Archives for 2006

Been meaning to say that for a long time and just when I thought I could “let it go” (as it’s been suggested I do) he pulls another bonehead move. Plans were being made for Megan’s uncle (who is more like a father to her than my ex) to meet us and pick Megan up after our week of birthdays. We had suggested Chattanooga but he opted to come back up to the Morristown area again. Things were somewhat confusing because Megan go a call from her uncle that sounded like he was on the road heading up. He likes to drive up the night before and head back the next day. Right after that call she gets a call from her father wanting to know where she was but never gave her a reason why he wanted to know. Perhaps IF he had EXPLAINED that he was also heading back up to DC and had stayed the night at the same hotel as her uncle, MAYBE Megan would have wanted to spend the evening with him, her uncle, her cousin & family. She had no idea that he was even at the same hotel until after we dropped her off. She tried calling him but never got an answer. She and her uncle waited around for him but got tired of waiting so they headed back to Nashville. Once again my ex the great communicator strikes again.

Seems the cousin & family stayed with the ex. That in itself was “nice” – but even family should be respectful of oher family members things and not go through Megan stuff moving and even breaking things. Geez, I still feel bad to this day when I was staying with my sister and broke one of her nutcrackers.

Another issue the ex loves to deny is that Megan has asthma – oh I love that one. Six asthma related admissions to the hospital with pneumonia but she doesn’t have asthma according to him – but I degress. Granted, yes it is his apartment but when he allows his “guests” that reak of cigarette smoke to sleep in Megan’s bed which in turn makes her sick – the least the jerk could do would be to wash her sheets and spray down her room before she gets back. Considering he’s not doing a good job with Megan’s health insurance (he does have TRICARE – yeah right that’s top notch) I have every right in the world to bitch when he does something that makes her sick.

Okay, I’ve ranted enough about my (best Red Forman voice) dumbass ex. I’ll try not to let his stupidity ruin the fabulous week of birthdays. More to follow on that, plus a few other tangent rants about who didn’t bother to show up.

Let’s get you started with the pictures and the video clips. I couldn’t upload the video clips into the Gallery so I turned them into Flash video instead. I took 4 different video clips as I ventured down Lombard Street. I haven’t figured out how to make these popup in a smaller window yet. Blogger doesn’t like javascript.

Clip 1
Clip 2
Clip 3
Clip 4

I started Saturday morning off by once again walking to Fisherman’s Wharf (it was 1 mile from the hotel to the wharf) and getting my mini loaf of sourdough bread for my lunch. I also stopped off at Walgreens at bought some sunscreen – a day late. I was already pretty red from the sun and wind on Friday.

Our double-decker open top bus departed from Fisherman’s Wharf at 9AM – it was about 50 degrees, 15 MPH winds and of course, foggy. So it was a damp cold. Now couple that with the moving bus. I did remember to bring clothing for the cooler weather – sweaters, jacket, long pants but someone should have suggested thermal underwear!!!

The ride out to the Golden Gate Bridge was nice – we drove through some residential areas and saw some of the great architecture of the area. Our first stop was the Palace of Fine Arts – a 15 minute stop is not long enough to look at it all but it was just a riding tour per se. Next it was off to see what I came see – the Golden Gate Bridge. Even though it was heavily shrouded in fog (and I was freezing cold) – it was awesome to ride across the bridge in the fog. Then we stopped off at Vista Point – even more fog. Then we drove back across the bridge and rode through the Presidio, Pacific Heights and then back to Fisherman’s Wharf.

Next up was the downtown loop – which worked out great – I didn’t even have to get off the bus. The sun had come out and it had warmed up a touch.

After the bus tours I walked back to the hotel. I figured I would download the pictures I took and start editing them for upload. I had barely gotten started when I noticed some of the people from my group were walking back to the hotel – I had a great view of the street and the Golden Gate Bridge from my window. So I headed downstairs to see what everyone was up to and what plans they had. I decided while they were sorting it all out that I wanted to go take pictures and video of the crooked part of Lombard Street – heck it was only 3 blocks away – almost straight up!

Next up – the journey to Lombard Street.

And trying not to get mad after a great trip to the west coast. More about the things making me mad in bit.

Started this coast to coast journey in Reno, Nevada – bowling in the USBC Women’s National Tournament. If someone had told me it was going to be a scratch tournament – I probably would not have entered. I only bowled at a 174 average – no where near enough to place in the money. One of the lady’s I bowled with entered me in the brackets for the Team Event – I doubled her money there. She told me to put the money back into the Doubles/Singles brackets. I won’t know if I won anything until August 1st since we had to fly out right after we bowled.

On to San Francisco via Oakland and a 1 hour shuttle bus ride – at least it was better than the flight from Las Vegas to Reno – it had to have been the most turbulent rides of my life!

As promised – I was the ultimate tourist in San Francisco – I walked at least 7 miles in 2 and half days. Probably closer to 8 miles. Friday morning I walked down to Fisherman’s Wharf. I picked up all my tour tickets and bought a “MUNI” pass that would allow me to ride all the public transportation except BART. I could ride the cable cars, street cars, buses, ect, as much as I wanted to for 3 days – for $18. I bought myself a little mini loaf of sourdough bread for my lunch and waited to catch the ferry to Alcatraz.

I walked all around Alcatraz and did the audio tour inside the prison – took lots of pictures. After doing the Alcatraz tour I stood in line to catch the cable car at the Hyde Street turntable. Road it all the way to the end of the line at Market Street. Had to wait through a little excitement – a fire emergency blocked the tracks for a while. Made my way back to the room to download pictures and take it easy. We wound having dinner at the same little Italian restaurant that we went to Thursday night. The chef was excellent and for the money they fed us WAY too much food.

I’ll cover Saturday in my next post – time to vent a little – strikes me as really odd that Megan’s father is in Nashville but can’t take her up to DC with him for our visit next week. Her uncle has opted to meet us north of Knoxville Saturday morning. Granted it’s the uncle’s choice to drive that far – we had planned on meeting up in Chattanooga. Driving up to Nashville and then to Knoxville would have been a double mistake – it would have added over 4 hours to the drive and of course the obvious – I’m not supposed to go any where near Megan’s father’s apartment.

I guess her other 2 sister’s are still going to be selfish and not stop by so their grandfather can take the 4 generation picture he wants to take. I suppose they think it’s just one more way to get back at me – shows me they missed the point once again. The picture is not about me or what I want.

Stay tuned – next up the Golden Gate Bridge and Lombard Street!