip spoiler. They kept telling how I am getting an awesome deal, because even without those upgrades it was an aggressive price. So, I went there on Thursday evening to purchase the car.

The hole day was tiring. I was already stressed out with time constraints up to that point, Ciro was feeling very sick and I had to drop her to the vet, Zoran left for India that Monday...So I just wanted to get it over with. As I was driving through rush hour traffic, I first realized that rental place is going to close before I get there and hopped that I could still leave the car there. Then I realized that the check book I was carrying with me those two weeks to the down payment was from an account that I closed when I thought my purse got stolen back in January. So, I basically didn't have money with me for a down payment that evening. The stress was only building up.

Then when I saw the car, that's when I realized, this SE model is a sports edition (maybe that's what SE stands for). It had two shiny mufflers, steering wheel-mounted paddle shifters, sports-tuned suspension, 18-inch hyper silver aluminum alloy wheels,...a sports car! It dawned on me that in all that test driving, I never saw the SE model.

I signed a few papers, and then they wanted me to call the insurance to add comprehensive coverage to my policy. They were surprised I was even able to rent a car with only liability coverage. The 1800 Farmers customer service was not able to change the policy, and I would have to call my agent in the morning to do that. And without that coverage the dealership was not letting me drive off with car.

That's where I just wanted to leave. Nothing was going right that evening. I didn't want to complete the financial part either. I just wanted to leave.

I didn't sleep well that night, and in the early morning started to think how I really don't like that car. All these factors just have me a bad feeling about it. So I emailed them back and said I don't want it because of that spoiler. It wasn't just that, but that's what started it.

We went back and forth on that Friday. I asked for the base model with several upgrades that were important to me, like window tint. It has comfortable power seats with lumbar support, really cool interior, and even has voice recognition! And for that same price as that sports model, I will be adding leather seats to the base model! They had that car on the lot, and before the day ended, I was able to drive it off! The leather was ordered and I will drop it off next week for a day to get it installed. The auto-dim rear-view mirror is still not available for aftermarket sale from Hyundai for 2012 models, so they'll replace that some time in the spring.

I thank everyone who helped me with their time, advices, and suggestions during this process. It took a village to help me find the new car. I couldn't have done it without you all!

Parting After 11 Years

2011-12-02T13:37:00.186-06:00

With my car.

Green Toyota Corolla CE. year 2000.

Here is a funny thing: as I signed the papers today to transfer the car title over to the insurance company, I realized that it was EXACTLY to the the day today 11 years ago that I bought the car. To. The. Day!

I'll fill you in on its last few days and how it all ended, but let me remember where we've been.

I bought the car few days before I graduated from college. I had just received the driver's licence couple of weeks earlier. I never owned a car before, and knew nothing about cars. Our lab technician Mike took me to few dealerships around Beaumont to help me find a car. All I knew was that I wanted "a small car that I can easily park, that has radio and power locks and windows". How innocent! :) I had just received a $2000 SWE scholarship, and I was able to dedicate just a quarter of that for down payment. And what fit in those parameters was this, almost new car back then, with about 11K miles on it.

We've had our moments. I drove to Austin just 3 days after I bought it, to hunt for an apartment. My first trip longer than 3 hours. I was a bit weary about the drive, so I took a friend with me. On our way back, just 15 minutes before we arrived, I hit a pothole and blew a tire. Neither of us knew anything about changing tires, didn't even know I had a spare tire and tools in the trunk :), so we stopped someone on I10 to change it for us. I took it to the dealership later and they agreed to put on a new tire. About a month later I went with the family to San Antonio. On our way back, in the middle of nowhere, at night, that same tire pealed off at 70 mph, slamming into and breaking the components under the hood and twisting the side metal. It was really scary! I managed to pull over safely. We pulled over a trucker who took me to a gas station to call the police. We waited for the patrol car to came and drove with them back to the highway where my car was. They helped me patch it together with some bungee cords and roll gauze (!), change the tire, gather parts left behind, and then we drove at 30 mph back to Austin. After some convincing, the dealership agreed to pay for the repair. Some $2400! And of course, can't forget the lasting impact the hail storm of March 25th 2005 (a date reserved for hail) left. It was another $4500 damage, a nice check that went toward the closing cost of the house.

The car was slowly accumulating issues after that. I only fixed safety issues, like the engine mount (although the brakes have been in a pretty bad shape lately) and those that prevented it from passing the state inspection. But there was a long list of other issues that was just getting longer:
- windshield got a crack years ago, from a fast driving police car skidding on some rocks. The crack only got longer with years, reaching over to the driver's side.
- driver door handle broke couple of years ago. I just replace it with the one on the back door. That one was now almost at a breaking point.
- windshield wipers' pump broke. I could no longer spray water when using wipers, which caused terrible smudges unless using them in pouring rain.
- The left blinker would sometimes 'stick' and not come on when switched.
- The engine would sometimes stutter when starting, and sometimes shut off. Luckily this was only when starting.
- Wheel alignment was long overdue.
- The brakes...there were days when I didn't think the car will stop at the sign!
- I lost two wheel covers when I drove close to a curb.
- The steering wheel was chafing. Very annoying while driving.
- Floor carpet had holes.
- few months ago my brother locked keys inside, and the guys fishing them out damaged the rubber on the doors, so the car whistled at high speeds.
- Not to even mention the dings from hail and other unknown cars.
- overdue for maintenance by few thousand miles.
- overdue for oil change by few hundred miles.

But, last Sunday it has met its last damage. I was driving to church, mid day, downtown. As I was approaching the light on 10th and San Jacinto, in a left-turn-only lane a vehicle was sitting at the green light. There were no lights on it. I thought for a second if I should go around it or approach behind. I did the later. I guess I thought they are probably a bit slow to react to the light. At about 3-4 ft behind it, still no lights indicating what it's going to do next, the car went full force backwards! I had a split second to decide if I should a)honk, b)switch to reverse, or c) brace for impact. I didn't have time to process that, so I did c). I think I actually did switch in reverse, but I was still holding my foot on the brake. My body did that motion that the dummy dolls in car safety testing commercials do, with head flying forward and body twisting. The air begs didn't deploy, and my body didn't hit any part of the car. As I raised my head up, I saw the hood half way up, and then the car, the black truck in front of me, taking off. I remember seeing their lights for the first time then. I think I saw the last four digits on the licence plates: 9333. It was the new style plates, with 7 alpha-numerics. But I didn't get what kind of truck it was. So...I just took after it! That was my first instinct. I mean, what else was I supposed to do!

I couldn't quite see well in front of me with that hood up. The truck drove really fast. Taking turns into one-way streets. The wrong way! I went after it! The other cars were moving away. I guess they saw how banged up the front of my car was. I chased it for few blocks. But when we got onto Brazos St., with all that construction going on and traffic reduced to one lane, the truck was able to sneak between other cars and take a turn before I could see where it left afterwards. I lost them!

I drove back to the parking garage where I would normally park. Just then I realized that the car was smoking. As I put it into parking gear, it made a really loud revving noise, so I quickly turned it off. I couldn't open the door on my side, so I went out on the passenger side. There was some fluid leaking. Later I found out it was radiator coolant. That's why it was smoking.

The next few hours were somewhat a blur. I went to Mass - I figured that'll give me time to compose and there will be people there who could give me some help. It was first week of Advent, the first Mass with the new translation of English missal, and I don't remember anything from it. When we all walked outside, I asked to borrow someone's phone to dial 911. That was a conversation starter! It took the police about 45 minutes to arrive. I the meantime, I called the insurance, but we got disconnected. Only two friends, Joe and Raul, stayed around until I finished with the cops. It was a super cold and windy day. The cop pretty much just took a look at the damage, took my statement, and said they see those hit-and-runs every day and "that is why he would never drive his personal vehicle in the city". And that's supposed to help us feel safe?!

I took all the things from the car out, went to lunch with the guys, and Raul later gave me a ride home. My head starting spinning from thinking what all needs to happen in the coming days. My brother had an interview tomorrow morning, so that was the first thing to figure out. A good friend, Amela, let me borrow her car for the day on Monday. Zoran made it to the interview, although a bit late because of the traffic. I made it back to the parking garage just before they called the towing company and begged them to let it stay for the day. They were reluctant because of the leaking, possibly hazardous fluids from the car. Applied for a car loan at my bank. Got in touch with the insurance adjuster and begged for an appraiser to come the same day. Went to three dealerships and started test driving some cars. Met with the appraiser, he declared the car totalled, found a tower that could remove the car first thing in the morning. Got the adjuster to arrange the rent-a-car. Picked it up, returned the borrowed car, got home and crashed.

This whole week was pretty stressful. Working and looking for a car on a tight timeline is no fun. But, it too shall pass. It could have been much worse. I did, after all, need a new car very soon.

Goble, Goble, Goble!

2011-11-26T22:36:00.087-06:00

Oh, long weekends. How I love thee!

My company gives us 4 days off for Thanksgiving. Plus, since many people took the whole week off, the work was pretty slow. But I started my holiday plans on weekend before.

My girl friends J., M., and T. and I planned to have a little Thanksgiving meal that previous Sunday. We wanted to make the meal together, and since I happen to have the most space in the kitchen, I offered to have it at my place. Some girls were doubtful that we can pull it off and suggested we at least get a pre-cooked turkey, but I challenged them. Since all four of us are single, I thought it would be a good opportunity to cook this meal just for us, and practice for when one day we need to cook it for a larger family.

I got us an organic 13lb turkey from Costco, large enough so that we all would have some leftovers. I figured it would harder to mess up a turkey that is better meat from the start. It was nice to shop the whole week before Thanksgiving, as it was not so crowded. Last year I made a big meal with my brother and sister-in-law, but she was the one who pretty much made the turkey by herself and Zoran brined it for a day before. So I decided to follow a similar recipe.

I found some brining recipes on-line, and Zoran found one in his cooking book. The brine helps keep the meat moist and flavorful. It took some 5 hours to thaw the turkey, and even then I had a hard time removing the neck that was still frozen to the body. The brine used 1 cup of salt, 2 cups of sugar, and 4-5 different spices. I used Zoran's large cheese-making pot and left the bird in the fridge for about 20 hours. then I washed it, filled with some onions, garlic, celery and carrots, brushed with butter, and placed it barest-side down in a roasting pan (that I got on great sale at World Market for $3.99!) with just a little bit of water on the bottom. After about 2 hours I flipped it upside down and continued brushing with pan drippings for another couple of hours. The result: A full pan of awesomeness!

We also made green beans, mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, salad, rolls, and pumpkin pie. Now, what more can one ask for!

The actual Thanksgiving day was super slow at our house. We dragged our behinds until noon, which is when my brother decided he'll make crapes for breakfast. We finally ate around 2 pm, and of course weren't thinking about another meal until later in the evening. I also wanted us to go for a walk while it was still day light outside, but since we were slow to react that day, we didn't start making plans till 7pm.

I had this idea to try a black Friday shopping for a new digital camera. Walmart started their sale at midnight Thursday evening, so I figured I'll just got there around 11.30, pick up that one item and be at the counter at midnight when the sale prices begin. How naive of me.

Zoran and first tried Domain for a place to walk, but it was ghostly empty. No cars, no people, all stores closed...I've never seen it like that. Then we drove downtown, and it was the same deal. Barely any cars on south Congress. We saw only one open restaurant. It was quite erie actually, like an epidemic plagued the city. We then went up to Hide Park area, sat at one open desert place until 11.20, and then headed back up north to a walmart closest to the house.

As soon as we got off the highway, near where several retail stores were, the traffic picked up. The Walmart parking lot was completely packed, and people walked toward it from nearby parking lots. Inside, a mayhem. Just like the empty Domain, I've never seen a store this full. C-ra-zy! Lines everywhere, crowds, and tension. My brother immediately said he didn't want to stay there and wanted home. I wasn't happy with it, having to leave now that we were already there, but I realized it would be best for the both of us. Once dropping him off, I left the house around 12.05 and went to a different Walmart. I think the demographics of people at that store was different, as they seemed to behaved more orderly. Plus, the store seemed a bit less crowded, and the midnight sale time already started so the lines were moving.

My entire trip was about 1 hour. Which really wasn't that bad considering how some people sat in front of Best Buys for hours before they could get in. I waited about 10 minutes for a guy to find keys to camera cabinets, another 5 for him to help undecided teenagers, another 10 min for a resolution of some transaction problems for a lady at the head of our otherwise really short line, and some more resolving my own issue where the cashier took some convincing that my camera is the one on sale.

The result: I got this 16.1-megapixel digital camera with 10X optical zoom for $129. A pretty sweet deal! It's a great replacement to my old Kodak that broke on the Adriatic coast. If I had to do it again, I think I'd only do it this way; come on the evening to a store that's open 24/7 so I wouldn't have to stand in line outside.

Late night out meant sleeping in on Friday and another slow day when I could play with my new blue shiny toy!

New Garage Doors

2011-11-20T11:17:00.096-06:00

I got a new garage doors installed this weekend. I really like how they turned out.

I have been shopping for a new door for some time. The doors that came with the house, were in bad shape from the start. They had a crack on one of the sections, which only got worse as the nuts on the side loosened over time. I had an enforcement rod placed in, some new hinges installed, and the spring repaired few times. All temporary measures, because I knew I will eventually get a new door.

Then last year the opener started to be flaky. The curved arm had trouble sliding down the rail when opening the door, and it needed a little push to go over a troubled spot. When one day earlier this year my mom pressed the remote button sooner than I could nudge the door up as it was opening, I think something broke in that arm as it would not longer open. Even with that little push. Since then, we had to manually open and close the door. After a few months it became old, and I just parked the car outside. We opened the garage only when we absolutely had to get something in and out.

Shopping for the new door was a long process for me. I started some time this summer. I looked at different styles, materials, and companies. There are abundance of choices for each of those. Sometimes too many choices can be so overwhelming!

For materials, I looked at pretty much all options at first: wood, fiberglass, and steel. Wood look great. I drove through some neighborhoods off of 2222, the upscale ones, that have several houses with wood doors. They looked great. But in that area. In my neighborhood there were none like that. They would stood out. And I didn't like that idea. But the 2 determining factors were: 1) price. Those doors cost $10K! 2)They would have to be treated at least once every 3 years. Maybe even every year. No way I was doing that! The fiberglass doors I quickly abandoned. They can crack with an impact, which for being in the garage, where there is "stuff", I didn't feel is safe. They have wood grain on them, but still have some shine to them, so to me that looked fake. On a large door like that. Maybe entry door would be better. That was the same reason why I didn't like steel doors with wood grain look. So, the solution was steel door in regular colors, but nicer design.

Since my house has some arch windows, I new I would like that on the garage door. And I didn't want any windows. I don't spend hours working in the garage, so I didn't need extra daylight in there. And I wanted insulated ones. In the summer the garage was getting way to hot, and some of that heat was making it into the house. The style that I liked the most was Amarr's Carriage House style, CLASSICA, Tuscany collection. I just needed to find the best deal on them.

I got some dozen or so quotes from different companies. Some didn't even work with Amarr, so the selection was getting smaller. I went with Hutchinson, which are actually the same company as Cedarpark Overhead Doors. They've been around for some time, had decent reviews, and best price. They just wouldn't paint the doors for me, and I knew I wanted two tones to make the arch stand out. So I had them order and deliver the insulated door, I painted, ordered the decorative hardware (because they were charging 5x more than Lowes) and then they came back to install it. I also got a new opener as part of the deal. The total cost, for door/opener/labor/paint/handles was around $1670. A bit pricey, but it had to be done, and I love the result!

Pipes, Art, and Lederhosen

2011-11-15T13:22:00.003-06:00

It was an eventful weekend around here. I like those.

It started on Friday when I had plumbers come in to install, replace, and fix some things. I've been wanting to replace the kitchen faucet for some time. It was a pain one that was installed when the house was built, and had separate knobs for cold and hot, which always annoyed me. Then some time ago the cold water started to come out with really low pressure and it was time to look for a new faucet.

About that time the garbage disposal just stopped working. It was an old Insinkerator Badger 1, all rusted inside. So now I had two things to look for. But every time I would see one of those in a store that I liked, I would hesitate to buy it because I didn't have the other picked, and I knew I wanted to replace them at the same time. And the cycle continued for about a year.

Well, couple of weeks ago Costco had this German design Hansgrohe faucet on sale for $200, which I knew was a really good price, and this was pretty close to the design I was going for. I had that moment of: "lets do it already!" and got it.

Next on the list was to look for a garbage disposal. I have done some research before and found that after Insinkerators the next recommended brand was WasteKing. Again I checked with Costco, and found this 1 HP Universal Mount on sale for $119. It was an acceptable price for me.

There were few other items I needed to get for this, like sink strainer for the other side of the kitchen sink, the hole cover, and parts for new outlet that I needed to install under the sink myself. (very proud of myself for that!) There were few other smaller tasks for the plumbers, like replacing stoppers on two bathroom sinks and backflow preventer on an outside faucet. They came on Friday morning, and it took two guys to do all that in just over 2 hours. I am so glad I didn't even attempt to deal with the disposer my self, because parts were so rusted then had to use a metal saw! Love the final result!

On Saturday morning I was expecting the garage door guys to come and install it, but he was running late so I decided to reschedule for next weekend. I had other plans for the afternoon. Zoran and I went to the East Austin Art Tour. He went last year with Emilia, and was telling me how interesting it was. They went on bikes then, but we decided to just drive, then walk an area, then drive again. I liked it better that way, since some parts are pretty far away. He was right, it was really an interesting experience. Totally not suburbs like. :) There were all sorts of mediums of art, and all sorts of styles. Some tangible works for everyday use, some visual representations of real world pleasant to look at, and some totally "out there" expression of an artist mind! Some where in warehouses and studios, and some in people's homes, where they opened all their rooms and even served some drinks and food! Totally different. We spent about 4 hours walking on-and-off, and the day was perfect for it. I kept wondering what is the demographics of all these people, what area of town to they live in, what percentage of them were artists themselves...because it all looked so different and I couldn't see anyone remotely familiar. That's east Austin!

Sunday morning I went with two dear friends of mine, Julie and Maggie to the Wurstfest in New Braunfels. It's a festival of all things German: food, beer, music, dances, and Lederhosen! I guess it's close to the Octoberfest in Germany. It was the last day of the festival and we arrived there just 30 minutes after they opened so it wasn't crowded at first. I had some yummy sausage with sauerkraut, paulaner oktoberfest beer, and cherry strudel. Yum! There was music and dancing in few different areas, some rides and games, so we walked around and then enjoyed our time next to the Comal river. Again, it was a gorgeous November day, low 80s, and it drew a large crowd out in few hours we were there. I am so glad we were able to make it to the festival before it ended. The last time I was there was 7 years ago! It was time to go again. :)

11-11-11

2011-11-11T13:31:00.016-06:00

"Remember that while today is 11/11/11 in the United States, other parts of the world display the date differently. So to them it's 11/11/11." :)

This year I've had fun with all these dates: New Years Day, Jan 11th, and All Saints Day.

And today also happens to be a holiday: Veterans Day!

I Built a House Today!

2011-11-05T18:06:00.005-05:00

Well, I helped build it with some 40 other volunteers with Habitat for Humanity.

I've been considering volunteering with them for some time, and decided to sign up few weeks ago. They are on different sites 3 times a week, 2 full days plus one to finish any loose jobs. Because of work, I can only join them on Saturdays, and today was the first time I did. They ask for people to commit to 8am-4pm shift.

They build houses for low income people, who have to meet certain criteria to qualify. Among other things, in order to qualify, their income needs to be low enough, but also high enough that they can pay the mortgage. Because of all the volunteers, the cost of these houses is pretty low, starts from $60K, and owners sign up for a regular, i.e. 30-year mortgage. So, people are not getting these houses for free. Also, they have to put in 400 hours of volunteering with Habitat. 200 hours before they can even sign up for a lot, and the rest working on their or other people's houses.

This house was in east Austin, toward the airport. There are some 50 houses that the Habitat will build there over the course of two years. It usually takes 9 weeks (2 full days a week, so 18 days total) to build one of these houses. Today just happened to be a site that is just starting, so we came to a blank slab. All the tools, equipment, and material were ready for us. The goal for the day was to put up the walls.

A side track: Over the last few years, since I became a homeowner, I realized I like working on different house projects. There are several that I completed myself on my house, and there are many more that I never had a need to do, or that I don't have the tools for or would need additional help before I would attempt them. But I enjoy working on that kind of stuff. I like hands on work. And I like hands on volunteering. I like learning how things are made. And I've never seen up close how houses are built here in the US. Back in Bosnia we build houses completely different; the walls are made of bricks, not wood, to name just one.

Back to the day...There are people at every site who know what the goal of the day is. They have all the blue prints, measurements, the know hows (like to bring in the shower box before the walls. So, I just asked where I can help. Before any wall frame could be put up, an insulation tape had to be stapled to the bottom, green edge. So, several of us started on those, so that others can start putting them up. With that many people, we were very efficient, and by 11 am all the walls were already up! Next they started putting the roof trellises up and were almost done with all of those by the end of the day. Others of us worked on tarp moisture barrier and beams for heavy hanging loads.

In summary, I used: a staple gun for insulation bellow the walls, drilled some boards that were connected to the concrete, measured and leveled for planks that will be used for shelves and cabinets, cut them with table saw(!) and hammered them in, painted some trims, layered and stapled tarp on the outside of the walls, refilled the staple gun numerous times, cut with utility knife and edged the tarp around the door and window openings, and helped carry, push or hold things whenever help was needed.

Yup, I acquired some skills today!

The day started on the chilly side, and I was in two shirts, jacket and gloves. But by lunch time it warmed up enough that I had to apply sun screen. This time of year is a perfect time to volunteer on this kind of outside project. I hope to go again on some Saturdays. It would be rally neat to work on it in different stages and then finally see it all done, and homeowners get the keys!

I just hope we did a good enough job. :)

11-1-11

2011-11-01T22:56:00.000-05:00

Happy All Saints Day!

This year has abundance of these special dates! :)

I didn't go to any dress-up Halloween parties this weekend. But last night we had many a children in costumes at our door. There were princess, super heroes, tigers, bees, fairies, ghosts, forces of good and evil, and myriad of undetermined characters. No saints costumes that I could decipher, but hopefully many saints in the making!

The kiddos started coming just a minute after I walked in after work, around 6.40pm. The little ones came first, and then, as the night fell, the older ones followed. By 8pm I ran out of candy and lolly pops. I didn't answer to the next two trick-or-treat-ers and started looking for more give outs. When the next group of 4 teenagers rang the door, I offered the jello! They were super excited, and asked for spoons right away! After those last 'customers' I turned out the porch light and called it a night.

Tonight we celebrated with all the saints at a High Mass at St. William's church.

Birdy

2011-10-25T09:01:00.001-05:00

It seems Ciro is gaining popularity in the wild world outside, because this is the second feathery visitor we've had in the last month.

This little birdy flew into my house through an open door. Trying to get out, she slammed into windows couple of times and then tumbled behind blinds. She was so shocked that she let me handle her in my hands. But after I took her out and patted her for a few moments, she realized she was free again and flew away.

No idea what kind of bird this is, but it kinda looks like miniature mockingbird.

Camping at Garner State Park

2011-10-21T20:57:00.004-05:00

Last weekend I had an amazingly great time camping.

Here are some photos.

Four of us were from Austin. The Zadrozna sisters got all the food, and I met them after work to help make the sandwiches for that evening. After (over)loading the suv, we were on the road around 4.30 pm. Not a good time to leave on a Friday. The traffic was pretty bad coming out of Austin, and we hit the slowdowns in San Antonio, too. But, it was fine. It was nice company, and it gave us time to unwind from the work week. Well, at least for us who were not driving. :) We even prayed the rosary, in 4 different language. We were that kind of group.

We arrived to the camp site close to 8 pm. Another group of 5 from San Antonio, and one lady from Corpus Christi met us there. The guys quickly set up four tents, while the girls gathered some wood and setup up the "food table".

This trip was originally supposed to be to Mustang Island camp grounds, but just a few days earlier we had to change the plans because of the red tide problems on the beach. I was disappointed because the beach camp allowed the camp fires while most of Texas was under fire ban. But, to our great surprise, the Garner park lifted the ban just recently. So, we were able to have the camp fire, the center of every camp trip evening! So, after we all settled in, we lit the fire (with some challenges) and set around it. I only knew the Austin folks, so it was nice to start getting to know the rest of the group. There were 4 guys and 6 gals, within 10-year age range. After dinner, the before-mentioned sandwiches, we started playing games, catch-phrase. It was so much fun! We got so much into it, that until someone yelled (we assume at us) we didn't notice that we were the only ones making. quite a bit of, noise after midnight! It was time to call it a night.

The night was quite chilly. Low 50s, if even. The guys forgot to put the rain tarp, so all the moisture, and cold air, were freely flowing into the tent. I kept adding the layers on me during the night, and was still constantly cold. And barely got any sleep on the hard ground. So, it wasn't hard to get up when I wasn't really asleep. This campsite was really nice. We had electricity and water, and there were bathrooms, even showers, with hot water! Nice.

For breakfast - egg and bacon tacos. With grilled tortillas on an electric grill! This was certainly not a primitive camping. Once we were all awake and fed, the guys led us in daily prayers. And not just lets recite some prayers. No, this was lets take our Bibles, liturgy of the hours, and Magnificats out type of prayers. We went around the circle to read daily reading, and then had a discussion on them! How awesome is that! A mini bible study right there. Loved it!

By 11am we were ready for some hiking. The park is beautiful. Our side was just bellow a hill, so we went up. And up we went! Some of those trails were really steep. I just kept thinking I was glad we were going down on those most steep ones. Several people in that group were avid runners/body builders, so I had some trouble keeping up with them. Someone then suggested we pray the rosary while we walk. Um, really, while we walk people? Again, I was glad we were almost at the top, which meant it will get easier soon. This time we prayed in 5 languages, one for each decade: Spanish, Polish, Bosnian, Filipino, and English. Perfect combination of people for that number.

When we got back to the camp after two ours, I could hardly wait to lay down. But, we first made hamburgers for lunch, which took a while with charcoal. But we all needed that boost of energy. Then we all got our bags out on the grass and had a nap. The weather was just perfect that weekend! Actually, everything about that weekend was perfect.

After that good rest, few of us headed to the other side of the park, where the river was. Yes, even though we didn't go to the beach, we got to swim on the trip! In Frio River. It was supposed to be called (frio) but it was just fine. No colder than the Adriatic Sea. And oh so clean! It had all rocky bottom, so you could see all the way down. Fantastic. It was such a fun time.

After HOT showers, we gathered for dinner. On the menu, pasta with spinach-parmesan dip as sauce, and grilled chicken legs. Grilled on our camp fire. Another treat from the camp fire - s'mores! Gotta have the s'mores. That was yet another highlight of the trip. Oh, and here is another one: karaoke and dancing! These guys thought of everything! They brought the karaoke machine on a camp trip. Yup, nothing primitive about this site. The guys started amusing us with their singing, but since others were not taking their turns, they just started dancing with us. Salsa, swing, waltz, two step,...all that right on our camp grounds. Loved it!

That was such a great group of people. We didn't want to rush leaving the last day, so we pretended it's not gonna happen for the entire Sunday morning. The guys went on another hike early in the morning, and the girls prepared omelets for breakfast. And then, like we really have the entire day, we walked again over to the river side of the camp, where some of use played some volleyball. Then those who didn't get to get in the water the day before decided we all should get in, even if we didn't have the swim suits on. There was some tag-o-war, some girls lost and got wet, some won and stayed in the shade (me!). All fun.

We finally started tearing down the camp site around 2 and were on the road just after 3pm. This time it took us much faster to get back home, about 3 hours with little speeding. :)

Such fun memories of this trip. So glad I went. We should do it again. Soon!

fter two hours

Blueberry Ice Cream

2011-10-10T22:15:00.001-05:00

I'm not a huge ice cream fan. I would not order it for a desert or buy for myself in a store. But now that I have the ice cream maker I like to try make, and eat, different ice creams that I know exactly what they are made of. My mom loves ice creams, and we always have to have some in the freezer when she is here. So this gives me a good practice for when she comes back this winter.

I am still learning the ins and outs of ice cream making, but I was pleased with this recipe. I combined several recipes I found on-line, and the one I came up bellow is the simplest for me. I got two containers of fresh blueberries, so I'll be making some extra to freeze 'till winter, perhaps. I like tart flavors, and this one goes really well with chocolate. It uses coriander, which supposedly mixes well with blueberries. Enjoy!

Makes 1 quart.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 45 minutes

Ingredients:

•1/2 cup sugar
•2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
•1 Tbsp. lemon juice
•1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
•1/4 tsp. ground coriander
•Pinch of salt
•1 cup of heavy (whipping) cream
•1 cup of Half and Half cream

Preparation:

1. Dissolve sugar in 1/4 cup water in a medium sauce pan over low heat.

2. When sugar is dissolved, add berries, lemon juice, vanilla extract, coriander, and salt.

3. Bring to boil then cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until berries begin to burst (about 5 minutes).

4. Remove from heat and in blender puree until smooth.

5. Cool to room temperature, then chill in the refrigerator. When it is cooled, before refrigerating, you may also want to strain the mash.

6. Thoroughly combine berries and cream. Pour into ice cream maker, and follow manufacturer directions.

Cultural Events

2011-09-18T02:19:00.005-05:00

I haven't been to the movies in months, maybe even a year. I haven't been to the movies in Sarajevo in decades, I think, from before the war!

On Thursday, I went with my friend Tomi and her friend to see Midnight in Paris ("Ponoć u Parizu") at multiplex Cinema City. The cinemas that I knew from before are no longer there. They have been converted to banks, shopping centers, and the such. From what I understand, there are just two other cinemas, one specializing more in "artistic" movies, or as we would call them "alternative", and the other in domestic movies. Cinema City is in the center of the town, near BBI center, and was opened two years ago. It has 5 show rooms, with a total capacity of 700 seats. It's very modern, and has pretty much all the amenities that the US theaters do: wall-to-wall screens, Dolby Digital sound system, comfortable anatomic chairs, cups holders, concession stands...and the whole look and feel is just very modern. The bonus: the movie was great! :) The ticket is 6KM, or about $4.5.

On Saturday evening mom and I went for another cultural event, this time to a performance theatre, Chamber Theatre 55 ("Kamerni Teatar"). This one was a few minutes walk from Cinema City closer to the center, on the main center street. It started at this location over 55 years ago. It's a small, 3-side amphitheatre, with I think no more than 150-200 seats, if even that many. Their show season just started back again few days ago and we went to see their 3 persons comedy play, Die Hard ("Umri Muški"). It has nothing to do with the movie with that same name. We had some loughs and enjoyed being there together. The ticket is 10KM, or about $7.5.

The Countryside

2011-09-15T16:42:00.038-05:00

Today was a day for getting out of the city. We went to Bijambare.

I have never heard for this place, but my mom went there with one of her groups. This trip was organized by their seniors' center, and about 65 people went. I was very hesitant to go. Partly because I wanted to spend as much time in Sarajevo as I could, partly because these were all seniors except handful of people who work there, and partly because mom didn't go with me to another trip the day before. That one was a last minute deal - rafting on Neretva! I know mom would not have enjoyed it, but it sounded so adventurous to me. Instead of trying to convince her right away, I dragged the decision until the evening, and then it was too late to get it on that. No point in having regrets later.

Bijambare is just 45 minutes from Sarajevo, but you feel totally far away in the country. It's a nature park surrounded by hills and great views. The organizers distributed a sandwich and juice to everyone at the parking lot, and then we walked to a picnic area. Since this center really promotes healthy living, they first had some exercises there, before the hike to the lodge. Some took a little tourist train, but we went through the woods. It was a nice little hike, but we took one wrong turn and after realizing we were on the wrong path some 15 minutes later, had to turn back. Some old ladies were so not OK with that, and complained all the way back. It's hard to work with some old folks.

The resting area around the lodge had many benches, so we had our lunches and coffee there. It was a nice area to relax, walk around, or just lay on the ground. Then they took us to a 45 min tour of a cave, which was a nice place to cool down. Afterwards the atmosphere got musical when one gentleman got out his guitar and we all sang some old traditional folk songs. Just like we used to do. We started our hike back around 3, got into the buses, and were at home by 4.30.

As if all that walking wasn't enough for us, mom and I again went for a stroll that evening down the avenue next to the river, Wilsonovo Setaliste. Since it's closed to traffic in the evenings, there are always many other walkers/bikers/joggers there.

I wish I brought my pedometer here with me to measure all the walking I have done. My feet and legs and hips are letting me know we've done quite a bit of walking! :)

Active Vacation

2011-09-13T16:23:00.039-05:00

There is so much happening here every day! Sometimes I have a hard time grasping that something happened just a day before.

Today was one of those days.

Mom went for an exercise at her seniors' center, and I picked her up just after 10. We then walked some toward the farmers market. It's a nice 30 min stroll through a neighbourhood where I grew up. Before I broke my camera, I took few photos of my kindergarten and school. Today, I decided to go in. What memories! I haven't been inside that building since....1983! I was much smaller then, so the school and yard looked much bigger. I walked the halls and climbed up to 2nd level where my classroom used to be. The kiddos in the hallways were so tiny! And I was shocked that the two boys who greeted us at the entrance downstairs were 7th and 8th grade. They looked like 4th grade tops! I have no sense of how old the kids are. :)

We talked to few farmers who had their products out on the street on our way to the market, and tried to bargain with them. We had some loughs, but couldn't get the price we wanted from them. We finally arrived at the market, and while mom shopped outside and checked out some items inside the store. When we were done shopping, we set at the outside cafe and had some coffee. As is often the case here, we saw our neighbour from our weekend house at the table next to us, and had a little chat.

After the brake, we walked home the same way. Short rest is all we had and then in the mid afternoon went around the corner to eat some kebabs. Then we met with a man who came to collect the payment for our hotel in Makarska. And then again walked some 20min to meet at a desert place with my professor who helped me come to the US.

Kinda busy day. Just like almost every day here. Love the dynamic! It makes the time here seem so much longer. :)

The Sea & The Beach

2011-09-13T02:26:00.000-05:00

The Adriatic coast was great!

We had really nice weather. The daytime temperatures were around 30C and water around 24C (but I think it was less). Except for one morning of few minutes of rain and wind, we were able to be at the beach all the time. We were under the pine trees most of the time, because I was not interested in burning under the sun. I would come out only to go into the water, which for me takes more than 20 minutes to get wet, and to dry out when we come out of the water. Neutrogena sunblock spray is the best one! It's so easy to apply, there is no grease mess, and I did not get any sunburn. I was praising it so much I could have been their advertiser! :)

When we first got there I was thinking I will be bored after the whole week. We actually had 8 days of sun and beach. And even though we didn't do anything, just relaxed and planned one hour at a time, this week was just right. I have slowed down, and it felt good not to start counting days left because we had enough time.

So, how did we spend our days? Well, pretty much every day was the same. We'd wake up around 8, have coffee on the balcony, then come down for breakfast around 9. We were 5 minutes walk from the beach, just behind hotel Biokovka, and we would come down around 10.30 and stake out our spot in the shade. We'd go for a swim, which for me involves long warm-up time, talk to people around us, play cards. I did sudoku, listen to ipod, take naps. To get away from the mid-day heat, as if we were not in the shade already, we would sit in one the many, many outside cafes/restaurant by the beach. Mom would stick with her macchiato, but I tried all different coffee options. At one place the sugar bags they served said ProCoffee, which I thought was funny - that's me! :) Next we had some light lunch, shared a pizza or something similar. We definitely ate too much! Then we got back to our towels, rested some more (we laughed that we rested after a rest :)), swam some more, throw pebbles, people watched,...relaxing! We would leave around 6-6.30, got ready for dinner, ate, and then walked for couple of hours down the Riva, all the way to the other side of the town, get some ice cream or desert, and get back to our room around 10.30PM. Full day of pretty much nothing. Gotta love it! :)

The last day, we were able to still enjoy the beach until 2.30PM. Two ladies from our hotel that we met let us use their room to shower and change for the trip. Our mini-bus picked us up around 3.30 and we were back in the apartment by 9.

The one casualty of this trip was one my camera. Next to the last day on the beach, at sunset, I was trying to take a photo of myself on the beach. I set it down on the beach umbrella post, about 20 inches off the ground, and set the timer. When the shutter clicked, and shook the camera and it fell face-down to the pebbles, lenses still open. The inner lens got crooked and couldn't retract back into the outer lens. I tried to pull it out myself, but couldn't. It still turns on, but I can't take pictures because of the lens error. When I get back to Austin I hope to have it fixed at WOLF. But, it means no more photos for the rest of this vacation. :(

Small World

2011-09-05T05:51:00.001-05:00

Ah, vacation. And the beach. Love. It.

We arrived in Makarska on Saturday. Unpacked, and headed to beach for a nap since we didn't sleep much the night before. In our little hotel, of some 30 rooms, that evening they had some special group of miners from Kakanj for dinner. I think they doubled the capacity, and took all the tables on the terrace. We set inside.

As faith would have it, I recognized my math professor Galic from the first year of college in Sarajevo. It has been 20 years since I had his class, but I saw him few times during the war. I said hi to him, but he at first pretended it wasn't him (just his personality). Next to our table mom recognized a acquaintance from her former work place. And those two have rooms on either side of hours. Small world!

Last night I went to Mass in a church in downtown square. It was so full that people were standing outside. Maybe they were smart, because inside was hot we were melting. No AC, of course.

It's nice that we are here for a whole week, because today the weather is not the best. It has been raining early in the morning, and right now there is thunder in the distance. I don't mind relaxing here at the hotel, either. But just for today. :)

What Would You Like To Drink?

2011-08-28T21:47:00.000-05:00

Landed safely. And the trip was soooo smooth.

I had much anxiety over this trip. In general. There were just many things leading up to this trip that made me anxious about it. Or I just let it all get to me: the preparations and shopping were going too slow. My brother and sister-in-law were moving all their stuff into my house just few days ago. She is leaving for a year-long trip to India and it's sad she won't be here for that long. My brother would not be here for the first few days of my trip to take care of Ciro, so I had to make other plans for her (Thanks Gils!) Trying to get Ciro all well and eating good before I leave. I could get my packing down to allowable weight limit and had to selectively leave stuff out. Since I was driving myself at the airport, I couldn't just take things out of the suitcase during check-in and leave with someone. A hurricane was in the path of my flight and there was a chance the flights might get canceled. Last minute issues at work popped up.

So, I had lots on my mind these weeks.

But then the day came, and it all went smoothly. I dropped Ciro off at Norma's, and he seemed to like his new environment right away. I drove to the airport, found a parking, shuttle, and was at the terminal with plenty of time to spare. My big bag was only 2 lbs over weight, and no one complained. They didn't weight my carry-on that was 12 lbs over the weight limit. My flight to DC was on time and I even had an empty seat next to me to lay down. The girl closest to me was a praying Catholic, which just warmed my heart and reminded me to do the same throughout these long and uncertain flights. They showed us an animated movie Rio that seemed to be just for me, about a people-friendly FLIGHT-CHALLENGED PARROT who got separated from his RED-HAIRED female owner. Notice the similarities!

There was just a little turbulence before we landed in DC, but we were ahead of the schedule. The next flight was also on time, also had empty seats, and they again didn't check my bag which was now double their allowed weight limit. I again had to seats just for myself, and their dinner service was something different: before dinner they served vodka, gin, and scotch. During the meal they walked around with bottles of wine. Afterwards they offered cognac and baileys. All for free! I spilled some wine over me while settling in to sleep, but there were no other alcohol related incidents. Most Europeans drink moderately I guess.:) Maybe it was to calm the people for flying over a hurricane or just to use up the liquor intended for first/business class since the plane had many empty seats. Maybe people switched their flights because of the hurricane. But we didn't feel anything. The pilot took us a bit more north and around the storm, and we really could only see the clouds as usual.

And the third flight went without a glitch and my bag arrived with me to Sarajevo around noon. By 4 PM I was all unpacked, we had coffee, lunch, and were enjoying our time on the balcony. (right now it's a different story - it's 4.30 am and I've been up for two ours because of the jet leg)

The weather here was in the mid 80s but in the evening it cooled down nicely and invited us out for a walk.

Let the vacation begin!

Into The Storm I Go

2011-08-26T23:40:00.001-05:00

Well, not really, but it's close.

I am leaving tomorrow to go to Bosnia, and I am flying over Washington DC. And, this weekend a historic storm is also approaching the east coast, Hurricane Irene. Right now it's category 2, by the time it gets to north-east coast it should be cat. 1. So now, I am racing with the storm.

My flight is still scheduled to leave Dulles airport at 6.45 PM, at which point the eye of the storm should be some 250 miles south from there. Flights from NY city airports are already being canceled starting from tomorrow afternoon. They are even shutting down the amtrak, subways, and evacuating part of Manhattan. Crazy!

Many US airlines have waived the fees to reschedule the flight ahead of the time. Not Lufthansa. So, I am hoping we'll take of, safely, before the high winds reach the path of my flight to Munich, and I won't be stranded in DC. I will feel like my vacation really started when I am on that plane going toward Europe.

I hope and pray everyone is safe in the path of Irene.

200th Post!

2011-07-27T19:24:00.001-05:00

I made it to the bi-centennial mark! Big milestone!

I made the 1st post on this blog when I started it back 7/10/08.

I totally neglected to mark when I reached the 100th post on 3/07/2010.

It seems I am averaging 100 posts every 18 months, or one post every 5-6 days. That's all the adventures I can take in that time frame!

A Week of Uncertainties: Day 4-8

2011-07-26T21:23:00.004-05:00

On day four Ciro continued to make small progress. :) She even vocalized a bit in the morning and responded with motion when I called her. She only ate a bit of grape the night before, and few hand-fed seeds when we went for another feeding in morning at the vet. They took a more accurate weight measurement (since she was moving a lot yesterday) and she actually has 58 grams. Very slim!

I left her at home and setup a monitoring system of sorts; I couldn't find a monitoring software without time limitations, so I had skype connection open with my brother and he was on it during the day. I had all her bowls down on the floor level in the cage, but she was not used to eating there so she climbed up a few times looking for food at her usual place. She didn't eat anything during the day.

That evening we had another freak-out: She seemed willing to eat. She ate seeds, grape, and a treat. I then offered her some food from plate as I ate at the coffee table. She took a bite of a carrot, chewed for a second, and in time it took me to take a bite she wobbled to the edge of the table and fell down! I freaked out! This was certainly not the first time she fell off of that coffee table, but usually she just lands on her feet and moves on. She also landed on her feet this time, but when I picked her up I think she just freaked out too. Few seconds later she started to stiffen, raise her wings, tilt her head back, as if she was going to start seizing again. I held her, started getting that Valium and syringes out, looking at the watch to see how long it will last. But, thankfully, it last maybe just 15 sec. I think she was just in shock. She was fine after that, didn't feel weak like after a seizure, and was soon grooming her self in the cage. Whew! I felt just terrible....

On Thursday she continued to make progress. I figured out how to have a new skype account at home automatically pick up a video call when I call from work, so I was monitoring her every day since then. She spent 70% of daytime hours sleeping and the rest moving around in her cage. In the evening she climbed into her tent to sleep, which is where she usually sleeps, so it was a signal to me that she doesn't need the ICU of towels at the bottom any more.

Friday I got her some pallet mix at Petco, Kaytee Exact Rainbow Parakeet/Lovebird, but it may take weeks before she starts accepting it as the only food. I saw they also have Fruity and Veggie versions of this brand so I might look for those as well.

On Saturday we went in for another weigh in, and I was really hoping she has gained 1-2 grams, but she hasn't. The tech used two different methods to weigh her, and both times she was around 57.7gr. Last time I think they rounded it to 58gr. I offered her formula with applesauce few more times, but she started eating her own food more on her own. I guess it will just take some time to gain that little weight back. Who would have thought 2 grams is such a big deal.

Sunday afternoon we had another scare: she was in her tent taking a nap and chirping as she often does while napping. And out of the blue, still in the tent, she start seizing. I quickly grab her, struggling to pull her out of the tent, and held her little twitching body. Luckily, this again lasted just 15sec. She was fine few minutes later.

So that was our roller-coaster week. She is still not fully stable, easily flips if she moves too much, gets scared and then feels weak. I hope that as she continues to eat she will gain her energy back enough to be her normal self again.

A Week of Uncertainties: Day 2&3

2011-07-25T21:23:00.001-05:00

Monday morning I was awaken by a neighbours dog at 6.18AM. Way early. With a bit of fear a reached down inside the cage next to me, still in the dark. And Ciro bit me! I don't think I was ever before happy when she bit me. :)

She got some energy back! She was still sitting in the little hide-out place I made for her, and I don't think she left that place the entire night. But she was she had enough energy to stand on it and not be laying down.

My brother came in around 8am to stay here while I went to work. Before I left I managed to hand-feed her 10-15 seeds and couple of bites of grapes. I think I also managed to give her two bites of mashed carrots, but she didn't like that texture. She usually likes to bite on cooked carrots, but she was not happy with that mush. And she seemed to get tired from me handling her and forcing her to eat. It was now harder to use the dropper because she wiggled and turned her head away.

I called the vet again, Dr. J. and left another urgent, sweet message. I finally got to talk to her around noon, but her schedule was full for most of the week. She told me maybe Tuesday afternoon she might have one opening, but it was very iffy and she wasn't going to know for sure until the morning. She recommended I get some baby-bird feeding formula and start feeding her that. My brother tried feeding her at home and she slid down his legs on the floor. So, he concluded he can't do the feedings. I then got the formula, went home and did my best to feed her a little bit of that mix. I think she ate maybe just 2ml, though. I felt like she was loosing more energy fighting me off than she was gaining from the little formula I got into her.

She was relaxing the rest of the day on the towels in her cage. I put a heating pad underneath so she wouldn't loose extra energy trying to stay warm. Lovebirds' body temp is 104F and they burn quite a bit of energy just to keep that temp going. In the evening, when she was all cuddled under my chin as we were both relaxing on the couch, I offered her some food again. She took, and I counted, 60 seeds over 10 minutes. I was so happy to see her eat by herself and not get tired after every bite! Couple of hours later she again took grape from my finger and ate for another 10 minutes!

That was amazingly hopeful end of the day. We both slept better that night; she with a full belly, and me knowing she ate something willingly.

Tuesday morning she seemed alert again, even groomed her self a bit. But she was not interested in eating at all. I stayed and worked from home that day.

Mid morning was a complete 180 from how she seemed first thing in the morning. She all of a sudden seemed really weak. So much so that I thought it was the end. She was flipping to the side, couldn't hold her head, and I even thought she twitched couple of times. My first thought was to try to make her eat again, so with one hand I managed to mix that formula and give a bit to her. Maybe half of that little dropper. Even that weak she was wiggling away.

I got in touch with Dr. J. again, and she unfortunately was not going to be able to see us that day. She recommended another vet at a clinic where we were before, and in the meantime to try giving her something sweet for immediate energy. I gave her some mashed apple and honey, and came back a bit.

Luckily, that vet agreed to postpone his surgery and see us in the afternoon. Ciro did pretty well, was more alert but it was probably a mask. She was 60gr, vs 64gr last time at the vet. He stated that to really know what's going on with seizures, he'd have to do testing, starting with blood work and on. I liked that he didn't push any testing at the moment. He concluded that we should give her nutrients to make her stronger. So the decision was made to give her few feedings, with a tube down her throat. We had couple of those in the afternoon, 4 hours apart. He also gave me a little bottle of Valium, syringes, and lube, for if she has another long seizure. I would give her the smallest doze, 0.02ml, and more if that doesn't have effect.

In the evening she was again more alert and grooming herself. So she got a burst of energy she needed. We boarded for another night in the ICU - towels and heating pad in the cage sitting next to my bed.

A Week of Uncertainties: Day 1

2011-07-24T17:47:00.001-05:00

I have been delaying to write about this until we are completely out of the woods. I don't think we are there yet. So, I am writing this with cautious optimism.

At 4.50 AM last Sunday morning I heard Ciro banging in his cage. It wasn't too loud as when she has her regular seizures, but it was still more loud than her moving around. I hesitated for a moment before leaving room, and then I heard it again. I got to the cage to find her trashing at the bottom of the cage. I picked her up as she was twitching and contorting.

Her regular seizures last 1-2 minutes, and then she feels week for 10-15 more minutes after which she is fine. So, I didn't even turn the lights on thinking this will be short. But it kept on. She was stiff, her wings twitching, and head tilting. After 10 minutes she got few minutes of break, but then the seizure started again. This went on and off for about 30 minutes.

But then the breaks stopped and she just kept seizing. It was actually not exactly the same as the regular seizures. She was twitching inward, instead of tilting her head backward. It still had a strong hold of her. I kept holding her, folding her wings and straightening her head. It was painful to watch. I turned the lights on and started praying.

I called one emergency animal clinic in Round Rock at 6.30AM, but since they don't accept birds they referred me to another emergency clinic on 183. When I called that place I had to repeat 4-5 times that I have a lovebird. The girl couldn't understand the name, even asked "what, a lab bird?" That of course didn't give me any confidence that they are bird experts, even though the girl said they see birds. She said they would try to stabilize her until I can get her to an avian expert on Monday.

At around 8AM she finally calmed down. We laid down on the couch to get some more sleep. That lasted around and hour, and then I felt every now and then she breaks a little twitch. She was still in my left hand. Around 10AM the twitches became more intense and frequent.

At this point she has been in my hand for 5 hours. She was in the same position, leaning with her right side onto my fingers. I could see her left side twitching, her little head bobbing to the left side, her left wing/shoulder raising up and the left leg twitching up toward the head. I wrapped her in a towel and left on the couch while I went to wash my hands and face.

Then I went on the Internet. Ciro was still twitching every two seconds with her left side. She was wrapped up to her head because her left leg was uncontrollably hitting her head. With one hand I was stroking her head and with another looking for answers on the web. I even called one place in Arizona that was open on Sunday and they told me to keep her warm and try to feed her something.

When we had baby lovebirds in Sarajevo, we used to mix sweet cookie, heard boiled egg yolk with some water and give that paste to the parents to feed the chicks. So I combined that with orange juice and some mashed apple and force fed her with my fingers around noon. My brother and his wife came around 4PM and brought syringes, so it helped with the feeding and water.

I left a message to the only good avian vet I heard about in Austin, Dr. Jakubowsky who has a traveling clinic. I also posted on several web sites looking for some answers. On justanswer.com I got in touch with a great avian pet S. August Abbott (who is also an ordained minister!) at around 5.30PM. We had several communications that day, and were in touch over the next days.

Ciro's twitching slowed down around 6PM, but she was making little noises with almost every breath. She was very weak and was leaning/falling on the right side. I kept trying to feed her that egg mixture, few bites of grapes and some mashed carrot. By 9-10PM the twitching finally stopped. That's around 15 hours.

I made a little fort with kitchen towels for her in the bottom of the cage, but all her food bowls around it, and another towel on the top. I placed the cage next to me overnight. She was calm but completely exhausted and was just laying down.

I was exhausted too.

Day Trip To Brenham

2011-07-11T17:59:00.000-05:00

This Saturday I went with few friends to Brenham. Now, there is not much going on in Brenham. It's a small town on HW 290, halfway to Houston, with population of just 13,507 (2000 Census).

But we managed to have a good time.

First, I loved it that we didn't have to leave early. We met at noon, so I was able to have an easy Saturday morning.

The main purpose of the trip was a winery tour and tasting that couple of people in the group won at an auction. It was for Pleasant Hill winery, which is a fairly small operation. The owner, Bob Cottle, gave us the tour of the vineyard, explained the soil, differences in grapes, and the history as we sipped chilled vino blanco under the blazing hot sun. There was just a little breeze in the air, and I managed to get sunburn in just those 15ish minutes.

The tour continued in the cellar, a 64F COOL cellar! Oh, yeah! No one rushed to get out of there! We tasted their Cabernet Sauvignon directly from the barrel and heard ins-and-outs of wine making. The entire tour took almost 1.5 hours and we hang around there until about 4 PM.

Next we went to see miniature horses! There were Franciscan Poor Clare Nuns who had a monastery until just a month ago. Now I think there is another order there and the horses are being sold. They were so cute! We fed them and pet them, and took lots of pictures.

The gps was not helping us find one place for dinner someone has recommended to us. I guess Brenham is changing faster than gps can catch up. So, we ended up at K-Bob's Steakhouse, which was just as good!

Good times!

Mockingbirds

2011-07-02T19:02:00.050-05:00

This little family has built a home in the crape myrtle tree next to my house. I see the mom mockingbird always somewhere near around. She gets a bit nervous if I spend too much time around the tree. I saw her even chaise a squirrel that got a bit too close!

I am always amazed how well they build the nests. They have some clear plastic bag/wrapping paper there, and I have no idea what that black mash-like pieces are.

Last time I looked, couple of weeks ago, three bluish, speckled eggs were there. I checked on the nest today, and these little ones were asleep. It was so funny when with just one little movement of the branches I made, they transform into these orange pits. :) Their little bellies, visible through the transparent skin, don't seem to be very full. Momma, better get back to the feeding!

I love their songs. It's as if they are always trying to invent beautiful new melodies. Now, there will be three more in that choir!

Ice Cream Maker

2011-06-28T12:22:00.024-05:00

I am not a big ice cream fan.
My mom is, big time, but I just don't like the very cold foods and drinks in my mouth.

But, Costco had this Cuisinart 1-1/2-Quart Ice Cream Maker on sale for $25, and I just couldn't pass on it. Plus, I love the color!

I didn't know this about ice cream makers, but you have to freeze the bowl before it could be used. It was a torture to have to wait 24 hours when I wanted to start making ice cream NOW! It came with few recipes, and since I already had ingredients for the basic chocolate ice cream, that was the first batch I made.

It's pretty simple to use. This basic mix took about 10 minutes to prepare, then I left overnight to chill. In the morning I just placed the frozen bowl onto the base, turned it on, poured the mix into it, and in 20 min the ice cream was ready! I transferred it into a plastic container and stored again in the freezer.

Zoran and Emilia were over for dinner last night, and we had that ice cream for desert. YUMMY! Creamy, smooth, and delicious. Ciro would have some too, but since he can't have chocolate, he got the store-bought strawberry ice cream :)

If you have some great ice cream recipes - please send them my way!

What Would I Do?

2011-06-27T14:22:00.002-05:00

As I watched the video from the last post several times, and seeing different reactions from people, every time I was left with a question: What would I do in that situation?

The words of the song "I can only imagine" come to my mind right now. Would I stand there puzzled what was going on? Would I wait for someone else, or even several people, to kneel down before I did? Would I feel uncomfortable kneeling in the streets before my Lord, even if I was the only one? Would I recognize Jesus in that monstrance?

I mean, it's nice to think that (just as I would if this was inside a church) I would fall down to my knees, recognizing His presence. But would I have that faith on the streets? I had doubts.

Well, yesterday, I got my answer.

As we were congregating on the steps of the cathedral after the noon Mass, a Spanish Eucharistic procession was just arriving. They were walking all the way from San Jose church, almost 10 miles away! We stopped our conversations and turned toward the new crowd. There was music, singing, children in costumes, and then the priest who was carrying the monstrance under a canopy. It took me about a minute to realize they were coming up toward the steps. And as that bright host in the monstrance in priest's hands appeared in front of us, my heart smiled! And without thinking it, I came down to my knees in awe of His presence. The tears came down my face. There were cars and people passing by, and Jesus was there for all who had eyes of faith to see Him.

He blessed us. He touched our souls. And my faith was renewed.

Come and Kneel...

2011-06-25T08:27:00.001-05:00

Tomorrow is the feast day of Corpus Cristi and this is a fitting video. I. Love. It!

Tim Drake from NCR has the full transcript here.

A Blessing of Rain

2011-06-22T14:22:00.032-05:00

We finally got some relief from this scorching heat in the form of rain last night. We got over 2 inches of rain. It was So. Much. Needed!

It was the first rain we've had in 31 days! And this was after 13 consecutive days of 100-plus temperatures! And yesterday was just the first day of summer! Sheesh!

This rain is not expected to put much of a dent in the drought we’ve been experiencing, but at least it gives us a break from the heat today. It's a good 10 degrees cooler than it’s been for weeks.

A blessing, even if it's just for the day.

Working Hard

2011-06-18T15:34:00.007-05:00

We had a 'hard' day at work on Wednesday when our group celebrated product release.

Gone Wild

2011-06-16T12:22:00.010-05:00

The bunnies have started their lives in the wild.

When I took them out of the burrow on Sunday morning, at 15 days old according to my calculations, the middle one decided to hop out. He made two jumps and then I caught him. He felt really strong with his legs pushing against my hand to get away. I laid them all back in the hole and covered it. The last couple of times I checked on them there was a hole in the cover through which bunnies were visible. I guess they were peeking out.

The night before I tried feed them some lettuce leaves, but they were not interested.

On Sunday evening my friend David came over to see the bunnies. As we walked out in the back yard, one bunny was sitting next to the burrow! It was that middle one. I took him, and handed the other two to David and his girlfriend. When I placed this middle one back in the hole, he jumped out again and continued hopping toward the fence. I went after him but he continued along the fence and into the bushed. Finally I was able to catch him under the bushes and tucked him back in the hole under the other two bunnies.

That was the last I saw them.

At 8 am Monday morning the hole was empty and there were no bunnies to be seen around. That middle one probably led them all into exploration.

Late Monday night I went back out to check again and as I turned on the porch lights and stepped out I saw the mom rabbit hop away from the burrow toward the bushes. I guess she was looking for them.

I hope they figure out this big world on their own.

After this experience, I actually wouldn't mind if the mama rabbit decides to use my yard for her next litter of bunnies. :)

And just when I thought all wildlife has left, I notice that there is a new birds' nest in the crape myrtle. It's small, maybe cardinals', and not used yet it seems. More babies to come! :)

Bunnies Update

2011-06-09T21:20:00.022-05:00

These little bunnies are growing and changing really fast!

They are 12 days old now and all three have their eyes opened, and their ears are now perked up. Their little noses are constantly sniffing around and they are ready to hop out of the hand. Now that I "showed them the world" I hope they don't rush to get out of the burrow before they are ready. Or before I am ready! :)

They just are so cuddly and cute!

Google Doodle Guitar

2011-06-09T14:59:00.045-05:00

Google home page today has a really fun, interactive doodle: a playable guitar! It is in the shape of an electric guitar that allows you to play and even record!

It is up online only today, Thursday, June 09, 2011, in honor of the late guitar hero and inventor Lester William Polsfuss’s 96th birthday.

Update [07/13/2011]:
Google gives Les Paul Doodle a permanent home!
I am replacing the old app that was above, and embedding the one from Google. To play with keyboard, click anywhere around the image while arrow cursor is visible. Do not click when hand cursor is visible, as that will open the page link.

The old one, I discovered later, was not just a swf flash file, but a link to their site. I didn't like that. I am however leaving it on the Google Site, but it doesn't have recording capabilities.

The Latest Backyard Wildlife

2011-06-05T11:16:00.009-05:00

Last year I had baby ducks in the rosemary bush. This year there is a bird's nest high up in the oak tree, and the newest addition: baby rabbits in the backyard!

I saw some fur on one spot of the lawn about 1-2 months ago. I carefully dug it up, fearing there might be a rat or some other animal inside. But the hole was empty. So, I just left it there, not making a connection at that moment where it was from, and was going to fill it up with dirt. But I never got around to it.

I remember seeing the same empty hole during the memorial day weekend, two weekends ago. I did see a rabbit laying down near the fence, and I thought it was strange how he relaxed it looked, his back legs stretched out behind it, instead of in its usual ready-to-jump pose. Then on Thursday the following week, while watering the lawn, I realized I didn't notice the hole any more. I searched for it, and discovered that it is covered with grass and leaves. Again I started removing the leaves and fur carefully, and then something moved inside! There were some babies in there!

Truthfully, I weren't sure if they were rats, my first instinct, or rabbits, because their ears were more round and flat on their head. But when I didn't see a long tail, I knew they were rabbits. There were 3 of them, all the same size, and when I poked them with the stick they squirmed around. They were completely covered with fur, but their eyes were closed. The hole was the size of a melon, and the lower part was completely lined with fur. I did my best to cover it back up and put some leaves on top.

The next day when I checked out the burrow it was hard to find again, because the mother had fixed my lousy job of hiding the hole, and had put more grass twigs on it so that no fur was visible. Nice job! I dug it up again, and was even brave to take the babies out in my hand (day after left photo). They were so soft and wiggly. :) I held them just for few seconds and then put them back in. This time I placed couple of sticks in X shape on top so that I would know if the mother comes back again. And she did! I think today (right photo) they are about 7 days old.

I found some helpful information on these sites,
HopperHome
Help..I Found a Baby Bunny!
including about the myth that mother would reject the babies if she senses human sent on them, and about monitoring her activity by placing the sticks on top. She apparently feeds them just for 5 minutes during the night by laying on top of the burrow while the babies nurse. The milk is so strong that so little keeps the babies going for 24 hours. They should open their eyes at about 10 day old, be inside the hole for 3-4 weeks, another week be hopping around and return inside to sleep, and then they'll leave, each their own way.

I plan to just let them be for now, and then fill the hole once they are gone.

3-Day Weekend

2011-05-30T22:28:00.005-05:00

It has been a great Memorial Day weekend. If it was up to be, we would have these long weekends at least once a month.

It started on Friday evening when I met with my friend Norma and 3 nine-year-olds at their local pool after work. Even though the temperatures during the day are already hitting triple digits, the evenings are still comfortable, especially in the shade. We had a nice time relaxing and catching up.

Saturday I spent preparing for the party that evening; some yard work, cleaning the house, and cooking. My next door neighbour finished repairing my side of the fence, which was really nice of him, so I brought them some cake. The game night was a success. Some long-time and some new friends came, and we had a good gender mix. My friend Paul, a musician, even brought his guitar and played few of his songs for us. We also tried our skills at playing the didgeridoo. I felt relaxed in the hostess role, which was not always the case before, and everyone seemed to have enjoyed themselves.

After Mass on Sunday, I visited with my brother and sister-in-law. We shared a meal, and Indian dish, had coffee, and shared stories from my Ireland trip, Emilia's visit with her family, and Zoran's job search. While they went grocery shopping, I took a nice nap, something that I rarely do, maybe once a year. I guess all that partying has gotten to me. :) It gave me extra boost to then do the laundry in the evening.

I was so looking forward to having that one extra day. It was a day for relaxing and doing some little things that I don't usually get to do on the weekends. I cleaned up the wood planks left ofter from the fence repairing, cooked dinner, and then went for a nice stroll in the Domain with my friend Norma. again, the evenings are comfortable to be outside, so we really enjoyed it.

A lovely weekend. Thank you all veterans who made it possible for us to celebrate this day.

Ireland: Day 5

2011-05-20T15:57:00.002-05:00

All good things have to pass.

Here we are now in Galway, or right outside of it, with all my bags packed and getting ready to go down for one last pint before early bed time. Our departure time from here is tomorrow morning at 5 am. Yaiks!

We were blessed today with the best weather so far. And it was the best timing for today's itinerary.

we left our hotel in Killarney just before 9, and headed north-west. The Killarney county greeted us with more lush scenery and changing weather. When we stopped at Adare, the rain was puring pretty strong, but by the time I walked through the visitor center and exited on the other side, it was dry again. That's how it is here, the rain and sun change very quickly.

Our next stop was Limerick. It is the 3rd biggest city in Ireland. It used to be a Viking city, because it is on river Shannon that goes into the ocean, but today it's a techy place with strong IT presence. It is different than other smaller places and Dublin in that it has blocks of streets, streets interest perpendicularly. They say that Manhattan got it's idea of designing the city in block from Limerick. Limerick is home to King James' Castle, who apparently was bit of a lazy king. On the outskirts of the city, we passed by Munster Rugby Stadium.

Limerick is also a type of poem, with 5 verses, 1st, 2nd, and 5th rime, and 2nd and 4th rime. So our tour guide asked us to think of a limerick and then share it in the evening with others. There were some creative lyrics shared in our group.

Next we entered into the Cork county and stopped to see the Bon Roite Castle (end of Roite River). This castle was actually lived in until 1950s. We did some sight-seeing, shopping, and I ate lunch at the Original Durty Nelly's pub, established in 1620!

After Ennis the scenery changed and we started seeing some limestone cliffs. Their layers are so thin that they make roof shingles out of them. The little town of Ennistymon has a beautiful river with limestone base passing through, and it used to be a spa town.

The coast region was next on the horizon, and in Lahinch we passed by a famous links golf course. I got a little mini course of golf history and lingo from Morris on this trip. Since we were now on the ocean, there were virtually no tree, except those people planted in their yards. There was too much salt in the air, and I suppose ground, for the trees we saw elsewhere to grow here. Not sure why there are no threes that are on other seashores.

The highlight of the day was at the Cliffs of Moher. We had a little surprise for Susan and her husband who were on this day celebrating their 32nd anniversary. We gathered at the steps overlooking the cliffs and sang in a circle for them, This Marriage. It was one of the songs we did at the concerts, and saw fitting for this occasion. It was another moving moment of music. Of course, we attracted some other onlookers, but we weren't going to sing any more since our time there was limited. I really wish we had at least another half an hour there to really enjoy it. The views were spectacular, and it would have been so peaceful to enjoy that majestic site without rushing. I feel like we just run from one side to the other to take pictures. I guess we had to keep up with the schedule.

The next stop was to see the burren: the limestone cliffs made from melting ice from the last ice age. It was interesting to find out that the ocean level used to be some 200m lower, and when the ice-age ended the temperatures were much warmer than they are now. It was obvious the ocean were lower, because some of the old house remains were virtually at the water edge.

For more little town, and castles on the way, and we arrived at Galway just before 6.

Tomorrow is a travel day. It was a busy week and we did see and visited a lot. I am glad I can go back and re-live all those experience through these pages. I hope to have my overall reflections on this trip posted some time when I get back to Austin.

Ireland is a beautiful country.

Ireland: Day 4

2011-05-19T19:40:00.009-05:00

The body is week, but the spirit is stronger!
That is how I felt today. The lack of sleep and constant action has starting to get to me, and to other people in the group. I again had few hours of sleep less last night than I would have wanted or needed, so my body was telling about it this morning. My throat was really stiff and just I felt really weak. For breakfast the lady serving was so nice and made me specially an instant coffee, which is a bit stronger than the filter coffee they usually serve. I knew I have to mentally push myself today, because I didn’t want to miss anything just because the tiredness was pulling me down.
Today’s itinerary was busy, but in the best possible way when you are tired. We were on the bus a lot. We toured the Ring of Kerry today. It is drive around the peninsula west of Killarney around a gorge formed during the last ice age. We first passed through Killorglin famous for a pegan summer festival, the King Puck (pronounced pok) fair, which means male goat. The houses are different colors, with beautiful gardens and lawns. We saw a many bushes with the beautiful purple flowers, rodadendron. The bush with little red flowers like the earrings is called Fuchsia, in Irish Dura Dei, meaning tears of God. noticed that many don’t have any shades or blinds on the windows, probably to soak up the most of the sun they can.
Then we saw first glimpses of the Dingle Bay, which enters into the Atlantic Ocean. The views were breathtaking. Since this coast was formed from glaciers, there were chains of islands in the distance. We saw the most westwardly European island far in the distance. The coast has high granite cliffs, and some coves have nice sand beaches. The water in the summer gets to about 17 C (~65F), so it’s a bit chilly for me, but not for the locals. The vegetation changed to more rocky terrain and lushes vegetation was replaced with tall grass, swagman or peet moss (bog, which means soft plant), with medicinal characteristics used during the wars to treat the soldiers. Today it is dried and made into bricks used for fire.

In Kells we stopped at Caitin’s Kells where a world famous (apparently he was on some travel show) shepherd introduces visitors with several different types of sheep that live in Ireland. Among others we saw Shetland and moher sheep, which are known for their wool. The shepherd then showed us amazing interaction he has with his two border collies, which help him move the sheep. He uses a whistle to call each of them with a different set of sounds. One dog has his own left, right, straight, down,… calls, and the other has her own. They are so focused on their task and followed every command they received. When told to get down, they would still intently watch the sheep, with their ears perched for the next call. This was their true calling.

Video: shepherd, sheep, and dogs from Ireland

Next little town was Caherciveen where Daniel O’Connel was born (his large black status was on the main street in Dublin). We made it down to the water in Waterville, and took some pictures with Charlie Chaplin. He used to come there on vacation, and his family still owns a home there.

Farther more, between Caherdaniel and Derrynane we stopped for lunch in Vista Bar restaurant, we amazing views of the ocean and the islands. I had sea food chowder, with Irish coffee. Hmm-good.

On our way back west, we had a short stop in Sneem village and looked at some souvenir shops. Even though this place was not on open ocean, and more south than other places, I felt most cold there, even with my 4 layers of clothing. Maybe because we spend extra time outside there. It was already passed 3 PM when we continued toward Killarney National Park.

The scenery again changed to really tall trees and beautiful glacier lakes. Queen Victoria named one of the overlook spots the Ladies View, because all of the ladies in her party really enjoyed it. I believe Queen Elizabeth is supposed to tour the ring of Kerry in the next couple of days.

At 5 a quick stop at our hotel to change, and we were off to sing at Mass and concert afterwards at St. Mary’s cathedral in Killarney. The cathedral is just 150 years old, which for this country is a young church. It is actually the youngest church in Killarney from what I understand. It is made entirely of stone, and has some 40 ft tall arched ceiling. A beautiful architecture, but definitely more bear than other churches we’ve been to. We were not the only visitors at the Mass; there was another group from the US with their priest who concelebrated the Mass. We sang the Mass, and afterwards had a little concert for the folks who were there.
I was feeling different for this one, and I could not understand why. Even during the Mass, while the spirit was reminding me of the beauty of the moment, my mind was somewhere else. The acoustics of the place made it harder for me to hear others in the same way, and I just didn’t feel as concentrated and “in the moment”. I blame it on the tiredness. I found myself remembering the same moment we sang a certain song at the previous two places, and how more moving it felt. Before we also didn’t have a captive audience for the entire time, like we did tonight, so it had felt more like we sang just for ourselves, to enjoy the music. The audience tonight, the parishioners and few visitors at Mass, just didn’t give us much visual feedback that they were enjoying our singing as much as I thought we were supposed to be good. That’s maybe it; I wanted us to bring to these people the same awesomeness of the music we experienced the last two days, instead of just trying to be in that moment today. But it was hard to repeat that.

I was pretty much beat when we got to hotel. I still wanted to walk to the town for dinner, to see it for a little bit before we leave tomorrow. By 9 PM, a group of us finally gathered and explored the way through the little streets. Most pubs stop serving food around that time, so we were lucky to find Irish food served at a semi-italian restaurant. I don’t know how “authentic” it was, but the Guinness stew I had there was very testy. The company was great as well, and the atmosphere was fun and helped pick me up from my lousy weak state.

I just realized it’s almost 2 am and I have to be up at 7 am! Enough rambling. :)

Ireland: Day 3

2011-05-18T19:26:00.021-05:00

Ireland really is green!

This morning we had a very early start; wakeup call at 6 AM, checkout and quick breakfast, and we were on our way by 8. A quick drive through the streets of Dublin one last time (for this trip at least). Bye-bye Dublin.

Today we were traveling south-west. The queen messed up with our plans again. We were originally supported to go to the Rock of Cashel, but since she is going there today or tomorrow, they canceled us. So, instead, we went south, near Cork to the Cahir Castle. The nice thing about Ireland is that it is small to travel around, the roads are good, and there are castles pretty much in every town. This castle is on a river-island site, with massive walls and towers. Cahir Castle is one of the Ireland’s largest. It was founded in 1142 by Conor O’Brien.

We had a nice guided tour, took lots of pictures and climbed many stairs. In one of the rooms, where they had swallows circling the entire time the tour guide was explaining, we decided to do some singing. There was always a plan to sing at a castle, but just the venue changed. This room had a nice acoustics, and we just stood in a big circle and sang 5-6 songs acapela. The tour guide had her walkie-talkie on, so our song was broadcasted throughout the castle for other visitors to hear. Few of them stepped into the room only to be amazed! I loved this experience. It is a totally different level of enjoying the music than performing at a concert. And again, the songs of peace and soul longing for God moved me to tears.

Afterwards walked over to have lunch in Cahir, and most of the group loaded into one restaurant. I felt like separating from the crowd a bit, since we had an hour and I wasn’t yet hungry for a super large lunch, and walked around a bit. I found myself a nice little coffee place and had a first real coffee of the day, cappuccino there, outside on the porch, relaxing and people watching. We departed Cahir and were on our way to a new place on our itinerary: Whisky Distillery! It was not planned to go there, but since we had to change plans and fill time, and Michael expressed interest, we went there.

Old Jameson Distillery, near Midleton, is 200 years old. Jameson Whisky is today made in a modern factory in Cork. I am not a Whisky, or any hard-liquor for that matter, person, but from what I could understand the main difference between Irish and Scottish Whiskey is that Irish and distilled 3 times, and Scottish only 2 times. That supposedly makes it more purified. There was a 15 minute nice video presentation and then a very knowledgeable young man gave us a guided tour through all the buildings and many different processes it takes to make whisky. In one of the courtyards we saw some Irish actors filming another video production for the distillery, dressed in clothes from the old era and with appropriate background. At the last building we saw colors of whisky at its different stages of aging, from almost neutral color to dark copper (18+ years old) in oak barrels with glass tops. They picked 4 man and 4 ladies to do a testing or Irish, Scottish, and American whiskey (again, not my fancy). The rest of us got to sample a 5 year whiskey with our choice of additive; I choose Schwaps. It was a fun experience all in all, and I got me a small whiskey bottle to take home.

I kind of didn’t feel myself on the ride, and asked to sit in the front. My stomach was kind of on the edge of nausea, my throat was dry, and I felt a bit claustrophobic sitting in the middle of the bus by the window. The sad Irish songs playing on the CD, and the beauty of the nature around me put me in some sort of a mellow mood and I just felt very emotional. I was glad Michael started talking to me about his extremely complex and adventurous life story to get my mind refocused. I kind of like hanging out with that front of the bus crowd. Much more so than the half-of-the-bus-load of kids who started singing from top of their lungs after tasting some whiskey.

Next stop was another gorgeous place, Blarney Castle. Like I said, there is no shortage of castles in Ireland. This one is the home of the (apparently) famous Blarney Stone of eloquence. The park around it is just absolutely magnificent. Soft English grass, with tall, lushes trees, benches, little babbling brook with bridges, beautiful flower gardens, cheerful bird chirpings in the air, and amazing scenery all around in the distance.

The castle is supposedly the most popular tourist stop in Ireland, where people stop to kiss the Blarney Stone. The stone is perched at the top of the 15th century castle, reached by a steep climb up slippery spiral staircases. Once you reached to very top, to kiss the stone, you have to lay down with top of your body hanging above a very, very, very deep drop (an attendant is there to hold you), then you band backwards, hold on to rails on the vertical wall behind you, and kiss the wall some 2 feet below the level of your body. All who could climb the steps from our group did it, so did I. When in Rome, do like the Romans thing, but it was pretty stupid in my humble opinion.

The view from top of the castle was breathtaking. I wish we had more time to explore the gardens around, as well. It was just so peaceful, and I think I was craving a little bit of that. But alas, it’s a short tour of the country, and we want to see as much as possible. So we continued our ride westward toward Killarney.

I again got to enjoy the company of the front of the bus folks.

We arrived at our hotel in Killarney just in time for dinner. It’s a fancy little hotel, with another group from the US I think already there. The dinner was again 3-course, and it was all very good food. I had breaded chicken with Whiskey sauce – to stick with today’s theme. I am still not used to sun being up so late, so when we finished with dinner at 8.30 PM it still felt like it was 5 because it was so bright outside. We quickly moved our bags to our rooms and few of us met downstairs to explore the town.

From where the hotel is, it was hard to tell we were in a town. I guess there is a wooded hill blocking the view of the little village, which is just 5 minutes walk away. It seems like a wealthy place, and it reminded me a bit of a ski resort. We stopped at a pub recommended to us at the hotel. They had 3 man in a corner playing Irish music on fiddle, mandolin, and guitar, and then an older man, a local it seemed, just joined in on the wood floor with the traditional Irish tap dance. He had a lot of energy for his age, and was very amusing to watch. I tried an Irish lager, Harp I think it’s called. It was good, but a bit too light for me. The atmosphere was great, just a pub should be, and I really enjoyed our company. After half an hour we got a table, so we could actually talk without people bumping into us all the time. There was another music/dance next door, but they had cover charge, so we had music coming from two directions. The place was packed, and when we left just after 11 another live bend was coming in to play (which is when this pub started charging the cover).

Oh, I can’t believe we did all that in one day. Whew!

I am so blessed!

Ireland: Day 2

2011-05-17T18:20:00.017-05:00

I am again amazed that it’s just been two days. I love it how when I travel there is so much happening every days that the a few days seems much longer than usual.
We all gathered for breakfast in the hotel, way earlier than I would have liked, around 8-8.30. It was good food, but the coffee was not doing it for me. I was told there is some really good coffee in Ireland, and than many places serve cappuccinos and lattes right out of the machines, but not this place. They only had plain American coffee, which even with some chocolate milk was not real tasteful. Oh, well.

We walked one block over to our bus to start the tour of the city around 9.45. It had to be quite reduced because many streets were blocked off due to queen’s arrival. It is quite interesting that she happens to come here, the first British royalty in 100 years, the same week we are here. Of course, Obama is coming next week.

The streets were ready to blocked off, but not yet that early in the morning. There was definitely a lot of police on the streets, and we later learned that none of them carry fire arms. I found that quite puzzling. Our driver Rory took us through the downtown area, and pointed out few spots on the way. For example, we passed by a church where first ever Handle’s Messiah performance was done in 1742. We passed next to the Christchurch, the biggest church in Dublin and then over to the St. Audoen’s gate. Rory estimated it would take us an hour to get there with the street blocks, but it didn’t take us more than 10 minutes, so we had extra time. It is in the Vikind/Medival area and dates back to 1275. It is part of the old city walls dating back from that era. We had some time to walk around the wall, and just inside the wall on the grounds of St. Audoen’s Anglican Church of Ireland.

Next we drove down the Quay streets, by the river Liffey, across from The Four Courts building. We passed the Brazen head inn, the Ireland oldest pub dating back to 1198.

Around 11ish we arrived at the St. Patrick’s cathedral. We learned that the cathedral was build outside of the city walls because the priests didn’t want to pay taxes to the city government. Clever. We had plenty of time to look around inside, and there was just so much to see. There were various color tiles on the floor, saints and important folks status, artifacts on display, history facts boards, memorials on the walls flags from wars or of different regions hanging off the ceilings, gorgeous stains glass windows and decorative arches and architecture. Just too many places to look at.

After a quick snack and coffee break at the next door store, where they have self-service cappuccino and latte machines, it was time to get ready for our concert. It was an interesting setting because, even though there is an official start time, there is no official audience. Sure, we had few of our groupies from our group, spouses, family and tour guides, but the rest of the audience was just people visiting the cathedral for a short time. The 45 min practice was a way to kind of advertise the concert, so those who were there during that time could decide to stay a bit longer. And we sounded so amazing in that space! Even during the practice, our voices echoed so beautifully, and just the mare realization of me actually being at that place and singing to these people from all over the world, and thanking God for all those opportunities…brought me to tears a couple of times. It was just very moving and humbling and gratitude evoking experience.

I must also add that just being in this group of people, all of whom I really know very little, and how we somehow still function pretty well was also amazing. In particular, I was so touched by our choir director, Morris. I already knew he is a very kind man, always ready to say words of thanks and praise to us, and to compliment someone. He has a dear smile, is humble, and is always interested how others are doing. And I absolutely love his directing stile, his facial expressions, his hand movements…I cannot but get into the spirit of the music that I sing when he is directing. I just wish there are more people like him.

After the concert, the driver took us back just a couple of blocks to Christchurch. That was as far as he could take us because of the street blockades. It was walking back to the hotel from there, which really is just 15ish minutes away when we actually can walk. But, we encountered first blockade in front of the Trinity college. We probably could have found a roundabout way to continue toward, but since we were already there, Sharron and I, (we already split from the rest of the group) decided to stay there for 20 minutes, which is how long they told us will be until the Queen arrives there. We found the closest point we could to the entrance and waited with the crowd. We saw the motorcade, the queen in the black suv, kinda-sorta saw her wave and that was it. After another 15 minutes walk down the O’Connel Bridge, we encountered another blockade. Actually, pretty much all the bridges were blocked off until the Queen passes by again around 4.30 on her way out of the city. So, we waited again, since we were right by the rail and on the corner where she would turn. It was fine, and we spent time chatting with locals there, practicing hearing their strange accent. We did see her car right in front of us, but she sat on the opposite side (the same side as at the Trinity College), so the closest we saw was Prince Phillip, but even that was not clear through darker windows.

By the time we were at the hotel it was already close to 6, so I just had time for a short rest, talk to mom, upload photos, change, and again be on the go. Tonight, the dinner was on our own, so we asked our driver, a local, to give us a suggestion on where to go. He suggested McGuire’s Pub near Trinity College. Michael, the other conductor, took bunch of students on the Pub Crawl, basically pub-hopping, and other people just went in small groups as well. Since it doesn’t get dark here until after 9, we decided to walk through the city again first, before dinner, because after it will be dark. So we walked down the Henry St., pedestrian zone north of the river with many shops. I wanted to see this place that some were talking about the night before, The Church Pub. It actually used to be a church, and it still looks like a real church from the outside. (there is another building converted into a pub called the Bank) I’ll have to look up how and when it got converted, but the inside still has many features of the church, but is now a pub. I know, totally crazy! There is a huge organ, stain glass windows, loft area, marble memorials on the walls, a confessional booth,... but what really put me off was the former altar area, it had an engraved sing on the wall “This Do In Remembrance Of Me”. We left the place after that, even though we saw few people from our group there.

The clouds have cleared up considerably, and we had a nice walk just meandering through the area and looking and interesting buildings, signs, and people. Once we arrived where we were told to go, there was no McGuire’s Pub. There was O’Brien’s Pub, and O’Neill’s Pub, so we decided on this second one. And it was a great place, beautiful from the outside and inside. There were multiple levels, rooms with 4-5 tables or bar stools, and at least few stairs after every couple of rooms. The food is ordered in a line, with trays, and you take it yourself, there is no waiting to be seated, and very few waiters. I got me the Irish Beef and Guinness stew, served with mashed potatoes, carrots, cheese cow flower, and I choose pickled beets and broccoli salad. It was really yummy! There are at least 3 bars inside, we different selection of beer. I went through all of them before finding an Irish Pilzner on tap, but even then I am not sure if it was Irish. The fellow who served me I could not understand one word. He talked to me 3-4 times, and I think he conferment it was Irish beer (the glass was Check Pilzner Ullner or something like that), but it was still a good pint of beer. We happened to be in a room where couple of blokes cake to play Irish music on mandolin and guitar, and had a great time.

Oh, I can’t believe our second day and time in Dublin is already over. :(

And if you've read this far, I can now tell you that the photos for these two days have already been uploaded on the album. No edits so far, so several blurry and duplicate photos.

Ireland: Day 1

2011-05-16T17:59:00.004-05:00

Today was such a fun day!

We arrived on schedule to a cloudy, but without rain, Dublin. My roommate, Sharron met us at the airport exit, and after getting some cash, we are heading onto the tour bus around 9.30. We learned that queen Elizabeth is schedule to arrive to Dublin on Tuesday, and then visit Ireland for four days. This was first royal visit in something like 100 years, so it was a big deal. Some streets were going to be blocked off and protests were also planned. All that meant that moving around the city for our tour scheduled for Tuesday was going to be difficult. And since we have a concert to perform at 1.30 PM, being on time was going to be important. So right when we loaded all our luggage on the bus and met the tour guides, we were informed that there will be a change in schedule; we would switch our plans and do the tour of Glendalough today, and tour the city tomorrow, when it’s easier for us to make it to St. Patrick’s cathedral on time.

On the way from the airport we passed through the city, so the river Liffey, heard about several Dublin icons and drove out of the city through upscale Gregorian neighborhood, where homes are $5+ millions. The downtown area was full of pedestrians, but clean, and architecture was different and interesting.

The country side was as green as they say Ireland is. Little villages, pastures sectioned off by limestone walls, sheep and black-and-white cows, horses, and many yellow flower bushes (gorse).

It seemed we were among the first tourists to arrive to Glendalough today, which was nice. Glendalough is a glacial valley located in County Wicklow, renowned for its early Medieval monastic settlement founded in the 6th century by St Kevin, a hermit monk, and destroyed in 1398 by English troops. The weather was quite windy and a bit colder than we’d like, but it wasn’t raining. After a tour of the site and lots of picture taking, we were happy to warm up, rest, and eat a good lunch at the couple of joined restaurants on site. Out tour-guide Jon Sebol and driver Rory were very knowledgeable and explained us all the sites along the way. Jon’s paternal grandmother happened to be from little town Brno in Czeck Republic, so we spent some time chatting about that part of the world. He recommended one of those restaurants in particular, so we walked in there to have lunch, and he ended up treating me lunch!

We left the park at 2 PM, and on the ride I felt the wave of tiredness hit me hard that I had to take a short nap. (as much as I could with our second tour guide Michael next to me and constantly, loudly, making jokes and comments along the way). We finally arrived at the hotel and settled in our rooms around 4. Taking a nap at that time would be a terrible idea, and would throw me off the jet leg schedule completely. So I took a refreshing shower and Sharron and I then went walking down town (which is where our hotel is) for about an hour, seeing some pedestrian and shopping areas. Our dinner at the hotel, Admiral Plaza, was at 6, and it was a really great tasty meal. And staff was very good.

>

The evening was still young, and soon after we realized it was not going to get dark that soon. Since Ireland is so far up north, even in May the sun is still up until almost 9.30. So few of us went on another walking tour. Even though Dublin has about 2-2.5 million people, this center doesn’t seem that big, and is very excisable for walking. The tour guide Michael went we 8 or so of us, and we just walked places eventually go inside. We learned that at Arlington Hotel pub there is free Irish music and dance every evening 9 and 10, so we knew we wanted to come back there. We crossed the Ha penny bridge (half penny was toll on it long time ago) and walked around Temple Bar area for a little. We stopped outside one pub, that seemed pretty full, to listen to an Irish song. Then the band started asking where people are from, and when someone from our group shouted Texas (I also shouted Bosnia!) they played one country song. Another pub looked promising, but it was crowded for our big group, and the three songs they played while we were there were not Irish, so we decided to just go back to that Arlington hotel. The dancers were amazing, and the musicians before them too, but by 10.30 we were beat. The waiter was kind enough to let me take the Guinness glass as a souvenir with me!

Even though we were tired, and at times dragging, it still such a great day!

Ireland: Photos

2011-05-15T16:26:00.001-05:00

I will be posting photos to this album.

Still nothing to post, though, the airport shots are not that exciting to take. But being proactive in creating the album, since I have the connection now. :)

Ireland: Travel Day

2011-05-15T16:05:00.004-05:00

My flight to Ireland leaves in about 3 hours!

I am going on a week long tour with Master Works Singers choir. About 42 to of us are going. We'll visit several cities in those few days, so it will be a fast pace trip.

Soooo looking forward to it. I realized I really don't know anything about this country (yet), so it will be a great new experience.

Let the adventure begins!

Update:
Chicago 3.33 PM

We landed in Chicago a bit late after some delay due to very windy weather here. It’s a good thing we have a good chunk of time between flights, almost four hours. Unlike Austin airport, there is no free Internet time, not even for 30 minutes. Maybe if I look around for the admiral club…

Chicago 3.40 PM
I asked one (cute) guy, who I already learned was nice enough to share his extension cord with people who were charging their device, even though he wasn't using it, if he was able to get online. He told me he was using his own hot-spot. Few minutes later he got up to use the restroom, asked me to watch over his stuff and handed me over a piece of paper with password for his network. How sweet! :)

Where I've Been

2011-05-13T12:51:00.002-05:00

As my another international trip is coming up, I am reviewing my travel adventures so far. There are still so many places to go and so much more to see!

In Memoriam: Ciro #1, Nov. 1995 - Apr. 2011

2011-04-27T12:44:00.077-05:00

My dear little bird Ciro in Sarajevo died today at 11.30am Bosnian time. He was 15.5 (or 16.5) years old. We got him around March 8th, but not sure if it was '96 or '95, during those war time years. He was about 4 months old when we got him, so he was born at the end of '95 or '94.

I want to document his life here. And his passing. For my own sake. While the emotions are still raw. Death is never easy to come to terms with. Death of a pet, one that was part of our lives for so long. On some level it seems as if death of a pet is harder to accept, and those who have not had pets don't understand what it means.

It is so final. It will be a long post, as I want to record many memories of him here.

His name doesn't have a special meaning, but it's the same name as elephant Dumbo had in Bosnian translation of that cartoon. He got in trouble a lot, and his mother had to call out to him to find him, "Ciiiirooo, Ciiirooo..." and he was kind of like that - hence the same name.

When we first got him, from a lady named Slavica who was raising about 50 lovebirds in her apartment, he was pretty wild. I would spend, literally, hours at a time with my hand motionless inside his cage for him to get used to it. It took probably couple of months, at least, before he was not afraid of the hand and would stand on my finger. When he was about 6 months old, in his cage outside on the balcony, on a nice summer day, we found him on the bottom of the cage laying down, literally, on his belly, his had tilted to the side and his wings relaxed. We thought something happened to him. When he heard us he woke up. He was just relaxing in the sun. Until then, we've never seen a bird laying like that, but he discovered it to be so good. Ever since, he often would sleep like that, in his cage, in our hands, or talking naps with mom under a blanket.

He soon got so used to us handling him, that he was completely content snuggling with us, totally relaxed in our hands. And it wasn't just standing relaxed on our palm; no, it was lay-down-head-touching-hand-drop-wings-not-use-legs type of relaxed. Complete and utter surrendering.

His feathers were beautiful colors; bright red head and chest, two tones of green on his stomach, back, and wings, and turquoise lower back. When he was about year old he started plucking his tail feathers. At first it was just a spot, about 1cm round, and it was a wound for months. We tried all sorts of things, ointments, a neck collar, baby powder, red paprika...and nothing worked. He would pull feathers out, hop in circles from pain, but still do it again. In about 6 months he had no more tail. It used to be beautiful, black with red and turquoise feathers. It was all gone. He was still able to fly with no problems. And he was still super adorable, just lacked some feathers. Some told us he is craving more attention, but all the extra time we spent with him, and extra toys, and nothing helped. Not even a female bird.

While we lived in Dobrinja, he escaped several times. He flew outside of the apartment at least 10 times. He would find a barely opened window, and get out on the street, fly down to a tree, or neighbour's window/balcony. Sometimes we were able to just pick him up if he was somewhere low, or we'd have to go ring on person's apartment if he flew up high. He always waited for us to come get him, instead of coming down to us. We'd usually see the moment when he flies out, so would be able to track the direction he went. One time, however, we just noticed he was not in the apartment. We kind of panicked, because it could have been couple of hours since we last saw him. We did a quick search in front of our building, but didn't see him. We then came back in to quickly write down some fliers to put on buildings around. Realizing this search would take few hours, I decided to grab some chocolate from the refrigerator before I leave. I remember putting inside some pudding with whip cream on the top couple of hours before that. When I opened the refrigerator, guess who flew out - Ciro! He was covered in whip cream, and scared and cold, not sure where he was for those two hours. He must have landed on a pudding bowl inside while I was putting the rest of them in, and just shut the door on him. He was so happy to see us. So were we!

During one of his escapades, he found himself a wife. He got out through the balcony on one side of the building, and couple of hours later landed on our balcony on the opposite side of the building. We never understood how he was able to figure that out; to go around the building, 8 story, 8 entrances building, and out of so many windows and balconies find ours. Three days later, on that same balcony, landed a female lovebird. Now, lovebirds are not so common pets in Sarajevo, so for one to just land on our balcony, plus be a female, and it happening just a few days after his little adventure - he must have found her and explained to her how to get there, we concluded. We named her Zeljka, because it rimes with Znatizeljka - the curious one. We used to call Ciro Zeljko - Znatizeljko, because he really was curious, and used to say we should have named him Zeljko, so when she came along, we gave her that name. But he was really the curious one. He always had to be in the center of any action; dish washing, hammering, any noise producing...anything that was happening, he would be at the tip of our fingers to see first hand what's going on.

Zeljka was a wild one, and never got to be as tame as Ciro. We had her for 4 years, and only that last year she was comfortable enough to sit on our finger, but even then, very cautiously. They had about 4-5 nests, with about 4-5 babies each, so in total they had about 20 children. We gave away or sold all of them. Ciro was a great husband and father. While Zeljka was inside their nest box, and one of us would approach the cage, he would run inside and stand on top of her to protect her. :) He actually stood on top so he would see through the hole. She would stop feeding the chicks after just a few weeks, and then Ciro would step in. She was jealous of them, even, so he had to feed her as well. I remember him frantically going to each of those mouths to feed them all. When the chicks were old enough to get out of the nest, we would put them on the floor and he'd teach them how to walk. He was so cute with them, kind of encouraging them and showing them to come closer to him. It was the same with flying. He would walk and chirp around them, then fly away a bit and call them to come. The chicks, and Zeljka, wanted to be fed even once they could fly, and I remember him looking kind of out of his mind when all 5 would always follow him wherever he went.

He never mastered the nest making. Zeljka was an expert at it, chewing strains of paper or twigs, sticking them in her back feathers, and then flying with them into the cage. Ciro didn't have any feathers on his lower back, so he couldn't put any twigs there, but he also couldn't cut a straight line. It was funny when he would just stand next to Zeljka while she worked on those papers and then start pulling those pieces out of her back, before she would take them to the nest.

But he was always jealous when we tried to give any attention to Zeljka. We would get excited when she would build up the courage to get on our hand, but then he would come and chase her away. Or if they were both standing on the arm, he had to be closer to us. He always was such "maza" (cuddler). :) He absolutely loved having his head scratched. For hours. He looked like he was in nirvana, tilting his head in all directions, completely loose and relaxed. He would let us do anything to him. We would flip him upside down, with his little feet up in the air. My brother had a special hand motion to make him do that. I would grab him tight on the side of the wings, and play little airplane with him.

Ciro was so sweet when blowing kisses. We taught him that by kissing his beak while bringing our head forward. He then learned the sound but also the motion as well. He would then stretch his little head a bit to the side, toward us, and make the sweetest kissing sound: "pssth". He at first would just repeat it when we would kiss him, but later he did it on his own, when he just felt like sending kisses, like when he is grateful we took him out of the cage, or just when he is happy sitting on our shoulder. Such a sweet gesture.

He was always ready to play. He absolutely went nuts when we'd start clicking with something, like metal against the glass or ceramic, which produced high pitch sound. His face would change, his feathers all pull tight, his eyes wide open, he'd start walking around quickly, chirp, fly away and then come back instantly. It was just so amusing to play with him that way. It was never boring with him. Since he loved banging noise, he loved to throw things off the table; pens, scissors, little plates or spoons in the kitchen, even remote control he would drag to the edge to throw down. Later he learned to even grab little plates under coffee cups, because that made noise when the cups flipped over, so we had to watch out for him when having coffee. He loved to play with ladles or small metal pot covers that would spin on the aluminum top next to kitchen sink. He would grab it and raise it high and then let it go so it spins. That gave him tons of enjoyment.

Video: "Throwing scissors on command" from Ciro #1

The cutest game was hitting with a pen or scissors against something and then raising it high and holding it like that for a moment. Ciro would repeat that motion with his head, and raise his head real high, stretch his legs to stand taller, and freeze like that. Then we hit again, and he'd raise the head even higher, and stay motionless, intently waiting for our next move. After few times his excitement gets over the top, and he starts chirping, has to fly away and returns in a second for more fun. Loved that one!

Since he didn't have all the feathers, he always seemed to enjoy being warmed up. One of his favorite places was sitting on top of a warm pot cover in the kitchen. His little cross feet together, on the cover handle while the rest of the metal was too hot, and then he would come down and lay on the metal to soak up the warmth till there is none left. His cage was on a table in the kitchen for most of the year, until winter when both him and mom would bunker down in the warm living room. He loved exploring the kitchen, chew on papers on the top of the cabinets, the warm pots, the noise making possibilities of the utensils on the aluminum sink top. He took his baths always only, only on top of the sink in one corner, under the dripping faucet. Mom didn't have warm water most of the time from the faucet, and the cold water in Sarajevo is really cold, so he would quickly run and splatter under that cold water. He really would barely wet himself, but, because of the missing feathers, would look and feel quite helpless when he was wet. He would groom himself and liked to be scratched for a long time afterwards.

Ciro loved chocolate, even though we much later found out birds were not supposed to have any. He knew how the packaged chocolate looks like, and would chew through the wrapping to get to it. He liked sugar too, but couldn't figure out how to get the top off from the sugar cup. Zeljka was an expert at it, so he would just stand next to it and wait for her to open it. He went nuts for 'Lokum' biscuit that mom had with tea every morning. He would bounce impenitently until she would give him a piece on his plate on the table. He always ate really, really fast, as if someone was chasing him, which just added to the cuteness of how much he was enjoying his treat. He ate many of the human food: peas, pasta, rice, beans (he'd get them all over his face :)), apples, oranges...And yet, he was always very slender. All that flying kept his figure. Plus the lack of feathers made him look thinner.

Video: "Cuddling" from Ciro #1

He loved to fly; hence all of his escapes. In the morning he would do laps and fly from one side of the apartment to another in circles. He'd do this for half an hour in absolute joy to be alive. If he heard birds outside he'd fly onto the curtains. When I played with him on the coffee table by spinning a plastic coaster, he loved to quickly fly to the kitchen, just besides himself from joy, and then in a second fly back for more play.

Ciro would get super excited whenever he heard other birds, either outside or on TV. He'd start chirping and flying around. He would even get on top of the TV and look down on the screen to figure out where the sound was coming from. He always loved to play with other birds, too. Whenever we'd take him somewhere where there were other pet birds, he would be the friendliest bird ever. When I would talk on the phone with my mom, she would always put him on the phone, and he would respond when I call out to him, and especially if he heard my bird chirping. He was just such a happy bird.

He had lots of excitements in his life. He went through a move to another apartment and adjustments to find his new favorite places. He stayed in several other places when we were traveling somewhere. Mom would take him in her hand, instead of cage, when she visited some friends in the neighbourhood. He was especially spoiled once mom retired and was able to spend more time with him. They had their routine. He would take long naps with her, just curled up under a blanked with her. He would just get under the blanket when he saw her laying down on the couch, lay down with his head on the side, and peacefully sleep for an hour or two. Or if mom laid down in the other room and he was not tired, he would fly to the door and wait for her quietly.

Ciro always prefered to sleep laying down than on the pearch, or swing like some other birds we've had before. During and in years after nesting, he slept in the (empty) nest box. Once we got him his tent, he loved it. He always had one side reserved for entrance and the other for exit. He was particular in that way. :) He never cared much for mirrors, again unlike the parakeets we had before. He had one in the cage, just to block an opening, but he never used it. He did love a shining pendulum on a wall clock, and whenever the door was a bit open, he'd sneak in and stop it. He had a thing for clocks, or clicking sounds, or just noise in general.

Video: "Playing with remote" from Ciro #1

He knew how to get under our skin, and do the cutest things that would make us love him just that much more. One of his favorite games was of him hiding behind some picture frames and mom trying to get to him. He had his favorite alarm clock that mom better not touch when he is close. He loved to flip it over and then stand on it while it's ticking. While she was on the computer he had to be there right on her hand. When she was washing the dishes he was right on her hand. He had his favorite chair where he would fly to poop.

He was slowly getting worse over the last few months. First, he was able to fly less and less starting about 6 months ago. A measure of success got smaller and smaller. At first it was a success if he could fly from a cabinet on one wall to one on another wall. Then if he could fly from one couch to another. Then if he could even fly from a shelf down onto the rug. He was at that stage for several months, including three months mom was here in the US and her friend Ljelja was taking care of him, which she did an amazing job of. They celebrated the New Year's together and she took this last photo we have of Ciro.

In the last 40 days since mom got back to Sarajevo, it was apparent he was getting progresivelly older. His flying down onto the carpet was more like a flop. He would sleep more, and generally not be interested in much play. Then about 10 days ago, after mom left him on a top shelf to play, she found him a bit later on the lower shelf of the cabinet that is sticking out. He probably fell trying to let himself jump on the carpet. But maybe he just jumped down to this shelf. It appeared his right leg was hurting, but he could still stand on it. Mom nursed him the following days, holding him in her hand for most of the day while she was at home, putting a little towel on the bottom of his cage where he could lay, giving him to eat from table and her hand, and just lots of love and attention. During this time he stopped chirping all together. She was really torn about her Saturday day-trip she had planned for before, but since he appeared to be eating and standing that morning, she decided to go. She wasn't able to enjoy it all, though, because constantly she was thinking about Ciro, and how he'll be when she comes back. During this entire time mom was constantly under stress if he will be alive when she gets back home from anywhere, or when she uncovers him in the morning. She told me several times she doesn't know she can endure this trial.

In the last 5 days he was loosing his balance a lot, swaying from side to side, and backwards. Since he doesn't have any tail to balance when he sways back, he would often flip on his back and then start panicking and flapping his wings. Mom would leave him in his tent in the cage and had to drag him out to take him, and the entire time she was home she would hold him. On Monday he barely ate anything, but gave us a glimpse of hope in the evening when mom held up the food for him, while holding him from both sides so he wouldn't fall, and he ate for a full hour. On Tuesday he again ate very little, again was swaying, and slept in mom's hand and shoulder the entire time she was home. He even pooped twice on her while laying down, which he rarely ever did, which meant he just was not moving enough to let her know he needs to go. This morning he wouldn't eat again and was very lethargic, his head down and eyes closed almost the entire time, his breathing heavy. Around 11.15, he opened up his eyes wide, and mom walked him around the house and on the balcony for the next ten minutes, talking to him and giving kisses. After having his eyes closed for most of the time in the last days, having him look at her wide eyed for so long was so strange. As if he was taking it all in one last time. Or asking for help. For those ten minutes, that will forever stay engraved in mom's memory (and probably mine, too, through her telling me about it), they looked intently at each other, saying their good byes. She showed him everything one last time. He lowered down his wings. Relaxed his head on her fingers. Took few short breaths. And then just expired in her hand around 11.30. It sounded like he went peacefully. I hope he wasn't in pain. But it was a torture to watch.

He will be laid down to rest near his wife Zeljka in our back yard in Sarajevo. Rest in peace, dear Ciro. You were the best little bird we ever had. You are irreplaceable.

Album

Not Enough Hours, Not Enough Days

2011-03-04T11:39:00.004-06:00

It has been a busy week around here. I had activities every evening after work.

Much of it is due to the upcoming concerts on the 6th and 10th. I had rehearsals on Sun, Tue, Thr, Sat, and the concert is on Sunday. These weekday rehearsals are tiring, because I go there right after work, it takes me almost an hour to go across town down to St. Edward's University during rush hour, and then we don't finish until after 9PM. That's a long day for me.

On Monday evening mom and I went for a walk in the Domain and some shopping, which was a relaxing time.
On Wednesday, we went to Zumba in our MUD recreation center. I definitely need some physical activity in my daily routine, but I am just not that excited about this thing right after work. I am not determined.
On Friday evening I hope to go purchase the tree for the front yard. Mexican White Oak. Still not sure if and which tree to get for the backyard. I just didn't set aside the time to think about it more. Maybe on Saturday.

I think that since mom is leaving in less than two weeks, I may be now trying to jam too many things to do with her. I thought having this concert while she is here would be a good thing, so she can come. But, it being right at the end of her stay, when we have extra rehearsals, is cutting too much into our time together.

St. Edward's Park (and University)

2011-02-28T12:09:00.021-06:00

My friend Amber introduced me to this park just a year ago. It was the last on my list of new parks in Austin to show mom this year.

It was such a nice day for this hike. Since I've only been here once, I felt a thrill having to explore the trails on our own. It felt like a real adventure when we encountered a long snake on the trail! When we reached the first hill, we set our blanked down and had some snacks enjoying the scenic view. After conquering another large hill, we came down to the creek. We packed our dinner with us so we found a nice secluded area by the water and ate there. On the way back, we spotted some horse footsteps and followed them to the water. There were two of them, and the owners brought them there to play in the water. Literally. They were splashing around like little kids. :)

Next we went for some Amy's ice cream in the Arboretum and then drove down to St. Edward's University for my rehearsal. We will have two concerts, on March 6th and 10th.

Hamilton Pool and Mandola Winery

2011-02-27T21:08:00.003-06:00

The Saturday morning weather was not at all promising. It was drizzling and cold. We planned to go to the Hamilton Pool park today, but until Zoran actually set in the driver seat, I wasn't sure if we'll go. So glad we did. We started later than planned and got extra delayed because of an I35 shutdown, so when we got to the park around 1, it was already warmer and started to clear up.

First we walked down to the pool area, which was open for swimming. :) And actually there were few 'brave' swimmers/tanners. We haven't had too much rain lately, so the waterfall was more like a water drip. Part of the trail under it was closed due to damage. We rested and goofed around a bit, and then continued on toward the Pedernales river.

The hike was only maybe 20 minutes, but the trail is in a canyon which was warm and humid. Having layered clothing was a smart idea.

The river was just a bit cold, but walking in it felt good. I wouldn't go swimming in it just yet.

We worked up a little bit of an appetite and drove down to the Mandola winery in Driftwood. There were two weddings there that day, and Emilia was picking up some ideas for their wedding. We really enjoyed the food and atmosphere there. We got back to Austin after 7 PM. I have no idea how I thought we could make it to San Antonio that same afternoon! Another day.

Evening at the Oasis

2011-02-26T11:42:00.000-06:00

We've been meaning to go to the Oasis while mom is still here, but it was never "on the way". Finally I decided it will happen this Friday.

I thought just mom and I will go for some drinks and snacks and the sunset. But Zoran dropped by for an afternoon coffee with mom at the house, and she invited him to come as well. Of course, then he invited Emilia, so it was a longer affair with dinner. Mom and I went separately, and the traffic at that hour on a Friday was just horrendous; it took us 45 minutes to get there because of stop-and-go on 360. I probably should have planned it for a weekend. I could barely recognize the place when we got there.

The complex now looks like a mini-town. Fields of paved parking lots and a huge multi-level garage. They also have shuttles. Several new buildings sit between the road and the old restaurant, so the main entrance is hidden behind them. The line to get your name on the waiting list was long, but moving along.

We had just enough time to get drinks to see the sunset. Zoran and Emilia joined us a bit later and we moved inside because without sun it was getting cold very quickly. We had fun, and were one of the last guests to leave.

10 Years of Service

2011-02-25T11:27:00.005-06:00

This year marks 10 years since I started working at National Instruments. 10 years! Wow.

I actually started on Jan. 22nd, but that date this year actually brought havoc for the next couple of weeks, so I didn't really think about the anniversary.

First, in the craziness of switching accounts for direct deposit of paychecks, I was surprised when I received one additional paper check that was sizable amount but still less than what I usually receive. It took me few minutes of reviewing it to realize that it was a service award. Nice! I totally didn't expect that.

Our company takes us out for these occasions for lunch in a group with the CEO and VP of Human Resources. Since there are not that many of us who started the same week who are still here after 10 years, they group 2-3 weeks worth of start dates into one lunch outing. So this week 14 of were treated lunch at Iron Cactus in the Arboretum.They presented us there is a plaque and a $100 dinner certificate. Nice.

Tax Time

2011-02-23T15:26:00.007-06:00

Taxes are done!

This year I used Free File Fillable Forms for the first time. I never heard of it before. I knew there was a free electronic filing option, and that for some reason, that I could not remember, I didn't qualify for it. I thought that I don't qualify because I file itemized deductions, or some additional schedules or forms. So, I thought to check again, and it was actually the income that disqualified me from using Free File.

On the other hand, anyone can use online Fillable Forms regardless of income. And it doesn't matter which all forms need to be submitted. And you can e-file for free!

This year I needed to file 1040, schedule A, B, D, M and form 5695. It took couple of days to figure out capital gains on schedule D, as I don't usually file this form. (I made a mistake 5 years ago of not filing it for some options I sold, and got audited 1.5 years later with penalty and interest!). I am also amortizing points from refinancing my house loan, so that was another math I couldn't quite figure out. Once I crunched all those numbers on paper, I double checked my calculations in Turbo Tax and the difference in refund was just $1, in favor of my math!

Using the Fillable Forms was a breeze. I just wish they had the option of importing W2 (like Turbo Tax). Instead, I had to fill in all the fields manually.

Quarry Lake Mischief and Gardening

2011-02-19T20:26:00.009-06:00

I wanted to visit the Quarry Lake Park for some time. Since today was not quite a day for longer hikes (it was drizzling on and off), we decided on this location for today.

There is a fence all around it, with a coded gate. A sign next to it said it's a private property reserved to members of the Pure Austin Fitness, which is right next to it. I went inside and found out that only their members can get access to the gate, and I could maybe try through Estates On Quarry Lake Apartments on the other side of the lake. Being mischiefs that we are, we pulled in to gate, luckily someone was just coming out through the other side, so we snuck in. We walked behind the buildings down to the fence, and it was not fully closed, so we found a way to the trail. I even later got a code from a little girl walking her dog, just in case we needed to open the gate with the code on the way out.

I love these little adventures of ours! :)

It took us only twenty minutes to go around the lake, but we were already hungry. We had a late lunch at the Roaring Fork restaurant, which has a nice screened patio overlooking the lake. We got back just in time for mom's English class at the Wells Branch library.

Another item on today's agenda was to get some plants for the in-front of the house, and get closer to choosing a tree for the front yard. Early in the morning we picked up some 20 ornamental red kale and 18 yellow dragon-snaps at the Newtown Nursery, and I planted maybe a third of those in the evening. We also stopped at three other places to look at tree options. I am looking for something that is evergreen, but has leaves, not needles like pines, grows to medium height and width, is draught tolerant, and generally low maintenance. All those equalled to Mexican White Oak. The prices very greatly between container/tree sizes and nurseries. The least expensive one was Whittlesey Landscape Supplies on I35.

Mayfield Park Hike

2011-02-15T19:25:00.011-06:00

The weather is just awe-some! Perfect for outdoor activities.

This weekend we decided to check out a new park, Mayfield Park, off of 35th st., close to Austin Museum of Art. There are few trails around the preserve, some all the way down to Lake Austin. We had our coffee and picnic there.

When we were down hiking, we visited their beautiful cottage garden, with ponds and peacocks!

I am so glad we discovered this new Austin gem!

Family Time

2011-02-11T09:36:00.008-06:00

Last weekend we enjoyed some family time with Zoran and Emilia.

We first went to late lunch to Tony & Luigi's Italian Restaurant in Round Rock. It is actually owned by a family from Bosnia, but since not many people are familiar with what Bosnian food is, they opened this Italian and Mediterranean food place. Faruk, the owner, moved his family from Los Angeles, where he worked as a plumber, to Round Rock a three years ago thinking the restaurant business will allow him to work less. He was wrong. He didn't have a day off since they opened, and now they plan to move back to Bosnia in a few years.
Obviously, we had a nice chat with him while we were there. Oh, and the food was really good - we went for some local dishes, and Emilia went vegetarian.

Afterwards, we went for a walk in the Red Bud Park. I which this park was bigger, it has a nice setting, being on an island, but we had just enough time before dark to do one loop.

We finished the evening with coffee at the Mozart's. We can never go wrong with coffee there!

Snow Day in Austin

2011-02-05T22:34:00.008-06:00

In Austin we get a snow-day once every few years. And it's an off-day even if it's just a little snowy precipitation. And this time we got a "lot" of it - in Austin standards.

It started snowing just before midnight, but it was more sleet than snow. By morning, we had a nice couple of inches of snow on the ground. My company announced a delayed opening until 9, but since I rarely ever go to work before 9, it didn't mean much to me. But still, roads in my neighbourhood were covered in icy snow, and since it was still below freezing I decided to delay my regular travel time to work, as well. The first thing out of bed I did was to put on winter clothes and go outside to play. :) Of course. I mean, it's not like the snow would last for more than one day, even few hours. No time to waste. Building a snowman was a must.

We got way more snow than the last time we had snow in Austin, and because it was still bellow freezing, it didn't melt all the way until the next day. It was a bit icy, so the snowballs wouldn't pick up more snow just by rolling them - which is traditionally how a snowman is produced. I made a regular snowball and then had to just pile more snow on top of it and pack it down to build the snowman. Even then, it would stick more to my gloves than on the snowman. It took more time, but it was time spent playing in the snow! Mom helped as well, and it turned out to be one very happy, good looking snowman. And me - one very happy girl. :)

I did end up going to work after 11, and most people just worked remotely from home. The snowman survived more than 24 hours.

Frozen Pipes

2011-02-03T16:01:00.001-06:00

They say if you don't like the weather in Austin, just wait 10 minutes and it will change. It's true. And boy was it true the last few days.

After spring-like weather on Monday, an arctic blast came through Austin on Tuesday at 3.12 am. The wind woke me up at that time. It was like category 1 hurricane. It knocked down some branches, my neighbour's fence, and was throwing at the windows the dirt/sand that it picked up. It was so loud. The temperature plummeted 30 degrees in 30 minutes. The winter was in Austin.

It was the coldest day of the year. The temperature didn't really go above freezing during the day, so on Wednesday morning we were under rolling blackouts - 30 min scheduled power outages in different parts of the town. That meant that I was again awaken in the middle of the night by the alarm system beeping when the power came back on. Wednesday was another record coldest day.

My friend Norma called me during the day to let me know I should check on the outside pipes. She works for a plumbing company, and was warned that the styrofoam covers for the outside pipes we both have are not insulating enough in temperatures bellow freezing for more than few hours. She went home during lunch to check on their pipes, and two of them were frozen.

I went home a bit early, so I can deal with those pipes before it gets dark. 4 out of 4 outside pipes were frozen on my house. No water was coming out when I took those covers off. I took a blow dryer and started warming them up, and I had mom put towels soaked in hot water on the other pipes. I had no idea how long it might take, so I was very happy when the first faucet thawed after some 15 minutes. It actually got me by surprise so I got water all over bottom part of my pants. It froze on me within minutes. The other two took about the same. I then just wrapped them in some rags and left them dripping.

The fourth faucet, coming out of the unheated garage, was not thawing. My next door neighbour came out, and when he saw what I was doing started doing the same with his frozen pipes. When he was done he came over to help with his super strong heat gun for melting paint. We would heat the faucet to where it was too hot to touch, but could barely get few drops of water out. And we were freezing, too. We went inside 3-4 times to warm up and allow the heat to transfer through the metal to the inside part of the pipe that was apparently still frozen. We even started heating the sheet-rock from inside the garage, because we were sure no ice could still be in the super hot outside part of the pipe. After almost 3 hours, we finally got it all thawed. I left the pipes drip for the next couple of days until the temperatures finally went above freezing.

Frozen pipes is not something we have to worry about in Texas very often. We don't get temperatures bellow freezing for more than a few hours. Or we are not supposed to, anyway. From posts of facebook, it seems that a lot of people had trouble with leaking or burst pipes with this arctic blast. My other neighbour had a huge blob of ice that same evening under one of his (covered) outside faucets. I am so thankful Norma warned me to check on the pipes before it was too late, and that my neighbour came to help with his special tool.

Lake Pflugerville Picnic

2011-01-30T20:05:00.012-06:00

Oh, winter Texas weather. How I love thee.

This weekend the weather was absolutely wonderful. Mom and I got to enjoy it on Sunday. After coming home from Mass, I gave her two options: Have coffee in the backyard, or bring a picnic and have coffee at the lake. Of course, we both choose the latter, especially because some cold weather was coming into town next week.

Lake Pflugerville is about 20 min away from where I live. It's a man-made lake on the outskirts of a neighbourhood, with a 3 mile trail around it. I was there once with some friends, and knew I wanted to come back.

We placed our folding chairs and cooler on a grassy area near water. I brought coffee in a thermos bottle, milk and chocolate milk, agave syrup, fruit, juice, cookies and beer, for just in case. :)

We first went for a nice walk around the lake. The temperatures were in the 60s, but at times we were a bit cold when the breeze came, and at time even warm when the sun got really bright. We were in shorts and t-shirts.

Then we got back to relax and have our coffee by the water. It was one of those special moments to savor.

Miracle Report

2011-01-29T11:50:00.002-06:00

I got my purse back!

With EVERYTHING inside!!!

I'd call that a miracle. :)

They called from the restaurant on Friday before I got back home from work. Mom told she thought it was someone from La Madeline, and she thought they said they have some papers for me. I called them back with a cautious optimism, and the lady confirmed that they have the purse! She said on the phone that she noticed it several days ago, but just didn't get the time to actually look inside and find the number. I think she got my name from the check-book, and then called 411 to find my number, which is listed. I asked if there are things inside, thinking that maybe they found a torn purse with just few things in it, but she said that she didn't look but it looks like there are things inside.

We drove to the restaurant right away, me still not sure what to think about it. The lady I talked to on the phone, which was not the same one who worked there last weekend, brought me the purse - in mint condition! :) When I asked her how and when they found it, she wasn't sure. She noticed it few days before, and probably the person cleaning up the tables outside brought it in. I assume that he didn't place it in the usual lost&found location, and the lady who looked for it when I lost it last Saturday didn't look at that location. Duh! She should have looked for it more diligently.

I quickly looked through the content, and when I saw that all the cash, around $160, was still there, I knew all other the things must be there. Now that I have canceled all the cards, transferred all direct deposits and payments, re-keyed all the locks, ordered the drivers license, glasses....now I have it all back. I still wasn't very jubilant about it, as I had mixed emotions about the whole thing.

But in the end, I am very glad I have it all back. It is a miracle, really, that everything is there. In a week or so I'll have all those accounts sorted out, insurance paid for re-keying, and I was able to deal with all of that without too much stress. And I have all those little things that could not be replaced back.

Yes, it is a great thing what happened!

Step-by-Step

2011-01-26T12:15:00.004-06:00

- police report filed: check
- camera and cell phone serial #'s sent to police: check
- insurance claim filed: check
- debit/credit cards canceled and new ordered: check
- checking account flagged, new opened, and checks ordered: check
- new direct deposit established: check
- credit fraud alert placed: check
- new drivers license ordered: check
- new health insurance card ordered: check
- prescription glasses ordered: check
- car keys duplicated: check
- house locks re-keyed: tonight
- life back in order: getting there

Violated

2011-01-23T15:51:00.007-06:00

Yesterday early afternoon my purse was stolen in front of La Madeline restaurant in North Austin. It was my fault, of course, for leaving it unattended. We set outside for a few minutes, and then realized it was too windy. When I placed all our glasses and cups on a tray to move us inside, I forgot the purse on the chair next to me. I only remembered it when we got up to leave the restaurant, but the purse was no longer on the chair.

I had so many things in that purse. Some big, some small, and many that I didn't even remember until the day after: car and house keys, cell phone, digital camera, cash, drivers license, credit and debit cards, check book, medical insurance card, many business cards, address book, rosary, mini calculator, mini mirror, mini scissors, chap-stick, lip gloss... I felt violated.

After looking for it for a few minutes around the corners and in the trash cans around, I went inside to use their telephone. I couldn't remember any numbers. Darn phone memory addiction. My brother had my spare car and house keys, but I couldn't remember his cell phone number to call him and find out where he is. He doesn't have a car, so I was thinking I would take a taxi to where he is, and then he would pay, because I didn't have any money with me. But without me knowing that he is at home, I wasn't going to just take a taxi there, and then wouldn't be able to pay for the ride.

The restaurant didn't have the white pages book either for me to look up land line numbers of some other friends. I tried to find one number using 411, but the number was no listed. One lady, hearing me trying to find the phone numbers, offered to let me use her iPad. Really nice of her. I couldn't find my brother's cell phone number in any of my emails, and he unfortunately was not on line at the time. I called couple of friends whose numbers I remembered, but they didn't pick up. Couldn't find unlisted numbers of few other friends. For a few moments I didn't know what to do next.

Then I started calling credit and debit card numbers to cancel those. Called 911, and they referred me to 311, Austin non-emergency Info Center. Through them I filled a police report, gave them descriptions and values of the purse content. They asked me if the restaurant had any surveillance camera, but they didn't. There was nothing else I could do from the restaurant. I needed to get to my work, where I had my brother's and few other phone numbers. I needed to get those spare keys, so I can get inside the house. I also stared to worry that whoever took the purse could now get to my house, because the address was on the checks and driver's license.

I returned the iPad, and explained to the lady where things are. She offered to take me to National Instruments. Great! It's really just 5 minutes away from the restaurant. She cleared her car a bit for us to sit, but it was still full of stuff. The minute we set in there, it started to be weird. Her car reminded me of images of those hoarders on TV. I told her to just get on Mopac, and go to Duval. She drove kind of nervously, didn't even put her seat-belt on, and constantly kept looking at us in the rear-view mirror. There was Christian music on the radio, so I kept assuring myself that she is a good person. But, she didn't go toward Mopac, and continued north-bound on 183 access road. I told her then to just go straight to 3rd light, which will be Duval, and then turn right. But she turned right on first light, Braker Ln. Hm, ok, I told her then to go all the way to Mopac, and then turn left. She kept in the right lane, still constantly looking back at us. It was really weird. When I reminded her to move to left lane, almost at the Mopac light, she moved all the way left, and pulled into the gas station. She said she had to stop there for a minute, had to use the bathroom. When she came back, she asked us if we could walk the rest of the way, because she doesn't really know us and doesn't feel comfortable driving us any more! Um, what?! A mile on a highway?! Because of the train rails under the overpass, we would have had to walk on the highway itself. Why didn't she tell us that at the restaurant? It was bright day, and mom and I empty handed certainly didn't look dangerous. I told her it's close, just one more exit, and she would be right there on Mopac, but she just said "I don't want to". And we got out of that car, baffled and stunned at what just happened.

Inside the gas station I told the clerk what just happened, and asked if there was someone else there who could drive us. since he was alone, he asked one customer, a young man to give us a ride. He was normal, works for Potbelly restaurant, and agreed to drive us. Thankfully, the main gate was open, so he dropped us right in front of the building. Someone just walked out, so I asked him to scan the badge for us to get in. I was finally at my desk.

My brother didn't pick up when I first called him. Urgh! Left him a message about what happened and that I needed him to come get us. I called a friend from the neighborhood, and told her I might need her to give me a ride. Called my brother again, and the first thing he says is: "I can't come get you because I was hit by a car!? What?!!! Mom started crying. She has lower tolerance to shocks. He explained that he was on his bicycle, on parking lot in front of Fiesta supermarket, when the car coming toward him decided to make a turn right in front of him. He hit the car in the corner, leaped over the bike, and landed on his head. Ambulance, firetruck, and police all came to the scene. The paramedics examined his head, neck, nose, checked vital signs, talked with him for a while, had him sign that he refused to go to the ER, and sent him home. But he was not in a condition to drive, of course. He had head and knee injuries, and his bike was all twisted.

That friend from the neighbourhood then called, and offered to come get us. Great. We finally have a way to get to those spare keys. In the mean time, I found a number of my neighbour across the street, who also works for NI, and asked for them to keep an eye on the house, still fearing the thief might come. I also called the Travis County Sheriff's Department asking them to send someone to patrol the street until I come back. I am not sure if they ever came.

My brother had a large bruise on his head at the hairline, and a huge bump on his forehead, and a pretty nasty wound on his nose. There were also scrapes and bumps on his knee and ankle, and his calf muscle was hurting. But his was walking and talking, and said the pain was not too bad.

At home, which we entered with caution, everything was fine. We locked both locks even though both keys were in the purse, but it would take longer to unlock. We left one room lit up entire night. I also tried calling my cell phone, but no one picked up.

I didn't sleep all too well, especially after I remembered I had $160 cash in that purse that I forgot about, and the address book with numbers from all over the world. And my special rosary with medals from different sentimental places.

It will take some time to let go of all those items. And to replace them. The Mass gospel reading today was about "leaving all things behind and following Christ" Quite fitting for me. Plus, I set next to a friend who just lost his sister. It puts things in perspective. I didn't loose anything that cannot be replaced (except some sentiments), even the photos I already all downloaded, and my brother was going to be OK.

Today I left the house with the smallest purse, with only a chap-stick and two keys in it. I am starting anew.

Mayan Land: Day 4

2011-01-17T19:31:00.007-06:00

Why did the best weather come last day?
So that we have to come back!

It was raining the first thing in the morning, so we decided to get dressed and have coffee at the café and not carry it in the rain. But, when we walked outside, the rain stopped and the clouds completely cleared up around 9 already. Yay! Beach time! The water was calm for the first time we were there. Too bad it was our last day. I even thought that if the weather was bad today we could go to the aviary we saw on the way back from downtown last night. But, we wouldn’t miss the time at the beach today.

The check out time was noon, but they let us stay until 1PM. Since we didn’t have to leave for the airport until 2.30, we stored our bags in the car (good thing about having our own vehicle) and went back to the beach for another hour. Had our coffee there and some pina-colada! We’ve had so many different drinks on this trip. : ) But they probably water down some of those drinks, because we didn’t see any alcohol effects.

After quick lunch, we were on the road. Stopped at one store downtown on the way, and found our way onto the main highway. The driving here is…a bit different. People don’t give turn signals, shift several lanes without any signaling, and drive some 20 km/h above the speed limit. Just before the exit ramp for the airport, it seems that the speed changed from 80 to 40 km/h, and the police lights came on behind me. I didn’t get a chance to stop before the circular ramp, and I didn’t think it was safe to stop on the ramp, so I tried to signal them I’ll stop at the top. But they then turned on the siren and started saying something on the megaphone. In Spanish. I stopped half way up. A friendly fella came to me, shook my hand, and ask for the license. I had no idea why I was stopped until he informed me. 88 on the radar. Oops! I said I was just following the flow of traffic, which I was. He said he’ll have to take my license to the police station 5 minutes away, and the ticket will be $150! Um, He said he’ll have to take my license to the police station 5 minutes away, and the ticket will be $150! Um, yaiks! I started pleading to let me go, we have a plane to catch…and I thought of just asking how much to just let me go. I heard of people doing it in some country, including Bosnia, but I didn’t do the research to find out if that’s common in Mexico. Well, he then just asked me: “I’ll be a nice guy, so how much would you give me to let you go?” Um, I don’t know, I was never asked that before, I said a bit confused. I offered $20, he scoffed, pointed to his buddy in the car, and wanted 20 each. I said, come on, you could have had a full car of your friends in the there. So, I just gave him a 20, he rolled it in his hand, and let us go. Ok, so now I know: If you do get caught speeding, test the waters first, and then offer some money. Better than paying 7 times more.

Finding the rent-a-car place took us several times circling around. They checked the car, and almost wanted to make me responsible for a little pebble chip on the windshield. But they didn’t. Checked-out, took the shuttle, got the boarding passes, and onto the gate just in time for boarding. No time to spare; well I guess we did spare a little with that cop.

Bye-bye the Caribbean’s . We’ve had a great time, relaxing and restful. You could have gave us more sunny days, but then again, I had enough sunburn. I think I could should do this every winter!

Mayan Land: Day 3

2011-01-16T22:58:00.004-06:00

Rain.

That’s how the day started. We couldn’t even have coffee on the balcony. It was all wet. After breakfast we started planning activities other than beach that we could do. A long walk down the beach sounded good.

It was actually really busy at the beach. All the people it seemed had the same idea about that stroll. It was a bit chilly, and long sleeves felt good. It took us about 20-30 minutes to get to the end of Playcar, see Playa del Carmen in the distance, and then we turned back. It started to drizzle, and the rest of the day didn’t sound too good.

But, just as we got to our hotel beach around noon, the sun came out. The lounge chairs filled up in no time, and people were in the water. It turned out to be a great day! The water was warm enough, and after passing the area where the waves crash, one could swim without being tossed around. The sun was very strong. Because we didn’t want to check in any bags, I couldn’t bring my 75 SPF sun lotion spray and face cream with SPF because the bottles do not fit in the little ziplock bag. I only had SPF 30, which I thought was enough. But, I got sunburned. Pretty bad. Now I really look like a silly tourist. : )

We had brunch and the inevitable coffee right there on the beach. And some cocktails. I enjoyed the nice weather so much, that I didn’t even want to go to the lunch. It was our last full day, and with the best weather, so I didn’t want to waste any of it. We stayed until 4.30, when the clouds rolled in again, and then got ready to go downtown.

Since our dinner reservation wasn’t until 9.30, we thought we had enough time to just walk to the town, which is some 30 min away by foot. But, after 5 minutes of walking, a mini bus stopped in front of another hotel, it was going to the downtown, so we got on. It wasn’t until I started talking with some passengers that we found out it was only for the guests of Riu hotels. Oops! We always have to cause trouble. : ) The bus was going every 15-30 minutes. Well, we got off at the next station, close to downtown, but then quickly got back on thinking there could be an even closer stop. But the bus then went back the other way, to the other Riu hotel. So we did the full circle. : )

We finally got to Playa del Carmen around 6 and started walking. And walking. And some more walking. We didn’t get all the way to the end of the main street, but since we both had tired, blistery feed, we decided to turn back. I had a feeling mom was no longer enjoying any of the sites and shopping because she was so tired. I guess all that sun got to us. We were hoping that Riu bus would still be working where we got there at 8.30, because we really didn’t want to walk another half an hour. But it wasn’t. I didn’t want mom to walk any more. I didn’t want to walk any more. So, I stopped the first taxi, which got us to the hotel in couple of minutes.

We still had 45 minutes until our dinner, but we knew if we got to our room it would be hard to make us go out again. Plus, there was no need to dress up because there was no way we would willingly put on the heels. Knowing how little food was served at the Italian restaurant the night before, we first got something to eat at the buffet, and then got us some desert and drinks at the courtyard. By the time we got to dinner, we were no longer hungry, or really interested in the atmosphere. And there wasn’t much of it there. I felt bad that we were leaving so much food uneaten, but it really wasn’t that great. We had good laughs anyway.

As we walked to our room, we made a short stop at the pool, just to cool our feet and soak in a bit more of that night scene that they have going here. We dragged our tired feet to bed, realizing we felt so tired as if we were working out the whole day, but it was all from the sun, sea, and walking.

Mayan Land: Day 2

2011-01-15T22:47:00.007-06:00

Another adventurous day!

Mom woke up earlier and brought us some coffee to enjoy on the balcony. We put on first of the six outfits of the day, and made it to breakfast a full hour before the restaurant closes. Migas and mimosas were some of the yummy stuff on our table. The sun cleared most of the clouds, and we changed again for the beach. It. Was. Packed. Everyone wanted to soak in some of that sun after days of rain. It was actually warm to lay in the swimsuit. But, it didn’t last too long, and by 1 the clouds took over. We got us some margaritas and went for a stroll down the beach. (I think I’d like to go back to that sentence throughout the year and remember the moment)

Then it was time for lunch, and yet another change. It was obvious the beach was not the best idea for the afternoon, so we took our time with coffee and martinis in the courtyard, people watching. There are many groups here, and I am surprised to see relatively few Americans; many seem to be from the French speaking parts of Canada, many Italians, south America of course, and quite a few eastern Europeans.

Into our fourth outfit we went, and drove to the town. It’s about 30 min walk to there, so an hour both ways, but then plus all the walk there, so I think the car drive was a better option for us. Plus, it started raining after an hour and we had some liquor bottles with us to carry. I choose to pay for monitored parking than to park on the street. That rental place guy scared me enough about being responsible for all the damages. It was 20 pesos per hour.

I got all confused about money and exchange rates. The average rate we’ve seen was 12.5 pesos for $1, and when I withdrew 500 pesos from the ATM machine it listed $20 at the bottom. That $ sign threw me off. For some reason I thought that is how much US$ was my transaction. It didn’t sound right, it meant I got 25 pesos for 1$, but I thought maybe that’s what they mean by you get the best rate when using the debit card to get the local currency. But, really, what was I thinking! Twice as much as the regular rate. My brain was on vacation too, it seems. : ) I couldn’t get my math correct after that, so I then thought the swim suit we bought was half as many US$ then it was. The rain cut our walk short, and we started looking to get some gas. Another thing I forgot to research was that gas stations are not self service. I felt so stupid-foreigner-like when I pulled in and couldn’t figure out where the latch to open the gas tank was, couldn’t figure out how many litter I need to get ½ of tank, and how many $’s I need to exchange to pay for that. I waved in a no-thank you to several service-man swarming my car, set there for a few minutes trying to start my brain again and then drove off. After exchanging more money I got back to that same station only to realize I couldn’t find last 50 pesos I thought I still had and was 9 pesos short for that gas. Urgh! He let me walk off without paying.

We made one other stop to get some alcohol, maneuvering the one-way streets, and got to our room just with just enough time left to change for dinner. We had the reservation at the Italian restaurant in the sister-hotel, so we put on our best dress, pearls, and heals, and again drove over there. The food was quite different than the buffets we’ve had so far, plates much bigger and portions much smaller. They’ve put a lot of effort in the presentation, and since there were only dozen of tables occupied the service was good, too. We had four-course dinner with wine and desert. It was a good night to eat inside, with all the drizzle outside. Glad we had the car.

Back to our place for the last dress change of the day and the Las Vegas show!

A. Good. Day.

Mayan Land: Day 1

2011-01-14T22:43:00.005-06:00

Oh what a change! Today is Jan 14th, and I was playing in the Caribbean Sea! Oh, yeah!

Our flight arrived in Cancun last night just after 9, but then getting the rental car took way longer than what I would have anticipated. By the time we were on the road, it was close to 11.

Mom and I were still not over the recent experience with her luggage, so we packed just our carry-ons, not wanting to have to check any bags. Well, when we boarded in Austin, after nicely following their directions to board with our own section, by the time we got on the plane there was no more space in the overhead compartments for our two bags. We had to leave them at the front, where they tagged them and checked them to the final destination. We just then realized how much we were still uncomfortable with that fact about the flying, and we did not have faith in the airline to transport our bags on time. I kept telling myself I need to stop worrying because there is nothing I can do about it, and for reals, did I truly want to allow this to affect me so much. The bags would get here on time, or not, regardless of me worrying about it. They arrived with us.

When planning for this trip, renting the car made all the sense. It was about the same cost as the shuttle from the airport to the hotel for the two us. It would give us an opportunity to explore the area, especially if the weather is too cold for the beach. It seemed like the right choice. But, first, waiting that long to get the car, then being scared about not purchasing their insurance, and then actually trying to figure out the road signs - I started to have doubts about this decision. For example, I wasn't clear if crossed E meant do-not-enter or no parking. It didn't even cross my mind to check some facts about driving in Mexico before departing on this trip. At one point on the road I had almost a freak-out realization that on this trip I am the only leader and coordinator, and I didn’t quite feel prepared for it.

It took me couple of tries before we figured out the way out of the airport. After that, it was pretty much straight for about 45 minutes. The main road has many speed bumps, and few of them caught me by surprise. And they were very bumpy. The last couple of kilometers were tricky to figure out in the dark, but we finally made it to hotel just after midnight. We got our bracelets, just dropped off the bags in our ocean view room, and came down for dinner. Even this was in the middle of the night, and it's all inclusive, it still surprises me how many drunken people there are at these resorts.

After some six hours of sleep, I woke up at my usual work-day hour, but today I was in Playa! I was actually cold all night, because I put the fan on high and cracked up the temp setting thinking it will eventually heat up. Turns out, there is no heater, only AC, so it was blowing almost cold air the entire night. I brought my summer PJs, and there was only one thin blanked on the bed. We got extra blankets later. The good news was that the lukewarm shower water from last night was hot this morning, so I warmed up quickly.

This all-you-can-eat-and-drink deal is very demanding. : ) We went barely a couple of hours without eating or drinking something. And because we HAD to use all of our three-outfits-a-day, we had to leave the beach in the middle of the day and change for lunch. The sky completely cleared up after that, and I even got sunburned after just one hour of late afternoon sun. I know, it can be though. : )

And we had to cause some trouble. Mom almost got the lifeguard to jump in the water, because one big wave knocked her down as she was walking out to the beach. She scratched her hip, and had a little wardrobe trouble, but was ok. For breakfast and lunch we came just 5 minutes before closing, so we were grabbing the food right in front of the staff who were clearing the buffet. Mom wanted to take a picture by this root-like old tree trunk, and set on it thinking it’s an actual tree. But it was just a tree trunk the placed as a decoration. It then tilted and fell on its side, almost bringing mom down with it. We went for a walk just before dinner, and in the spare of the moment decided to try out eating at the sister-hotel Viva Wyndham Aztec. They told us as the reception that we cannot eat at the buffet at the other hotel, only in the themed restaurant for which we need to sing up in advance. But we went to the buffet restaurant there anyway. Nobody was checking the bracelets. We just wanted to try it out. : ) We stopped at another resort and joined in on some of their entertainment activities. The night ended with a 70s themed entertainment show.

When the beach cleared up just after 4 PM, I thought how these winter beach vacation days are ending too quickly. But the afternoon and evening were so eventful, that my opinion completely changed. It’s almost hard to believe we’ve been here less than 24 hours.

1-11-11

2011-01-11T19:57:00.004-06:00

Ok, ok.. I promise I won't do these any more.

Until November. :)

This quintuple-ones-day will also be remembered as the freaking coldest day of the season. Low 20s this morning! I definitely picked the wrong morning to fill up gas and check and top-off the oil. Freeeeeezing!

So looking forward to the beach trip this weekend to Playa del Carmen for few days. It's upper 70s there, and water temp around 77!

Paradiso!

1-1-11

2011-01-01T10:28:00.019-06:00

Happy New Year!!!

Ok, I admit, I am bit of a dork; I like numbers. And today is 01/01/11. :) Doesn't happen very often.

I worked on the 31st, and since my mom is also in town, I delayed making the plans for that evening until that very day. In the past, the three of us would go for the First Night Austin festivities downtown, and either ring in the New Year there with the fireworks or come back home. But, due to lack of funds, the City canceled it for this year. Instead, there was a much scaled down version with the ANY, Austin’s New Year. I was also invited to a swing dance NYE party at Go Dance, and had the ticket placed on hold, because I wasn't sure if I'll be able to make it over there.

So, after dinner, mom and I headed over to my brother's, to take over some food and wish them a happy new year. We thought it would be a quick visit, but we didn't get out of there until around 9. The plan was then to just drive around the Auditorium Shores and see what that event is all about, from the car. But, the streets were blocked off, and since I spotted a good parking spot real close, we decided to walk through. It was really scaled down. There was a little stage with music, few fire performers around, some solo acts, few bike floats for people to drive for couple of minutes, some visual and sound art exhibits, and several food vendors. And the crowd was tin, too. It was about quarter till 10 when we headed to the car. I realized that by the time I drop mom off and get to the dance studio it will be at least 10.30. And I was kinda hoping to maybe get home at midnight, as I felt bad leaving mom alone, to ring it the new year with her. So, since it would mean I'd be at that party for just maybe an hour, and we were so close to the start of the fireworks downtown, I decided to spend that time with mom.

We walked around a bit more, then climbed up on the little hill by the pond, along with couple of dozen other folks, and waited for the fireworks at 10.15. The air was so clear, and the view of downtown really pretty with new buildings lit up in different colors. It was very cold that evening, in the low 40s, but we have bundled up. The fireworks were spectacular! The view was great from that elevated location, and the downtown skyline gave it a nice backdrop. It was probably the longest fireworks I have ever seen; almost 25 minutes! It was again one of those moments I wanted to savor - my arm around mom's shoulder as we enjoyed and got excited with every new light display! Loved it. Don't regret a bit not going to that party. (although, I am sure I would have enjoyed that, too)

We got home a bit after 11, and commented how only one other house on our street had the Christmas lights still on. As we pulled into the driveway, another surprise - our front door was WIDE open!!! What! Again?! Two years ago I had almost the same thing happen to us, but a police officer came home before us to lock everything. This time, we had lights in two rooms in the house, lights on the house, and on the bushes outside, so the inside of the house was very visible from the street. I walked in to a cold house, the heater blowing like crazy, and slowly went through all the rooms. Once I realized that my laptop was still sitting on the coffee table I knew that nobody was inside. Whew!

It was time to prepare for the big start of the new year. We were still cold, so instead of champagne we had hot chocolate milk to toast with! :) We sat out some finger food, snacks, cheese, meat, and I decided to quickly make the Russian Salad, a new year's tradition of ours. We talked with Zoran and Emilia just before midnight; they stayed at home, too. We then set and watched the program from Time Square for couple of more hours, and called it a night.

The New Year's day was slow, as it should be. :) We drove by the Main Street in Round Rock, hoping to have coffee there, but the the Friar Tuck’s Pantry was closed, and then to the outlet mall, which, surprisingly was open. We ended the evening with the Vienna New Year's concert on PBS, which we used to watch at noon every new year's day growing up. Loved that time of renewed memories!

On the 3rd Day of Christmas...

2010-12-27T16:35:00.004-06:00

...my mom got her suitcase back!

Finally.

And what a journey it has been.

Day 1:
- The bag didn't arrive to Chicago customs on mom's original flight on the 15th. That flight from Munich was delayed, and mom missed the connection to Austin, and had to spend the night in Chicago. She arrived here on the 16th.
Day 2:
- We filled a baggage claim report on the 16th with United, and the Austin airport. We were expecting the bag to be here within 24 hours.
Day 3:
- On the 17th, we started calling the 1800 #, and realized it always routes to India. They were just telling us they are tracing it, but don't yet have the confirmation of the location of the bag. We told them about the medications in the bag, and asked it the search can be expedited. The snow storms were making havoc in Germany, and many flights were delayed/canceled.
Day 4:
- The calls continued on the 18th. Someone gave us the WorldTracer number, which supposedly could be used by Lufthansa as well, but their system didn't pull up anything with that number. We called LH in the US, and were quickly told they cannot track anything for us. It is United's problem, and they need to do the investigation. We got LH Baggage Service number in Munich and started calling them for us with no answer. At midnight we called LH at Sarajevo airport, and were at least told the bags left that airport on that first flight. They were assuring us that the bag is still in Munich, because it was chaos there with delays.
Day 5:
- Continued calling LH in Munich for 3-4 hours on the 19th. Started with daily calls to India requesting them to send new requests to all the airports to do another search.
Day 6:
- On the 20th, United folks in India told me the bag is on flights Munich-Chicago-Austin for that day! Great news. The bag was last scanned in Chicago, and it should be in Austin that evening. The status on united site also updated to say the bag is on the way to its final destination. Bought few items and will file interim expense claim for those. Mom finally had a good night sleep.
Day 7:
- When no one called us by 11am on the 21st, I called United in India again. Now I was told they again don't know where the bag is?! It was not scanned in Chicago, like I was said the day before. The last scan was in Munich! The online status changed back to "At this time, we have not been able to confirm the location of your property". Sad. Confusing. Requested another search request sent to all the airports.
Day 8:
- If the bag is not in Sarajevo, and we can't get any response from Munich and Chicago, lets call Austin airport. We got someone to answer on the 22nd, by accident. The lady searched their little office, and the red bag was not there. We went there ourselves that evening, and searched United' and all other airlines' baggage offices. No bag. We spent almost two hours at the airport, asking to get other phone numbers, another search in the system, to talk to someone from United in Chicago. Finally that lady connected us to a phone that she could not give to us, and we talked to their office in Chicago. They did the same manual search, and the bag was not there. So, it meant it's still sitting in Munich. They even had trouble reading their report; first they read that it was sent on those flights, then that it only meant that someone requested for the bag to be sent on those flights. I managed to get a copy of their internal messaging printout with record of all the daily activity about our bag.
Day 9:
- On 23rd, daily call to India requesting another search request sent to Munich airport
Day 10:
- On Christmas Eve, the 24th, called some friends in Sarajevo to buy and send mom the medications, since we have no idea if the bag will ever arrive.
Day 11:
- On 25th, daily call to India requesting another search request sent to Munich airport
Day 12:
- On the 26th, I googled up some 13 email addresses for LH in Germany, and sent a mass email to all about our complain requesting some response. 5 addresses came back as not good.
Day 13:
- In the morning of the 27th, we got an email response from the LH Supervisor Baggage Services in Munich, apologizing for not being able to contact them. He said they had 10,000 bag backlog! And he confirmed that our "bag has definitely left Munich on 20 December to Chicago onto UA7638 on 20 December to Austin". Now what?! Email him back asking to double-check. United site still says they don't know the location. Called LH in the US - they don't handle the search; was told to call United. Called United in India - was told the bag arrived in Austin today at 11am! Asked to double-check (they've made mistakes before), but they still confirm it. Didn't want to tell mom about it until I can confirm with Austin airport, but they didn't pick up for an hour. In the mean time, the bag was delivered to our door.

Hallelujah!!!

Christmas With the Family

2010-12-26T11:34:00.030-06:00

Oh what a wonderful day it was!

I went to the Midnight Mass at the Cathedral, which started with Carols & Lessons at 11PM. Even at 11 the church was almost completely packed, and I barely managed to squeeze into one of the last few empty seats - the benefit of entering the church solo. People who arrived just ten minutes later had to stand on the sides. The church was warm, decorated, people dressed festively, and four priests plus the bishop were celebrating! And I got another little present from the Holy Spirit...loved it! :)

I didn't get to bed until 3am. My godmother called me just after 9am on Christmas Day. I was just waking up, but am so glad we got to talk, even for just a brief time. Then I got up, put some logs in the fireplace, and mom and I had our long morning coffee together. Then my brother got up and joined us. He bought several gallons of special milk and started making some cheese, four different kinds over the next couple of days. Mom made us some puffy pastries and we had breakfast at 1pm. We were in no rush. Then, we opened our gifts, taking turns. Mom's luggage still didn't arrive, so we will have another round of presents, hopefully by the New Year's Day.

As I cleaned up all the paper and put away the presents and boxes, mom took a nap, and Zoran continued with cheese making.

In the late afternoon we went for a walk in our neighbourhood. It was very cold, around 40F, but sunny and crispy, just as the Christmas Day in Austin should be.

When we got back, we turned on the fireplace again, and watched the Christmas story on the TV. It was I think the 5th repeat of it on that day, so we watched it in pieces and finished some time later that evening. Then we all got cozy on my long couch and Zoran setup up for us to watch a movie on Netflix. It was an Italian movie, about a middle age man who for a few days got to take care of his elderly mother and three other old ladies. We though our mom would enjoy it, and she did. I made us plates to sample the food we made the day before, and also try Zoran's two cheeses, and sipped on some beer, which mom rarely gets to do. It was such a lovely evening, just sitting together like that, next to the fire, leisurely snacking on 'meze' food, and watching that movie that somewhat relates to where we are in life today. I just kept thinking how I wanted to savor that warm, happy moment.

We actually never had a real dinner that evening. We were so full on just that finger food. But we did make some room for desert. :) Christmas Chocolate Log.

Oh, what a glorious, peaceful, memorable day this was!

Christmas Lights

2010-12-21T17:16:00.014-06:00

I love it that some people spend weeks, even months, planning for and setting up their Christmas lights displays. I like to be done with it in couple of hours on my house, but I appreciate someone else's effort and love driving around neighbourhoods looking at those displays. KXAN put up a Holiday Lights Map to help us onlookers navigate.

Mom and I drove around few neighbourhoods in Round Rock. It was nice a warm, so we could drive around with our windows rolled down. It was nice to see neighbours come together and decorate entire street, put trails of lights on their lawns, even string lights from side of the street to the other. Some had lights synchronized to music, and a sign in the yard let the visitors know to which frequency to tune to. Our favorite was from http://ListenToOurLights.com (they asked me to remove their address).

1626 Belvedere Place

http://ListenToOurLights.com

Travel Troubles and Family Fun

2010-12-21T14:31:00.005-06:00

If I thought my life was lacking some excitement lately, that has certainly changed in the last few days. My mom is coming for a longer visit.

She was supposed to arrive last Wednesday, but because of terrible snow storms in Europe, her flight from Munich was delayed, and she missed the connection in Chicago and had to spend the night there. We called the hotel few times to make sure she has all the expenses covered, gets the wake up call in the morning and knows when and where the shuttle will be. She arrived in Austin on Thursday. But, her bag didn't.

We filled the delayed bag report, and were expecting the bag to be here the next day. But, it didn't happen. What followed were days of frustrating calls to United, which were routed to India, and we were always just told they still don't have any information on where the bag is. Lufthansa in the US would not give us any information because the report was filled with United. Lufthansa in Bosnia was reassuring us that the bag is just delayed in Munich because of all the canceled flights there. And Lufthansa in Germany never picked up the phone, even after several hours of repeat calls. What made the matter more urgent was that mom's blood pressure medications were in that bag (she only had few days worth of supplies in her carry-on) and that is not something we can just purchase at Walmart.

We got a glimpse of hope on Monday morning when United told us the bag is scheduled to be on the flights Munich-Chicago-Austin that evening. Mom's blood pressure went to normal with just that news. We were expecting the delivery today. Instead, this morning they again posted they can't "confirm the location of our property". Seriously?! What kind of operation is that?! And so the waiting continues...

The week was busy. We had my brother and sister-in-law over for dinner on Thursday, and mom met Emilia for the first time. Even with the language barrier, the communication was just fine. We went to their place on Saturday, and had them over for dinner on Sunday again. Emilia is leaving town for a week, so we wanted to spend some time together before that. Mom also had one English class on Saturday, and we ended the evening with a Christmas concert by Austin Civic Chorus. Last night we went to look at some Christmas lights (another post) and for some shopping for the stuff that are in the delayed baggage...

It would be really nice if that bag arrives before Christmas. It would be a great Christmas present. :)

The Human Experience

2010-12-16T10:16:00.004-06:00

Saw this movie last night.

A very powerful documentary exploring the question of the meaning of life. Our individual lives, and our lives in the communities and the entire world would be better and more meaningful if we all re-discovered what it means to be human.

Highly recommend the film.

Joyful Sunday

2010-12-12T20:47:00.011-06:00

Since Christmas Day this year falls on a Saturday, Advent this year is exactly four full weeks long. The Gaudete ("rejoice" in Latin) Sunday marked the half-way point.

This whole year I feel has gone by so quickly for me, and it is also true during this season. Since my mom is coming in a few days, in order to spent more time with her, I wanted to finish up several tasks before that: clean the house, decorate, buy and wrap the presents, and other mundane chores. Preparations.

This third Sunday of Advent, is just a little more special than the other days of Advent season, which is otherwise of a penitential character. The Church rejoices on this Sunday in the nearness of the Lord's coming with additional signs of gladness. In my household, the Christmas tree is put up, decorated and surrounded by presents on this Sunday.

This year a group of us also went to a nursing home to sing Christmas carols to the residents there. My friend Norma volunteers at the Hearthstone nursing home, so she arranged for us to sing during their lunchtime. We've been caroling there for the last couple of years, and last year it was actually on Christmas Day. This Sunday worked out really well, because more residents were there and more people were able to come sing than last year. My friend Irene invited half of the choir from the St. Albert church, and they did an awesome job harmonizing! The hour and a half went by in no time.

St. Nick Brought Me This Year...

2010-12-08T17:11:00.028-06:00

... a sister-in-law!!!

My little brother got married on December, 6th, 2010, at 5PM!

Emilia is a very sweet girl, three and half years younger than Zoran, with very loving, gentle, and patient personality. I loved how she reacted calmly when my brother had one of his can't-do-something-panic-freak out moments. :)

They married in front of judge Herb Evans, a jolly fellow in cowboy boots who, if he had a red suit on, could pass for St. Nick. It was a small ceremony, with just myself present as a guest, and they will have a full wedding ceremony in a year and a half when they both graduate and can afford it.

They were so cute. :) All excited and giddy. Emilia broke her foot couple of weeks ago (skipping on the street being all excited and giddy), so she was on the crutches and judge let them sit during the ceremony. It was all over in less than 8 minutes, and it still is all a blur to me. Surreal.

Emilia, I am so happy you are now part of the family!

They had plans for a romantic dinner later that evening, so I just treated them to drinks at The Driskill. It was all a very simple family event.

Congratulations Zoran and Emilia!
Love you both very much!

Giving Thanks

2010-11-28T16:43:00.008-06:00

I love that we have at least this one day to remind us that we have so much to be thankful for. I know I needed a reminder lately.

I like to think that we have started a little tradition, to have my brother and his future wife over for Thanksgiving. They both like to cook, and that gives me an inspiration to whip up some of my favorites, too.

A week before we started throwing some ideas out about the menu. We liked all, so we didn't cut any of them from the list! The two of them came over the night before, and we spent good 4 hours in the kitchen on Wednesday evening. The plan was to have dishes ready for dinner, so we were pretty much cooking for another 6 hours on Thursday. It was so nice to do it with dear company, chatting, helping each other, listening to music... It was such a pleasant day! And the weather was unusually warm, it the 80s, until it dropped down to 50s in a matter of couple of hours in the afternoon.

In the end, we made 14 different things, all from scratch! It was a mix of traditional home cooking, fancy vegetarian dishes, and traditional Thanksgiving food. Our menu included:
- Celery Root and Chestnut Soup With Brussels Sprouts
- Prosciutto wrapped asparagus
- Organic Turkey
- Gravy
- Cranberry-orange sauce
- Harvest-Stuffed Portobello Mushrooms
- Fresh French green beans sauteed with organic carrots
- Fingerling baby potatoes
- Perl onions in bechamel sauce
- Baby spinach, strawberries, and almonds salad
- Red wine vinegar, master seeds and dill dressing
- Cucumber, green onions, yogurt salad
- Ferrero Rocher cake
- Tart cherries pie
- Merlot (Cupcake) wine

Masterworks Singers

2010-11-24T13:15:00.009-06:00

I joined the Masterworks Singers choir couple of months ago. It is a choir that started as a diocesan choir, that performed at different church events, like ordination and chrism Masses, but since there were singers who were not members of the Church, they decided to change the name last year. And, Masterworks Singers choir was born.

They would still perform at diocesan events, but they also have two independent concerts each year, spring and fall. They practice at St. Edwards University, and the choir directors are Morris Stevens and Michael McKelvey who are music professors at St. Ed's and choir directors at St. Theresa's and St. Albert's, respectively. They are both good directors, but I personally prefer Morris' style. He has so much passion and energy for choral music!

Well, after only 6 weeks of rehearsals, we had our fall concert this past Saturday: "Between Heaven and Earth." It was great. On the program were:

Mozart Regina Coeli..K. 276
Bruckner motets, Os Justi and Locus Iste
Stroope American Rhapsody
Gjeilo Northern Lights
Tichelli Earth Song
Leavitt Festival Sanctus

Several familiar faces came to enjoy it and support us. It has a been a long day of rehearsals, and after the concert I got to relax and enjoy the company of two very special friends.

The choir is planing an Ireland tour for May of 2011, and I hope to join them. It's going to be a blast! A week of touring all over Ireland, visiting places like Killarney National Park, Iveragh Mountains, and Cliffs of Mohar, and singing at few locations including St. Patrick's Cathedral in Dublin!

This would be my first time in Ireland, and the travel bug already gets me excited. As if it ever stopped. :)

The Tree Is No More

2010-11-07T08:45:00.012-06:00

The second tree in the front yard is gone. It has been struggling ever since I moved in here. I had it trimmed of all (completely) dead branches this spring, which there were many already back then. I also gave it feeding and extra water, all in the hopes of giving it a chance to recover. But, it seems it just needed to be put out of its misery, as one lady at home depot had told me.

Last weekend, while I was trimming the bushes, my next door neighbour came over and just offered to cut the tree down. What a nice man. He has bought himself a chain saw recently, and just enjoys working with it, but seems he has run out of trees in his yard. :) So, he cut it down, and I let him take the wood for their outdoor fire pit.

Now I plan on getting another tree for the front yard sometime this winter. I still have to do some research on when to plant, what is available, is resilient to TX heat and occasional droughts, lack of care, doesn't suffer if I put grass weed&feed around it, has leaves for most of the year, and maybe have a nice bloom. Couple of years ago I had another pine tree cut down from the front yard. It died after moth infestation. I hope there is nothing in the ground that is causing these trees to die.

If you have any suggestions, please send them my way.

Not Always Perfect Math

2010-10-29T21:11:00.005-05:00

The numbers don't always come out perfect. :)

I was shopping for a plane ticket for my mom, who is visiting me this winter. I usually try to get those international tickets well in advance because I can find better deals. Well, this year, with mom's physical therapy, she couldn't commit to coming until just a couple of weeks ago.

The average price for that ticket, at this time of year, is usually around $1,300. About a month ago, it dropped to just under $1,100 for a day or two, but I didn't have the permission to buy the ticket at that point. And since then, the prices jumped back up, and stayed there.

Finally, when I was ready to buy it, the quotes I got from some ten companies were around $1,400, +-$25, and I purchased it two days ago. Just a couple of hours later I was talking about it to a Bosnian friend who is also looking for a ticket, and while still on the phone she looked it up on Travelocity. The price at that moment, for a flight with just one connection different, was just $927, with all the taxes and fees! Oh-oh.

I quickly called the agency, but they already closed for the day. Tried to email them by replying to the confirmation email they sent me, but that was a no-reply email address. I even attached the Travelocity page with that price. Called the credit card company to try to cancel the transaction, but since it hasn't yet posted, they couldn't do anything about it. So, what to do? I couldn't just buy the second ticket and hope I could cancel the first one tomorrow. I was a bit upset with myself for not checking all the sites on that same day again, even though I was on Travelocity two days before, and all other sites still showed the old price.

Tomorrow morning the first thing out of bed I did was to go and check Travelocity site - the price was back to $1,400+. :( Oh, well. I can't win always. I already planned on spending this much on the ticket. But it sure would have been nice to spend 50% less.

Perfect Math

2010-10-28T20:52:00.001-05:00

I love it when financies math works out perfectly.

The new furniture I bought was on a 24-month 0%-interest loan. The first payment (full amount divided by 24) starts in mid November.

Few weeks ago I also got a raise at work, and by the time that first payment is due I will have received one full month worth of that raise.

So, just in that is a perfect timing. But, what is also perfect is that the amount of the monhtly payment is EXACTLY equal to the monthly raise, just 20 cents difference!

I should not even notice these 2-year long payments. Ha!