Day #3: Barcelona

It was Wednesday, October 8th.  We ate breakfast at the hotel at 7:30 and was out the door by 8:30.

Ines taught us that Bon dia means good morning in the Catalan language.

OK, I got it out of the way.  I always manage to get a little souvenir mug during our trips.  Well, maybe it wasn't that little, but it was definitely cute.  There was a teeny little spoon in the handle of the mug.

I get mugs.  Art gets t-shirts.

Our schedule today included Tarragona which contains the ruins of the Roman city of Tarraco and is designated a World Heritage site by UNESCO.

Here, we got to see a model of what Tarraco once looked like.

There used to be 40,000 Romans once living here.

We were told that Tarragona is famous for this acrobatic display where people are standing on each others' shoulders to form a pillar with a child at the top.

The Cathedral of Tarragona is a Roman Catholic church in Tarragona, Spain. Located on a site previously occupied by a Roman temple dating to the time of Tiberius, a Visigothic cathedral  and a Moorish mosque, it was declared a national monument in 1905.

Tarragona Roman Circus (Circo Romano de Tarragona) is an ancient racing arena, probably built under the Emperor Domitian in the first century AD, which still contains some astonishing subterranean Roman tunnels.
When Tarragona Roman Circus was constructed it would have been able to accommodate up to 30,000 spectators and was just one of a series of impressive public buildings serving the Roman settlement.  It was in use until the fifth century AD, when it was abandoned and slowly fell to ruin.
      --Historvius Mapping History

We walked through the tunnels under the Roman Circus.

Lunch was wonderful!

We had all kinds of tapas and all the sangria we wanted.

I do love sangria.  I knew mom would too.  However, I learned that it's so good that before you know it, you won't be able to pass a sobriety test.

After lunch we saw the rest of the Roman Circus.  It was good to walk off our lunch.

We were blessed by good weather during our entire stay in Barcelona.



Next stop:  Codorniu Winery!

The Codorníu family’s wine business goes back to the middle of the 16th century. A document of that period states that the family had several machines and implements relating to the wine industry. In 1659 Anna Codorníu married Miquel Raventós and the families, each with a long wine tradition, were united. Years later, in 1872, Josep Raventos produced cava for the first time in Spain using the “Traditional Method” and established a completely new industry in the Alt Penedes region. 
                        --Wikipedia

Codorniu is the oldest family business in Spain.  I didn't realize that you cannot call sparkling wine champagne unless it comes from the Champagne region of France.  That's why the Spanish had to call their sparkling wine cava.

Here we are entering the winery.

There was a long, long tunnel system where wine was once stored.

I have never seen so many wine bottles in my life.


We were then given samples of their wine.  They were good.  I think.  I couldn't finish my glass.  It was just too much alcohol for one day.

In the evening, the rest of the tour group went to see a dinner show with flamenco dancing.  Art, Arnold, Nancy and I opted to walk on La Rambla instead.  I was being very careful to watch for pickpockets.  Ines, our Spanish tour director gave us a ride on the bus even though we weren't going to the show.

It was not very crowded on La Rambla, and we didn't see as many stalls or caged birds as we did in 2000. 

Art found this vegetarian restaurant, Teresa Carles on Yelp.  It's a good thing we were there early because it got crowded very quickly.  Arnold treated us to a fabulous dinner.

I loved my lasanyuki (homemade lasagna) and Art said his mini burgers were terrific.

We had such a lovely time being on our own and taking things at our own pace.

We caught the metro back to our hotel and went right to sleep.  I heard the rest of the tour group returning about an hour after we returned.  They said the flamenco show was fabulous, but I'm glad we had this time to be on our own. 

We would be boarding our cruise ship on the following day.

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!!!

Day #2: Barcelona

Due to jet lag, we got up at 1:30 AM, but went back to sleep and very gratefully woke up refreshed at 4:45.

We were ready at 6:30 for our free continental breakfast at the hotel.

I was fascinated by this very beautiful bathroom sink.

Free wifi allowed me to write to my cousin, Arnold the night before to let him know we were in Barcelona.

The light breakfast was just right and we caught the 8:15 free shuttle for the short ride to the Barcelona Airport.

We waited patiently for the tour group's arrival.  It was a relief to see Arnold and Nancy!  Needless to say the entire tour group was exhausted from the long flight.

 Ines was our fabulous city tour guide.  She took us to the Catalonia Barcelona 505 hotel where we were able to check in and rest for a short while before beginning our tour.

Ines told us we needed to be sure to use the seat belts or we could be fined $290.  The police are equipped to collect credit card payments.

Our first stop was at Port Olimpic where we saw this Peix (fish in Catalan) sculpture by Frank O. Gehry.

Our lunch at the Marina Manchos included a shrimp salad, antipasto, green salad, paella and a scrumptious dessert.


Ines told us that in Barcelona most things are measured in Before or After 1992's Olympic games.  The games are what made Barcelona into the thriving city it is now.

Our next stop was the Catedral de Barcelona at the Placa de la Seu, also known as the Cathedral of the Holy Cross and Saint Eulalia.


The cathedral is dedicated to Eulalia of Barcelona, co-patron saint of Barcelona, a young virgin who, according to Catholic tradition, suffered martyrdom during Roman times in the city. One story says that she was exposed naked in the public square and a miraculous snowfall in mid-spring covered her nudity. The enraged Romans put her into a barrel with knives stuck into it and rolled it down a street (according to tradition, the one now called Baixada de Santa Eulàlia). The body of Saint Eulalia is entombed in the cathedral's crypt. 
                                --Wikipedia

There are thirteen geese in the cloister.  I believe it symbolizes the fact that Eulalia was martyred when she was 13 years old.

We were told that many children's counting games involve the thirteen geese.  The geese were also put there to warn against intruders.

It took 250 years to build this very impressive cathedral from the 13th to the 15th centuries.

Art was also interested to see Picasso's frieze on top of the modern Collegi d'Arquitectes building.

Next stop:  Sagrada Familia 

The Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família;  English: Basilica and Expiatory Church of the Holy Family), is a large Roman Catholic church in Barcelona, Spain, designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926). Although incomplete, the church is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and in November 2010 Pope Benedict XVI consecrated and proclaimed it a minor basilica as distinct from a cathedral which must be the seat of a bishop.

Construction of Sagrada Família had commenced in 1882 and Gaudí became involved in 1883,  taking over the project and transforming it with his architectural and engineering style, combining Gothic and curvilinear art nouveau forms. Gaudí devoted his last years to the project, and at the time of his death at age 73 in 1926 less than a quarter of the project was complete.  Sagrada Família's construction progressed slowly, as it relied on private donations and was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War, only to resume intermittent progress in the 1950s. Construction passed the midpoint in 2010 with some of the project's greatest challenges remaining and an anticipated completion date of 2026, the centenary of Gaudí's death.                                          --Wikipeida

We were in Barcelona in April, 2000 and saw the Sagrada Familia.  Since we were not on a tour, we were able to climb up the towers to get a wonderful view of Barcelona.

It was fun to see how much work had been done in 14 years.

I'm sure the Sagrada Familia must be the most original basilica in the world.

There is so much symbolism everywhere you look.

The inside of the basilica is supposed to represent trees, branches and leaves.  It was truly an awesome sight!

This display with miniature sandbags showed the concept behind the architecture.  There was a mirror at the top to show the stability of the building.

photo courtesy of Wikipedia

The Sagrada Familia is supposed to be finished in 2026.  When completed, it will be the tallest basilica in Europe.  This is Gaudi's model of what it will look like.  Wouldn't it be something if we could come back to see it?

We returned to the hotel where dinner was served at 7:45 PM.  I was really impressed with how the group was still (more or less) standing after such a brutally long day!

Day #1: Long, Long Day of Travel from Hawaii to Barcelona

On October 5th, Art's classmate and walking partner, Morris insisted on driving us to the airport despite the fact that Art told him we'd have to leave at 4:30 in the morning.

What a fun surprise to see Morris' wife Jane with him to send us off so wonderfully.  She said he promised her an early morning breakfast.

We got through the TSA pre-approval line without having to take off our shoes or outer garments.  We'd signed up earlier for the GOES (Global Online Enrollment System) card.

No movies on the 6:05 AM United Airlines flight from Honolulu to San Francisco.  Arrrghhh!  It's a good thing we had our Kindles and iPad.

I was able to charge our iPhone, iPad and Kindle Fire at the same time using the multiple charger I wrote about before in San Francisco.

Something did go terribly wrong here.  I charged Art's Kindle Fire and when he turned it on, everything on it had been wiped clean.  He'd saved a lot of maps and travel information on it and now they were all gone.  When we hooked up to Amazon to recover information, nothing came back.  It was very depressing.

After grabbing a bite to eat at the airport, we boarded our airplane at 7:00 PM for the long 10 hrs. 33 minutes flight to Frankfurt, Germany.

I sat next to a woman who worked in San Francisco but was visiting her family in Frankfurt.  I did not know during the entire flight that she had her tiny dog in a little carrier next to her.

 We arrived in Frankfurt at 2:45 PM.

After a short layover in Frankfurt, we caught the the Lufthansa flight to Barcelona at 4:05 PM and arrived at 6:05 PM.

With all the time changes, I was pretty darn exhausted.

I didn't even know what day it was.

Now came the challenging part.

We would have to call the Best Western Alfa Hotel to come and pick us up with their free airport shuttle.

Art tried using our phone card but it wouldn't work.  We couldn't figure out how many Euros it was either.  He finally asked a fellow at the Information booth who kindly called the hotel for us with his phone.

I thought it was humorous that a young woman started asking me questions about how to use the pay phone and I kept telling her, "No comprende." She kept trying to talk to me anyway.

I wish I knew more Spanish.  She said she was from Honduras.... at least that's what I think she said.

I emailed my daughter, Tiffany who said I should say, "Lo ciento, no me habla espanol."

Unfortunately the only phrase I have stuck in my brain for emergencies is, "¿Dónde está el baño?" (Where's the bathroom?)

The airport shuttle arrived at 7:00 PM.

On the shuttle, we met a young woman from China who spoke perfect English.

She said two of her friends got their passports stolen and she herself got the flight times mixed up and missed her flight back to Beijing.  She was therefore returning to the hotel for another night's stay.  That's Art below talking to her while waiting to check in at the front desk.

She was relating all the travel horror stories that they experienced.

This was rather ominous.

We were so tired that we didn't feel like looking for dinner.  We just grabbed some dry sandwiches from the hotel concession and went right to sleep!

I felt awful for my cousin and his partner, Nancy who would be arriving the following morning and immediately boarding the bus for a day of sightseeing.

Getting Ready for the Trip

We've had our luggage lost several times for several days now by various airlines so I must say I'm rather paranoid.  They haven't been stolen (yet), just misdirected.

However, I was watching something on the news about luggage thieves and it's gotten me more paranoid.

I wrote something about this a long time ago and someone mentioned how they mark their luggage with acrylic paint so it would be very visible.  I've never done this.  I do put a large address tag with our photo on one side and our contact information concealed on the inside.

Now I'm paranoid enough to get out my acrylic paint and mark my new suitcase.  There it is!  Front and back.

They also mentioned on the news to avoid buying nondescript colored luggage like black because they all look alike.

I did offer to paint Art's luggage too, but he won't let me.

All I can say is if his luggage is lost, I'm not lending him my underwear.

I'm Baaack...

I'm back, but barely.

My head is still readjusting to being back in Hawaii.  We left on October 5th for a Mediterranean Cruise after which we stopped for three weeks in Chicago before returning home.  We were gone about five and a half weeks.

Art and I have been sorting through our photos and trying to get back into our routines.

It all started when Art decided in October 2013 to do a Mediterranean Cruise.  He and my cousin, Arnold thought it would be fun to travel together.  I was really looking forward to it since we'd talked about traveling together for quite a while.

We contacted Hawaii based Non-Stop Travel.  Art told the agent that we would travel with the group but would like to stop in Chicago on the way home.  The agent said it would NOT be a problem.

However, after we'd already paid the deposit in spring of this year, and Art called to ask about the travel plans, the agent said that it would cost $1,000 a person EXTRA to stop in Chicago.  We were flabbergasted!  $2,000 EXTRA for the both of us?  Seriously?

Art told the agent we would get ourselves to Barcelona and meet the group there.  It turned out for the best since Art could then book flights on his own and get us there a day early (at a slightly cheaper price) so that we could get a good night's sleep before joining the group.

When we told the agent that we would like to catch a bus ride with the group to the airport after disembarking from the cruise ship in Venice, he said it would cost us an additional $35 a person.  Sheesh!  We sent in our check.

This was a trip that certainly had its ups and downs from start to finish.

Starting next week, I'll be writing about both.

2nd Blog Hiatus of the Year

It boggles my mind that I wrote a blog post everyday for over three years, then week days for several months and then had to take my first blog hiatus earlier this year when our kids and granddaughter came for five weeks. 

Some how this year has kept me so busy that I can't keep up with my blogging which I love.  I've decided to take another month off.

Photo taken by Dave and Photoshopped by me

As the Terminator said, "I'll be back."

While I'm gone from cyberspace, have a fabulous time.  I'm sending you lots of aloha and sunny days.

Origami for Your Chopsticks

I was having a great time with my Zumba buddies during our weekly lunch and they showed me how to make a chopstick holder with the chopstick wrapper.  I thought it was such a cute idea that I sent a photo of it to my daughter who asked me to show her how to do it.

I checked online to be sure I had the right instructions and found this Origami Resource Center website.  Their photo directions were so fabulous that I wrote to get their permission to use their photos.  "Orc" very kindly wrote and said I could, but asked that I provide a link back to them.  Here it is!

Origami Resource Center website link:

http://www.origami-resource-center.com/chopstick-wrapper-bird.html

Find the mid-point and fold down on both sides.

3-4:  Fold it like a paper airplane.

Here you'll be folding the tails like an accordian.

And there you have it!  For much more concise directions, you should click on the clink provided above.

We were at Zippy's grabbing a quick lunch the other day and I made this chopstick holder for Art since he was having noodles.

"Hey!" he said.  "You should do a blog post on this."  And so I did.

Hawaiian Micro Climates

Hawaii is known for its micro climates.  There could be a downpour in one part of the island and sunny on another.

The other day I was looking out the window of my office and the skies were bright blue. I had my clothes hanging outside.

Suddenly, the skies above me darkened although it was still bright and sunny when I looked toward the ocean.  Suddenly the skies opened up into a downpour.  Luckily, Mom had taken the clothes in.

Art told me to look outside.  There's that micro climate.  It looked like the clouds were emptying buckets of water in a column right down on a tiny area of town. 

I  should be a weather person.  I would go on every night saying there's a 50% chance of sunny or rainy weather and maybe some wind.  Then again, maybe not. 

Cutting Them Up to Size

I bought two nylon shirts from REI in March to bring to Bangladesh.  I wanted nylon so I could use mosquito repellent with it on.  Mosquito repellent often says you can't use it with polyester or other synthetics.

Art found this shirt online and on SALE.  I couldn't resist the savings and bought them for about $30 a piece (I think).   I bought Mediums.  I checked the sizing and thought they'd be OK.  When they arrived, I knew they were a little big, but thought they'd be OK.

They really weren't, but I wore them anyway as an over shirt and I rolled up the sleeves.

When we got home from overseas I fully intended to work on them, but it took me until now to work up the courage to attempt it.

I'm not a great seamstress, but I was able to shorten the sleeves on the blue shirt first.  I took off 2.25 inches by removing the cuff, cutting off part of the sleeve and then reattaching the cuff.  I also sewed the side seam so it wouldn't be so baggy around the chest.  Once I got the method down, I worked on the fuchsia shirt which was my favorite color.

And there you go!

I'm really quite pleased with it now.   I can't wait to wear it on our next hike or travel.

Next time.... I'll just buy the Small size.

Fun License Plates Around Town

I've been on the look out for fun license plates here in Hawaii, but haven't seen many.  It was either that or I wasn't quick enough with my camera.  There was one by the military base that read BMBSQD.   That raised my eyebrows.

Here's a few I found.

This must be Sea Biscuit.  She must be a horse lover.


















Is this "Oh Bother?"

Why?

This car must belong to a broker, investor, speculator, banker...

Well, they must be rich.  They are driving a Mercedes after all.












And here's a sweet one.  Tutu means "Grandmother" in Hawaiian.  I think it can also mean Grandfather, but it's usually used for Grandmother.

All I know is that Tutu must be well loved.


With that, I bid you all a fond aloha.

Problem/Solution

Coming back to Hawaii in 2008 to live with and care for Mom required some adjustments.  Luckily we've been able to laugh through most of them.

OK... Now the dishwasher.

Like many seniors, mom is forgetful at times.  This is compounded by me being forgetful as well.  We had a little problem we needed to solve.

We run the dishwasher about every three days.  I run it at night.  Sometimes I forget to turn it on.  Mom wakes up at 4:30 and has her breakfast.  She then empties the dishwasher if she thinks I've run it.

Twice now she's put the dishes away when they were still dirty.  I tend to rinse some of the dishes so it's not  obvious that they haven't been  washed.

Well... the other morning when we came down to breakfast, a frowning Mom said, "Your dishwasher is terrible!  It left so much food on the bowls that I had to wash them before putting them away."

Thing is... I forgot to turn the dishwasher on the previous evening.  What to do... what to do....

Aha!  Here's our solution.

We told mom that when this particular dishtowel is hanging on the dishwasher it means I've turned it on the night before.

So far so good.

Now I just have to remember to turn it on.

Keeping Track of the Days

When I'm not paying attention, a whole week can go by and I don't know where the time went.  It's rather disconcerting.  I can hardly remember what I did yesterday. Two days before?  Forget it!

I have a smaller 2 year pocket calendar that I love and couldn't find the 2015-16 version until recently.

I also keep a larger 2 year calendar for my desk with more detailed information.  I would be LOST without them.  We have so many different doctors appointments to keep track of, not to mention meetings with friends, Zumba, tai-chi, etc.




Art records everything we do on an Microsoft Excel spreadsheet.  I'm always amazed at how much minutia he can jot down, but it really helps!

He says he can't access his desktop when he's on travel so he records everything on a little sheet of paper which he transfers to his spreadsheet when he gets home.

How do you keep track of everything?

Boo Boos X 3 = Lesson Achieved

Art and I were working madly on some photobooks that we wanted printed at Costco.  The first book we worked really hard on was Art's birthday trip.  Our children and their families were with us for 5 weeks this summer.  We documented the happy time from the point of view of our granddaughter, KC.

After that, we worked on our photobook of our trip to Hokkaido in June.  Again, that was a lot of work.  Many of you must have noticed how haphazard my blogging has been.

My daughter's birthday is this fall and we couldn't figure out what to get her until I remembered her telling me that she'd never had the chance to make a scrapbook of our memorable trip to Yellowstone, Glacier, Rushmore, Waterton, etc.  That entailed more sleepless nights of concentration because the book I'd made earlier for us was vertical, while Costco's format is horizontal.

It's my job to format and create the book pages.  Art edits, adds his comments and then creates the PDF and jpeg files of each page.  He then loads it onto the Costco website and creates the book.

When the books came in, the summer birthday celebration photobook was wonderful and the whole family was very pleased.

We were looking forward to seeing the Hokkaido Tour and Yellowstone/Glacier books; especially the Yellowstone book because it would be our daughter's birthday gift.

When we went to the Waipio Costco to pick it up, they said they didn't have it.  Why???  We'd gotten the notice that it had come in.

They told us that Art had mistakenly sent it to Kapolei which is quite a distance away (by Hawaii standards).  Art could not believe he'd made that error!

Unfortunately.... That was not all, as we discovered when we picked up the books.

On the National Parks book (Yellowstone, Glacier, Rushmore, Devil's Tower, Waterton), Art had goofed and put a page in twice.  It's the first time he's done that!

On the Hokkaido book, he'd made another boo boo and put the wrong color on the back and spine.

Needless to say, we were pretty depressed for an evening.

Still, it's taught us a lesson.  # 1:  We need to slow down and double check projects before sending them out.  #2:  I need to learn how to create the books too so I can double check what Art has done.

We hope Tif won't mind.  We'd rather not redo the book because it costs about $44 to print a book. 

"Ah well..." said Art sheepishly.   "There is a consolation."

"What?"  I asked.

"You now have something to blog about."

New Glasses for a Different Look

The time came when I needed both distance and near vision correction.  However, bifocals wouldn't be enough.  I had to get trifocal glasses.  Progressive lens were recommended so that there wouldn't be two lines going across the lens.   When I first tried them on, I nearly got motion sickness and just couldn't get used to it.

When I went shopping, I couldn't find the sweet middle vision spot to see what was on the shelves.  I usually ended up not using the glasses because it didn't feel good and I put cheap reading glasses around the house.

After a couple of years my near vision got worse so I needed a change in prescription.  This time I opted for trifocals with the line.  I thought it would help me know where to look.  Now the lines bothered me.  Arrrgghh!  It seemed worse than the progressive.

Now, a year later my wonderful, patient optometrist recommended that I just get two glasses, one for reading and one for distance.  She said I could keep the distance glasses in the car just for driving since my distance viewing had improved so much.

My reading glasses could stay in my bag for whenever I needed it.

OK... that's what I did.  I changed my trifocals frame to distance and got a new frame for my reading glasses.

However, I did goof and put the wrong glasses in my bag and couldn't figure out at first why things were even blurrier.

Art says he's never had any problem with his glasses and can't understand why I can't seem to adjust.

OK, I'll try.

Then again, I could try going back to the progressives.... naaahhh...

Guilty But Reasonable Pleasure

I don't know if they do this in other countries, but have you heard of Big Mac Mondays at McDonalds?  Art goes walking every week with his classmate, Morris who told him about this fun deal.  I understand they do this throughout (American) football season.

Since Art walked with Morris for 7 miles which burned 700 calories and I went to Zumba and burned about 400 calories (maybe), we thought we'd indulge since it was Monday.

I almost felt guilty when we looked over at another table of seniors and saw that they were all eating kids meals.  It looked a lot healthier than what we were eating.

Since I didn't burn as many calories I had Art finish a quarter of my burger.

Ah well... Mom is making a lot of veggies for dinner.

Links on Blog Posts

I wrote earlier about links causing the loading of blog pages to slow down.  I'd read this a while ago somewhere and have been trying to cut down on links. 

However, Blogger friend, Mun said,

"Just by having links in a post will not slow down the loading time but having large photos and embedded videos in a post will slow down the loading time."

Then I went onto Blogger Help Forum and got this reply (of which I don't understand all of):

"If the reader uses a look ahead browser, caching massive amounts of content could slow things down.  Though look ahead design is supposed to cache the linked pages, after the current page has been loaded.

But in general, no, links do not drain bandwidth, they are just text."

I also read that adding too many widgets or page design can also slow down page loading time.   The orchid above is 117 kb and seems to be OK.  One advice I saw said to keep photos at 50 kb.  I keep my photos at 100-200 kb. 

I hope this isn't adding more misinformation.  If you have more advice, I'd love to hear it.

Crosswalk Scare

We were driving home today on a two lane road when we came to a crosswalk across from a school.  There were two young boys about 7 and 10 years old trying to cross.  It's a rather big road with two lanes going up and two lanes going down so it was hard for the boys to find an opening.  It was well after school so there were no crossing guards.  In fact, I don't know if there are ever crossing guards there.   There are no traffic lights so the boys probably should have gone farther down to find a crosswalk with a traffic light to help them.

photo from Wikipedia

Art saw them and stopped to let them go.  They gratefully started to cross, but the younger child started darting across and the driver in the lane next to us was speeding.  She didn't see what was happening and just barely, barely managed to stop before hitting the child.  My heart froze!

Art says if the boy had been hit, he would have always felt guilty.  He'd have felt that if he hadn't stopped, the boys would not have attempted to cross and the younger boy wouldn't have tried to run across and he wouldn't have been hit.

We were really shaken up the rest of the way home.  Would you have stopped to let the children cross?

I wonder what Art will do the next time.

POSTSCRIPT:  I forgot to mention that my daughter told me it was World Smile Day today.

I just wanted to tell you that you all make me smile every day!

Loving My Charging Station

My son-in-law is a fabulous techie.  He bought this 5 port charger for us from Amazon.com.  Here's the address, if you'd like to copy and paste it on your browzer.  (I'm not adding the link because I read some place that you're supposed to limit the amount of links you put on your blog.  It may slow down the ability for people to upload your blog. I don't know if it's true, but I'm just being careful.)

http://www.amazon.com/Volmate%C2%AE-ETL-Certified-Family-Sized-Smartphones/dp/B00LIBU3MU

I was a little skeptical whether we really needed it at first, but I'm now loving the fact that we can also bring it on travels.

You can charge an iPad, iPhone,  Samsung tablet, and Android at the same time.

It's costing under $13 right now which is amazing to me. 

Now I've discovered that I can also charge our Kindle Fire or Kindle Paper White at the same time on the Android station.

This way you can use just one wall socket to charge up multiple technology stuff.

Isn't it great?

Another Costco Flub

I was really loving Costco because of the photobooks and I still love those.

However, then I learned that the edamame I thought was grown in the U.S. was actually only packaged in California but grown in China.

Then I found these DKNY Jeans shorts that I could use for Zumba. I bought it and brought it home. They seemed to fit perfectly.  I was happy with Costco again.

When I bought it, one side was buttoned up to show you that you could have a choice of leg heights.

At home, I looked at it closely and discovered that the button on one side was about 3/4 of an inch (about 2 cm.) higher.   I could have tried resewing the button, but the tab to hold up the folded leg material was also at a different level.

Sigh...

We'll have to make a trip back to Costco to return it for a hopefully non-defective one.

I still like their photobooks though.



POSTSCRIPT:  I went to Costco, returned the shorts and got two more in different colors after checking to make sure the buttons were at the same height.

I can't wait to show them to my Zumba buddies.