The pilot drank beer on the plane! I am not kidding.
Usually I have lots of laughs on south west flights, since the crew is telling little jokes now and then, but today was different.
Sis it matter that the pilot was not flying the plane? I don’t think so.
In this case the pilot sat in the same row as I and enjoyed a beer on the flight. I still say that is not responsible. What happen if we fly to Minnesota and the pilots fall asleep (probably from staring at the same landscape over Nebraska), or both the pilot and co pilot eat the fish and become sick, or snakes get on the plane and bite the pilot. (all these are real cases, except 2 which were movies), and they will be announcing, is there anyone who can fly the plane, and the pilot will stand up and fly the plane, in his condition! No way.
When we landed in Chicago, the landing was hard, usually the land soft, I looked at the pilot to see if he would comment something like ‘idiots, they should know how to land by now’, but he said nothing (probably too drunk from that single beer).
Anyway the clouds before the landing looked like rows on plowed land, white rows on a blue land, which was quite nice to see.
Before we boarded this flight, the person who called the boarding order kept confusing with a flight to saint Louis, which was funny and then said to the passengers to double check their tickets, and she wasn’t even drinking (that I know of)
This flight is long, 4hours+ so I have time to study some finance (very boring)
It has been 2 hours since I sent my funding request and I am very curious, but cant check, no internet here, a minute after the email was sent, there were no changes, I am still uncomfortable with the idea of asking for money, this part did not get easier over time, career in sales is still not for me.
Speaking of career, December 4th is a meaningful day in my professional history. It is not only the birthday of Michal lubovitch- gatenio and little Michael kessalman.
Imagine retro music going back about 7-8 years.
At the time I was working at internet-bee and things were good, recently the application that we did to manage election votes and track labor party members had helped Abraham mitzna win the labor party chairman seat, and after the win, we began supplying various labor party members info, from the registered voting book for the labor internal election in preparation for the national election day.
I don’t recall all the names but some were very well known members.
Our original book with mitzna had data on the voters age, and after the win, we used the party’s records which relied on the date of birth.
I was asked to give a list of all young voters, 20-30 so they can send them specific messages addressed to them. Which I did.
Then I got a call early December 4th, apparently people called to complain they were receiving mail with messages who do not make sense. Imagine a 70 year old getting info on housing for the youth and reducing the prices on universities and other such things. Apparently I gave the info of people born with in the years 20-30. This was a minor mistake, with a bad bad result.
Because of me, 25 thousand letters were addressed to the wrong crowd, so then they had to resend the letters to the right crowed and send apologizing letters to the initial crowed. The cost of this operation just a couple of days before the election was great and the company paid. These 2 parliament members lost their seats.
My boss back then is an amazing gentle man and after this issue I was not even fired, but I couldn’t stand the fact that the mistake cost the company so much. The company was tiny, and I set its finance back a year, my boss was the company, so he actually paid from pocket. The fact that he has resources did not reduce my guilt. That was a very emotional day for me of course, with nothing to do but apologize. I said Ben was a gentleman and even this mistake, did not prevent him from recommending me to a QA position at MDG. I think that incident made me appreciate the value of a good QA, and my drive to always focus on double checking and attempting to catch errors before they come us, so professionally, that incident was good to me, but not for others involved.
So now, December 4th, I am going to face a challenge which is beating myself and my own thoughts, hope I win.
Ok back to Belize,
Charmaine left without braiding anyone and we took a tour bus and looked at lovely Belize. On the way, the tour operators, a smiling group that kept asking us to shout louder when they asked us stuff like ‘good morning’…I can’t hear you…. And ‘are you ready to have fun’ and other such nonsense. They gave us tiny shots of local cashew wine. Since I don’t like cashes or wine, I was surprised that I liked the drink. Our 1st stop was ATV. We stopped in the jungle (it was a ranch of some kind, which had jungle instead of grassland, no wild animals…) and we boarded our ATV’s. these were the small ATVs, one vehicle per person and we went into the mud. The entire trail was muddy and we kind of drove through a river. The problem was that it was slow, since we were 12 riders, we kept stopping to wait, so we didn’t get to ride fast. It was still fun but not as it could have been. Our local escort had our cameras and they took our photos, then ran ahead to take another, so you can see how slow it was.
At a point they splashed muddy water at us. They hit me, and left alla alone. I was outraged! At the next mud splash I made sure to ask them to get Alla, and they did J. This was about 30 minutes ride, but fun muddy time. We took a brief shower at the end and went for destination # 2- cave tubing.
It started with a jungle hike, where we have to carry our tube for about 20-30 minutes through the lovely jungle. On the way the guide explained about various trees and what you can make from them (a potion to slow snake venom was one of them and explained on the local plants you want to avoid). One of the guides took Racer’s tube much to her delight, and carried for her.
We got to a river in front of a huge cave mouth. Got into the tubes, then they set us in lines. So one tube was connected to another, each person holding the feet of the beson behind him. Which didn’t leave room to maneuver, they were very concerned about safety (safety usually equals less fun), I was the last in our bunch. And soon we were on our way, the high water level carried us in good speed through the cave which had the things that come from the ground and the top (rock formations) I forgot their name- staglmites – something like it. The cave had bats (which I didn’t see) and various interesting rock formations. It was very nice in the dark cave, being led by our guide, but I missed some of the explanations since I was last in line and the guide behind me for another group was too loud,
In the middle of the cave, it branched to a side cave which collapsed , and that area was open from above and it was full of green, it was the kind of scene from an adventurous movie just before they find some ancient temple. An amazing sight. We passed by an underground waterfall.
‘Butts up’ was often heard, letting us know there were rocks of shallow ground and we had to lift our bodies or risk running in the the known rocks – the nut cracker, the jewel buster, you get the meaning. In the middle of the cave the person in front of Alla let her go and our group split, the guide which was with us had to run and chase the group in front and sounding very much in distress. It took over a minute for us to catch up, mean while the group in front ran in to issues and the person who let go, banged his head on a rock. Nothing serious , just a mild punishment.
When we exited the cave, the most amazing blue skies loomed over the luscious green of the jungle and I was sorry I left my camera on the bus, from fear of dropping in to the water.
We tubed connected for a while longer, the disembarked and return to the bus for a lunch and headed back to the ship (for more food?!) Without stopping at charmaine.
In Costa Maya, Mexico , we decided to simply go to the beach.
The sand was cold and the water was not warm, but not cold. We swam for a while, then went snorkeling. The dude in charge of giving us our life jackets took forever, but forever later we were over the reef staring at lovely fish and coral. Eilat is a better snorkel site, but this wasn’t bad. After an hour and more in the water, we went back to the beach and enjoyed a massage, well, alla enjoyed hers, I didn’t enjoy it very much. I guess not all massage therapist are good, or some message takers complain to much.
After wards we went to the bazaar and bought one to many souvenirs, nice stuff(an elephant, a pepper dish, a fish plate to serve fish, an octopus, and a sun refrigerator magnet, can you guess which ones I bought and which ones Alla?) and boarded the ship.
Our last shore day was a private island in Bahamas, were we didn’t do much (not much to do) but sit on the beach, play sharks, jump on huge sea mattresses and eat. I avoided sand volleyball which I simply love doing, since I didn’t bring my brace and I was afraid to reinjure myself so close to the race, so had to pass itL.
I got very mildly sun burned this week and got some color which is good, I usually burn bad.
We returned to Miami and we spent an afternoon with my uncle Menashe and my aunt shrilly on the Hollywood beach, boardwalk (Hollywood, fl) and dined at an Armenian restaurant with an Israeli waiter.
So that was the cruise, I need to send the link to my karaoke performance, not sure if you want to listen to it! But I will send it none the less.
We had a good time, especially from all the family being together and getting to know each other.
There is one event I promised to write about and haven’t so far- going back to November 9th. Which was our 0 days anniversary.
We woke up early and Alla left to get her hair done, I was shining my shoes and then went with my dad to decorate the car. I think I wrote about this stuff, I can’t verify since there is no internet here, so I will just repeat. The decoration I put on the car flew in the strong wind, but the just married signs were inside the car and thus spared. I had another such sign on our apartment door. After wards I completed the facts game.
We had a page for each person in both our family’s and gathered interesting facts on them, so that the other side can get to know them better and also act as an ice breaker( Do you know how much a polar bear weigh? Just enough to break the ice). So I made last minute updates, printed it and made sure all was set.
Then I got dressed, without a tie, since I don’t know yet how to tie it, alla came home looking like the most beautiful bride, got in to a white dress (not a real dress, that will be in June, but a lovely one anyway), a made one last face book update and we headed for the church. It was no church of course, but the city hall of shaker heights. I took out the balloons from the car and we all hugged each other, got in the building and signed in. we went upstairs for the official hall and waited for the mayor. There was a water fountain there and I drank 3 cups prior to the ceremony (but I wasn’t nervous…sure….). I managed to add one more line to the mayor’s speech, which was taken from a song.
“it doesn’t matter what you do or where you go, as long as you do it together” – can someone tell me the singer?
And in no time the ceremony began and quickly it was over with me kissing my wife, then stepping aside to sign paper work. We have the ceremony on video and when things settle a bit, it will be uploaded to you tube.
I remember I was listening to the mayors words and agreeing with them, he made a nice speech. I didn’t see the camera which was pointed at me at all times, and after was I saw I was grinning (not greening) like a fool in love.
After the ceremony, we went to Rita’s house (Alla’s sister) with good yummy food from a very good Thai place and Gennady(Rita’s husband) surprised us with a great salmon, cooked on a special wooden oven plate which was delicious (the fish, not the plate). Gennady also edited the wedding movie and we much appreciate it.
After dinner and good ice cream cake, we started the game, which was a lot of fun, trying to guess who the person was based on the written facts.
On one sheet, I had 8 facts which fit 2 people in the room. And even the people in question did not recognize them self. Is it safe from a mental state to have your mother and wife with so many similarities….
Well we are 20minutesaway from Vegas, I hope to get donations notification by the time I land, and sorry from jamming your inbox with so much stuff.
36 hours to race time…. Got to go
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