What You See Isn't What You Always Get

While cruising around AOL, I found these 2 sites that have optical illusions. There is nothing better than a good optical illusion to mess with someones head.
Optical Illusion Site #1

Optical Illusion Site #2

Is This A Sign Of Things To Come?

I have been neglecting my blog for several days. Been busy doing outside work. Clearing out the gardens, raking up dead grass in the yard in preparation for seeding, mowing the yard etc. Our future vacation plans have been made. We have decided to go back to Canada in May of 2010. We will be back on the NCL Pearl again. We had such a great time on our first cruise that we decided to do it all again but on a more reasonable level. No suite this time but we will have a balcony cabin. This time we will be departing out of Vancouver, BC instead of Seattle but our return will be to Seattle. We will fly into Seattle Tacoma International airport on the day prior to us boarding the ship and we will most likely take some type of shuttle to Vancouver. There is a hotel that is right there at the dock where the cruise ship will be. I believe that the set of buildings is called Canada Place. If I remember, the hotel is called the Pan Pacific Vancouver. We will try to get in early enough so that we will have a little time to explore Vancouver. We probably won't be taking as many excursions on this trip. We took so many last time that we never really got a chance to walk around any of the ports of call...Skagway, Juneau and Ketchikan. Here is our new count down ticker for this cruise.


Veronica and I will be going to Charlotte, NC in a couple of weeks. It will be just an overnight stay. Veronica is giving a presentation there and I am going to help her on the drive and to keep her company. Shortly after we return from this short journey, we are going to be headed to the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg TN area for a weeks vacation. We have rented a cabin there. A couple of weeks after we get back from that trip, Veronica and I will be flying to Vegas. Veronica has some sort of seminar/awards ceremony going on there for her work. We will be staying one extra night and we also have tickets to see KÀ by Cirque du Soleil
which will be shown at the MGM Grand. We are actually staying at the Venetian which looks like a pretty fancy hotel there. Our Vegas trip should be interesting. I do play the slots a little bit but I am really not much of a gambler...no table games for the most part. I should get plenty of great photos and videos of the many sights and sounds that Vegas has to offer. I will probably have to leave my camera behind, when Veronica and I return home. As you know...what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas so if I happen to get any self incriminating photos, the last things I will be doing is bringing my camera home and posting them on my blog. I will do my best to be a good boy while I am out there, so that I can share my photos with everyone.
We are also checking into the possibilities of going to Europe on a cruise later next year..maybe in September. More on that in the future.
With our upcoming trip to the Pigeon Forge/Gatlinburg area just around the corner, I am keeping an eye on things so that we don't have a repeat performance like our most recent "vacation" to Canada...the vacation where everything went wrong from the start and continued right through even after the vacation ended. I got a call from Veronica who is at work. It seems that her Toyota RAV4 would not start at all. She had to call AAA Roadside Service to have it towed to our friendly car dealership. Not sure what is wrong nor how much this little adventure will cost us but one thing I know for sure...I sure hope that this is not an indication of things to come as far as our upcoming vacation goes. I almost forgot to mention...if anyone out there has been to Vegas recently, could you please let me know if there are any decent food places that won't cost me an arm and a leg. The thought of spending $20 for a buffet breakfast does not really appeal to neither myself nor my wallet. Any thoughts or suggestions will be greatly appreciated!!!

Hi!! My Name Is Rick And I Am A Hoarder

Hi!! My name is Rick and I am a hoarder. Not necessarily in the most traditional of ways, but a hoarder none the less. There have been times where I have procured and put away some small scraps of this and that for future use. I can never know when that special occasion might arrive, when I will need those "this and thats" to aid me in my attempts to do my best MacGyver impersonation. It is during those MacGyver attempts that the full wisdom of my saving them and the total usefulness of those "this and thats" become readily and clearly apparent to all of those who happen to be around me at that time. But this isn't the hoarding that I am really talking about. My main hoarding tendencies occur when I feel the need to save a web site into "my favorites" or bookmark it on my computer. I have so many web sites saved that it sometimes takes me forever to locate that special web site when I need it. I am sure that I could do a Google search faster than it takes to scroll up and down "my favorites" list. The Google search method might be quicker, but that would take away the need for the "my favorites" list and we all know that a true hoarder would not delete or get rid of any of those saved web sites. Besides the usual numerous financial sites, I have saved the shortcuts to weather sites for both the US and Canada, all of the major network sites for catching up on missed episodes...no Tivo here, Mega Millions web site...like I stand a chance in hell of winning anything above and beyond those slips of paper that my loser numbers are printed on, assorted fishing gear manufacturers, bunches of travel related sites and that includes all of those 3rd party sites that sell supposedly discounted airline tickets, car rental and hotel rates, computer wallpaper sites, interesting travel locations that I would love to visit one of these days, trip insurance sites to go along my travel sites, currency converter site, a shoe size converter site for converting mens shoe sizes to a womans size and vise versa..the vice versa was the real reason for saving that site..to convert Veronica shoe size into a mans shoe/boot size...and no I do not where women's shoes but thank you for asking, auto club site, tv guide site, jewelery sites, weekly ad circular sites for checking out the latest ads at our local grocery stores and many of the ads in the other 49 adjoining states and a Federal District, you tube, amazon.com, web sites that show the lyrics to some of my favorite songs, real estate property sites, my Luzianne instant coffee site...where I have to order my special Luzianne instant coffee with chicory...love the taste of that chicory, assorted photo sites, of course my frequently visited blog sites, an online rebate site, numerous sports and news sites, the Verizon web site...boy I have needed this site quite a number of times over the last 6-8 months or so...read earlier blog entries about that, an old time candy site, postal service sites, medical sites, many health sites and on and on it goes. I think you get the overall idea. I hardly ever delete one of these sites that are in "my favorites" list. Last time i had a long list of "my favorites" that was stored on my computer, that computer crashed and I lost all of those shortcuts to so many web sites that I was crushed and devastated. I had to start all over again on this computer but this time I had to make "my favorites" list twice as long as before. And because of my fear that this computer will crash someday in the future, I clicked on one of my stored "my favorites" sites...amazon.com and purchased a whole computer portable backup drive. NEVER AGAIN will I lose all of those important web sites that have been saved on "my favorites" when this computer decides to crash. All of the aforementioned web sites are important to me...maybe not right this minute but they could be tomorrow or the next day or the next day after that!!!! Yes indeed...my name is Rick and.....I am a hoarder.