The Chit Chat Chit Chat Thread

[brb1006]

I have a question for people who watched Oliver & Company. I heard the cast from the film did meet and greets at Disneyland and WDW during the 80's and 90's. Does anyone have a photo of Oliver The Kitten at the parks besides the pre parade? Let me know when one of you guys find a good photo.

 

[donaldtoo]

Back on I-10 about 40 miles from the Texas/Louisiana border.
We were only able to spend about an hour or so with sis and her family, but, we had some great fun with some RC vehicles, and a drone, while we were there.
BIL took some pretty cool video from the drone hovering high above us, down low, and chasing the RC cars. We watched before we had to head out.

 

[MOXOMUMD]

 

[FutureCEO]

Since schools are mostly computerized I thought this was interesting. I really think schools should keep doing handwriting. Granted my handwriting is no better but I have an excuse (my writing hand is my surgery hand is gets tired quick ..ie. filling out an hourly application). But the people I deal with everyday, I'm not sure they can write. Or sign their name. Under the signature field....is usually a little scribble or a line pretending to be a name.

Sorry teachers out there but I really think schools are trying to make us dumb. with the math and so on.

Nothing as Texas...bad awfully bad stories from there lately including a dress code that requires everyone to wear just solid colors.

 

[donaldtoo]

Just crossed the Sabine River back into Texas.
Only about 5 hours left 'til home...

 

[StarWarsGirl]

Since schools are mostly computerized I thought this was interesting. I really think schools should keep doing handwriting. Granted my handwriting is no better but I have an excuse (my writing hand is my surgery hand is gets tired quick ..ie. filling out an hourly application). But the people I deal with everyday, I'm not sure they can write. Or sign their name. Under the signature field....is usually a little scribble or a line pretending to be a name.

Sorry teachers out there but I really think schools are trying to make us dumb. with the math and so on.

Nothing as Texas...bad awfully bad stories from there lately including a dress code that requires everyone to wear just solid colors.

I can't say that I'm sorry cursive is going away. I learned it and I don't use it. I was using it for a while in middle/high school, but people complained they couldn't read it. If I take my time, my cursive looks nice. But I mostly use print. I have yet to meet a college kid who uses cursive. Most professors don't even use it. If parents want their kids to learn cursive, there are plenty of practice books out there. I think mastering print is more important than the time wasted teaching cursive.

As far as handwriting goes, it's not like teaching handwriting is going away. And some people probably were taught how to write properly but just can't. Personally, I was taught handwriting. I was taught cursive. I still don't hold a pencil properly, but somehow have better writing than most of my peers (and my father, who went to school a long time ago and whose handwriting is chicken scratch). My handwriting has actually gotten better as I've gotten older, and not because they've been teaching me handwriting. As good as my handwriting is, thoguh, I spend far more time typing. I think there needs to be a balance between learning handwriting and learning touch typing. Most of my papers in college have been typed. Several of my classes have had online tests exclusively. Students who don't know how to touch type aren't going to do well either. If handwriting were going away completely, they wouldn't be making pens for tablets and phones.

Like I said, balance.

 

[donaldtoo]

After we left Acme Oyster House, we headed to Cafe Du Monde for some dessert beignets...




This kiddo looked like she really enjoyed her beignets...!!!



With all the powdered sugar all over all the tables and everywhere, we wondered how much of it they go through on a busy day...?

And, our beignets...!

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

The next Spanish course had to be a history course, which is good because I need one more history class to fulfill a gen ed requirement. The two choices were the History of Latin America or the History of Spain. In spite of warnings from another student in my Spanish class last semester, I took Spain because I could tell the professors of both courses are native speakers, and I have no trouble with Castillian accents (given that's the accent I use), but sometimes have trouble with certain accents from Latin America, so I chose the class with the professor I knew I could understand. The professor is great, but that other student was right about some of the material being drudgery.

I think parts of both of those histories might be quite interesting. I read a book this summer about Queen Isabella and Ferdinand so I hope it gets a little more interesting for you.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

After we left Acme Oyster House, we headed to Cafe Du Monde for some dessert beignets...

View attachment 111310
View attachment 111311

This kiddo looked like she really enjoyed her beignets...!!!

View attachment 111314

With all the powdered sugar all over all the tables and everywhere, we wondered how much of it they go through on a busy day...?

And, our beignets...!

View attachment 111317

Café du Monde and those beignets look exactly as I remember. I wish I had one of those beignets now. And all that powdered sugar! v

 

[donaldtoo]

After Cafe Du Monde, we hung around the Jackson Square area checking out the artwork and shops.
On the walk back to our hotel across Canal Street, we stopped into some of the antique shops on Royal Street. One shop had a chandelier with a price tag of $150,000. 'Nuff said.

Our hotel...



A wedding parade in the street below our hotel room...



More to come...

We're currently eating at a Panera Bread in Baytown, Texas.
Getting ready to pile back in the car.
Should be our last stop before home.

 

[donaldtoo]

Café du Monde and those beignets look exactly as I remember. I wish I had one of those beignets now. And all that powdered sugar! v

Yep, they were warm and mighty tasty...!

 

[Cesar R M]

View attachment 111303

what a gorgeous shot!
reminds me the road to the WHITEPASS mountain from Skagway!.
one side with the road for cars, the other with the train.. and in the middle, the river!

 

[Cesar R M]

speaking of stuff.. I heard some of the main actors from Hocus Pocus did the show of Halloween...
I'm envious.. loved that movie! so funny!

 

[donaldtoo]

Dinner was at...



We ate in the courtyard which had a very cool atmosphere, but, it was also very dark, and I didn't want to overdo the flash for the other patrons, so no food pics. And, my apologies in advance for the poor/poorer quality of this round of pics...I need to upgrade my phone...!
Youngest DD had the meatball sandwich, oldest DD had the ratatouille calzone, DS had the muffuletta, DWifey had the jambalaya, and I had the seafood gumbo.
All was great, except youngest DDs meatball sandwich. It was not as flavorful as she had wanted, so DWifey traded her half of her jambalaya for half of her sandwich.

My seasonal blackberry Pimm's Cup...



The birthday girl...



A random shot of the courtyard with the other two kiddos heads in it...



Part of the interior, and the exterior...

 

[Gabe1]

No, they can actually be quite vicious. I remember one night at my mom's house I heard a scratching noise and opened the front door to see what it was. I was greeted by the sight of about 7 or 8 full-size raccoons munching on our cat's food. All but one scattered, and the one who remained bared his teeth and hissed at me. I closed the door right away, grabbed a broom, and went back out to chase him away, but he kept hissing as he backed away grudgingly. Definitely not scared of people at all.

It was sort of like this:

Couple years ago I heard weird noises near our property line. Saw a whole pack off raccoon climbing in a spiral up the neighbors giant Christmas tree. I took my LED flashlight and from top to bottom were these shining eyes just looking towards me. Turned it off. Looked like packs of mommies and babies. I could then hear them all climbing down climbing the neighbors fence and marching away. Last year there was baby in our huge tree, a locus trying to make a nest. Many a bird, squirrel have tried to build a nest in that massive tree, they just fall to the ground. Amen.

 

[Gabe1]

. And, my apologies in advance for the poor/poorer quality of this round of pics...I need to upgrade my phone...! ]

Oy. My tales of woe. For the last few weeks my 5 has been freezing and when I plugged it into charge it would keep disconnecting and reconnecting, repeat. We tried new cords, new plug ins, new it was the phone so since it has Apple care we knew the first thing they'd want is for it to be updated, 'cause of course that is their auto cure for everything. We finally got it to stay connected long enough for it to back up and save my photos. Amen.

They proceeded to update it but like the original problem it kept connecting and disconnecting failing to update and then it froze the phone to stay on the black screen with the white apple and could not even turn it off as it is heating up. The earliest Appointment is 4 days from yesterday when the phone imploded. Oy. I bought a burner phone today to just fill the gap, it is an android, I know nothing about androids so I have this learning curve for something I hopefully will only really need for less than a week. Joy Joy.

 

[Gabe1]

After we left Acme Oyster House, we headed to Cafe Du Monde for some dessert beignets...

View attachment 111310
View attachment 111311

This kiddo looked like she really enjoyed her beignets...!!!

View attachment 111314

With all the powdered sugar all over all the tables and everywhere, we wondered how much of it they go through on a busy day...?

And, our beignets...!

View attachment 111317

Love that place! Did change our clothes shortly after too!

 

[Gabe1]

Just crossed the Sabine River back into Texas.
Only about 5 hours left 'til home...

Sympathy. While I love adventures, road trips are tedious though NOLA airport was never one of my favorites.

 

[donaldtoo]

After dinner, we decided to walk east of Jackson Square to Frenchmen Street. Our waitress at lunch had suggested it.
Oldest DD googled it, and said it seemed to be an artsy/music/lively area similar to our Sixth Street in Austin.
Well, not quite. We got out there and decided it wasn't really our thing, so, we decided to head west back over to Pat O'Brien's for another visit.

This fountain in Pat O'Brien's courtyard is on during the day, but, looks so much cooler at night...



DDs shared a Hurricane, DWifey and DS shared a (smaller) Bloody Mary, and I got a Hurricane. We took our time, relaxed, and had some great fun and conversation.
After everyone was done with the first round, since we already got the souvenir glasses from our visit earlier in the day, I turned the ones we just finished in to the bar for the "refund" and used the cash to get myself another Hurricane...!

After I polished that one off, we decided to head back to Bourbon Street for a bit before calling it a night. We picked up 3 daiquiri slushies to share to finish out the night.
It was both an LSU (LSU won earlier in the day) and Saints home game weekend. I knew it would probably be a bit of a crazy night, and we wanted the kiddos to get a little glimpse of just how silly they'd heard it could be.
It didn't disappoint...







OK gang, I'm out for the night...
Tomorrow, the place we ate at before we left NOLA today, and maybe a few other random ramblings and pics...!
The sweetest of dreams to one and all...!!!
See y'alllllllllll...!!!!!

 

[catmom46]

I pity companies in a few year wanting people to do simple math problems and they get something that looks like this.

Actually, one of my co-workers sent around something similar a few months ago and I had no idea how they got the answer using common core. But now looking at this, I totally get it. Crazy!