March 29, 2005 Well now that i have recoverd and have some free time, i would write about the week.
Saturday we got up at 4am to catch a 6:40am flight to NYC, that pretty much went smooth and we got to NYC on time. We had a bit of a layover so that gave us enough time to get breakfast and hang out for a bit near the gate. So it comes time to board the flight to go down to Fort Lauderdale. We board the plane and getting ready to take off, the captain comes on and says that we have to wait an hour before we can leave due to the fact flight traffic was a mess going in on and of Florida. Which wasnt too bad because it would still give us about 2 hours before we gotta get on the ship when we get down there. So we wait it out in the gate waiting to take off and the captain comes back on about a half hour later and said that we got delayed an hour (o shit) so now this gives up roughly an hour to get off the plane, get our shit from the baggage claim and haul ass to the port. Luckly we didnt get delayed again and were cleared to go. The flight itself was uneventfull and we got in around 3:30pm and we are scheduled to leave the port at 4:30pm. By the time we got our shit, got to the port (btw a huge thanks to Celebrity Cruises for getting us to the port), and got on the boat it was 4:05pm. Whewww just made it, when then proceeded to get torn up.
San Juan, Peurto Rico
We arrived at San Juan on Monday around 4:30pm however due to complications with the US Coast Guard we didnt dock till 7:30pm. They ended up cancelling all the shore excursions because we were 3 hours late. Amanda and i didnt really get to see much of San Juan, it was dark and nothing was really open. Plus we didnt know what parts were safe or not to wander around in. We pretty much stuck with everyone from the ship. We maybe spend about an hour or two on the island and head back to the ship to drink some more. I wasnt to impressed with what i seen, but then again we didnt get in to real late. So i would more then likely give it one more chance, just need to visit there where its daylight out. The only upside to this was the Captain did 2 hours of open bar for the whole mess.
Saint Thomas
Saint Thomas was the next stop on our cruise. For our shore excursion we went to Magen’s Bay which has a really nice beach there. From the travel brochue it was rated as one of the top ten beaches. Which i would have to agree, it was an awesome beach but there was a metric shit load of people there. After hanging out there for a few hours we went back into town and walked about and checked out the shops. One think i will note is that i have never seen so many jewelry shops in a small amout of area before. There was a ton of them and alot of duty free liquor stores 
. Pretty much this is was my second favorite place of the trip.
Saint Martin/Sint Maarten
3rd stop on our trip was Saint Martin. Which hands down was Amanda and I’s favorite place on the trip. The Island is divided up into 2 parts. The Dutch side and the French side. We pulled onto the Dutch and landed in Phillipsburg, which was really really nice. It had a ton of shops and it was just beautiful. We made a trip to the French side of the Island and went to Marigot. Marigot was pretty nice but didnt have as many shops as Phillipsburg, but it had more places to eat and was more laid back. It also had a section called “little Eurpoe” that was pretty nice looking. I could have wished we spent more time there, at some point i would love to just go back there and hang out for a couple of days.
Nassau Bahamas
Last stop on our curise was Nassau and god it sucked. we pulled in 45 minutes late and didnt do our shore excursion because they were saying that they might not get us back to the ship on time. So we said fuck it and didnt go (but got our money back). Plus it was good friday and all the shops were closed for holiday, there wasnt shit to do. So we walked about a bit to try and find something open. We ended up taking a 20 minute horse drawn buggy tour of the place and then hit what they called the straw market which was a giant tent with vendors. Again i would like to check it out when its not a holiday.
Overall it was a great trip, i got to finish up System of the World by Neil Stephenson, got some sun,gave my liver a hell of a workout and just relaxed. It was nice not having to worry about work or school and just have fun for a change. I can’t wait before we go on another one. Hopefully we can do it again soon.
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March 27, 2005 Hello everyone i am back from vacation and ready to go back to the grind (lol yea right). In short i had a pretty good trip and it was very relaxing to do nothing but read, swim, drink and do other stuff. When i get some extra time i plan on doing a full write up of my vacation and hopefully have pics.
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March 19, 2005 Just getting some last minute things done before i sign off for the week (aka copying music to the ipod). I am going to be flying down to Florida to board a cruise ship and hit the Caribean for 7 days through Celebrity cruises. I never been with them before and the last time i went on a cruise was with Carnival, it should be just as fun. I seriously need this vacation, i way to burned out physically and mentally. Between school and the amount of work i am doing i just couldnt keep up with it anymore. I am hoping that when i get back i am fresh and ready to go . Plus i can finally get around to doing things i been wanting to do.
This is what my ports of call are going to be on the trip
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Saint Thomas
Satin Marrten
Nassau Bahamas
see everyone in a week!
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March 13, 2005 ok so i did the engrish test as well and here is what i scored
Advanced
You scored 86% Beginner, 86% Intermediate, 87% Advanced, and 72% Expert! |
You have an extremely good understanding of beginner, intermediate, and
advanced level commonly confused English words, getting at least 75% of
each of these three levels’ questions correct. This is an exceptional score. Remember, these are commonly confused English words, which means most people don’t use them properly. You got an extremely respectable score.
Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it!
For the complete Answer Key, visit my blog: http://shortredhead78.blogspot.com/.
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My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:
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You scored higher than 16% on Beginner |
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You scored higher than 13% on Intermediate |
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You scored higher than 21% on Advanced |
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You scored higher than 52% on Expert |
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March 8, 2005 Amanda got her laptop back from Dell today, she has been having issues with the AC adaptor dying. When it happened the first 2 times we thought we had a power issue in the apartment. But we ruled that out because everything else in the apartment was fine. Then we got the third adaptor in and it died again within a week. At this point we started thinking that there is an issue with the laptop. Amanda calls Dell support and ends up on hold waiting to talk to someone for a stupid amount of time. While she was on the phone she jumped on to their “chat” application and spoke with a tech while still on hold. Amanda told him what happened and that this would be the fourth replacement. He came back and said that it was wear and tear, and he would send out a new one. She starting asking him that how can it be wear and tear when we had the adaptor for less then a week. Then he gives her the case number and boots her off the chat. Finally she gets on the phone with a live person after another half hour of waiting. So she explains to the tech the whole story of what has happened before and they finally said ok ship it in we will take a look at it. We get the box to ship the laptop in, plus the replacement adaptor from the tech she talked to in the chat app. We packed up the laptop and we put in the new adaptor in with it that worked (make a note of this) and shipped it back out. So today we get it in and she is happy that we got it back and hopefully they fixed the problem. We open it up the box and check the sheet for the work they did on it. According to the sheet they replaced the system board, then we saw a note on the bottom that the AC cord was the wrong one (?!?)….WHAT THE FUCK. I dont know what the hell happened down at the repair center but they shipped us back the laptop with the wrong AC adaptor and even made a note of it in the repair sheet…umm hello if you knew it was the wrong adaptor then why the fuck did you send it back with the laptop.
So I had to make yet another call to Dell today and screamed at the poor non-english speaking sap on the other end. This is of course waiting on hold again for over 30 minutes. After the call she transfers me to her manager who also could barely speak/understand english. The starts asking me about how the call was, which of course i told him about how pissed off i was with their stupidity in a calm manor. The says something about filling out a survey and ends the call.
After this experience this really left a bad impression with Dell. It just seems its a friggin hassle to get anything taken care of when you need to call their support, even their corporate support. I never had this much problems when i call IBM.
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