The Chit Chat Chit Chat Thread

[MinnieM123]

Perhaps he doesn't want to kill a good tree or $100.00 bucks for a couple of weeks of pine scent. A spray can of that is probably about $1.50 at Walmart's. I saw one for sale at Home Depot yesterday. It was a lot like the ones we used to get when I was a kid (just shy of being Charlie Browns favorite one) and it was $78.00.

Some people buy potted trees and plant them outdoors after Christmas is over.

We don't do that. (Our backyard is concrete--landlord thought concrete was lovelier than grass . . . )

 

[MinnieM123]

I could see his point at $100 but not as much at $20. Maybe he is coming to his senses and realizing cold is not all it's cracked up to be. The $20 price is for cutting our own down(we know somebody who has a small tree farm)

Oh cut your own down. Hubs and I used to go to a family-owned tree farm out in W. MA and cut down our tree every year. Unfortunately, the owners were elderly and finally had to sell off the land. It's no longer a tree farm.

Now, we just go to a local nursery, and we buy them already cut. But I do miss clomping around the snow in the tree farm, and cutting down our own tree.

 

[MinnieM123]

On the plus side the Swiss have very nice smoked bacon.

That's way more important than having Amazon.

 

[ajrwdwgirl]

That's way more important than having Amazon.

Agreed, bacon is the best. I had some today, and yesterday, and Saturday....

 

[Pixieish]

There is a small confusion regarding Prime.
The shipping is 2 days for free. But the "preparing package" can take from 1 day to 3 days.
Most of the times they ship in the second day early morning or late night.

Who it comes from makes a big difference too. If Amazon handles fulfillment, you usually get it pretty quickly. (We usually get them literally 2 days from when I placed the order as long as it was prior to around 2pm.)

 

[donaldtoo]

Seriously - put food in front of me and I'll eat it. I have no idea how I ended up with a husband and 2 sons that don't like anything!

We're a Mix here...
I will pretty much try anything.
DWifey is not an adventurous eater at all, pretty much. She will eat beef, pork, chicken, and seafoods like shrimp, crab, lobster, etc. Not much fish, no scallops, oysters, calamari, squid, etc.
Oldest DD is vegan, but, a pretty adventurous one, at that.
DS is pretty much like me.
Youngest DD was slways pretty much a meat and potatoes eater (almost no other veggies), although she's eating many more these days because of oldest DD.
We still seem to find plenty of places in our area where we are all good to go food-wise.

 

[Cesar R M]

Some people buy potted trees and plant them outdoors after Christmas is over.

We don't do that. (Our backyard is concrete--landlord thought concrete was lovelier than grass . . . )

no space for pots?
giant potted Christmas tree!

 

[donaldtoo]

And they did have that half car chip bar and I only saw serving staff in and out of the trunk and delivering to tables. Could be health codes. Schaumburg is pretty strict and when they card the young they need a drivers licence and a credit card to match.

Yep, that could be it.
Ours here are serve yourself, but, as I posted before, they, of course, still also bring them to the table from the kitchen.
I wonder, do they have serve yourself buffets of any kind in Schaumburg?
Just a valid state ID or drivers license is required here.

 

[donaldtoo]

Part 4!

After leaving the Old town of Tula, we decided to return.

The Trip went into a weird way as our Tour operator surely was in a hurry to return.
No seriously, this guy was going at 160KM/h in a 90Km/h highway.
Not fun. My mother had to tell him to slowdown a few times... No idea why he had that much of a hurry.
Anyway he left us in front of our Hotel. It was dark already and we decided to return, get ready and then go to eat dinner.

I was too tired so decided to just eat some KFC which was right in the main plaza.
Then returned to the hotel. My mom and Sister went to a coffee store and had some fresh coffee and biscuits.

We had a bit of trouble getting in bed as we only had 2 beds at the moment. So we were pretty tight space wise x_x

NEXT DAY:

Anyway we woke up pretty early since we had to rush to breakfast in the other hotel (the one we were didnt have breakfast facilities, so we had to go to the hotel that was infront of the plaza (in the other side), and use our tickets to get free complementary buffet).
Kinda weird to have to do such kind of things. But it was the same owner of the hotel, just different name.

Once we were done with breakfast which was ok.
We returned to clean up, and get ready.
I packed up all my gear (camera wise) and we waited for our next tour operator.

It was the same car and we got together with another car which was supposed to do a similar ride.
We talked with this tour operator (which was way trained and he apologized for the behaviour of the inexperienced one). We drove for 1 hour approximately all the way in the mountains until we reached the famous Prismas Basalticos (Basaltic Prisms).

Which is a Lava formation that was expelled from a nearby caldera and got cold by nearby water pool, making these lava condense in the formation they have, mostly hexagonal.

They formed a small canyon with water moving in the middle forming 2 very sharp shasms full of these kinda weak towering prisms.

View attachment 245452
Note the left, these prisms were more than 20 meters tall and were slowly damaged, cut down or simply wore down by time and water to form the current formations.

View attachment 245454
They built areas to enjoy the view on both sides, including a "puente colgante", aka a suspended bridge.

This area is heavily touristic, mostly for events. Its full of stores and restaurants and counts as a private/national park. they charge you entrance. Not very expensive and worth it.

View attachment 245455

Interestingly, the area suffers constant collapse as these pillars by nature have "gaps" between each other.. causing some of them to be very brittle. and once they "unglue" or suffer a fracture.. its simply a matter of time until they collapse.

View attachment 245456

View attachment 245457


So, you must wonder why "Prisms" ?

When you get close to a wet pillar from the top. The different minerals cause them to show different colours. Like it was made of prisms.

It of course depends on the water and the sun.
The effect was not very visible.

Have some Panoramas and images of the area.

View attachment 245483
On the left, the waterfalls (3)and the chasms of prisms, in the bottom the "kisser's waterfall", on the right the infamous miner Ex Hacienda de Santa Maria de Regla. a hacienda who for hundred of years abused slaves and "workers" in horrible conditions for the extraction of gold and silver. (more of this in the following posts).

View attachment 245484 The bottom of the mini canyon.

View attachment 245485
The smallest waterfall of them. Gets very big as its depends mostly on rains.
View attachment 245486
They warn you to not climb the prisms as they are very unstable.
View attachment 245487
The water also has not only power... but also its kinda contaminated.
Some fun moron decided to connect the drainage of a housing complex they built, right into the river that feeds a nearby lake, which in turn feeds the prisms's waterfalls.
On the bad side, the water is green and is kinda polluted.
On the good side, the water does not smell (probably treated a bit before it hit the lake).

Interesting and cool. Except for that last part about the housing developement.

 

[donaldtoo]

I, mostly, enjoy what I do, but, I'd be lying my beeeeeeehind off if I said it wasn't a "grind" sometimes. Compared to what I get to do for a living, so many other jobs/careers are way less satisfying, and I get that. But, that doesn't mean we still shouldn't strive for something better for our families and, thus, ourselves.

 

[donaldtoo]

Country fried tofu. recipe please

I'll try to remember to get it from oldest DD and post it for you.

 

[donaldtoo]

Sympathy like. i hope they don't perfect it like my boys have.

It's pretty much inevitable.

 

[donaldtoo]

That looks like an entire town, not just one family?! Food looks delish!!

Yep, in the next few months, family members # 193-196 will join in the form of two births and two weddings.
Of course, the matriarch and patriarch passed many years ago, along with several aunts and uncles, and some other family members.
There are about 155-160-ish of us still around. About 85-90 attended Sunday. The others were either working, still at college, or too far away to make the trip.

 

[donaldtoo]

Yup, even have a few relatives that are clergy.

Born and raised Catholic. No recent family have been clergy, though.

 

[Gabe1]

Yep, that could be it.
Ours here are serve yourself, but, as I posted before, they, of course, still also bring them to the table from the kitchen.
I wonder, do they have serve yourself buffets of any kind in Schaumburg?
Just a valid state ID or drivers license is required here.

Schaumburg is goofy like that with liquor they have so many venues and hold the businesses tight to being strict to laws, none of them want their liquor licenses pulled so the businesses police that pretty hard themselves. 2nd largest economic development center in the State of Illinois only next to Chicago. They are the same way with their health codes and given their massive convention district and the amount of hotels and restaurants they have to have a no wiggle room for error approach. I haven't lived in Schaumburg in over 30 years and then only for a year. 75,000 people was a bit much for me so I'm not sure if there are buffets there or not. I pulled it up on a map and there are a few buffets but they are on the fringe roads that divide Schaumburg from other bordering towns no dots in the thick of it all so maybe across the street from Schaumburg? Me, when we head there we are near the mall when we dine, Chuy's is actually built in a separate building but on WoodField Mall property just down the road to IKEA. Schaumburg is 20 square miles so I don't have a cause to go elsewhere as the tollway dumps me right off at WoodField Drive. Like Chicago it has it high end areas to areas that an ambulance won't go without police backup.

Funny when I was small my Dad was one of many contractors for building Woodfield. He brought my family there when they finished the building but it had not opened yet. I was in awe of how big this place was as a little kid. At the time it was in the middle of nowhere, corn and cows, very few homes. It is crazy big now. The North South expressway that boarders one side wasn't even a thought when it opened. Back when it opened only had about 18,000 people living there to now 75,000. While you guys in Austin have a much larger footprint, bigger I believe more square miles than Chicago proper and wildly more people then they do in Schaumburg my guess is was that same type of growth that is difficult to keep up with the changes.

 

[donaldtoo]

Is DWifey's family so big that you guys all need name tags? Wow!!

Pretty much, actually.
The older ones of us not so much (although, because there are so many of us...), but, the kiddos, as we all know, can definitely change in a years time. If we're gonna' have them wear name tags, we're all gonna' wear them...even though the younger kiddos don't, generally, have them on for very long...

 

[donaldtoo]

Socks make good presents in my house as they always disappear.

Sock gremlins...

 

[Cesar R M]

Some shots before going to the next part of the trip report :>

Yep, in the next few months, family members # 193-196 will join in the form of two births and two weddings.
Of course, the matriarch and patriarch passed many years ago, along with several aunts and uncles, and some other family members.
There are about 155-160-ish of us still around. About 85-90 attended Sunday. The others were either working, still at college, or too far away to make the trip.

wow, seems pretty busy!

 

[donaldtoo]

I bought Christmas Vacation at Target 2 Saturdays ago for a family movie night. My dd10, cried when the cat was supposedly shocked to death. We had watched the edited for tv version for years and hadn’t realized there were a few unsavoury words in it. Then I realized they had heard those same words out of their father before.

 

[Figgy1]

Oh cut your own down. Hubs and I used to go to a family-owned tree farm out in W. MA and cut down our tree every year. Unfortunately, the owners were elderly and finally had to sell off the land. It's no longer a tree farm.

Now, we just go to a local nursery, and we buy them already cut. But I do miss clomping around the snow in the tree farm, and cutting down our own tree.

Seeing you like clumping around in the snow please get one for each of us