Thought I'd give you an update on the latest news. So far I have ordered the champagne flutes, the Flex pack, and a photo album from things remembered. The photo album I purchased on a whim--the color of the front is "wine", which I thought was appropriate for the "Ruby" anniversary! I had it engraved with the purpose being that the album will include pictures from our weekend celebration. Hope that's ok, I can't wait to get it and see how it turns out! I am going to include the lyrics to "You're still the one" by Shania Twain, because mom and dad had mentioned a while back that that's their 'new' wedding song. We won't mention that things haven't worked out too well for Shania lately!
I also made a reservation at the Ocean Grill Restaurant's private party 3rd floor (has a great view!). Here's the deal--I asked for Sunday night, but they have an unconfirmed party. So for now it is scheduled for Monday night, but we'll take Sunday if the other group falls through. There is no extra charge for eating up there, and we can just order off the menu w/o restrictions. Obviously we should plan to pay for Mom and Dad. www.oceangrillrestaurant.com The guy is going to send me a list of their champagnes so we can select one for the toast. I'm not sure how many bottles to reserve, maybe 2? I've put out some inquiries on cakes, so that is in the works. If we do cake at the reception, there is a $3 per person cake cutting fee. I guess they have to get you somewhere, right?! But it would be really nice to do the toast and cake right there in the private room, so I say we go for it.
I'm putting all the expenses on a credit card that had a zero balance so we can easily split everything up that weekend. We can also put mom and dad's meal on it. So far, including an estimate of mom and dad's meal and the cake fee along with the gifts, our total is $91.50 per person (split 6 ways). I'll update you later on what it will be with the cake.
Gee, couldn't mom and dad have had just a few more kids? Think how cheap this would be split 10 ways! KIDDING!
Kristen said 20 minutes later
Oh, and one more thing. Any volunteers for actually making a toast? Hum, perhaps this should fall on the eldest child! Muhawhaha!
GJ said about 6 hours later
Oh you are quite evil. Can I double my donation and get out of it? Or maybe...I'll do one, and invite each of my wonderful siblings to speak their best wishes as well. Muwhahahahahahahaha!
GJ said about 6 hours later
Also, make it 3 bottles to be safe. I'll drink the remainder if I have to.
And THANK YOU for taking care of this. You rock!!! Let me know how you want me to get the money to you.
GJ said about 22 hours later
OK, don't all volunteer to do the toast at once. :)
I'll take care of it.
GJ said about 22 hours later
Not sure yet how I'm going to approach it, but if you each have a memory or event relating to Mom & Dad that you'd like me to consider adding to the toast, email it to me. You know, firstname.lastname at experian.com. If I get enough of them, that could easily form the core of the toast.
Also, if one or more of you really want to speak, we can arrange it, but I want to keep this short (under five minutes total, tops).
GJ said 1 day later
The toast has been written, tested, and performed...comes in at 90-120 seconds, so it's just about right in length. I decided against a memories style one, since this should be about Mom & Dad, not us. :)
Kristen said 2 days later
Wow, I am impressed!! Whatever happened to the signature 'wait till the last minute' baumbach trait?
I should have more cake details on Monday....
GJ said 2 days later
I got inspiration and decided to act on it. I think Mom and Dad will like it, so I'm going to be sure to bring a copy printed up nicely to keep. So...how do you want the moola?
Kristen said 2 days later
I figure that I will collect it when we get down there. What would work really well is to have you guys write a check made out to my credit card! I'll keep updating you guys on what the final total is.
Geoff said 2 days later
Thanks for stepping up to the plate Kristen and GJ. I've been busy as can be and haven't had much time to contribute to the blog (or anything for that matter) lately.
Unfortunately I don't believe we will be attending the festivities this year. Just let me know what I owe when the time comes and I can write a check or PayPal it to you. Thanks!
Kristen said 2 days later
Bummer, I had just talked with mom the other day and she thought you guys were coming! :( I'm sure you will be busy though...for about the next 18 years or so! LOL
Here's a link to the bakery where I'm getting the cake. The website is really good, I think even you guys will be impressed! The prices for what I'm looking for don't seem too steep, which surprised me. (I even ordered one layer to be vanilla, for Geoff! Doh!) www.sherisedibledesigns.com
Geoff said 2 days later
Yeah they sort of got ahead of themselves. I just looked up airfare...which is darn expensive for a 2 day vacation :) Besides that, I've got no one to watch the dog and I would have a lot to cart around for a road trip at this stage...and timing for work isn't too good. Ah well. You guys don't want to listen to a screaming baby in the wee hours anyway :)
GJ said 2 days later
Young babies actually tend to do great in car rides, but they require so much maintenance at this stage it's just not much fun vacationing *with* them at this point.
Geoff said 2 days later
All I would do is sleep. No need to spend $1000 to fly to SC for sleep :)
Kristen said 4 days later
Hey Geoff, just putting it out there--you might be able to find much cheaper rates by flying in near me, and then you could drive down with us. Check into flying into BWI (Baltimore), Dulles, or Reagan.
Kristen said 4 days later
For example, I just did a quick search on travelocity.com and found a steal: fly into Baltimore from Rochester on thursday morning or afternoon, July 17 (non stop), and then fly back out the following Wed, July 23rd (non stop) for only $148! that's for 2 adults! What a steal!
Mom and dad could grab you at the airport thursday afternoon on their way down to my house, or I could pick you up. Then I can drive you back. BWI is only 90 minutes from my house, no biggie.
Let me know.
Steve said 5 days later
Kristen, thanks for arranging everything. Are you leaving to head home early on the 23rd? I thought this was a week long thing - Saturday to Saturday. Just trying to keep in the loop.
GJ said 5 days later
Uh, no, it's Saturday to Tuesday morning--for the Hilton Head part.
Steve said 5 days later
ok, thanks.
Steve said 5 days later
Flight booked. I'm flying down Friday afternoon, will spend an evening touring Savannah, then driving up to Hilton Head Saturday morning. Fly home Tuesday afternoon.
Kristen said 5 days later
Ohhh...I'm jealous! Someday I'll get to Savannah again for more than an hour!
Cake is ordered as well. Now I'm working on planning out some meals. I'll do some grocery shopping when I get down to the resort.
Geoff said 5 days later
Hey Kristen, thanks for looking up the flight info. I don't have anywhere to go with the dog, and Michelle won't leave her at the kennel. I'll keep trying to convince her...the dog didn't eat any food when we were at the hospital and she doesn't want that happening at the kennel.
Even so...I'd have to figure out where to go with the luggage, car seat, stroller, portable play pen/crib, and the moon :) I may need a jumbo jet.
For any booking purposes, I would count us out. I doubt we will be able to make it. I'll let you know if plans change otherwise!
GJ said 5 days later
Kristen, Darcy would love to help with the meal planning and execution.
Kristen said 6 days later
True Geoff--even if you get the tickets cheap they will charge you an $800 surcharge to put your luggage on the plane!
If you have even a tiny bit of geek blood in your veins, you know that Firefox 3 has been recently released. If you were one of the lucky ones who threw caution out the window and installed the initial release of FF3, you already know what I'm about to tell you:
Firefox 3 sucks.
Don't get me wrong--the feature changes are pretty cool. But, and this is a bigger but than my own derreire, FF3 harkens back to the days of running Windows 3.0 in terms of crashing. For those of you who don't remember those golden days of Windows, let's just say Win3.0 brought application crashing to level of an art. FF3 is very retro in that regard.
Already installed it? You might want to downgrade. If you keep it, well, stay away from Flash stuff. I know, easy to do, what with it being all over the web these days. It seems it really doesn't much care for Flash...or gets so excited about Flash, it has to max the cpu (or at least one of them, if you have multiple CPUs) infinitely.
For those of you still running FF2, stay there. Only run IE? How's Back Orifice treating you?
I can confirm that FF3 blows, both visually and performance wise. Thank you Microzilla.
GJ said about 21 hours later
The awesome bar is pretty cool, though. IMHO, of course.
Geoff said about 23 hours later
eh...it's a little much I think. Time will tell I guess. Perhaps if FF didn't fall asleep at the wheel every 5 minutes I wouldn't be so hostile towards the "good" stuff....
GJ said 1 day later
A little much would be highlighting it with Las Vegas lights. :)
Marc said 1 day later
So far I've been running fine, no CPU spikes, 3-4 tabs open at all times and I haven't really closed the browser down. I will say I started a download that was about 150MB that when I left and came back to, it was apparently completed, but only 10MB, but I can't blame firefox without watching it.
I will agree with Geoff the look of Firefox 3 is rather ugly (On Windows, on Mac OS X it looks fantastic). It reminds me of a mixture of the old Linux UIs combined with IE7, and we all know two wrongs don't make a right.
GJ said 1 day later
I'm going back to Netscape, dammit.
Marc said 3 days later
I'm up to 4 crashes with relatively limited use. There certainly is something hokey with this new version. I would wait for 3.1 or 3.0.1, whichever they name the next version.
I sure did! I bought several cars, and even made one of them less economical!
But hey, I have a bunch of compact fluorescent lights...even though I use up a small coal-fired plant's electrical output with my twin water stirrers in the basement.
The benefit of the second one is you learn why where you're holding your fingers makes the noises you hear, but Guitar Rising is great for people who don't have a lot of patience with tutorials and practicing.
Kristen said 2 days later
Oh my Gosh, this is awesome! What do I need to play this? A Mac? A game console?
Marc said 2 days later
Guitar Rising is coming out for Windows and Mac OS X. The guitar school thing you can check out a beta/demo for Windows right now, but Mac OS X's version is still in development.
Also wanted to add that since Drew and I are both conveniently located off Interstate 95 about half-way to Hilton Head, we are open to overnight guests looking to save some cash. We also live near the cheapest gas station on the planet, WaWa, which is currently at $3.90 per gallon. Yes, gallon, not litre! Drew has 2 extra beds plus lots of space for sleeping bags (even a tent or two if you want). I have a bed and fouton and a little space for sleeping bags. First come first serve!
Mom and dad are staying with me on Wednesday the 16th. I'm figuring that family might need to stay Thursday night. We could squeeze a couple more in on Wednesday and a bunch on Thursday night. We plan to leave Friday afternoon.
If Hotel Baumbach or Shambarger fill up, there's also a nice little Baumbach B&B minus the Bed and Breakfast in NC that I could fit a couple people in.
GJ said about 23 hours later
Thanks for the offer, but we already made reservations last week somewhere in the vast wasteland, uh, I mean beautiful state of Virginia...and, hehe, we'd be a handful. ;)
Kristen said about 24 hours later
Cool, where are you staying? A wasteland? No way jose, that's like Nebraska or something.
Darcy said 1 day later
Actually we are staying Thursday night in Wilson, NC. It is the trip home where we will be staying in Virginia when we go to Williamsburg for a few days.
GJ said 1 day later
Right. The trip planner knows all. I'm just the hired thug who drives. And Virginia is better than Western PA and Western NC, I'll give you that, but driving through Virgina takes all freaking day, so I don't like Virginia much. Rhode Island--now that's much better! ;)
Kristen said 1 day later
Delaware is good too, and sometimes Maryland. Williamsburg will be fun--not sure if you are planning this, but Busch Gardens is a nice park.
GJ said 1 day later
We're doing Busch Gardens, as well as a bunch of historical sites. You know, the kind that the kids will complain about. ;)
Steve said 2 days later
So what day are we supposed to show up? Sounds like everyone is planning to show up Friday. I thought Saturday was arrival day. Need to know...
GJ said 2 days later
Saturday is the arrival day. My trip planner was wrong, we are staying in Wilson NC on Friday night.
Steve said 2 days later
Any guess as to what time everyone expects to be arriving? Just trying to figure out travel plans for myself (most importantly, where my stopover will be).
Kristen said 2 days later
I guess I planned to be there around 10 ish or so.
GJ said 2 days later
Considering check in is something like 3-4pm, arriving at 10 means you'll have nowhere to put your stuff for six hours. It's 5.5 hours from Wilson to Hilton Head without stopping, so expect to see us in Hilton Head in the 2-4pm window.
Figured I would repost, that way we are more likely to check it!
I've done some research on dinners, and we could try to make reservations at Ocean Grill restaurant in the Shelter Cove Marina, which is the little shopping/dining area right next to the resort. They have a third level that you can reserve for parties of 20 or less--I think that would be us, barely! I would have to call and get a quote and perhaps make some choices as far as dinner entrees--not sure if it will be per head or something. They obviously specialize in steak and seafood--I'd have to ask about the children's menu for the neices and nephews (and Marc). Maybe we would be able to get a deal since we'd be doing it Sunday or Monday night.
I thought that we might be able to do a nice champagne toast after dinner--I'm researching engraveable toasting flutes or these waterford crystal ones with Ruby edging (40th anniversary is the "ruby" anniversary--maybe I should let dad know that!) And also have a nice cake ordered.
I like the theater tickets idea! Another thought I had was getting them two nights at a Bed & Breakfast in Savannah, which is about an hour away from Hilton Head. I found a nice one right in the historic district that's about $220 a night. The Azalea Inn received 5 stars on yahoo's list, and included about 70 reviews. Of course that would only work if dad had that time off, but I'm thinking that they planned to take the whole week anyway. This would whet dad's appetite for history and mom's interest in looking at big old homes. I have heard them mention wanting to check out the city (I've been there, it's gorgeous!)
You'd have to count me out on the camaro, holy schmoley! I was just kidding about the hot tub! But the wine cooler thing--I found a 6 bottle one in a magazine for $149 and it's small. Maybe a good Christmas idea for the future....I've had to ixnay the photo idea. I'd have to go home next week to get pictures (and it would be painfully obvious) and honestly the trip would just be too expensive. Gotta save for the trip to Hilton head!
The Flex 6Pack is a flexible package of six tickets that may be used as you choose – a single seat for six shows, two seats for three shows, whatever combination suits your needs.* To use your Flex 6Pack, simply contact the Box Office any time prior to the performance you wish to attend and receive the best seats available. Tickets may be obtained up to curtain time, pending availability. Flex 6Packs may be redeemed when single tickets go on sale.
I think this is the best deal if we do it. If you buy season tickets, you get tickets to the 6 regular shows (of which I've only heard of one). The two special feature shows (2) are extra (ex. Godspell) If you do the flex deal, you can pick from any of the 8.
We could do a bunch of these things:
Dinner + champagne + cake = maybe $100 per adult?
Syracuse stage tickets: one flex pack (3 shows for both) $200 total
Get-away = $220 plus tax X 2 = about 470
I guess equals $211 each.
Thoughts anyone?
Kristen said about 1 hour later
Pasted from the Azalea Inn's website:
Relax in the Savannah inn's front garden swing while enjoying our new Savannah heritage garden, featuring indigenous plants from the 19th century. Affordable southern-themed guestrooms feature modern southern comforts of southern food and convivial spaces, including front and side veranda porches, guest parlor, rear deck with swimming pool, waterfall, hidden gardens and fishpond. Cozy guest suites may include private balconies, Jacuzzi whirlpool, and vintage window-doors leading outdoors. Savor beautiful Forsyth Park … within 2 walking blocks of the Inn.
Additional amenities:
WiFi
Imaginative Breakfast
All Day Snacks
Hot & Cold Beverages
Nightly Social with Food & Wine Pairings
Complimentary Off-street Parking
Comfort Bedding
They also have a couple of little yorkies that hang out there, apparently the owner's pets. Mom and dad would get a kick out of them.
GJ said 1 day later
I'm kinda leaning towards the flex pack, myself.
Kristen said 1 day later
Are you leaning towards just the flex pack?
GJ said 1 day later
I'm ok with the whole package, but really want to ensure the flex pack is part of the package.
Listen to this and you'll understand why I claim that early Christians and those modern day crazy fundamentalist Islamic folks aren't so different. More importantly--you can get an idea of what is at risk when we let fundamentalists of any flavor control the governments around the world...including ours.
This is an excerpt from Carl Sagan's Cosmos series. If you've never seen the series, watch at least a part of it sometime. It's all very moving, like this piece (but not as dour as this one), and does a great job of conveying the wonder of science.
Very interesting video, and I agree that any religious extremist that approves of violence is wrong. The Crusades were wrong. I won't debate you on that, nor anything I saw in this video.
The big problem these days is how do we know which science to believe, and which to discard? Normal people cannot understand highly technical things. The press is probably our biggest enemy too, as they promote what they like, and discredit what they don't like.
GJ said about 10 hours later
Not really looking for a debate--well, ok, here's one: it's not just violence I disdain about fundies--I also think their view that "We are right, and if you're not with us you're the enemy" is incompatible with human compassion and what religion should be about.
We discard science that doesn't hold up to the evidence. It's worked pretty good so far. We do not need people to understand quantum physics--we need to teach people critical thinking skills--give them a baloney detection kit of sorts (that's a Saganism--read The Demon-Haunted World for details. If they can do that, they can make better, more sound judgments--and identify more often when they're being fed a line of BS.
The press is our enemy, eh? Sounds like a Republican. ;) The press is what it is. If you can learn to dissect the news with a critical eye, and get your news from MORE THAN ONE SOURCE, it can be of use. Get all your news from Fox, or CNN, you can be sure you're getting a slanted view. Same goes with any single source of news. But you probably know that already.
But enough about this. Just go watch Cosmos episodes (they're all over YouTube). It's a mesmerizing video series, and it's fun hearing Sagan say "billions and billions." :)
