It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

Coming back from lunch to a holiday surprise!

Santa's elves were busy while I was away!

Even the doggies and cats got some love!

Monitor and plant trimmed and ready to go!

Window wrapped in lights! Who doesn't want to spend time in here now?

Happy holidays, y'all!!

Introducing Scarlett

Spring Came Early

Well, it didn't take long. When the right one comes along you gotta grab it and cherish it. And that's what I did today - I saw it - gasped - called and asked some questions - then made an offer.

There is a tinge of sadness, though, as Silver served us well for 17 years.

It's late at night now so I won't elaborate in too much detail. Suffice it to say that we drove to Tallahassee and back today. We drove Silver up and drove my hardly used (845 miles) 2014 Mazda Miata back to Gainesville!

More coming later. It's late.

Ciao.

My Next Car

Preparations are underway to prepare for my next car...finally gonna do it. Come springtime I will be making a dream come true!

After much searching, I've decided not to settle. I will be getting exactly what I want - no compromise!

Stay tuned.

Ciao!

Thanksgiving

We enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner at mom and dad's. It was a lovely afternoon spent with wonderful people.

After dinner we picked some oranges.

When you can't be together in person, FaceTime is a great alternative! We "facetimed" with both the Finger and Cadwallader families!

Happy Thanksgiving y'all!

Snoozing

Here We Go Again

Yep, it's late October and you know what that means.

Most decorations have been put in place.

Still a little more planning to do. But we're almost there!

Ciao.

72 Hours Later

Granted I've only had the iPhone 6 Plus for 72 hours, but I want to give my input on this spectacular phone.

New Gold iPhone 6 Plus 64gb on left, old iPhone 4S 32 gb on right

To be sure, this is a BIG phone. I upgraded from an iPhone 4S. I knew it was going to be large. Ever since the Apple event introduced the new phones, I've had a cardboard cutout of both new phones so I could become familiar with the different sizes. And yes, I bought the gold - I had decided that as much as I was spending on this baby, I was going for the gold! Bling, bling.

The cardboard cutouts did help with assessing size prior to pre-order day.

The battery life is amazing. I'm still getting used to not having to charge my phone when I get home from work. The large screen is so easy to read. 

I haven't had a chance to play with the camera. Can't wait to take some pics and shoot some videos. 

So far the biggest negative is how to carry the darn thing. I usually wear jeans to work and the pockets are big enough but it won't fit in any other pants pockets - at least not comfortably. And since it's so big I can't really do the one handed thing I used to do especially since I'm using a case that bulks it up.

My previous phone, the 4S, was 3G. This new phone is 4G LTE and it flies! 

So, it's 9:57pm after a very long work day. During work I streamed an entire Adele concert video, streamed Spotify, checked Twitter, email, messaged, tested a website, googled stuff, etc. At lunch I started this blog post. This phone has had a very full day and still has 29% battery left! I love it!

It's a folio case because I'm paranoid about keeping the phone pristine - I paid full price to keep my unlimited plan.

I also haven't picked up my iPad Mini since receiving this new phone. So. it can be considered a phablet. Conclusion? I think I'm going to keep it. When I bought it I knew it might not work out with the size and I could exchange it for a 6. But I don't want to give up the big screen and battery life. I suspect after playing with the camera this weekend, I'll be even more committed. 

Ciao.

PS. This entire post was done on my new phone.

PSS. By midnight I had finally gotten the phone down to 9%. It takes a lot of work to drain this battery.

PSSS. No, it doesn't bend. The whole "bend gate" thing is way overblown.

First Public Performance...

In case you missed it, I performed in my first public performance with my band, The iSRS. Okay, it's a work band we threw together but we still played and had fun. Enjoy!

Bathroom Remodel Has Begun!

See our remodel blog at: http://balcintroaddition.blogspot.com

Ciao!

Saturated Fat and Cholesterol is Not the Villain

Yep, we got it wrong. Our government and medical community have f*&^%d up big time. Below is from an Australian documentary show called Catalyst. Interestingly, the Australian ABC removed it..most likely after too much push back from statin drug makers and sugar/refined foods manufacturers. Ignore this documentary at your own risk.

NCAA Tourney Fun!

It all started when Florida's name was called during the NCAA Tournament selection show.

Team cheers as their name is called.

The team was sent North to State College, PA. This was doable! We frantically started searching for flights and hotel rooms. We already knew we could easily get Tourney tickets from the UAA.

The early departure from State College was rough.

We found our flight - decided to fly straight into State College and reserved our rental car. Now, to find a hotel. This would prove the most difficult. We wanted to stay at the team hotel but it got booked up immediately after the selection show. So, we found another local hotel - booked it for the entire stay - then had a change of heart. We checked the State College/University Park area on line and found a decided lack of fun things to do. Its a college town and far from everything. We proceeded to map out a route to two historical cities - Philly and DC. It was about the same distance, to each so we decided to spend our time between round one and two at our nation's capital - Washington, DC. We found an Embassy Suites in the Georgetown area and booked it! Without going into detail it was a pain in the ass changing our original booking in State College. We used Orbitz as our travel agent and to alter these hotel plans required us to cancel and then rebook - but we knew we couldn't because the rooms in the area were literally becoming unavailable with every second. Finally, we had to call Orbitz and have them alter our hotel stay. Not fun. Will think twice about using them again...but in the end, we got what we wanted! 

There is nothing more exciting than tournament tickets in hand!

Inside the Bryce Jordan Center.

Our team scouting game one.

A WBB tournament is never perfect unless Alberta is there!

The arena is right next door to Beaver Stadium.  Did you know it was named after a person and not an animal?

Of course, Joe Paterno still resonates here.

Did I mention it was bitching cold? Bitchin! We got lucky on Sunday morning. We went to a place in downtown State College on the boarder of PSU called "The Waffle Shop" for breakfast. It was a cold day...a very cold day. There was a line and quite a few people ahead of us. But, let me say that it pays to be a couple - the folks ahead needed tables for three or more...therefore, parties of two were seated immediately and so we were pulled inside to sit down, order and eat our breakfast. Fantastic!

We won our first game against Dayton - mind you we're the 11 seed and they're the 6 seed. So, a bit of an upset. Penn State won their game and we met on Tuesday evening to play for the Sweet Sixteen. Alas, Penn State was too good for us. We fought hard and never gave up. Looking forward to next year. We've got a very good recruiting class coming in - it should be another exciting season.

In my next blog submission, I'll talk about our amazing trip to Washington DC!

Ciao!

Memory Lane

I'm sitting at the red light and look over to read the sign. Ahh, I remember "Foster Frolics" when I was a young elementary student. 

"Memories light the corners of my mind..."

#BeSECWBB

We're sitting here in Duluth, GA at the Gwinnett Center waiting for the start of the Ole Miss vs Auburn game - the last one of the evening. It's nice to be inside under cover - the temp is 37 degrees and it hasn't stopped raining since this afternoon.

It's been a full day. We slept in and then breakfasted at The Flying Biscuit. After a relaxing morning we headed to the arena to watch our Gators play Miss St.

It's great to have the Gator band and spirit squad here to support our team.

The game was close and tense as all our games seem to be, but we won and get to play again tomorrow against Kentucky. We've already beat them twice this year. But they're a good team and we're going to have to perform well to take a third win. But hey, why not three times! Let's go get it!

One of the highlights of the game was to have our picture taken with Carol Ross. Sweet!

That's all for now Gator fans! Ciao!

PS. The title? It's the Twitter hashtag for the women's SEC tourney. Look it up and you'll see some of my tweets.

We Love Twitter

Both of us enjoy Twitter for a number of reasons. I love it to follow all aspects of women's basketball, to follow some of my favorite techie stuff, and other things, sports, etc. So, at our last home Gator women's basketball game we tweeted a couple of times and wound up in the Gatorvision's "Twitter Tuesday" video below. It was so exciting! Can you find us?

Cocky in South Carolina

We traveled to Columbia, South Carolina this past weekend to watch our Gator women's basketball team take on the Gamecocks. Traveling to away games is so much fun! Just wish some of the venues were nearer to us.

We stayed at the Springhill Suites on Lady Street. This hotel had been recently renovated and we really liked the room. Usually, our favorite hotel is Embassy Suites because of the wonderful breakfast they provide.

We left Gainesville at around 10am - it's a relatively short drive (6 hours) and saw no reason to awake god-awful early. After arriving and checking in, we searched for a place for dinner. The last time we were in Columbia we dined at California Dreaming. While we enjoyed our experience there we wanted to try new places, so we chose Blue Marlin - just a ten minute walk from the hotel. It was great! The ambience, food and wait staff were great! And, the best mashed potatoes I've ever had.

Blue Marlin was at the end of this lighted walkway.

After dinner we walked around downtown Columbia. It was really nice.

Lots of renovation going on. Loved this sign.

We will come back to the Cafe Strudel! Great atmosphere and food! The Sunrise Burrito was excellent!

Whenever we're in a new city, we're learning to use our phone apps to find great places to eat. I used Yelp and Foursquare to find ones we thought we'd like. Since, I know some Yelp reviews can be untrustworthy, I cross-referenced to pinpoint that perfect place. And, Cafe Strudel was that perfect place! We got up Sunday morning and walk about a mile to the Cafe. It's clearly a local favorite - there were already a number of people there waiting for it to open. They had a signup sheet outside. The service was pretty fast considering every table was occupied. The coffee was self-serve which freed up the wait staff to provide excellent service. This is a winner. We will go there again the next time we're in Columbia.

Mir on the Bridge Over the River Congaree.

Walking back to the hotel we stopped to take a few pictures of the river. It looks pretty cold but it was actually in the mid to high 40s and very pleasant for walking.

Another view of the river.

Our team warming up before the game.

The Colonial Life Arena is a great basketball venue. Just loved it. Sure do hope the renovation of the O'Connell Center results in as good a venue. I tell you, it's embarrassing walking into some of these SEC arenas and then walking into the O'Dome.

Coach Butler intense during a timeout.

Kathy Cafazzo, our Gator information director, took this quick video of us at the game. Go Gators!



In case you're wondering, we lost the game. Our team played really hard and we're very proud of their effort. If you were to look at the rosters of both teams, you'd wonder how we were even in the game. We're getting there - our team is oh so close to competing for an SEC championship.

Really disappointing with the officiating. 

The officiating this year is really inconsistent. They've done a good job of controlling the hand check but everything else has seemed to fall to the wayside. Not sure what is going on with them - they're frequently out of position and seem to anticipate fouls instead of watching the entire development of the play. It is this writer's humble opinion that officiating has produced more blatant bad calls this year than normal. There's always going to be missed calls - but, please, not so many (and yes, missed calls on my team, too)! Since I live with a former basketball referee, I get the inside scoop on positioning and what each official should be watching. Sometimes, too many eyes are on the ball and not watching what is happening in front of them - or, they're not positioned properly to see the play. Okay, that's my rant.

The trip back was uneventful - did get into some rain but not too bad. Did I say I love smartphones? We listened to the Rutgers women's basketball game on the way home as well as several different podcasts. It was great!!

This was also the first time our pet sitter has stayed with both girls. It seemed to go well and so, we're set for the SEC Tournament!

That's all for now! Ciao.

PS. The title of this blog "Cocky in South Carolina" refers to "Cocky" the Gamecocks mascot. I guess I should have take a picture of him - the mascot uniform is a bit embarrassing. I wonder how Gamecock fans really feel about him.

Pour Me A Little Bubbly, Please...

TNT hosted a "Bubbly Tasting" party last night. As you can see from the pics, Terry put together a beautiful snack table.

And this delicious cheese cake! 

Now, this was a serious tasting. We each brought a bottle of bubbly. Terry organized and numbered each bottle. We spent the next hour blind tasting each and writing down our impressions. The goal was to pick the one you liked the best. We also wanted to compare taste to price as the costs ranged from $12.99 up to $140.00.

What I learned is that my palate cannot tell the difference between any traditional champagne. They all tasted exactly the same to me. This is good news - I'll never have to buy expensive bubbly because I would never be able to taste the difference.

The bubbly I gave my high mark to was this one below. A rose from New York. It was very lovely.

It was, as it always is at TNT's, a very wonderful evening!

Winter Wonderland

My sister-in-law just sent me this picture from her window in New Jersey. Fortunately, Rutgers has shut down and she doesn't have to leave the house.

Happy winter, everyone!