Annoyances

Well...  I'll admit that things aren't that bad, but it sure seems like it as I am rather hmm, "tweaked" shall we say at the moment.

I really feel like saying:
"NEVER STAY AT THE HOWARD JOHNSON MAINGATE WEST IN KISSIMMEE, FL!"
"NEVER USE HOWARD JOHNSON, ELITEREWARDS OR ANYTHING ELSE OWNED BY THE CENDANT CORPORATION!"

But, in reality, it's probably just a fluke, or at least one would hope.

Anyway, here's what's REALLY happened so far...

We redeemed most all of our maybe $30-40K worth of purchase points from our MBNA EliteRewards card to get about 5 free night coupons at various hotels for our Florida trip around New Years.

We redeemed these certificates at all the Hotels.  Seemingly without major issues (I won't mention the strange looks I got at almost every desk, and the comments of "where'd you get this?", or the 2 hours it took the one Hotel to upgrade their software so they could accept the certificate)

One of the Hotels we stayed at was the Howard Johnson Maingate West Resort in Kissimmee, Fl.  This was the only place we stayed two nights.  Not a real bad place, but I wouldn't call it a resort.  They also had interesting tiled floors instead of the carpets I've seen in every other room.  And they had this booth at the front desk where you were supposed to be able to get cheap tickets to Disney, but it was just a high-pressure salesman who could only sell the better tickets for multiple day passes.  Also, only breakfast option was to buy it yourself, and no high-speed access whatsoever.

ANYWAY...  We get back from our trip and Sara is checking the credit card bill to make sure all the charges settle out (you know, they bill you $200 in case you trash the room or something, and then remove it later).  So, everything else looks good except for this $124 charge from the HOJO(Howard Johnson) that was in addition to the $53.30 that we were actually charged and I signed the receipt for (pet fee, resort charges, telephone, etc). 

So, I call up Howard Johnson Corporate.  "We'll file your complaint, the Hotel has to call you back in a week".

I get a call back saying that the charges were for the two nights.

I call back and say that we had the free certificates

I get a call back and she says they never got those certificates (I specifically remember, signing them when I handed them to the front desk), and they will not remove the charges until they get either proof that they received and/or cashed them or duplicates that they can then use.

I call Howard Johnson Corporate again.  -Sorry, nothing we can do, you have to deal with the Hotel.

I call EliteRewards to see about getting proof or duplicates.  "We'll check into it, but MBNA would be the ones to know if they were redeemed"

I call MBNA  "We don't have anything to do with it, we just keep track of points"

I call EliteRewards after a few days to allow them "research time", they say "We don't know anything about it, it's all Howard Johnson.  Here's a PO box you can mail a letter and ask for a copy of a certificate"  (they didn't even have a name to put above the PO box on the address.  They just said it was Howard Johnson, but that wasn't part of the address)

I call Howard Johnson- "We don't know anything about that address or EliteRewards.  They do it all on their own"  (though curiously, HOJO's address is in the same town and pretty close in PO box numbers)

I decide that this is just stupid, it's really peeving me off so I'm gonna see what I can dig up with my old friend Google.
Soo...  I come up with this:
MBNA Just deals with EliteRewards
HOJO, EliteRewards, TripRewards, and a bunch of other stuff is all owned by Cendant Corporation.
The address I got is Cendant Corporation.

So, I tried calling the only number I could find for Cendant Corporation directly and as expected, they don't even know what EliteRewards is.  But the receptionist passed me to someone else.  I left a message at her voicemail explaining I needed some help in regards to some eliterewards certificates and hopefully she could be of some help somehow.

Oh yeah, I left out that I did get in there and post a dispute on that $124 charge.  So...  I guess at this point, I'm just hoping that MBNA will step up to the plate and tell me I'm not responsible for the charge and be done with it.  but I'll try to send out this letter to the Cendant address, and maybe get a call back from this other Cendant person.

Who knows.
Pain in the butt is what it is.

Been a while

OK, so it's been a while.  As I figured I never quite seem to keep up and upate this stuff.

Anyway, I saw Transporter 2 a while ago.  That one was pretty cool.  Not entirely believable of course, but pretty good.  The height of unbelievableness came when he takes off with a bomb on the bottom of his car.  Well, he gets it off by going through a shipyard, hitting some ramp, and rolling the car as he's flying up in the air, and this crane hook whacks the bomb off the bottom of the car just as it explodes.  But anyway, it was a fun movie.

Then the other night we saw Million Dollar Baby.
That was... Well..  I guess the answer is that it was good for a Clint Eastwood movie.  He makes movies that get awards.  Movies that are like real life and without happy endings.  Well, I prefer my movies with a nice happy ending.  I enjoy happiness whether it's real or not!  Oh well, at least it had a better story than Unforgiven.  I think that was the first one he did that was a real stupid western where everyone dies.

Other than that.  Well, we were headed to Sara's parents in Clymer last weekend and just about the time we hit Salamanca (about 60 miles from Hornell) I noticed some white coming out the back of the car.  I'm like.  Hmm, wonder what that is...  Flat tire, frozen brake, rear diff out of fluid...  Seemed odd that the car was still handling fine.  Got out, looked back there, could tell and then.  "oh, it's coming from the front of the car.  That's not smoke it's steam."  So, figure I better check the temp gauge and sure enough it was just starting to peg so I shut the car off.  Went up front, but couldn't tell where it was coming from with all the steam.  I didn't see any obvious leaks from hoses or the radiator, etc...  Noticed the overflow tank was still about full, so I unbolted it with my leatherman and poured some into the radiator.  It immediately started pouring out the center of the engine.  "Crud.  That's gotta be either the water pump or a head gasket.  Neither of which is going to allow me to drive."  Looked a little more and realized the heads were farther over, so it had to be the water pump.  So, called dad who luckily hadn't started painted the kitchen yet.  He brought the trailer over and Mom brought the cruiser so we could still make our trip to Clymer.  Which turned out to be better than we thought since Lee(Sara's brother) actually showed up for his birthday.  (Thank goodness for family!).

So, that kinda sucked, but we just kept repeated...  "At least this didn't happen on our 3K mile Florida trip".  Though I was thinking and it seems it must have been within about 100+ miles since we got back...  But it still really sucked, since besides all the vehicle switching.  (Also thanks to Granny since I had to borrow her Cruiser from Sunday night to Tuesday)  But, the sucky part was that I had just paid about $230 for changing the timing belt before we went to Florida, and now it was another $320 to do the same job again, but replace the water pump instead of the timing belt.  Oh well, at least it wasn't on the florida trip, and we didn't blow the engine.

Either way, that's the first time we've ever had to call someone to come get us in either Subaru.  Not bad since mine has 212K miles, and Sara's has about 130K....  And they're both about 10 years old...

Ahh, what else.  Well we got to go to a fun Birthday party for Jake Sunday night.  Though we're still waiting for one of his gifts to arrive so we can give it to him!
And of course we still VERY much enjoy seeing and holding Vivian!  Though for some reason I have only really had a couple sick-free days since I got back from Florida (luckily I held Vivian during that time).  But, I *think* I'm almost better again from this lingering throat/nasal thing.  Got to hurry up since it's also been holding me off from giving blood.  That sucks cause I probably can't get my 6 donations/year in this year.  Oh well...

Umm..  Oh, I updated my laptop which is running Linux ( Simply Mepis 3.4-3 RC3) to the latest "testing" software yet again which is obviously a bit iffy.  Especially since i don't know as much I should about what I'm doing.  Either way I screwed it up so it required more thought.  Well, actually I wasn't running the most current version and I was thinking it was about time to upgrade.  So I went ahead and installed the current version for a day, but I wanted the "Mepis" version which included the KAquarium, and in general just a nice fresh clean install, so I re-did it the next day and this time just wiped out that partition.  But things seem to be working pretty well, other than apparently my wireless card is now not as compatible as it was.  I suppose it doesn't really matter as most likely anyone reading this won't know what I'm talking about anyway.  (:

Well, hope everyone has a great day!

Miami

Here's a better beach we found in Miami. I think it's the Rickenbacker Causeway. It runs out to another key (the name of which is escaping me at the moment). This one had some real sand and some depth to it (depending on where you were). A good bit of trash along it though. This might have been hurricane remnants though. This one also had some real seashells and things so that was kinda neat. Shadow still wanted to head back for shore any chance we gave her. She wasn't real interested in hanging out with us in the water.

Anne's Beach

This is Anne's Beach. I think it's on Islamorada. Closer to Key Largo. Nice in that there were relatively few people and it's rather open. Not so nice in that it's not really sand (more like white clay/mud) and there's seaweed growing everywhere and it's only a couple feet deep for probably almost a quarter mile out to sea. We didn't make it that far as it was hard walking through the mud/seaweed and Shadow didn't really seem to be enjoying having to swim.
Lots of little crabs all over the beach as well. (presumably in the water since you could see the same sorts of little holes). And I cut my foot on something while out there. It was kinda neat though.

More Key West

It does look pretty nice in some places




















Here's Sara showing Shadow the ocean. Shadow says "uhh, mom I don't know what you're thinking, but I'm not going in there."
















Here's Sarah trying to push Shadow in. Shadow says "Mom, I REALLY don't want to go in there!"

Key West

Ahh, Key West. And after the end of US1, here is the southernmost Christmas Tree.














And the Southernmost point.















And my girls standing in front of the Southernmost House


















Ahh, finally made it to the ocean!
























Ahh, remnants of hurricanes

Ahh, almost back to normal?

Well as usual, this didn't work out quite like I planned. I was hoping to be taking daily pictures and posting them here. I just NOW have the rest of the maps up in the blogs as we moved.
And we didn't take as many pictures as I thought we might. Probably a mistake, but oh well, we had fun!

So... I was going to put some of these pictures we took into various points when we were there in the previous posts, but it seems like that's a bit of a pain, so I think I'll just post them on here and explain them. I suppose I'd have to do that anyway.

But as for general news since we made it back. Not much. The trip went pretty smooth. We largely just relaxed the weekend after. Sara started getting a bit more congested and really wasn't feeling well until the last day or so. I ran all over the hills collecting the oil that had piled up while I was gone and had 13 pails to empty on Friday when we were back. Got to try out one of my Christmas presents, a bucket heater. It works WAY better/faster than the aquarium heater I had (1000 watts gets a lot hotter than 300). But it's not that miracle I was hoping it might be. I can't just shove it in a pail of solid oil outside when it's 25 degrees and have the entire pail liquid in 15 minutes or less. The top and middle would, but it just can't combat that much cold at the edges and bottom (or at least not in the time I was out monkeying with stuff). So the routine for the winter is still to bring the pails into the basement for a few days before dumping into the barrels.
Boy I hope this veggie stuff works well come spring... (:

And then back to work from home on Monday to get some hours in and business as usual yesterday. Though I did get to meet my new cousin Vivian! Very easy going and cute to boot! (:

HOME!

YAY! We made it home! No real problems that we know of!!

Almost home?

Well, I'm still not feeling well (and Sara had a sore throat for a while), but we made it to Ruffino's in Port Orange (after almost running into the ocean) (: We had a great time there. They have a wonderful place and we got to do some relaxing and just hang out for a while. Patti and Jerry made us a nice steak dinner, then most everyone else went for a swim.
Then yesterday we started out on our trip home. We made it here to Fayetteville, NC. Stopped at South of the Border. Interesting place. Not quite as exciting as it looked at night when we came through the first time. Looked like Vegas then. Otherwise pretty uneventful I think. Well of course, other than the length of time it took them to figure out how to check us in to the Ramada here. Apparently this place was taken over by the military as they didn't have space for all the troops coming through here (Fort Bragg I think?) and they just recently re-opened to the public. So their computers weren't set up to use our free night certificate. So I waited at the desk for an hour and then we went to dinner and after another hour I guess she had just gotten everything straightened out.

Well, wish us luck on what I hope is our last leg of the tour home! (:

Where are we now?

OK, so this "resort" doesn't have high-speed but I'll try to get something up here.

So...

Miami, I think that's where we left off. So, we got out of the hotel and found a beach that leads out to another key East of Miami. This was a good bit better with sand and nicer stuff to walk on. However, there is a good bit of trash and stuff on the beach. But still a lot better than Anne's beach down in the other keys. Quite a bit busier as well. We were hoping New Years Day would be slow, but it seemed everyone was out enjoying the beach. We found a little bar/restaurant across the road and had a little picnic lunch on the beach and waded out a bit, so that was kinda fun. This beach had shells and things as well, so I picked up a few.

Then we headed up to Kissimmee where we are now. Didn't have too much trouble finding the place other than there being 3 (at least) Howard Johnsons on the road we were looking for ours so we had to go a ways to find the one we were staying at. BUt that's ok as it's a lot closer to Disney than the others. So it was dark, and we just got a couple subs and stayed in the Hotel.

So yesterday we went to Epcot. This was definitely a good place to go. I would have to say that was a day full of fun. Other than my feet hurting from walking all day (the curse of flat feet), but it was fun nonetheless. Shadow didn't seem to mind the Kennel TOO much at first, and didn't mind going back after a walk, but once she realized we were leaving her there a second time she wasn't too happy. And then she was HYPER HYPER to get out of there last night. There's a ton of stuff I'll probably write about the rides and such, but I think I'm going to try to keep this a little shorter for the moment as I'm not quite feeling as good as I would hope. We were going to try to go to Universal for most of the day today before heading to Ruffinos, but I seem to have some stomach/digestive issues so I'm trying to take things a bit slow. Not feeling TOO bad, but moving too much doesn't feel all that great.

So at the moment we're trying to figure out what exactly we're doing today.

But I'll still say the trip is going well!

Continued

OK, so even though the wireless here is really lousy I got some pictures to work, so the earlier stuff is where we were for the previous posts. So... If my memory keeps up, let's see...

So we went out to Lunch with Sarah at... Hmm, the name escapes me, but it was some sort of Philly food place (Pizza and cheesesteaks), so we had some awesome pizza! Then we headed down to Naples to visit with Patti and Jerry. I think that trip went pretty much as planned, maybe missed one turn for a second. Managed to get our way in past the guard and find their place, but misunderstood part of the directions and was looking for another garage. But Evan, Jerry's daughter Leigh and her husband Johnny were out there pointing because Evan had recognized Shadow. Evan's getting to be such a skater guy (not a abad thing) we didn't even recognize him when we drove past! So we yakked for a bit, and Leigh and Johnny made us a great dinner of steak and pototoes and such! (there was some great seafood as well I'm sure, but I'm not much for the seafood) (:
Then let it never be said that Jerry lets you stay at his place for free. He just chooses unusual ways to make you pay for it. We played Blackjack. Everyone against Jerry (the house) so we all paid him. Though it was a pretty good deal. It only cost us $2.50. I'm not sure the others were quite that lucky. I just paid attention and realized that it was "real" gambling in that everyone just kept losing money so I kept my bets small so as to lose less. (:
So then we had to head off to bed so we could get up early yesterday for our trip down to Key west and back to Miami. We got up around 5 and out the door a little after 6. Messed up one turn so we headed East to Miami instead of SE towards the tip of Florida, but for all I know it's just as fast that way anyway. I wondered what was down there when looking at the map when it appeared that there was nothing down there. Sure enough it seems to be the Everglades. There's about a 60 mile stretch where it's just highway. Maybe 2 or 3 stopping areas with no services. It largely seems like the bottom of Florida is a swamp. It was also nice since it was all covered in fog and we couldn't really see where we were going, but by the time we got to Miami the fog was burning off. So then we headed down to the keys.
Well... I can't say we were too impressed. There are a couple nice spots like I was picturing where you're actually up on a bridge looking out over the ocean. But most of it seems to be just trees along the road and/or just swampy areas. A lot of the populated areas aren't too upscale looking. Key West in particular seems to be a rather downscale college-kid looking place. Not all of it, but certainly a large portion. Kind of like some of the pictures of New Orleans I've seen. (chickens running around and such.) and way too many people on Key west. The rest of the keys weren't too bad. And it was getting WAY too hot down there. Agh, we are not 86 degree weather people. And there's not much of any beaches to speak of.
We tried to stop at a couple beaches at state parks, but they said Shadow was only allowed in the parking lot. We did stop at Anne's Beach which is closer to the East end of the keys, but it's not a normal beach. It's not sand, it's more like white clay. And seaweed all over. and it didn't look like it got beyond a couple feet deep until you got about a 1/4 mile out to sea. But we did trudge out a ways and take Shadow with us. She's not too sure about that. She would swim with us when she had to and we asked her, but given the choice she always headed back for shore. but it was nice to see her swim for once. So then we headed back up to our Hotel in Miami (OK, Cutler Ridge, but more or less Miami). Sara really wanted to get out and do more, but it was rather hard to find much that we could do with Shadow and it was way too hot to leave her in the car for more than a few minutes.
So we made it back up here, got checked in at the Baymont (this is a definite nice place to stay) and tried to find a place to eat. We made it to an Ihop without getting lost and Sara got to eat at another place she hadn't been. Of course we were almost the only ones in there at about 8PM on New Years Eve. But it was nice. And they were setting off fireworks somewhere in the city. Though these proved to be startling to Sara while she was trying to sleep.
So, I think we're about up to now. We're on our way out to a beach on Rickenbacker causeway here in Miami. Hopefully this one will be a bit better. Then on up to Orlando.

I'm not sure how these pictures will post so If I can't label them in place easily I'll just tell you that they should be pictures from Key west of the Southernmost "stuff" and maybe a couple from Anne's beach.