AnnTheBlogger : ann's travel stories

Yes, it WAS a good year!

AnnTheGran — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 16:50:00 GMT

Long about New Year's Eve I was hearing a lot of mumbling and grumbling about 2008, talking heads saying that thank goodness 2008 is over. Well, yes, the economic messiness of the last couple of months of 2008 was bad thing and embarking on a brand spanking new 2009 is a good thing, even though that economic crisis will surely get worse in 2009 before it gets better.

I have to say, though, that, on the whole, 2008 was very good to me. First, Bill and I got to visit Hawaii. Then we had our Community Circle in Orlando and that was lots of fun. After that we spent a week with Loes and Theo in Toronto where we got to have dinner with Greg's delightful family. Then, most recently, Bill and I were lucky enough to visit the Amazon, spending 26 days aboard a small ship round trip from Miami. Nothing to complain about there. Most importantly, everyone in our family is in good health and, after a two month kind of scary glitch, all the adults are employed. To top it off, my favorite, most dearest niece and her husband (Okay, my only niece, but she is most dear to me.) are, after several difficult and disappointing years of trying, expecting their first born. There was that terrible time when our son lost his job, but he begins a new one next week. It's at half the salary of the job he lost, but it's a job in his field and he's been able to drum up some part time work to make up the difference. So maybe 2008 wasn't all good, but it certainly wasn't all bad.

Now, I don't know what 2009 will bring. There will probably be some bad stuff and some good stuff, just like other years. In any case, it's always nice to have a clean slate to write on. I hope that what will be written on your slate are health, joy and prosperity for you and all in your family.

The photo above was taken on Devil's Island in French Guiana. Well, not EXACTLY Devil's Island. Apparently there is a group of 3 islands commonly known as The Devil's Islands. All three of the islands were used as the French penal colony. The island actually named Devil's Island, once used for solitary confinement, is pretty much inaccessible. We visited Royale Island, where some of the other prisoners were kept and the guards and administrators lived with their families. Bill and I are smiling in the picture because it was taken as we began our climb. Had the picture been taken upon our return it would look a lot different!

Now, about that trip up the Amazon . . .

I'll be telling you more about it in blogs and pictures to come, but the one main thing I came away with was a renewed appreciation for how lucky I am for how and where I live and all that I have, both spiritually and materially. But there was something else in a small island village at the mouth of the Valeria River. There was poverty to be sure, but all the children were well fed and appeared healthy. They were laughing and playing, running in and out under the houses. The ship we were on calls at that village only once a year and, to my knowledge, is the only ship that calls there. Our visit was a great annual event and I'm sure that the children were turned out in their nicest clothes. Yes, the locals offered handicrafts for sale and yes, the children put out their hands for payment when their pictures were taken. The cruise line sent ashore donations of school supplies and a pile of bathrobes that were promptly sold right back to the passengers. (What else would one who lives 3° south of the Equator do with a thick terrycloth bathrobe?) We made cash donations to the school and the church, purchased lots of handicrafts and took lots of pictures. As we went back to the ship I said to another passenger, "What must they think of us?" We agreed: not very much. Boca de Valeria and her laughing children will stay with me for a long time.

The babies on the right are twin girls, probably identical (My Portuguese really isn't very good.) I know the one in the back is Patricia because I heard her mother call her that as she attempted to put a feathered bonnet on her for pictures. Patricia had other plans. Pushing the stroller was one of the proudest papas I've ever seen.

As I said, I'll have stories and pictures for you in future blogs. I have just under 2,000 photos to go through . . . Until then, here is a small collection of Amazonion faces from Boca de Valeria, Manaus and Santarém:

I reiterate my fondest wishes for you for the coming year. You are my friends, my family, my neighborhood. Let's all hope that 2009 will be good to us.

TTYL,
Ann

The last Minute-Addendum

AnnTheGran — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 01:39:00 GMT

As you can see, I found the gaggle of travel drives and software security devices that I THOUGHT I had inadvertently left at home when I flew to Kentucky last week. Of course, as soon as I get home, the first place I went was to the computer bag from which I had transferred my laptop for travel. I felt in all the pockets. Nothing. Nada. Goose egg. Well, I wouldn't panic about misplaced travel drives, inconvenient as it might be, but lost security devices? Not a good thing. I had already checked and checked in the combination camera/computer bag with wheels that I had taken with me, but I checked and checked again. Then a light bulb went off in my head. I lifted out a short camera lens in its case and there, just where I had put them for safe keeping, were, you guessed it, that gaggle. So, here's the picture that was supposed to be on last week's blog post. Feel free to laugh at the perm and marvel at Bill's beard. I made all my square dance dresses and all Bill's matching shirts. I probably made 25 or 30 outfits for us. When we finally stopped dancing after 10 years or so I donated all the dresses, petticoats, western shirts and the accompanying themed accoutrements to our square dance club to sell in their re-sale shop. I’ll tell you, though, after making all those western shirts for Bill, whipping up a couple of short sleeve sport shirts is a piece of cake.

In honor of our newest blogger, Stacy Carlson, who will be our resident digital scrapbooking maven and who posted the very first installment in her new blog this week, I'm writing this little "bloggette" with a series of digital layouts recalling my latest visit to Kentucky.

Reed was coloring Spiderman pictures every day. “Can someone please print a Spiderman picture for me?” Finally DD told him only one picture a day, so his sisters began drawing Spiderman for him. Then they got tired of that and poor Reed was Spiderman-less. So I told him that he could draw Spiderman himself. After much whining and protesting, Reed finally did begin drawing his own Spiderman. You can tell it’s Spiderman by the big red head and the long blue legs. Here’s a photo cluster, not a full scrapbook page.

When I was in Kentucky in July Jen and I went to Kohl’s to shop for school clothes for the kids and a few things for me. If I applied for a Kohl’s card I would get 15% off the entire purchase. It was a large purchase and 15% would be a nice chunk of change, so I filled out the application. A couple of weeks after I got home my Kohl’s card came in the mail. Now, the thing is, I don’t have a Kohl’s nearby. The closest one is in Altamonte Springs, about 30 minutes up I-4. So, when I was in Kentucky last week I had this Kohl’s card with me that needed to be warmed up. You can see where this is going, right? Jen and I and the girls planned a girls day out. Before going to Kohl’s we stopped at the hair salon where Jen got highlights and a trim. I needed a trim, too, and there was a gal free to do it, so I had one, too. Here’s my scrapbook page about the hair salon. If you click on the picture you’ll bring up a larger version.

I’m always taking photos. I was doing that even before I became a digital scrapper. I can’t even remember when I didn’t have a camera. Now I have three cameras: My good DSLR camera with several lenses and other bells and whistles, my “travel” camera for when I don’t want to haul a heavy camera bag and I recently got a little waterproof camera to use when I go snorkeling and to otherwise keep in my purse or pocket so that I always have a camera with me. The first day in LaGrange was a school day so Bill and I and SIL Steve (a Gulf War veteran on 100% disability) were left to our own devices. We went downtown to have coffee and wander the little shops on Main Street. Downtown LaGrange is so small that the railroad tracks run right through the middle of the street! We actually had to wait for a train to pass before we could cross the street! I had my little pocket camera with me and took pictures of items of interest along the way, and here’s my scrapbook page. If you click on the picture you’ll bring up a larger version.

Reed is used to my following him around with a camera and now his brother and sisters have purchased cameras of their own with their birthday money this year. I got Reed one of the toddler cameras and he took pictures from the time he got it until the day I left. It really would never have occurred to me before to put a camera in the hands of a three and a half year old. It was really interesting to see the things that attracted Reed’s attention and, of course, here’s my scrapbook page and, again, if you click on the picture you’ll bring up a larger version.

I guess that’s about all I have for you this time. I hope I’ve whetted your appetites for some digital scrapping. If you haven’t already, do read Stacy’s blog. She has some exciting news. Until next time, y’all take care of each other. TTFN.

A Fall From Grace

AnnTheGran — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:40:00 GMT

Here it is, the second day of Fall, and it’s already cold in the mornings here in Orlando. By “cold” I mean 68° (20° C) which, for me here in Florida, is sweater weather. It doesn’t usually cool off until the middle of November, so this is quite a treat for us (here in Florida where 68° F is sweater weather). I hope the weather holds because it would portend an early end to hurricane season and good-bye to the mosquitoes for another year. Usually when the weather begins to cool down I switch from walking on the treadmill to walking outdoors, but this time I’m not walking for exercise at all because of the foot thing. I am, however, getting exercise and that’s the lead-in to my sort of travelogue for this week.

First of all, please remember that these places were short stops along a transatlantic cruise to Amsterdam where Bill and I were meeting up with our friends Loes and Theo. It doesn’t cost much more to cruise across the Atlantic than it does to fly; it takes about 15 days and you arrive without any jet lag. If you have the time, it’s the sensible way to go. Anyway, we were gadding about with a group of new friends. In La Coruña, Spain, we had only a few hours. We were on our way to find a place where I could say “una cerveza, por favor” (“a beer, please”) when I tripped and fell on some steps. One of the fellows with us said that he was at first concerned, but then he saw that I knew how to fall and I’d be okay. Yes, I do know how to fall. I do it a lot and I’ve found that once I start down the best thing to do is just relax and let it happen. I wasn’t hurt, but I did skin one knee. Another time we were in Montmartre, France. I had just come out of a café holding a very hot chocolate when I walked right into a pole, spilling most of the chocolate down my front. By this time our friends knew about my tripping propensity and expressed more concern about the spilled chocolate than they did about me. If anyone took any pictures they didn’t share them with me, so I don’t have a scrapbook page to share with you. So, what do these two little stores have to do with exercise?

Feeling very flabby and fluffy after lying around on the couch for four weeks, I decided to invest in a Wii, with Wii fit. If you’re not familiar with Wii, which is hard to imagine if you’ve got any kids at all in your life, it’s kind of like a wireless video game that you hook up to your television. Wii Fit comes with a balance board, and the first time you start the program and introduce yourself you stand on the balance board for testing. After I finished the balance tests, and keep in mind that I’m favoring one foot . . ., the television said to me, “You are unbalanced. Do you fall a lot?” I’m not kidding! I’ve been doing the balance exercises for at least 20 minutes every day (keep in mind that I’m favoring one foot) and every day my television tells me, “You are unbalanced. Do you fall a lot?” I don’t mind the question so much, but that “you are unbalanced” thing is starting to get to me.

Some cutting remarks: You know how when you’re wearing some store bought item with embroidery people will ask, “Did you make that?” And, of course you reply, “Didn’t it come out nice” or some such. Not lying, of course, but not admitting to store bought. Well, take a look at the back of some of those store bought embroideries. Can you believe the sloppy trimming of the stabilizer? Yours look SO much more professional, right? On the left you’ll see the back of a store bought tee shirt (1) and the back of something I made myself (2). You’ll also see the two pairs of scissors I use for trimming stabilizer. I already had the duckbill pair (3) for trimming appliqués. They’re good for trimming stabilizer because you can get in pretty close without accidentally snipping the fabric. The smaller pair with the curved blades (4) I use for getting into tight spots. You need to be careful with them, though, as they WILL catch the fabric. As far as washing embroidered garments, I wash in warm or, preferably, cold water and line dry. In the rare instances that I need to iron something, I place the garment face down on a towel so I don’t smash the embroidery.

Responding to some comments on my last blog: Yes, Sabrina IS beautiful, isn’t she? Thanks you! But she doesn’t look like grandma. She looks like her mother, or perhaps her abuela, her maternal grandmother.

It’s easy to have sexy toes. Get a pedicure with bright red polish. It’s one of my few and favorite indulgences.

Susan, I know that no matter how anyone might feel about the war in Iraq, every one of us is thinking about and/or praying for all of our young men and women over there and we’re grateful for the service they’re giving to their countries. I, as well as many of us machine embroiderers, am from a military family and we understand fully the difficulties and heartaches that you are enduring. We thank you for your service, also.

Thanks again for your thoughts and prayers about my foot. It’s coming along.

A little reminder: If you ask a question in a comment on one of the blogs or the Welcome to AnnTheGran page, please remember to come back to see if there’s an answer there. Better yet, post your questions in the forums where someone knowledgeable will always see them and try to help you out.

Until next time, take care of yourselves, and don’t forget to sometimes turn off your computer and sew something! TTFN

Fay, Fay, go away!

AnnTheGran — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 15:05:00 GMT

and take your wind and rain with you! Although we havent had any flooding as some of our Central Florida Embroiderers have suffered, or gale force winds, the constant rain and wind for 5 days has my brain jumbled and I'm ready to tear my hair out. But, as far as I know, all of us embroiderers here in Florda are fine, so keep your fingers crossed that it stays that way.

Digitizing tips, as promised. I can’t teach you how to digitize in my blog. I can’t even teach you how to digitize in a classroom. What I can do is to help you along with some basic tips and techniques.. If you’re serious about digitizing, and you’re prepared to spend a bit of time learning and practicing, I recommend my friend and colleague John Deer’s Basic Digitizing Made Easy. John’s instructions are generic, not tied to any particular software product, so they’re good to go for everyone. If you get a chance to take a class with John, do it. He’s not only talented and knowledgeable, but very cute.

I think I’ve learned more about digitizing from watching designs run than from any other source. That means sitting and watching every stitch. One time I was stitching a strawberry, one of the very few free designs that used to be available to us. As I watched I had one of those “aha!” moments. The first thing to stitch was a bunch of black blobs. Then the red strawberry stitched, leaving little holes that allowed tiny bits of the black blobs to show through. I was so excited by this technique for eliminating short, difficult to clip jump stitches that I’ve used it many times since I first saw it.

This is how I did it for flowers on a band. I did this in PE-Design. I don’t know how you would accomplish “hole sewing” with your particular software. You’ll have to consult the dreaded manual for that, but I'm sure it's something simple.

First I drew 3 circles with no stitch data.
Then I duplicated the circles, added stitch data and made them larger.
Next I drew the flowers with no stitch data."
Then I duplicated the flowers, added stitch data and made them larger.
Then I drew the rectangle (with stitch data).

In order to be able to grab hold of each of the individual parts I pulled them apart and arranged them on my workspace. The circles and flowers without stitch data are the “holes.” They’re smaller than the same shapes with stitch data so no empty space will show when the design is assembled.

Now I pulled the round holes onto the flowers and applied hole sewing.
Then I pulled the flower holes onto the rectangle and applied hole sewing.
Next I arranged the pink flowers under the holes in the rectangle.
Then I arranged the yellow flower centers under the holes in the flowers.
Last I checked my stitching order to be sure that the centers would sew first, the flowers second and the rectangle last.

And this is the finished product. It’s just a rough, poorly drawn design for demonstrating the technique. In real life I would do a more precise job with different kinds of stitches and, of course, so would you. But give it a try and once you’ve mastered the process go ahead and digitize something pretty!

Don’t feel bad if you have no interest in doing this exercise. Not everyone who embroiders needs to be a digitizer. In fact, if there were as many moderately priced designs available when I first started out as there are now, I probably wouldn’t have gotten into digitizing at all. Most of us use our digitizing software mainly for editing designs, combining designs and adding text.

French Bath. We were off to Normandy for our D-Day tour. When we stopped for petrol and potty I had a small but long lasting incident in the ladies’ room. I guess we must have been in Belgium because the signs outside were in Dutch while inside everything was in French. To get on with the story, when I went to wash my hands I squirted soap on them from the dispenser right above the sink. OH, NO! It wasn’t soap, but toilet water! I guess the joke about a “French bath” is more fact than fiction. Scrubbing as hard as I could with soap from the correct dispenser, I couldn’t get the smell out off my hands. Four people were trapped in an enclosed car with that scent for most of the day. Well, at least we had chocolate. Lots of chocolate. And here's the scrapbook page.

I think that's it for me today. I'm having surgery on my left foot in the morning and I expect that I'll be "out of it" through the week-end. Stay dry, my friends in Florida! TTFN

Olympic Rings, Cartoons, Questions and Paris!

AnnTheGran — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 16:42:00 GMT

8/08/08 is a date that comes up only once in every century and it’s upon us as I write. This time the date is even more special because it’s the date on which the Summer Olympics begins. I LOVE the Olympics, both Winter and Summer, and I’m so glad they they’ve split the two so I have to wait only 2 years between my Olympic TV feast. You’ll find lots of good sports designs in both our Free Designs and designs for sale sections. What you won’t find, however, is a design of the Olympic rings and why I’ve illustrated this paragraph with a mock set of rings made from the numbers of the date. The reason is that the Olympic rings are a copyrighted and trademarked symbol and the Olympic committee is very aggressive about policing their use.

All of which brings me to what I really want to talk about. We all love our copyrighted characters, like Mickey Mouse, Hello Kitty, Precious Moments, Garfield, Betty Boop, etc. Some embroidery design companies have licensed these characters and brought out sets of designs using them. If we purchase these designs we are free to use them on items for ourselves and as gifts to others. We’re not permitted to use them on items we for sale On the other hand, the question of whether we are permitted to digitize these characters for our own personal use, items for ourselves and as gifts for others, is somewhat of a gray area. I have several transfer books with copyrighted characters and their use for embroidery is specifically addressed in either their instructions or copyright statements. In that case it’s fairly black and white; yes, you may. The gray area is whether you can draw the characters yourself or get clip art on line or in books and digitize from there. The legal answer is, “no,” So why is this a gray area? It’s a gray area because you don’t know any better, you’re not doing it for profit and, well, how would anyone know?

So why am I mentioning this here, on my blog? I’m not the copyright police and what you do in the privacy of your home is none of my business. However, I’ve found a few mentions in the forums here of copyrighted characters that were digitized by some of us talented MEers with offers to share them with others. While you’re more than welcome to share any of your original digitizing (After all, that’s the reason AnnTheGran came into existence in the first place.) here in the forums, I have to ask you to not write about or share designs of copyrighted characters that you’ve digitized yourself. I’ve nurtured annthegran.com since I first created it nearly 12 years ago and I’m very protective of both the good name and the integrity of the site. Believe it or not, there are some individuals out there in the wild, wicked world of the Internet who would like to see annthegran.com go down in flames. A copyright violation is just the kind of thing they’re looking for.

Please, please know that I’m not upset or angry or accusing anyone. I know that if anyone has done this it’s been in innocence and an attempt to be helpful and friendly. Those of us who have been enjoying this wonderful hobby for many years and have participated in online discussion groups, already know this. But so many are excitedly discovering machine embroidery and AnnTheGran every day and I know that copyrights and trademarks are the furthest things from their minds. I hope you’ll take this gentle reminder in the grandmotherly spirit in which it was written. ‘Nuff said.

Letters! We get letters!
Okay. We don’t really get letters, but we do get email and comments on the blogs and in the forums. I’m going to address just a few of them here.

katydid says, “I leave too much space between letters, What is the rule of thumb?” Keep in mind that embroidery designs “draw up” when they stitch. This is particularly true with lettering. I snug my letters up pretty close to each other so there’s the correct amount of space between them when they’re stitched. See the sample on the left, showing lettering both on my computer screen and actually stitched out.

bunny has a Singer Futura 350 and wants to know how she can use the PES format designs she has downloaded. I think your machine needs files in SEW format. Catalog XPress will convert the PES files to SEW for you.

karana says that her needle sometimes gets gummed up when she’s using “sticky” stabilizer. This sometimes happens to me, too. I have 2 solutions that I use. The first is a little bottle of silicone lubricant. I put a drop on a cotton swab and wipe the needle down with it. The second is the same, only using alcohol. I have a bottle of alcohol that I use for cleaning the bobbin case so it’s near the machine.

altslady has Catalog XPress and says she has to have her designs in a separate file in order to use them with her software. I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I want to mention that if you double click on a design in your catalog the design will open in the software you designated when you installed Catalog XPress. You can open a design in any program you choose, however, by right clicking on it and choosing “Open with.” A window will open asking what software program you want to use.

edithspain has installed Catalog Xpress on a new computer and is upset that the program has been “switched off” on her old computer. It sounds like what you’ve done is transfer your license from one computer to the other. This will “switch off” the program from which you’ve transferred the license. However, it’s not necessary to transfer the license simply to install the program on another computer. Simply install it and use the registration number you already have to activate it.

Something else about moving to a new computer and having to leave behind all the work you’ve done sorting those thousands of designs. Remember that CatXP is a data base. It doesn’t know where your designs are until you tell it. Make sure that you put your designs in exactly the same place on the new computer as they were on the old computer and then copy the file edb.mdb from the old program and paste it into the new installation. That’s the file that has all your personal information in it.

And last, but not least, para ayiyai: ¡Bienvenido, Gladys de Chile! Estoy feliz que usted tiene gusto de me Web site. Espero que pueda visitar Chile alguna día. Lo siento que hablo español solamente un poco y no muy bien. Hablé español cuando era una niña, pero olvidé mucho.

The last time I saw Paris . . .
When I asked what things you’d like me to talk about, the only one who answered was Pat, and she asked for travel stories. This one’s for you, Pat!

In 2006 Bill and I were traveling with our travel buddies, Loes and Theo, following Bill’s WWII march from Utah Beach in Normandy to the Ardennes Forest in Belgium, Theo detoured through Paris because I had never been there. Theo pulled up to the curb in front of the Eiffel Tower and we all jumped out of the car. Theo grabbed his camera and Loes stood guard over the car so the French parking police wouldn’t ticket it. Bill and I stood in fromt of the Tower while Theo snapped off a couple of shots. Then we all ran back to the car and continued on our way. So I can say that I’ve visited Paris and no one (but you) has to know that it was for only 15 minutes. Click here for the scrapbook page.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. I'm off to veg in front of the games! TTYL

A Whirlwind of a Week - AnnTheGran in Toronto

AnnTheGran — Sat, 31 May 2008 17:56:00 GMT

It feels as if I was just packing for this trip and here I am home again! Bill and I had a fabulous time in Toronto. First and foremost it was a delight to have a 3rd annual "Spring Fling" with our dear friends Loes and Theo van der Heijden from the Netherlands. Second, it was wonderful to get out of the pre-seasonal Florida heat. It was over 100°F on our front porch the day before we left. We visited all the local touristy spots, Casa Loma (charming), Chinatown (colorful), the CN tower (very tall), Niagara Falls (magnificent), etc. We enjoyed a fabulous dinner, grilled by my favorite Beamish boy at his lovely home along with his delightful wife, 2 beautiful daughters, his spit-n-image son and his charming father. Who knew Greg could cook!?!

The first day we bought tickets for the hop-on-hop-off double decker bus and harbor cruise. It was cold and windy and we were freezing! The second day, prepared for the cold, we set out for Chinatown and the CN Tower and it was hot. The weather kept on in that fashion, always catching us unprepared for either the heat or the cold. It didn't dampen our fun in any way, though.

A Busman's Holiday
bus·man's holiday
Pronunciation: \bəs-mənz-\
Function: noun
Date: 1893
: a holiday spent in following or observing the practice of one's usual occupation

On Monday we had lunch with Monica Anderton a machine embroidery colleague from almost the very beginning. Monica's designs were some of the first in the Design Exchange (now our Free Designs section). So much water has passed under the bridge. It was great to get together to reminisce about the "good old days" and catch up with what we've all been up to recently. After lunch we all walked to the Royal Ontario Museum. What a wonderful place! First we headed to the Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume, a diverse international collection of costume and textiles, including Chinese imperial court garments, early Islamic textiles, Western fashion from the 18th century to the present, and early Canadian textiles.

Another day we drove to St. Jacobs where there was a quilt festival. What serendipity! Everywhere we went there seemed to be something going on having to do with clothing and textiles. Anyway, the most striking thing we saw in St. Jacobs was a quilt car cover. I can't imagine how long it too to fit and measure, not to mention sew, the thing. It was amazing! The car quilt was made by Judy Taylor, pieced and quilted with left over quilt blocks that are sometimes called "orphan blocks" or "UFO's" (unfinished objects). It was sewn together with 33,000 metres (1,287,000 inches) of thread. The car is fully driveable when dressed in the quilt and it has appeared in several parades.Can you imagine?!?

A little too comfy?
Our last stop on Thursday was to visit Greg in his office. He looks a little too comfortable there, don't you think? Perhaps he doesn't have enough to do. While in Greg's office I got to talk to Pat on the phone. This Internet is truly a remarkable vehicle. Here I am in Orlando, Pat in San Diego, Cathy in Portland, Greg in Toronto and you all all over the world, yet we come together here with no borders, no feeling of any distance between us. I'm constantly amazed.

Escorted out of my own country!!
On our way from Niagara Falls to Niagara-on-the-Lake, Theo's GPS unit took us across the bridge into the US. There was no way to turn around and go back. So, we had to cross the border. Our passports were collected and we had to get out of the car and go into the border control building. After cooling our heels for a while, Loes and Theo were called into a room. A short while later they came out with a smiling homeland security officer. Everything was okay, of course. But this officer stayed with us until we were safely in the car and pointed back to Canada. As we were walking I said to him, "This is something, being escorted out of my own country." He replied, "You're leaving of your own choice." To which I replied, "Yes, but you're escorting me!" It was pretty funny, even if it didn't seem that way at the time. The GPS unit, fondly called "James" because of its British accent and impeccable manners was sent to time out. Naughty James!

Who is this Rogers guy and why is his name on everything?
As we flew out of Toronto I was left with one burning question: Who is this Rogers guy and why is his name on everything? From the first time I turned on my cell phone when we landed and his name appeared on the screen until the last day when we passed the Rogers Centre on our way to the airport, I don't think an hour went by when we weren't seeing the name "Rogers" somewhere. What's the deal?

So, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Now to unpack, do some laundry and settle back in at home. TTYL!

Ann