Feel Like Complaining

Yes, I'm looking at YOU Kden!! Excuse me but I'm all giddy again because I had the pleasure of seeing and having my picture taken for the third time with my heartthrob. I saw an announcement on FB that my FAVORITE Deadliest Catch Captain would be in Coeur d' Alene, ID one Saturday to sign his children's books. He wrote and illustrated them while he was laid up with broken ribs  last year after getting thrown off of a bull. It was during a car show, which I normally would avoid; but I would have walked over hot coals to get there. He does a lot of appearances in Coeur d' Alene because his Mom is from the area and he considers it his second home. And good for us, it's just a quick 45 minute drive across the border. It took us awhile to find a place to park with the re-routed streets but we walked right to the store where he would be. We were 15 minutes early and there were only 2 girls ahead of in line. He was right on time which was kind of surprising. He...

After the debacle of my winning trip to Alaska last fall I have really been down. I won't bore you with the whole stinking story again but I still feel like I was robbed. I took that action to write and speak to Jeff, from Miller Coors. I spelled out the whole trip, not leaving out any details, as to why I should not have to pay taxes on the full value of the trip when in fact we did not get a whole trip. I didn't get my 1099 this year for tax purposes so called the marketing company in charge of promoting the contest. She explained that since they will be cutting me a check this year, I won't get a 1099 until tax time next year. Finally, last week I got my check for $1633.00! I would have liked a breakdown on how they came to that amount and I don't even know what the trip will eventually be valued at, but she said it was reduced quite a bit. So it kind of seems like this trip really cost me nothing as this check will cover any taxes that I will have...

When we landed in Anchorage it was 10:30 pm. Everyone took off in different directions. A few of them had brought some frozen crab and had to pick it up. At this point, I couldn't give a flip about their crab. Barb and I went to find her checked bag, which never showed. One of the hosts called me and left a message saying to get our boarding passes for the next day and meet them at the baggage claim. We were just there, they weren't there. We were all so tired and chasing this bag around did not help. I finally called back and asked where they were. We had got our stuff at Penair and they were at Alaska. I lost it. When we found them I yelled at them for leaving us. Damn it, why was it so hard to travel as a group and get things done faster. It was like wrangling kittens, they were running around all willy nilly. They looked at me like I had slipped a cog. They all kept insisting that Barb's bag was here somewhere, like we hadn't been to every place we were sent to. Fin...

Desperate People, Desperate Times All of us were up early again , loaded our crap in the back of the van again , and headed to the airport. There we sat for hours waiting for some kind of word. Didn't look good, more cancellations and the airport was filling up. It's only one large room, separated by a chain door to the ticket counter. The natives were getting restless as well as the crazy white people from Washington state. We were told it could be two or three days before we could leave. For others, it had been weeks, depending on where they were going. People were out of clothes, I was out of bp medicine and I sure could have used some by then. The airport said it would update us at 2:00, then 2:30, then 3:00, then 4:00. That's what was so hard, the severe highs and lows of the whole situation. After breakfast at the airport we were so bored we actually went to Safeway to walk around. Seriously people there is nothing to do there. 'The Others' had already b...

Before he left us the previous night, Keith said he would pick us up at 8:00 am to go to the boat. He told us that maybe we could go out but it all depened on whether Discovery needed more footage or not. If they did, we would go. If not we would stay docked. We checked out because that was our day to leave and were waiting in the lobby with our luggage waiting for Keith. He didn't show up so Steve, the other MC host took us to the boat about 8:30, it was still dark out. I mean pitch black dark. It was pouring so hard, so miserable. We had our coats on and our little paper bags with our hats and tshirts from the night before. The crew would sign them for us we were told.  Roger and I in the rainy darkness The way the boats are tied up are one boat is at the dock and others are stacked next to them. Monte greeted us and we had to walk a long grated walkway and through the belly of one large boat to reach Keith's. Basically you are crawling across the railings which is t...

Even that title doesn't sum it up. Because that was just the beginning of The Horribly Sucky Trip to Dutch. Excitement filled the air as we arrived at the airport in plenty of time. Finally our travel mates showed up, both named William. We liked them immediately and before we even boarded the plane we were calling them 'The Bills'. They were sitting right behind us on the plane and we were joking around; then we heard the news. There was a problem with the fuel gauge and they needed to transfer fuel from one tank to the other, which they could only do with us off the plane. They said it would only take 15-20 minutes and we would all make our connecting flights. I never saw people move so damn slow in my life. We were told to leave our carry-ons as it would be quicker. Fifteen minutes turned into nearly an hour and after we finally arrived in Seattle and literally ran to our gate to our connecting flight to Anchorage, it was too late. Screwed. We could have taken the ne...

I've been wanting to write about this for awhile but was embarrassed. Most of you know that I'm GaGa for Deadliest Catch and all of the lovely Captains of the Bering Sea. My family and I have seen different Captains at book signings, grocery stores, Walmart, etc. This summer Capt's John and Andy Hillstrand and Sig Hanson were doing their own Captain's Tours, not affiliated with Discovery. When I saw they were coming to town I got tickets for hubby, daughter and I. We got good seats but not the premium seats which included a private meet and greet after the show. But at $75.00 I wasn't going to spend as much as Elton John tickets cost. I mean I love them, but they're not worth the same as Elton. That's a ticket price you have to earn. I had seen clips here and there and sort of knew what to expect. I had a feeling that it would be an OK show, but not as great as a personal book signing tour. But we were still excited to go and joined the other few thousan...

Concert ticket buying is in full swing. I just wish we could see them all. We saw Elton John just a week ago tonight and had a great time. My next favorite John (Hillstrand) is coming with his brother Andy  and Sig Hanson (from Deadliest Catch) in July for The Captain's Tour. I am kind of disappointed that they've gotten so popular that they now have to charge for their appearances. But.....that doesn't mean that I don't want to go! When my daughter and I saw the Hillstrands three years ago, it was for a book signing. All we had to do was buy a book and stand in line for a couple of hours. It was well worth the wait. This particular show will have the Captains telling stories, showing clips that have never been seen before and a Q&A session. Tickets went on sale this morning and since I had to work I left hubby in charge. Yikes! He did fine though and we got some pretty good seats. I had no idea my other favorite Jonny Lang would be coming back to town so soo...

There is a beautiful farming community within a short drive of our home. The farms and orchards offer u-pick strawberries, peaches, cherries, apples, and pumpkins. I think the fall is the most popular time, for the apples and pumpkins. We thought we would drive up there this afternoon to get our pumpkins because it was such a nice day. The drive was warm and beautiful with not much in the way of traffic.....until we came to a screeching halt about a mile from the hub of the area. We saw many cars coming out, a lot faster than we were getting in. There is a four way stop in the center of the activities, but as we got closer we found that instead of using the 4-way stop signs they had assigned a Kindergarten Cop to direct traffic. I was driving so I asked my husband which way to our first favorite patch. He got confused (by all the traffic?) and said straight. WRONG ANSWER! That took me into a parking lot of where I did not want to go. So it took me awhile to get turned around and back t...

Have you ever been Gaa Gaa over a TV personality? My daughter and I are partially smitten with a certain Capt. Johnathan of Deadliest Catch. She likes Capt. Andy more because she doesn't go for the scruffy kind. But she's only 13 so what does she know? Our love of these certain captains was intensified when we saw them at a book signing earlier this year. They were both very humble guys who seem to be a little surprised of their newly star status. I then joined the forum at Time Bandit just to join in on a little conversation and to keep us with what the captains were up to during their off time. In any forum, you are going to have the regulars, semi-regulars, sometime posters and lurkers. I range from lurker to sometime poster. You then have a group that like to call themselves the leaders of the gang. Now since this forum revolves around nice looking men, members are mostly women. Any woman or girl for that matter that is a fan of the FV Time Bandit is called a Bandita. The l...