First, here’s a drawing I did of Pascal, the chameleon from Tangled:

This is the second Mickey that I’ve drawn at the academy, and I’ve also drawn Minnie. Point being, I’m getting pretty good at this one, I think.

(inspired by a conversation I had with my Dad while he was trying to print something earlier today)

Last night, B* and I attended a benefit dinner for the Cheetah Conservation Fund. I had gotten an invitation as a result of a donation I made back when I ran the Cheetah 5K (my first 5K after starting my half-marathon training plan). It was held downtown, in a very nice law office that overlooks the river, and one of the things we got to do while there is meet a cheetah, pictured above. We also met Dr. Marker, who is the founder and director of the CCF. She works in Namibia to help educate farmers on ways that they can protect their livestock without having to hunt or kill the cheetah population.

It was very nice, and B* and I enjoyed the experience immensely. We listened to the cheetah purring contentedly as he was adored by all of us. He was a bit restless during the photo session, but this particular cheetah is in training to become an ambassador cheetah, meaning one that will do educational programs and do media appearances. We were like a beta test.

After we finished at the benefit (where, really, I felt very adored…it was nice), B* and I decided to see if there was a show we could go see. We initially were thinking ComedySportz, but we Googled and found a Super Mario themed burlesque show that intrigued us. The same theatre also had a similar offering themed on Star Wars that was showing a bit earlier, so we decided to give that a try. After a bit of a drive, we parked not far from the theatre entrance, at which point B* had to pay the meter. The meter was still operating for another 40 minutes, and each 15 minute period was a quarter. Neither of us had change, but the paybox took credit. B* used his card, with some grumbling about having to pay for five minutes, and we joked about the credit card having to be authorized for 65 cents. But then, with near perfect timing, the paybox declined the card. It was just a glitch, but it cracked us up thoroughly.

While B* put the pay ticket in the windshield, I went to the box office to get our tickets. We were an hour early, and they had a show in progress already. They had signs up to keep quiet, so as I walked in, I closed the door carefully, and I whispered, “I’d like–”

“SHHHHH! Show in progress!”

I almost laughed. I was already whispering. I couldn’t go any lower. (B* later suggested that I should have said my next lowest level is “vibrate” and started buzzing at the guy.) So I walked over to the counter and tried to be even quieter. “Could I please get tickets to–”

The hipster in charge interrupted with a loud whisper, “Could you speak up?”

I can’t please these people! After all of that, I learned that both shows were already sold out. D’oh! And after B* paid 65 cents for parking! So, we bailed and went back to our original plan of ComedySportz, which was funny as usual. I got home way later than I should have, especially since I had to wake up this morning to do the Corn Maze 5K (which went well, despite ominous weather). B* and I will definitely be doing that burlesque show at some point in the future. They seem to do a geeky series of them, so we imagine we’ll be able to do it in good time.

We were upset that the Eiffel Tower lights show had no music, so we made up our own. Make sure you have your speakers on and the volume turned up, as the silliness is our voice-over.

Now, I had put them in a very specific spot that was not prone to getting knocked either on the ground or into the hot tub, so I was shocked they were not there.  The only thing I could figure, especially after DH and I hunted for them as well as checking with the bars near the pool, is that one of the foreign couples had picked them up accidentally while gathering their things, thinking they were their glasses or sunglasses.  Our new ex-pat friend, Bridget, hunted around for them with us until her husband returned from checking on the kids, but we had no luck.  We were told that the main lost and found is at reception, so we went down to that floor to check, but again, no luck.  They said to check back as it might take awhile for whoever had them to get them over to reception.  But, at that point, I was tired and now sad, so I was pretty much done for the evening.

The next morning, we checked again after breakfast with no luck.  This was a sea day, so at least there wasn’t much to see.  I did have my prescription sunglasses with me, so I was stuck with the piteous choice of things being dark but clear or unclear and bright.  As is normal for NCL sea days, they had a liquor tasting scheduled.  What was not normal is that this ship, for whatever reason, scheduled all the tastings back to back on one day.  It was martini tasting (my favorite) at 2pm, followed by wine tasting at 3pm, and then beer tasting at 4pm.  DH and I chuckled about how there were sure to be some crazy people who did all three because of how they were scheduled.

We had told Bridget about how the ‘tini tastings tend to be both fun and a good value, and so we weren’t surprised when she joined us there along with her husband, Dave.  Another person we’d met, Sally, also sat with us while we enjoyed various martinis.  DH had gone to a frequent cruisers’ reception before the ‘tini tasting where they handed out free rum punch, so he decided to sit out the ‘tinis.  (He’s not much of a ‘tini drinker anyways.)  Well, as normal, I was schnockered after sampling 5 mini-tinis plus extras from the bartender.  Bridget and Dave also wanted to go to the wine tasting, and DH was up for that, so I went along though I sat that one out.  We ran into some of Bridget’s other acquaintances there, one of whom grew up in Charleston, so that was great fun. 

The beer tasting was next, but Bridget, Lindsay (from Charleston), DH, and I had no interest in it.  Lindsay’s husband, Ian, and Bridget’s husband, Dave, headed down to give it a go.  DH and I checked again at the front desk for my glasses (no luck), and then went to the bar city area to meet up again with our group.  So…DH and I were drunk, but our companions were definitely wasted.  They were barely walking without tumbling.  Bridget was chatting up random men and showing her boobs to them.  It was crazy.  It was hilarious, mind you, but crazy.  Then, DH and I wanted to do the progressive trivia round 1 at 5:45 that was right nearby so we went there.  (I should note that DH and I are enablers, as we fetched spare drinks from the casino for our companions while we got ones for ourselves at the same time.)  We decided our team name should be, “We are so drunk.”  Bridget kept falling out of her bar stool, so she eventually sat in a regular chair and then couldn’t stay in that successfully.  The whole group was loud and raucous.  But, we still somehow managed to get 11.5 questions right and narrowly avoided the best score for that round.  Some spoilsports came over and complained to us about the noise, but, in fairness, we sat at the bar, as far from the main trivia group as we could…and we were able to hear and answer the questions, despite being right next to the drunken crew, so yeah…screw you, old angry men!  We even had some people defect from their teams and come to ours to help answer questions for us (mainly due to Bridget luring them with her assets), so that may have been the real issue at hand.  

Anyways, after trivia, DH and I left the rest of the group and headed to dinner, figuring we needed some food in our stomachs.  Then, we went back to the room to rest (read: pass out) until the evening entertainment started.  We always enjoy the evening game show activities.  We got up eventually to go to one show and perhaps unsurprisingly, none of our companions made it there.    Also, DH and I both needed to go running, and we felt sober enough to manage that after our brief nap, so we went running around 10pm.  I’m proud to say that either I’m a better runner when inebriated (possible) or the track on the ship is shorter than it says it is (also possible).  I want to think the alcohol was the main contributor, so I can someday plan to do those wine-filled 10K’s.  We also stopped again at the desk to check for my glasses, and they were there!  As suspected, one of the couples had picked them up by accident.  Yay!  I could see!  And just in time, too, as the next day, we’d be in Piraeus/Athens.

So, we managed to solve this problem pretty easily. DH and I decided not to go on a cruise together but rather to go with friends. In particular, B* was wanting to take his grandma (aka Grammy, who is a super-cool lady) on a cruise. He had asked me to let him know the next time we might be going on a cruise, so they could tag along. I called him up, explained the situation and costs, and he not only said he’d go, he offered to pay my way, since the total cost of the cruise for the three of us was less than the cost of similar cruises he’d been looking at for the two of them. We booked the cruise, and everything was unicorns and rainbows, until we started trying to book airfare.

It turns out that the cruise was happening during a popular time for spring break. As such, flights to Miami in every configuration that we could manage (from MKE, ORD, or MDW) were ~$900 per person. What’s more, neither B* nor I wanted to miss work on Friday, and there were no flights we could take that avoided us missing at least a half day of work. We started looking into alternate ideas, and this is where TAR skills come into play. We looked at driving the whole trip. It was do-able, but it’s 24 hours of solid driving, which means we’d still have to miss the Friday of work *and* drive straight through or nearly straight through to make it. Then, we looked at flying to ATL, renting a car one way, and driving from there. The timing didn’t work, and the one-way car rental was cost prohibitive. Finally, DH thought of looking at flying into Jacksonville and driving from there. That ended up being the best solution. We’re going to fly into JAX, arrive late Friday night, drive to Daytona to sleep overnight, and then wake up early Saturday to finish the drive to Miami, drop off the rental car, and get on the cruise ship. Being that we have two relatively young and hardy drivers, and one Grammy to keep them company, this shouldn’t be much of an issue. Then, when the cruise returns, we pick up a rental car at the port, drive back up to JAX, spend a night there, and take a redeye out of JAX back to ORD. Even figuring the cost of hotels, gas, and rentals, this ended up being a much more affordable option for the three of us. The only risk (and this was really a risk with either plan) is if there’s some kind of terrible weather that causes our flight to get cancelled. If we were flying to Miami, we could theoretically arrive as late as 1:30pm on Saturday and still make the cruise. Flying to JAX, we have to be there by Saturday 7am. Of course, if the weather is that bad, chances are that it’s bad enough to prevent either of those scenarios. Also, in those scenarios, if there is a way to get to MIA in time, we can probably arrange with the airline to switch to an MIA flight out and take our original return itinerary. But mainly, we’re going to cross our fingers and think happy thoughts, because weather that bad is either a massive snowstorm or a hurricane…and either one is a huge risk.

Total estimated cost for flying in/out of MIA (3 people): $2200 for terrible flight times or $3100 for reasonable flight times
Total cost to fly in/out of JAX and drive (3 people): $1100 for perfect flight times
(Costs that are common to both trips, e.g., parking at ORD, have been excluded from both estimates. Hotel costs for any necessary overnight stays are included and assume a 2-3 star hotel.)

Just goes to show that TAR-esque airport shuffling can come in handy! (It also makes you really appreciate ye olde TAR days, when there was airport shuffling as opposed to spoonfed flights.) DH and I also waxed nostalgic about an online version of TAR that we played with a group of folks once. We were in New Orleans for the start of the race, and the clue said “Make your way to [some city in the Bahamas].” DH and I were the only people to think of renting a car and driving to ATL or DFW rather than flying out of MSY, which has far fewer flights. We got something like a twelve hour lead on the other teams. It was erased by bunching in the next leg, of course, but we were so proud of ourselves.

So, I was looking in the desktop replacement laptop area. I still want a laptop so I can move it between floors of the house, but it’s going to generally be plugged in all the time (meaning battery life isn’t an issue), and I’m not going to move it very often (so weight isn’t an issue). And, I really didn’t need much more performance than Happy had…which means just about any laptop will do.

I ended up buying a Gateway NV73A17u 17.3″ laptop. It was the cheapest of the 17″ laptops that I was looking at, and MiniMoo, which is a Gateway (Acer), has worked great for me aside from the broken battery (which, admittedly, is probably my fault). Also, a quick search on eBay showed that chargers and batteries are cheap and plentiful. Other laptops in the running included the ASUS K72F-B1 and the HP Pavilion dv7-4170us. Price made the decision, so we’ll see how that works out for me.

Of course this happens *after* Black Friday…

However, if you look around for instructions, Disney and Amazon point you to Microsoft, and Microsoft doesn’t really give very much info on how to do this with non-Windows portable devices. So, I’m adding the instructions to the internet for anyone who needs them. Please note that these instructions are written for Win7 using Windows Media Player 11 and a Droid X and that I can’t promise they’ll work on your particular device or configuration…but they probably will.

Edited to add: Verified from various forums that this works on the Droid 2 and Droid Pro. Does not seem to work on Atrix. Please comment if you’ve verified that this works or doesn’t work on any other devices. Thanks!

1. Download the video. (If it’s a Disney Digital Copy, you need to insert your digital copy disc in your computer’s DVD reader, enter your activation code, and choose “Windows Media Player” as the medium (vs. iTunes). You only get one choice here. If you choose WM, you can’t go back and choose iTunes or vice versa, so consider carefully before you make the choice.)
2. Use your microUSB data cable to plug your DROID X into the computer. (The Media Share app might pop up. Hit the back key to back out of it if it does.) Pull down the bar at the top and tap the USB connection symbol/notification. Choose “Windows Media Sync” as your USB connection type. (If you’ve never done this before, Windows might take a few minutes to install drivers.) You should see/get a screen like this:
   
3. Click to Manage Media On Your Device. WMP 11 will launch and show you a directory of your media. Navigate to your videos library and select the portable copy (the smaller file size of the two files, generally). You can also transfer the full HD copy, if you want to use HDMI-out to play it on a larger screen, but the HD copies are usually 1-2GB vs. less than a gig for portable resolution.
4. Drag the video(s) to the SYNC tab on the right and click Sync. Wait for sync to complete and then disconnect your device.
5. On your device, navigate to the video and tap to play it. (On Droid X, click Files, then choose the Videos folder.)
6. A notification will pop up that your license has expired and offer you the option to BUY or CANCEL. Tap BUY. (This is the most confusing part of this process. You’re not buying anything. It just needs to renew the license on the server. You already bought the license, and it just needs to verify that using the key that Windows transferred along with the file.)
7. In a few seconds, your video should begin to play.

If the above doesn’t work for you, I probably can’t help you. There’s too many variables. But, it worked for me. Happy watching!

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