Back Home and Toilet Safe

We got back home on Thursday after a good visit in Southern California with family.  We flew down early on Sunday in time to watch the Super Bowl with Neil's brother and wife Sandi, and we also saw his nieces' Shannon and Noreen.  It was a good visit, and it was a pretty good game.  Most of the hot action was in the half-time show, but that isn't unusual.  Neil had hoped that the Forty-Niners would win, but they had a chance and had too many errors.

Queen Mary in Long Beach

While we were in California, the weather was pretty good (about twenty degrees warmer than Oregon, at any rate) and we took a day excursion to the Queen Mary in Long Beach.  It was only about a thirty minute drive on the freeway, so it was a breeze since we weren't driving!

While there, we had a tour of the ship that was pretty interesting, and then took the Ghosts and Legends Tour, which was a bit of a bust.  They took you into dark parts of the ship with an effort to scare you, which is fine, but you could hardly see anything because of the darkness.  We don't recommend that tour.  We took some time then for a good (but expensive) lunch, and Neil and Bruce went to tour the Russian Scorpion submarine self guided tour while Pamela and Sandi did some "Retail Therapy".

This was a pretty good tour, except that both Bruce and Neil had a bit of trouble squeezing through the passage ways that connected the different parts of the sub.  It was amazing to learn that they actually had about 75 crew members on this sub and only two heads.  There is also nothing elegant about Soviet design, and there were valves and machinery poking into every part of the living quarters.  Every US Navy submariner should take a tour of this thing to learn how good they have it.

The "Foxtrot" Sub is Right Next to the Queen

That Round Passageway on the Left Wasn't Big Enough!

It was good to visit with family, and it was good to get home to Oregon as well.  We got in after a boom-a-rang flight to Seattle and down to Portland and arrived after rush hour.  Somehow flying isn't as much fun as it used to be when we were MVP Gold members with Alaska Airlines and could fly in First Class or at least the exit rows.  Boo hoo!

Very Simple Instructions to Repair Flushmate Toilet

When in California, I got a voice mail from a fellow named Scott from Flushmate, who had read my Blog about exploding toilets and wanted to make sure that we got a repair kit.  He must have a search engine set to find discussions on "exploding toilets", I would guess.  At any rate, he was a really nice guy and he got info from me and shipped it out.  It arrived today, and literally took me five minutes to install the fix.  So--kudos to Flushmate for the good customer service and follow up.  It you have one of these toilets, get the very simple repair kit for your peace of mind.

We think that Spring may be just around the corner, and we are counting our blessings that we do not live in Boston right now (or ever) as they get hammered with snow.  We hope you are doing well where ever you are.

Neil and Pamela