Toothbrush Holder

Barb was explaining to me that she had used my toothbrush to clean the cup we use as a toothbrush holder because she couldn't get the inside the cup any other way with the lid that was on it.  She said that the cup design was so stupid because you should be able to take the lid off.  As she was telling me this, the lid on the cup came off in her hand.

Airport

We were dropping off Sarah and Ali at the departures area of the Orlando airport.  Sarah wanted to get a selfie of us all but couldn't get us all in the picture.  Ali said he would ask this Amigo to take the picture for us, pointing at a Mexican guy standing on the sidewalk.  He was talking on his phone and ignored Ali but his girlfriend took the picture for us.  Ali said that the guy ignored us because he heard Ali call him Amigo.

Then Barb noticed that Ali didn't have any socks on and thought he would be cold when he got back to Canada.  Ali said he was wearing socks.  Barb didn't realize that he had socks on because they were flesh coloured but they were not Ali's fresh coloured.  They were white person flesh coloured and Barb was doubly wrong.

Heads Up

Laura brought this fun game for us to play.  She had downloaded it as an app on her cellphone.  It was called Heads Up and the idea was that you choose a category and then the app chooses a word in that category.  The person with the cellphone places it on their forehead, so they can't see the word but the others can.  The others are supposed to get the player to guess the word by saying things but not saying the word.  We had a great laugh playing the game.  One of the categories was "Books of Bible".  When Barb saw this category, she said "God Help Us".  I thought that was pretty funny but we didn't try that category.

Adopted

We went to the live music in the Village Square when Laura, Sarah and Ali were here.  Barb had a great time dancing with Ali.  I met one of my friends from softball.  He introduced me to his daughter who was in her 20's.  I said that these are my kids pointing to Laura, Sarah and Ali.  This confused the daughter and she asked them if they were adopted.

Daphne's Card

I was sitting in my chair and found a card from Daphne beside it.  I opened it up and was very happy to find a cheque inside.  I exclaimed "What's This".  Then I realized the card and the cheque were for Laura.

Socks

Barb was making Sarah another pair of socks for Christmas and when she told Sarah about it, Sarah said that Ali said he only got one pair of socks from Barb and he was jealous.  So Barb decided to stop making another pair of socks for Sarah after she finished the first sock and decided to make a pair of black socks for Ali.  She didn't enjoy making black socks as much as making colourful socks for Sarah but she worked hard to make the socks.  Finally, she had made one black sock for Ali and one colourful sock for Sarah.  So they got one sock each for Christmas.

Little Pony

Laura came to the library with me and was very excited about putting the book I had in the return slot.  Then we went in to show her the library and she found a funny little book about a princess who wanted to fight in the wars and she wanted a pony to ride as a present for her birthday but all she ever got for her birthday was ugly sweaters.  Finally, she got a pony for her birthday but she wasn't happy about it because it was small and fat and couldn't run or jump.  She said that it eyes didn't even look in the same direction sometimes.  It just ate things it shouldn't and farted a lot.  Anyway when she finally got to go to war with her little pony, she was able to save her country by giving all their enemies ugly sweaters and everyone lived happily every after.

Plugged Pipes

Barb had been hearing a gurgling noise in our pipes since we had disconnected the water filter.  Today when we flushed the toilet water came out the drain of the bath tub and the toilet bowl didn't fill back up.  We realized that our pipes were plugged.  Barb went to ask the neighbours if their pipes were plugged and they weren't.  They gave her a plunger and Ali tried unsuccessfully to unplug the toilets.  I tried my usual trick of pouring a pot of hot soapy water down the toilet but that didn't work either.  Barb phoned her pickleball friends to see if they knew what to do.  They said she could phone the utilities people in The Villages.  So she did and in a few minutes a man in a truck came to look at the problem.  He couldn't fix it but he called some other guys, who came quickly with a big truck to suck out the pipes.  The sucker didn't help either.  So the men said that the problem wasn't with The Villages pipes, we needed to call a plumber.  Then the big black man in the group said he would try one more thing.  He opened the drain and used a power water hose to blow the plug out.  One of the guys said that if the pressure was too high, it would blow up our whole driveway.  The black man said he would just use a little pressure.  It worked and then our pipe was unplugged.  They drove away and didn't charge us anything.  Barb was so happy.  Afterwards, Ali said that the black guy did it because he wanted to help out a "brother".

No Mess

Laura was dying some fabric to use as hair braids.  She read me the package for the dye that said it was guaranteed to be No Mess.  Laura said they don't know me and don't know what kind of mess I can make.

Weird Story

Laura said she wanted to tell me a weird story.  I thought she said she wanted to tell me a word story.  I asked her what other type of story there was and we were both right.  Every story Laura tells is a weird story and a word story.

Don't Feed the Alligators

Laura and I went for a walk on the Boardwalk by Lake Sumter.  We saw a family of big snapping turtles and a lot of big catfish.  We also saw a sign saying Don't Feed the Alligators but we didn't see any alligators.

Nissan Sentra

Tom and Bonnie were lending us their car for three months.  They were going to be with there grandchildren in Kissimee near Orlando for Christmas.  Sarah and Ali were arriving on Christmas Eve but they were going to spend a few days in Daytona Beach before visiting us.  Originally, Tom said he could pick Sarah and Ali up at the airport on Christmas Eve and they could borrow the car for a few days and then drive it to The Villages for us.  Later Tom phoned and said that he couldn't get away on Christmas Eve because of the grandchildren.  So Sarah and Ali took a taxi from the airport to Kissimee to pick up the car.  It turned out to be a Nissan Sentra just like the one we used to have.  It was even the same colour.  Barb hated that car.  So she will probably hate this car too.

2016

I heard a commercial on Live 88.5 from Ottawa advertising its New Year's Eve Hard Drive Show.  It said "2016 Sucks, F You 2016".  Laura liked the commercial and I enjoyed listening to the show on New Year's Eve.

Hammer In Nails

Laura was here and she liked to pick up the mail for us.  So one day she went to the mail box and found a key in the mail box that meant there was a parcel for us.  She went to the parcel box with the key and found her new phone in the box.  She was so happy to have a new military grade cellphone that was supposedly indestructible because she is always breaking her cellphones.  It was advertised with a video showing someone use the cellphone to hammer in a nail.

Denver

Barb read on the internet that there was a terrible snowstorm in Denver and one airline flying out of Denver said it would take a week to get people out of the airport.  I said Laura's flight from Vancouver had a stopover in Denver.  Fortunately, it wasn't the same airline that had the problem.  When Laura was flying in, the weather in Denver had cleared.  We went to pick her up at Terminal B of the Orlando Airport and got caught in a terrible traffic jam getting into the airport.  We were 20 minutes late.  Fortunately, Laura's flight was an hour late and Laura found us when she arrived.

Cash On Delivery

We got an email from Barry our neighbour in New Hamburg saying that he had to pay $25 COD for a package that came for Laura.  It was Laura's new cell phone that the company in China had delivered to her billing address instead of her mailing address.  Laura wanted to have her new phone in Florida.  So we got Barry to mail it Express Post to Florida. It would cost Laura another $20. 

Spotify

Julia told us about Spotify, a free music streaming service.  I opened an account and put it on my computer and Barb's computer.  Barb loves Spotify and has two favourites play lists that she uses.  One is Hedley and the other is a Pop Radio Station.  I made two play lists for myself.  One of Matthew Good and one of a 60s Radio Station.  Barb enjoyed listen to Spotify when all the radio stations here started playing only Christmas music.  She was listening to her Pop station and I was in my study.  I decided to put on my headphones and listen to my 60s station.  When I logged on to Spotify and clicked the button for my 60s station and Barb's Spotify station changed as well.  I thought that was really strange that I could do something on my computer and it would change something on Barb's computer in the other room.  I guess it was because we were both using my account and you can only use one station on an account at a time.

iClub Membership

I went to my first club meeting at The Villages.  There are about 200 clubs here you can join.  I went to the iClub for Apple Users.  Since I use my iPod Touch all the time and I now have an iPad, I thought I would now qualify as an Apple User.  I had to pay $10 for my membership and I had to fill in a computer form with my personal information including my address.  I couldn't remember my Zip Code and was looking through all of the little pieces of paper in my pocket for the piece of paper that had my address on it.  I went through all the pieces of paper three times, one piece at a time, and there are a lot of pieces of paper in my pockets.  I couldn't find the piece of paper with my address on it.  Eventually we had to just guess what my Zip Code was.  Later when I was putting the pieces of paper back in my pocket, I noticed there were still some pieces of paper in my pocket I hadn't taken out.  On one of those pieces of paper still in my pocket was the one with my address on it.

Julia's Diary Entry

Julia emailed me to tell me a story that she said would be a good one for my diary (blog).  She said that today she was preparing to go to the Zumba class that she instructs and Dillon was reminding of all the things she needed to bring.  She was checking that she had everything and was just about to leave the house when she realized she still had her night time mouth guard in her mouth.  It must be pretty comfortable.

Happy Birthday

Today was Barb's birthday.  The phone rang in the afternoon and someone on the other end said "Is this the Taylor residence?"  I thought it was Barb's parents calling her to wish her a Happy Birthday, so instead of talking to them I quickly said, "Here I will give you Barb".  It turned out it wasn't Barb's parents.  It was Tom and Bonnie who wanted to talk about giving us a deal on the use of their car for three months while they are away.  They didn't even know it was Barb's birthday but we are going to use their car while they are away and we only have to pay the insurance.  Tom is hoping that we will buy the car off him when he comes back.

Walk-In Closet

We have a big walk-in closet.  Tonight Barb got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and didn't turn the light on.  Instead of walking into the bathroom, she walked into the walk-in closet and got all tangled up in the hanging cloths.  She didn't know where she was.

Visa Card

Barb got a phone call from Bank of America saying that her bank card had been compromised. Someone had used her card number in Tampa to buy $200 worth of auto parts.  She needed her bank card all the time.  So she went into the local branch and got a temporary replacement card.  She had to bring two pieces of ID.  She needed her driver's license which was expired and her passport. Fortunately, they accepted her temporary driver's license and she got a temporary debit card card.

Powdered Peanut Butter

Barb's friend from pickleball was telling her about this great powdered peanut butter that has no fat in it.  You can eat the powder out the jar and your saliva will turn it into peanut butter or you can add a little water and spread it on bread or toast.  Barb bought some to try it out but it didn't taste like peanut butter at all.  So she told her friend and her friend said that she must have bought the wrong brand.  So Barb went back to the store to buy the right brand and really liked it.  Today she felt like a spoonful of peanut butter and took a big spoonful of powder. Then the phone rang and she had a big wad of peanut butter stuck to the roof of her mouth when she tried to talk on the phone.

Making Coffee

I was making a pot of coffee after dinner and placed the pot on the heating plate crooked.  I put a cup of coffee from the previous pot in the microwave to heat it up for Barb and left the room.  When I got back to take the coffee out of the microwave I noticed something was wrong with the coffee maker.  There was no coffee in the pot yet.  I noticed the pot was crooked and jiggled it around and into place. Suddenly a whole bunch of coffee came swishing out because there is a valve in the filter that doesn't open unless the coffee pot is placed under it.  If I hadn't come back to get the cup out of the microwave, there could have been a big mess in the kitchen.

Coach Mo's Clinic

Barb made a reservation to go to Coach Mo's Pickleball Strategy Clinic.  She remembered to bring an umbrella, a map, the ticket, a notebook and a pen.  But she forgot her purse and didn't have her Villages ID card when the man checked at the door.  Fortunately, he let her in anyway.  She would have been very disappointed if she couldn't get into the clinic because she forgot her ID card.

Three Packages

We went to Avon Park for me to write Christmas cards with Daphne and for Barb to get some things out of the old house that she wanted to keep.  When we got home late at night, there were 3 packages at the door.  One package had 3 pairs of tennis shoes for Barb to play pickleball in and another package had her new Pro-Lite paddles.  So we stayed up until 3 am trying out the pickleball paddles in the livingroom and Barb trying out her new shoes.

Sam's Club

There is a Sam's Club store near us.  It is a discount grocery warehouse like Costco but it is associated with Walmart.  You need a membership to get in.  Barb's pickleball partner has a membership.  So Barb borrowed her membership hoping they wouldn't look at the picture.  Then she snuck into the store.  She didn't find very much that she liked except the cooked whole chickens that seemed really large compared to Walmart or other stores in the area.

First Dinner Guests

Barb's pickleball friends from Ottawa were visiting The Villages to practice their pickleball and play with Barb.  So Barb felt we should have them over for dinner.  We are not used to entertaining.  So dinner was pretty simple we just heated up store bought pizza.  Then I thought we should have something for dessert.  I decided to scoop the rice pudding out of the little single serving plastic containers into a bowl and then Barb put some cinnamon on the top and it looked like we made it especially for them.  We didn't eat it all for dessert. So Barb had a nice little snack for later.

Not Quite Ikea

Barb bought me a little desk for my office.  She bought it online and it was delivered today.  I couldn't believe how heavy the box was and we were surprised that one man could have lift it to bring it up to the door.  We took the desk pieces out of the box on the driveway and brought them into the house one at a time.  Then we spent the evening putting it together.  Barb did the assembly and I read the instructions.  The desk was manufactured in Malaysia but it was just like all the Ikea furniture we had bought and assembled in New Hamburg this summer.  So we were well practiced at this kind of work.

Rain For Real

I dropped Barb off at pickle ball and went to my softball evaluations.  Before my evaluations started we were warming up by throwing the ball around and it started to rain.  It didn't rain too hard and stopped fairly quickly.  So we continued with the evaluations.  After the evaluations, I went back to get Barb and she wasn't there.  The pickle ball courts were covered with puddles and there was no one around.  I thought of going to look for her in the Recreation Center and then thought she probably got a ride home from her pickle ball partner.  I was worried on the way home and when I got home I was relieved to find Barb was there.  She has stayed under a shelter while it rained and there was just two ladies there and one was Deb Harrison who is famous in The Villages as one of the best ladies pickle ball players for her age not just in The Villages but maybe in the World.  Deb Harrison was giving a lesson to the other lady.  When they were finished Deb Harrison was getting into her car and Barb came up to her and asked her if she wanted to hit some more.  Deb said yes and they hit the ball around for a while.  Then it started to rain again.  They decided to leave and Deb Harrison said she would give Barb a ride home.  So Barb got to talk to Deb on the drive home and get they got to know each other a little bit.

Betsy Teaches Me a Lesson

I thought I was so smart and knew my way around The Villages so well that I could find the softball diamonds without the help of Betsy.  I was driving along and went through an intersection and noticed that the diamonds were on the left hand side and that I had just passed them.  So I had to drive down a ways and pull a U-turn and go back.  I didn't learn my lesson though.  On the way home, I missed a turn an drove and drove until I came to a highway on the edge of The Villages.  I had no idea where I was.  So I stopped in a drug store parking lot and programmed Betsy to help me find my way home.

Window Awnings

Barb and I took down the window awnings in the back of the house for two reasons.  One was that we wanted it to be brighter in the bedrooms and the other reason was that they awnings were all moldy.  We had the darnedest time unscrewing the rusted screws and we were rushing to get them down before the garbage men came.  So we could throw them out with the garbage.  We got them down in time but Barb had ripped a strip off that had been painted and underneath was the old green paint.  It looked kind of bad.  Barb was very happy to find some white paint in the garage and even though it was indoor paint after she bought a paint brush at the dollar store and painted the patch above the window it matched exactly.

Nortel

I had made a friend at the softball evaluations.  His name is Ron and he is an older fellow from North Carolina.  I told him that I used to live in Ottawa and he said that he used to go to Ottawa for work a lot a few years back.  He said that he worked for Nortel in the accounting office.  So he saw the bankruptcy coming and got out in time to collect his pension.  So after our evaluation today, we were told that there was a batting practice at another diamond close by.  So I drove there and when I got there Ron found me and said that the diamonds were all full and the batting practice was going to be back at the evaluation diamonds.  He said that he knew which car was mine because I had Ontario license plates.

Rain

We have been listening to a radio station from Woodstock, Ontario on the internet because the station we were listening to here was playing only the top 10 songs over and over again and it was driving me crazy.  Today Barb heard that it was going to rain tomorrow and was worried that her pickle ball would be cancelled.  Then I reminded her that she was listening to the radio from Woodstock.

Grey Cup

I got up early to try to find a way to watch the Grey Cup live on Kodi.  I tried a lot of things and nothing seemed to work.  I read about this package from Pakistan that had a lot of live television.  After trying a number of ways to get the Add-On, I finally found out how to download and install it.  I was able to get TSN and was able to watch the Grey Cup.  I spent the 5 hours in the afternoon watching the per-game show and then enjoyed watching Ottawa upset Calgary in the real game live.

Pictures

Barb found that the pictures that she took on my iPad look better than the pictures she can take on her iPod.  So she took a lot of pictures of our house and emailed them from my iPad to Ellen.  She was disappointed that Ellen was not commenting on her pictures after she sent them.  Barb thought maybe Ellen wasn't on her computer.  Later I found out that Barb was emailed the pictures from my iCloud account and Ellen was just hitting reply with her comments.  Barb thought she would reply to her btdolls account but she wasn't.  So when I showed Barb all of the replies from Ellen she was happy.  Ellen was quite impressed with our house especially all the green colour in the rugs, the wall and the curtains.

Proposal

Ali iMessaged me which I thought was a little different.  He asked how I was and then he asked if he could have my permission to marry Sarah.  I said that he didn't need my permission but we were very happy for them.  Barb and Sarah and Ali were iMessaging much of the evening chatting about the proposal and the rings and how happy we all are.

Mirror

Barb realized that there was no full length mirror in our new house.  Every well dressed woman needs a full length mirror to see how her clothes look.  So she went out to Bed Bath and Beyond and bought a full length mirror.  Then when she went to put it up in the house she looked to put it up on the back of the door in the spare bedroom.  There she found a full length mirror.  So she had to return the one she bought.

OOMA

Our new phone system is great and only costs $15 a month with unlimited long distance in North America.  We were able to port our Canadian number over and get a new Florida number.  Barb wanted to change the call display for our outgoing calls to say Barb and Ivan Taylor.  So she called the company in California.  The man said that they couldn't put my name on the display because my name isn't on the billing information.  However, Barb tested out the system and phoned her pickle ball friend who picked up and said Hi Barb.

Linux Saves The Day

Barb gets these coupons by email for some of her favourite stores.  They usually come in the email and she can claim them at the store from her iPod.  However, she got a coupon as a attachment and needed to print it out.  We didn't have a printer any more but I told her she might be able to print it as a file.  She tried and the file came out in XPS format.  We couldn't figure out any way to view an XPS file.  I found out that XPS was an old format that Windows had developed to compete with PDF but it never caught on.  I looked up ways to convert XPS files for PDF files but there was no free software that I could find.  Then I thought to look on Linux.  I no longer had a Linux system on my computer since I got my new computer but I did have a version that I had installed on an emulator called Virtual Box.  So I went into Linux in Virtual Box and found an XPS to PDF conversion software package for free.  I was able to convert the XPS file to a PDF file and then I emailed it to Barb and she was able to take it to the store and show them the coupon on her iPod.

Dog Chase

Some days when Barb is not using the car in the afternoon, I drive down to the walking path and take my walk there.  It is nice little path beside a little lake and in and out of a little wooded area.  Today I was there and there was an old lady calling her dog to come back.  I guess her dog had slipped out of his leash and ran away.  She was a very old lady and couldn't run after the dog.  The dog was teasing her by letting her get a little bit close to him and then running away again.  So I tried to help her catch the dog.  We were lucky that the dog decided to get up on the seat of someone's golf cart.  Then I went on one side of the cart and the old lady went on the other side of the cart and we caught the dog.  It wasn't even the old lady's golf cart.  She thanked me for my help and I continued on my walk.

Sweet Talk

We had to have our sprinkler system turned off permanently before we arrived because it wasn't turning off by itself.  Then when we got here we had to get it fixed.  We paid $500 for a man to come an dig up the pipes and replace some pipes and a valve.  Then we tested the sprinklers and found that they weren't working very well.  Most of them were pointed the wrong way and some were just gurgling and not spraying at all.  Our lawn and our plants were all brown and wilted.  So Barb called the people to come and fix them again.  She had been told by our neighbour that if she says that the sprinklers are pointed the wrong way they will come out and fix them at no charge.  The man came out and Barb was outside working on the garden and talking to him while he was checking all the nozzles.  He had to replace 5 nozzles and adjust them all but he only charged us for 1 nozzle which we get for free.  Barb said that if it wasn't for her sweet talking we would have been charged for all 5 nozzles.

Softball Evaluations

At The Villages there are five different divisions of softball leagues and you have to be evaluated before you can get on a team according to your abilities.  I dropped Barb off at her pickle ball courts at 7:30 and drove to the softball diamonds for the first day of evaluations.  I was so happy that I was going to be early and I thought to myself that I should try to be early for everything from now on.  I got to the diamonds and there was nobody there.  Then one guy showed up and I got out of the car and asked him if he was there for the evaluation.  He said that he was there for his softball game.  He said that the evaluations were at a different set of diamonds.  Fortunately, they were not too far away and since the evaluations didn't start until 8:00 I got there just a little late.

Air Conditioning

We have been having trouble with the air conditioning in the car for about a year and a half.  We have taken it in a number of times and the garage is never able to fix it.  Barb was worried that we wouldn't be able to cope with no air conditioning for the whole time we are in Florida.  So she asked around about where her pickle ball friends brought their cars to get repaired.  Barb was told to go a place called Vaugn's Quality Autos.  She was expecting to drop off her car and pick it up later.  So she was thinking of borrowing her friend's car for a few hours.  The night before she was going to bring in her car we drove by the place and it looked like a dump with cars all over the place in various states of assembly.  The gate was locked and the sign for the place was all rusted.  Barb found out that she couldn't make an appointment.  She just had to bring in her car and wait until they fixed it.  So she brought her car in in the morning and as she drove in she was met by the owner.  He said they were kind of busy right now but she should bring her car back in the afternoon.  So she came back at 2:30 in the afternoon and the owner got one of his guys to look at the car and he said it just needed a part and they would have the part delivered in a few minutes and she could wait for it.  Barb was surprised that the garage had no hoists and that there were about 13 guys working on cars all over the dirt parking lot.  Barb waited in a dusty waiting room with a bunch of other people.  They fixed her car in a few minutes and only charged her $35.  Barb asked the owner how he can work without any hoists.  He said that if someone's car needs a hoist, he just sends them somewhere else.  However, since he doesn't use hoists his guys can work on all those cars at the same time.  Now the air conditioning works great.

Postal Box

We have to go a long way from the house to get our mail.  However, the postal boxes are close to the entrance to the park.  So Barb can pick up the mail every day on the way home from pickle ball.  The first time she went to the mail box, she didn't know which one was ours and there are hundreds of boxes there.  She asked someone there how she could find out which box was ours.  The person said she could ask the mail man inside the building.  So she knocked on the door of the building just as she noticed a sign that said "Do not knock".  The man inside said he didn't know which box was hers because she wasn't on his route but he said he could help her by knocking on the door of her box from the inside.  Then Barb found her box by following his knocks.  She used her key to open the mailbox and saw the mailman's head on the inside of the building looking out and smiling.