Fantasy Artist Frank Frazetta Dead at 82

I had purchased three of the books by Frank Frazetta during my college years. He illustrated many of the Robert E. Howard covers as well as the Edgar Rice Burroughs covers. It's strange, because the first two books cost me $7.95, but when they raised the price for book #3 to $9.95, that was the last book I bought, because the price was too high. Now, trade paperback books are $9.95!

Wow! A Duct Taped Car!

Had to take a picture of this, or no one would believe me!   Even the door handles were covered with Duct Tape!

Summer's Here

Wow! 109° yesterday! They had predicted 111, so it wasn't as hot as predicted. It beat the 104° high set in 1948. We're so glad that the big move for my mother-in-law was the week before the heat wave struck.

I took advantage of our solar cooker the last two days. Ours is a great unit! We purchased it right after Y2K, but have found it less likely to heat the house up during the summer. I've baked cookies, cakes, casseroles, and a lot more over the years.

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Lost Camera Found - Aruba to Florida Keys

Here's an interesting story about a camera that was lost in Aruba, and drifted for six months till it was found in Florida!    And the most amazing part was returning it to the owner!

http://www.cruisecritic.com/news/news.cfm?ID=3906

Cruising

My husband and I discovered cruising on our tenth anniversary, and found we liked it.   While we still do land trips, we prefer cruising.   With land based trips, we must make our reservations for each motel, then plan our route.   We are also deciding whether to buy some groceries so we can eat on the cheap, or which restaurant to eat at.   On our last few trips, we've brought long an immersion hot water heater to bring water to a boil as well as some instant coffee.   We also pack heater meals.   These are shelf stable meals with their own heating packs, so we get hot meals without the need of a microwave.   Now when we're traveling over land, we must pack and unpack each night, as well as hunt up some food.  

With cruising, once you get to the ship, you have your vehicle to drive you to your points of interest.   You also have your restaurants, as well as you lodging all within easy access.   In addition to this, you can book your land tour reservations via the cruise company.   Most cruise companies require full payment a couple/three months in advance of sailing.   So, once you get onboard, most items are paid for.   You still have to pay separately for your bar bill, excursions (some cruise companies allow prepaying those), specialty restaurants, spa treatments, specialty coffee and souvenirs.     At the end of the cruise, they suggest you tip your cabin steward, waiter, assistant waiter and head waiter.   Some cruise companies have an auto tipping system, that adds the tips to your bills, while other cruise companies give you a form to fill out to add the tips to your bill.   The food is delicious, and it seems that there is food being served some place.   The cabin stewards clean your cabin twice a day, and also fold your towels into cute towel animals.   In addition to this, there are live shows nightly, as well as movies in the theater.   On our last cruise, we were 36 hours late out of dock, due to fog, but it didn't bother us.   For us, the ship was our destination!

McDonald's Observatory

We visited McDonald Observatory over the weekend, and got to see a live image of the sun.   Of course, we can get eye damage if we look directly at the sun, but they used a close up image and projected it onto the screen.   Actually, it looked more like a big white golf ball.   However, we were able to see some sun flares!   In addition to this, we learned that we are coming out of a rather long Sunspot Minimum.   Our tour also included visiting the 107-inch telescope.   They have Star Parties three times a week, and these are open to the general public. We visited one of the Star Parties several years ago, and got to look through some telescopes!