New Toy

We are the proud new parents of a Sony Vaio VGC-RB40(G) desktop computer. Matthew went to Circuit City while I was at work today. I usually like to be involved in such purchases, but I also wanted it taken care of quickly. It's not hooked up yet, we still have to copy a bunch of crap from the old Vaio that we can't bear to live without.

I have this love affair with Sony. Not sure why. I guess maybe I just like to be consistent. All of our cameras are Sony and except for the very first computer we bought in 1995 (an HP), all of our computers have been Sony.

This new computer is actually the top of the line model - from 6 months ago. It was on clearance, and Matthew (ever the bargain shopper) thought it was a good deal. About the only thing different from this one and the current top of the line Sony is the dual-core processor. Yeah that would be nice, but this one will still be a Hell of a lot faster than our current 6 year old desktop.

Now we have to figure out what to do with the old computer. I guess we could wipe it clean and sell it in a yard sale. It is still in good working order, it's just kinda slow. We will also need to sell the old printer and scanner. And the monitor once I get a new one. I have $100 Circuit City gift card coming to me so I am going to apply that to a new 19 inch flat panel monitor. Love a big screen baby. Wish I could afford to go bigger.

I got off work an hour early today. To come home and sit by myself. I hate when Matthew works nights. I get so bored.

I think about Paris when I'm high on red wine

Merry Christmas!

Oh...it's Memorial Day weekend. Anyway I hope everyone is doing something fun this weekend. Unlike me.

I am going to Taste of Cincinnati this afternoon with my friend Dan. Hopefully we can manage to have some fun there and not eat too much.

I think I am finally recovering from all my injuries? Did I ever run down a complete list of my dive trip injuries? Well let's do that.

First was the ear infection I was sure to get a week or 2 later. I think that has finally cleared up. I had a 2nd bottle of drops from my last ear infection after Playa del Carmen last August. On this trip I used a homemade concoction of vinegar and rubbing alcohol, but that didn't seem to work. I think next time I am going to invest in one of those ear dryers.

We will start from the feet up.

Walking on the dock to rinse off under the freshwater shower I slipped on the moldy boards and thought for sure I broke my toe. It was swollen for several days.

Both of my heels - actually the back of my ankles - were rubbed raw and blistered from what I found out later was wearing my fins strapped too tight. I didn't realise they were too tight until the last day when Matthew said "Why are they strapped so tight?" D'Oh. I was afraid they would fall off. So that is a pretty nasty injury.

Exiting the water in rough seas after diving Mary's Place (highly overrated after thinking about it 2 weeks later) I slipped off the ladder and banged my shin pretty good. It still hurts.

Riding my horse on the beach I sustained 2 injuries. Both from the same incident. He decided he could squeeze under a big cable and he was wrong. He banged himself in the nose and the cable hit me in the shin and scraped up until it banged on my knees. So I have a scrape and bruise that are still healing.

My ribs are bruised from repeatedly hanging over the dock to play with the dolphins. But that one is ok because it brings back pleasant memories.

They all do really. It was an awesome trip. When we came back from Paris in October, it was all I could think about for months. And now this trip is all I can think about.

Ahhhhh I love travel. I guess that's why I do it so much. And I guess if I want to keep doing it, I need to work more. Ugh. The price we pay.

We have decided to buy a new computer. I hate to do it, but ours is 6 years old and it's about on it's last legs. Poor thing. My laptop is only a year and a half old, but we really need another one for home.

Almost time to go.

Hissssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Can a movie that is 3 months away from release possibly live up to the hype that is already growing out of control? (Mother fucking) Snakes on a (Mother fucking) Plane. And Samuel L. Jackson. What could be better? I am so dying to see this movie, but I am worried it is going to disappoint. Although ..... Blair Witch had HUGE hype months before it's release, and it did not disappoint. We shall see.

I have a day of cleaning and laundry ahead of me. Wish me luck.

Conversation and Hennessy

I was watching the season finale of House last night (which was one of the Grossest episodes I have ever seen. I don’t like seeing exploding eyeballs) and the less than average looking patient had a very pretty wife. House made a comment about how unusual that was. He said “3’s marry 3’s, 8’s marry 8’s, but 3’s and 8’s don’t usually marry each other”. Or something like that. Which I think is true for the most part, but there are exceptions, which totally boggle the mind. Oh wait – am I being superficial? Hmmmm….who isn’t? Now on with the show.

Personally, I think Matthew and I are even. I will not be so vain as to try and assign my own number, but if we are 3’s then we are both 3’s. And if we are 8’s (9’s did you say?) then we are both 8’s. We look very much alike anyway and I think we are equal on the “hot or not” scale. Whatever it may be.

But now…lemme tell ya. I have seen some odd pairings. I have an acquaintance who I consider a pretty girl. I recently saw her husband for the first time and it was quite disturbing. Scary is more like it. Now that I think about it, most of the examples I was going to give are pretty girls with ugly guys. Is that the way it works? I guess maybe girls can see beyond and behind the exterior and appreciate the heart of gold that these ugly guys probably have. Guys are much more shallow I guess. The good looking guys don’t want the homely girls and the ugly guys know that they can get the hot girls who are sick of the hot guy’s attitudes. To be fair, I do know a few average to below-average looking girls (I’m trying to avoid saying “ugly girls” because it will make me sound like a hateful bitch) who have managed to marry or have happy long term relationships. But each with ugly guys. So where are these hot guys? Who are they marrying? What are they doing? I guess marrying the hot girls as "trophy wives" and treating them like crap. I just don't get it.

I know what you are thinking now. That I have absolutely no room to speak of someone else’s attractiveness. Maybe I don’t, but I did it anyway.

What else, what else?

Have you heard the Eminem song called “Shake That”? I’m sorry, but that is comedic genius. He may just be a white boy from da ‘hood, but nobody can touch him lyrically. I read somewhere that he failed the 9th grade 3 times before finally dropping out of school. But the boy is far from stupid. Yeah he writes dirty, misogynistic, homophobic songs, but he’s only writing what most people are afraid to say. It’s an act and he’s brilliant. And he did manage to come up with an inspirational song “Lose Yourself”, which along with “8 Mile” gave me newfound admiration for him.

Don’t know why I just went on that Eminem rant. “Shake That” was playing on my computer and it just made me think. Think about writing. Several people have told me that I should pursue it professionally, but I know I need to work on it. It has been a long time since I was in school and while my thoughts are there, I have a hard time putting them on paper and having them be grammatically correct.

Time for work now. Dreading dreading dreading. I hate this feeling! Gotta do something about it.

Oh and by the way. Taylor better win American Idol tonight. I voted for him 4 times.

Got to stop wishin, got to go fishin

As usual, I have been meaning to post in here for over a week. I can’t believe we have been home for a week now!! That trip just went too fast and that is unacceptable. I need to start planning another one.

The dolphin dive on the last day was awesome. Even though only one dolphin decided to come with us, it was ok because there were only 4 of us (divers), 2 photographers, the trainer and the divemaster. So that was nice – we got lots o’ lovin’ time.

Later in the day we did the dolphin swim. Now this was another story. There were about 12-14 people doing this. With about 15 dolphins. Ugh. All I got were people’s fins in my face, fog in my mask and pissed off. Have I mentioned I hate people? When I finally did get interaction with a dolphin, the guy who was supposed to be filming us had disappeared chasing a Moray.

After spending way too much time in the photo shop getting our videos sorted out, we took a shower and went into West End for shopping and dinner. By the time we got there, most of the shops were closed. We had been looking forward all week to eating at Argentinean Grill, but we could not find it. I was told later we did not walk down far enough. West End is basically a 1 road town, and I thought it ended at the “triangle”. Apparently not. Had we walked past the triangle, we would have found it. (and no, I don’t usually ask people for directions or information) Oh well, we ended up eating pizza and watching a beautiful sunset. So it wasn’t all bad. And we did manage to find a couple t-shirts to wear home the next day.

Our flight was scheduled to leave at 2:40 on Saturday afternoon. The time change really screwed these people up and they kept telling us our flight left at 1:40 so they wanted us ready to leave for the airport at 9:30 am! With our bags being picked up by 7:30am! After packing and eating breakfast, we decided to go say goodbye to the dolphins. It was about 8am and there was nobody over there. I think the trainers usually show up around 8:30 or 9. As soon as we stepped on the dock we were greeted by a dolphin with a piece of grass in her mouth, wanting to play catch! After playing catch and rubbing her for a few minutes, we recognized the scratches on her back. It was Fiona! (the dolphin we met during the encounter and swim on Friday) Maybe she recognized us. We stayed and played with her for about 45 minutes and then the trainers started showing up with their buckets of fish, so of course she left. But that was awesome. The highlight of the trip.

So yeah, we get to the airport around 10am, get checked in, and end up having 4 hours to sit and wait. Nice. I could think of better things to do than sit in the Roatan airport. (like play with Fiona) We brought some movies with us, which we of course did not have time to watch all week. So we spent the next 2 hours sitting in uncomfortable metal chairs watching “Memoirs of a Geisha”. Which was very good by the way.

Toward the end of the movie I happened to look up at the person sitting across from me. You know how guys sit with their legs spread and elbows on their knees? Well this person was sitting like that, except they had on a skirt, make up, and long blonde hair. At first glance, it’s a woman. So I look at Matthew like “What’s up with that?” He just says “Stop” cuz he knows I’m not going to let this one go. Upon further investigation, I notice her feet are pretty big, as are her hands. (talk about “man hands”) She spent a lot of time brushing her hair and applying make up, but kept up that very un-lady-like sitting position. Now I’m quite sure she was post-op because unless she was a great tuck-artist, I didn’t see anything. Yes I looked – HEY! She was offering! And she was wearing a tight tank top so we could see she had boobs and I heard her talk and her voice was pretty feminine. So my question is….if you are going to go through ALL THAT to make yourself a woman. The pain. The money. The time. Couldn’t you At Least make an effort to practice girly mannerisms? I mean really….if it weren’t for the way she was sitting, I probably would not have even noticed her. Never would have questioned it. Yeah she was about 6 feet tall, but there are tall girls. At one point she got up and lost her seat, so when she came back, she sat next to me. I wanted so badly to give her some advice. Girls don’t sit like that! Especially when wearing a short skirt. But I didn’t. Oh and the guy she was with? (Yes he was really a guy.) Probably 20-25 years older than her. Looked like he should be pushing a shopping cart. Real skinny, crazy dirty gray hair and beard. I wonder if he knew that she used to be a man?

This week passed quickly. Got back into the groove of working. I guess. I am starting to get the “dread going to work” feeling. And I don’t like that. My 90 days with the security company is up, so I can call them and re-test. But there are no openings at my store now, so I don’t know if it would even matter.

We saw “The DaVinci Code” Friday. I didn’t see the point cuz it was Exactly like the book. But it’s still a good story. Matthew is all ate up with guilt cuz he knows his mommy would not approve of him seeing that movie. Please. That whole boycotting thing is just ridiculous. It’s fiction people! Just like most of your bible. But unlike the bible, I doubt people are going to run out and start a new religion based on it. It’s just an entertaining mystery story and if it makes you think about things? Well…that’s a good thing. You have spent too much time being close-minded.

Oh and get this. While at the movies we turn off our cell phones. (Because we are the considerate sort, unlike the woman who’s baby cried for the first 30 minutes of the film. If you can’t afford a babysitter, stay home!) It was about a quarter til 8 when the movie was over and we turned our phones back on. Matthew had received a message around 5pm (about the time we turned the phones off) from his parents that his brother’s wife’s brother had died (on Tuesday) and the visitation was tonight from 5-8. OK – notice? What’s up with that? They always do that to us and so of course now we look like the evil whores who skipped someone’s funeral to see an anti-Catholic movie. In spite of what they might think, I am not an evil person. I would not intentionally skip someone’s funeral. If they had been Considerate enough to tell us the day before, or hell even earlier in the day on Friday, we would have been there. But that’s the story of my life with that family. They have not liked me from day one, and I don’t expect that to ever change.

Enough of that. It’s time to move on to more pleasant things. Like the rest of this day -which looks like it should be beautiful. Maybe we will head down to Maifest and eat German food and spend money we shouldn’t getting henna tattoos.

Peace.

Mother mother ocean, I have heard you call

The beach party last night was pretty fun. They had BBQ ribs on a big grill, crab races and fire dancers. We stayed until around 9:30, which is way past our bedtime down here!

This morning at 8am, we left to do our very first wreck dive, El Aguila. We skipped the one on Tuesday because I was nervous about the depth. Gosh. So annoying! What’s the big deal? The wreck was Awesome. It was almost like seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. (almost) A piece of the wreck broke off during Hurricane Mitch, and I saw that lying on the bottom at about 110 feet. I was focused on that piece and did not even see the HUGE ship to my right. Wow. That was cool. We explored the wreck for a few minutes – Matthew went in to the wheelhouse. I think I got some pictures, but I’m not sure. Our camera is only supposed to go to 80 feet and we were at 98. It kinda stopped working for awhile. Hopefully it did not completely damage it. It seemed to work OK after we came up a bit. The photographer came with us on this dive….so I bought another video. At least the price goes down with each one you buy.

Our last 2 dives this afternoon were great too. I am finally feeling totally comfortable doing this. Too bad it’s over now. My buoyancy is spot-on, and I can hover very close to the reef. I am also getting pretty good at the mermaid swim, which I think looks totally cool when Jessica Alba does it. Not sure how I look, but it’s fun.

This week has gone by so fast! I can’t believe it’s almost over. I am already thinking about how we can take another dive trip this summer. I guess if I work more hours – and then probably have to quit my job to get all the time off. We have also decided it is definitely time to get our own equipment. I think this is something we are going to be doing for a long time, so it will be a good investment. Oh…and a good camera. I can hear the numbers adding up. Matthew mentioned selling the boat. Trade the boat for diving? Hmmmmm…..might be something to think about. Considering how much we are actually able to use the boat and how much it costs. I think that might be the plan.

There is a crew here from Scuba Diving magazine. I guess they are doing an article on Anthony’s Key, they have been taking all sorts of pictures. I was thinking about subscribing to that magazine anyway, but now I guess I definitely will to see that article. We might even end up in a picture.

Tomorrow morning is our dolphin dive. Usually 2 dolphins go out, but apparently the female is on the rag or something because she has refused to go the past couple times. People who have done it say that it is ok with one, but 2 would be much better.

Waitress I need 2 more boat drinks

We decided to do the night dive last night to see what it was like. I didn’t care for it too much. I mean…there is really not much to see. The fish are sleeping. We did see 2 or 3 lobsters and a big crab. But no octopus. And that would be the most fun to see. I wasn’t really scared because there were so many people and lights flashing around, but it was a bit disconcerting to try to find the strobe flashing under the boat and not see it. As dark as it was, it wasn’t dark enough. Too much moonlight made it hard to see the luminescence in the water. I saw a few sparkles here and there….but not much. So now I can say I have done the night dive, but I probably will not do it again. It just didn’t do anything for me. But at least it wasn’t as cold as I was afraid it would be. I wore just my skin and did ok. Which is surprising because I have been cold on most every dive. Not freezing cold…but chilled.

We skipped dinner again because we got back at 8:45 and after cleaning all our gear, we just didn’t feel like hiking up the hill.

Had to get up early this morning to catch the boat for Mary’s Place at 7:15am. It was 2 tank dive so I was afraid to eat too much for breakfast. Yikes. So I settled for a bowl of cereal.

Mary’s Place is on the other side of the island, past the airport and I think near CocoView Resort, where Tonya is staying. The water on this side of the island is rough! Our side of the island is nice calm glassy water….over there we had 4-6 foot swells. It could have been worse I guess, but it was a long boat ride. Fortunately our boat had all of it’s engines working, unlike last years boat ride to Cozumel. We were soaked and tired by the time we got there.

Mary’s Place is listed as one of the top 10 dive sites in the world. After that boat ride, it better live up to that! So after the harrowing boat ride, we suit up like Navy seals and jump into those 4 foot swells. Awesome. Mary’s Place was pretty awesome too. There are these HUGE crevices to swim through. Over 100 feet deep. We stayed at about 80 going through them. It was beautiful. Not much sea life that I remember, just the scenery of the walls was beautiful.

The highlight of the dive was at the end during our safety stop. A remora came around and swam between Matthew and I several times before the other people in the group saw him. He seemed to like us though. He kept getting closer and closer. Every time he got close to my face I blew bubbles at him cuz I didn’t want him sucking onto me trying to get a free ride. ( Later, a guy on our boat said one sucked onto his chest and he didn’t know it. Other people in his group finally told him after laughing at him for awhile. ) I think I got a good picture of him…I should have, considering how close he was.

Remember the swells? Well, getting OUT of the water was a rather challenging event. But I made it…after banging my shin on the boat.

There is a couple on our boat from Atlanta, the lady is annoying as hell. She wears make-up and lipstick to dive. I know her husband’s name is Frank cuz she is always whining “Fraaaaaank”, but I have no idea what her name is. Anyway, she had to go potty after that dive so we had to go to the dock on West Bay Beach and try to find a bathroom. Everybody was like….just pee in the ocean!!! She was not amused. Nor were the rest of us.

Our 2nd dive was right there off of West Bay beach at Mandy’s Eel Garden. This is the reef where we learned to dive 2 years ago! So nice to be back. I had buoyancy issues on this dive though. All of my weights had shifted to my back and my back was hurting so bad. It was so distracting. So I thought for sure I was over-weighted, but I was having trouble staying down. I have had perfect buoyancy all along, don’t know what happened on this dive. During our safety stop, the boat captain starting throwing bits of oranges into the water. So when we were trying to come up the ladder, we were getting bombarded by huge schools of Chubs and Sargeant Majors. It was weird at first cuz I didn’t know what was going on. But it was kinda cool.

After we ate lunch, I went down to the photo shop and told them I wanted to get a copy of the 2 videos they shot on a couple of our dives. I hate spending so much money, but we watched them and they are really good.

Our last dive today was on Canyon Reef. More crevices to swim through. I think I have had my fill of crevices. They are everywhere around here though. But we always seem to get behind stupid people. And I don’t have the patience for it. I think Miss Atlanta gets freaked out by the crevices and always has to turn around to find Fraaaaaank and he prods her along. I finally gave up, it just wasn’t worth it. So I swam above for the last couple of them. Matthew popped down into one without me knowing and that scared me. I looked around and he was just gone. I didn’t even see any bubbles. He got the finger for that one. That is my special underwater communication sign.

We did see a green Moray eel. Poor thing. He had no place to hide and all these scary bubbling creatures are chasing him. He was trying so hard to find a hole to hide in. People with cameras are obnoxious underwater. And on land too.

Fraaaaaaank!

Well it’s about time for me to take a shower…I think it’s been a day or 2. I am always wet, so I forget. There is a beach party tonight right outside our house. I think it starts at 6:30, so I have an hour.

Fins to the left

Awesome dive this morning. Now this is why I took up this sport!

We went to a reef called Wayne's Reef. A barracuda named Angelina was waiting under the boat for us and followed us around for awhile. Along with about 3 or 4 Grouper. At one point Angelina swam between Matthew and I - she was just a few inches away. So tempting to reach out....but she does have teeth. Let us not forget that.

The Grouper are another story. I'm sure it's a big no-no, but I did reach out and pet one. Probably not supposed to do that, but I couldn't resist. They are like big puppy dogs.

This was the best dive we have done thus far! It was so bright and beautiful, we must have been in the right spot for the sun to shine down directly on us. Which is a good thing because I have been cold on the past few dives. The sun kept the water warm on this one.

The only bad thing - no camera! We got down there and I tried to take a picture of Angelina and found out there was no film in the camera! D'Oh! That was very frustrating. There were good photo ops on this dive. Tons of fish. Huge schools of Blue Tang (Dory) above us. Lots of swim throughs in the wall, which I used to be scared of , but thoroughly enjoyed today.

Before diving this morning, we went horseback riding on the beach. I have not been on a horse in 20 years! What an adventure. I have the battle scars to prove it. My horse, Boyfriend, ran right under a cable which got hung up on my left leg. I have a huge red mark from it scraping and a bruise where it hit. The knee is a bit swollen too.

Oh another injury....my fins are rubbing the back of my heel. Not sure what to do about that, short of buying new fins. I just try to make band-aids stick (which they don't) and dive through the pain.

30 minutes til our next dive. Gotta go.

In the deep

I changed my mind about posting my travel journal in here. The connection is So Slow, it just takes too long.

Besides, I don't really write that much. There is nothing to write about. All we do is dive, eat and sleep. That's it. There is nothing much else to do here, and even if there was, after doing 3 dives a day we are too dang tired to do anything else. It is about all we can do to drag our asses up 50some stairs to eat dinner.

Anyway...the diving is great. No problems at all. What do I get so worked up about? Jeez.

We haven't seen any sharks. Yet. One can dream. I want to see one, but I don't really want to do the shark dive. I don't know. I may change my mind about that. We do the dolphin dive on Wednesday morning and I am really looking forward to that. We are also doing our first night dive tomorrow. I'm a bit scared of that, but it could be fun.

Matthew is sleeping right now and in about 20 minutes I am going to take a shower. Then it will be dinner time. After that, we will come back here and go to sleep again.

After our 2nd dive today they dumped us on a beach for a picnic and after we ate, we had about an hour and a half to kill before the boat came back. So we took a nap in the shade under the palm trees. How cool does that sound? It was.

That's all for now. C-ya.

Changes in Latitude

Saturday May 6, 2006
10:12am


Good old Atlanta. What can I say about ATL that I haven’t already said? I’m glad I don’t live here anymore – ‘nuff said.

We have about an hour and a half until our flight to Roatan leaves. Everything so far has been uneventful. With the exception of my nervous stomach and the nagging feeling that we have forgotten something. What could we have possibly forgotten? We have TWO 21 inch roller bags, a HUGE rolling duffel that we checked, and a backpack. The dive equipment takes up all the room in the checked bag. I hated to check it, but hopefully it will make it. The important dive equipment (masks), are in our carry on. Everything else we can rent if necessary.

Matthew has gone off in search of a newspaper – don’t know why it’s taking so long. I guess we should find something to eat because I doubt they will feed us on this flight. And dinner isn’t served at Anthony’s until 7pm. Part of me is so excited about this trip, but another part of me is so nervous about diving. And I have no idea why! I know once I get down there, I will be ok. I just worry way too much. I trust Matthew to take care of me and I will take care of him. All will be fine.

I am off to enjoy some fine Hartsfield-some new name International Airport cuisine. Oh how I loathe this airport. Will check back in from Roatan!

2:10pm

Still in Atlanta. We thought we were leaving….but it was just a tease. Our flight was originally scheduled to leave at 11:40 and they told us it was delayed until 12. At 12 they said the plane had mechanical problems with a 4pm fix time. They might try to find us another plane or cancel the flight. Say what? At 12:30 they said they found another plane and it was pulling up to the next gate and we should be able to leave by 1pm.

We all get on the plane and sit. And sit. And sit. Finally the captain comes on and tells us he is trying to find out why we are still sitting. Turns out, the plane they brought for us had only 4 hours left before it’s 100 hour inspection. They tried to get a waiver from the FAA , but no deal. I told Matthew to go flash his ID, but that didn’t work. Anyway – that was a HUGE mistake on Delta’s part and I’m sure someone will catch holy hell for that.

Basically, the only people who go to Roatan are divers; so we are on a plane full of divers, which means they are pretty laid back compared to most people in the same situation. Although the guy across the aisle starts hollerin’ about how he hates flying American airlines (airlines owned by American companies….not just AA) because they are so incompetent and never do things right. Obviously he has never been to Paris and had to deal with Air France at CDG.

They keep telling us they are trying to get a waiver, but I am sitting right above the cargo door and can see all the luggage being removed and put in the carts. Great! Finally he comes on and says they found another plane for us, but we have to get off and go down to the next gate.

So here we sit, 2 gates down from where we started. We should be about to land in Roatan, but instead we have moved maybe 200 feet. And now they are changing a tire on the plane they brought for us. The board is still showing a departure time of 2:45. We shall see.

Needless to say, there will be no afternoon dive for us today. That kinda sucks. I guess we will have to do our check-out dive in the morning and do the afternoon boat dive tomorrow. Oh well. Not the end of the world. But this sure is a crappy way to start our vacation.

4:07pm

On our way! We finally pushed back around 3pm, so we should be landing in about an hour and a half. Did I mention the obnoxious people in front of us? Well they were half lit on the first plane and during the break they must have hit the bar again and now are totally gone. And they keep getting rum and cokes cuz the crew is giving us free drinks and movies. The free movie is “Big Momma’s House 2” – I would rather just stare out the window at the clouds. So I am writing this and listening to Jimmy Buffett.

8:50pm

Finally!! Our flight arrived at the same time as a CO flight, so we spent quite a long time in the immigration line. But once we got through that, everything was smooth. Anthony’s Key people were there to collect our luggage and transport it and us to the resort. We never even had to touch it. That was nice.

Roatan looks pretty much the same as it did 2 years ago, but there is still tons of construction going on. Part of me thinks that is a good thing - that it will bring money into their economy. But in reality, the poor will still be poor. People will come in and build their fancy houses and resorts and the people that live here now will not be able to afford to anymore. Sort of like Jackson Hole. So yeah…it’s not a good thing. Oh and the dogs. The stray dogs always bother me.

But on to more pleasant things. The resort is beautiful. Our room is over the water and is bigger than I expected. There is a king size bed and a full size bed in here. The bathroom is huge and we have our own private deck over the water.

Once our luggage was delivered, we went up to the dining pavilion for dinner. We did not eat well all day today. Crappy airline snacks…cheese and crackers. Dinner was a nice roast pork with applesauce and rice. After dinner we went for a quick swim (the pool is beautiful too) but it cooled off quite a bit tonight, so we came back to the room to unpack.

We have not really decided if we are going to do the first or second dive in the morning. If we want to do the first one, we have to be there at 7am. I guess it depends on what time we wake up. I am getting sleepy, so waking up early should not be a problem.

Oh…one more thing before I go. Honduras has decided to adopt Daylight Savings Time. Starting tomorrow. Really - it’s about time they did that. 2 years ago it would be light around 5am and get dark around 6pm. This will push each of those back an hour.

I was going to post a picture, but this connection isn't very good.

No static at all

So check this out – 3 people (Count ‘em! THREE!) that I consider friends or other life forms of some sort, have started blogs recently! How cool is that? I have added links to their pages on here, so go check ‘em out. They are harmless folks who may have an interesting thing to say every now and then.

And by the way…divewitch earns the prize for the coolest name. I have never told her this, but I have been jealous of that name for a LONG time and wish I had come up with it. But she has a knack for thinking up nicknames. We used to work with a guy we called The Doorman. She came up with that too. I won’t go into what it means, but let’s just leave it with – it was hella funny. Still makes me giggle when I think about it.

Oh and those 3 people that started the blogs, well 2 of them have had tooth problems in the past few weeks. Just like me. See….things really do happen in 3’s.

Aren’t teeth a bitch? Today I had to go in to get the permanent filling on #15 and hopefully be done with the whole mess. When I got in the chair he said, “This should only take a few minutes and the best part is – no shots!” Huh? Say what? No shots?? At that point I was terrified! He said, “You just have to trust me. It won’t hurt.” He was right. It didn’t. And I was out of there in 20 minutes. All done now. Well….I have to go back for a cleaning on May 31 and more drama will probably ensue after that.

Matthew really wanted to practice SCUBA in a pool before going on our trip. I really DIDN’T want to. The thought of dragging all the crap out, getting all wet, just to sit on the bottom of a pool, did not appeal to me. But because I am a good wife, I went along. After spending 30 minutes getting ready, we spent about 15 minutes in the pool. Jeez. I was freezing and guess who forgot to bring towels!!!

After air-drying and warming up, we ate dinner at Longhorn. They have this new Spinach Artichoke dip. If you’ve had it at Friday’s or Applebee’s, you haven’t really had it. You have to try Longhorn’s version. It blows them all away.

I have to work at 4pm. In the meantime, I am going to go through some pictures of Bijoux so I can enter her in the “Pets with Pizazz” contest in the local paper. There are 4 categories – Cutest, Most Creatively Dressed, Owner/Pet Look-alike, and Most Exotic. I think she will have to go in the Cutest category, cuz she doesn’t look like me, she’s not really exotic and I don’t dress her in weird clothes. I am having trouble finding the right picture. My favourite one is more “arty” than cute. Tell me what you think.