Category: Family

Dalyan, Turkey, Day 3

Posted on by chappyshi

20120704

Getting up in the AM has not been as easy as it was in Istanbul for some reason.  There I was out on my balcony nearly every morning at 0600 working on pictures and/or my travel log. It is nice to sit out here in the morning by the river watching the falcons and the blue spinners gallivanting about on the air currents on the cliffs on the other side of the river.  Uncle Cliff was out here every morning and I intended to join him every day but did not meet that goal.

Today we went down to the beach, Iztuzu Beach.  The hotel boat takes you down and back for free.  The boat is designed and decorated like a traditional Ottoman boat and seems to be the only one like it on the river here.  As we motored down the river to the beach, we got our picture taken more times than I care to think about.  En route we passed through Dalyan, had another great view of the tombs, saw some incredible scenery, and stopped to watch a guy feed blue crabs to a loggerhead turtle.

We had heard conflicting reports from people about the beach which is famous for not only being the longest beach in Turkey but also being protected habitat for the loggerhead turtles that lay their eggs on the beach.  People were saying that the sand was black, volcanic sand and extremely hot.  The hotel staff and my parents, who have been there before, did not depict it as such. When we got down there we could see that it was not standard tan or white beach sand and it was damned hot.  You could barely walk on it.

The water however was a most refreshing temperature and very clear.  It is a shame there was no vegetation or fish because the water was crystal clear.  The folks were going pay for beach chairs and umbrellas and hang out there until the boat went back to the hotel but Cliff and I were going to walk down to the end of the beach where the buses came over the mountains to drop people off.

We had a great walk of about an hour along the beach and stopped at the Loggerhead turtle rehabilitation facility to see the good work they were doing there.  Cliff was a bit depressed seeing the turtles that had had their shells hacked up by boat propellers so we did not stay long.  It was a short walk from there to the bus departure area where we paid up and waited for the next bus back to Dalyan.  The ride back was very cool with some nice views of the beach, the river delta, and a quaint town tucked on the side of the mountain with quite a nice mosque in the center of town.  I had intended to take the bus back up that way, get some lunch at one of the places near the top, and take some pictures but never did so.

Once back at the hotel, we got into the usual routine.  Uncle Cliff did much exercising of his bad shoulder and practicing on his guitar.  I did much lounging by the pool and, as usual, started happy hour earlier than everyone else.  Normally, for at least part of happy hour, we had drinks on the patio outside of one of our hotel rooms.  Since it was not generally kosher to bring our own booze into the hotel and we had beer and gin, we tried to keep it low key out back rather than flaunting it poolside.

I have lost track of where we ate when.  I know we had seafood night and another BBQ with mezes night at the hotel and ate out in town two more nights so I think that we must have eaten at the hotel off the menu one night.  Everywhere we ate, the food was plentiful, good and reasonably priced but I think that the food at the hotel might have been a better overall than any of the places we ate in Dalyan.

Dalyan, Turkey, Day 2

Posted on by chappyshi

20120703

Tuesday was a day to familiarize ourselves with Dalyan town. We had to find ATM’s and a store where we could get a decent price on sundry goods like water, beer, snacks, etc.  Uncle Cliff had to find the post office from which he could buy a phone card and then figure out how to use it.  That took a couple of days and attempts to contact his wife Ruth since the instructions on both the phones and cards were in Turkish only.  He eventually got through but had to leave messages for two days before he finally reached her on day 3.

After a fair amount of walking around town and a delicious lunch of Turkish pancakes, we walked back to the hotel to hit the pool, cool off, and freshen up.  After that it was nearly time for happy hour.  We have been doing that partly at the pool bar and partly behind our rooms enjoying some gin that that the folks brought in en route from Wales.  The hotel frowns on bringing in your own booze and food so we try to keep it low key and not party down from our own supply at the pool.  That is kind of a downer but what can you do?

We walked back into town for dinner at a place that had riverside seating and a view of the Lycian tombs carved into the mountain across the river.  The setting was great and the food very good as it has been for the whole trip thus far.  I have to admit that my legs are bothering me from being out of shape, nerve or hip damage, and water retention.  The last walk home of the day from Daylan is usually not too fun and still pretty warm.

Fortunately the AC works fine in the room I am sharing with Cliff.  He has the downstairs room with a double and I have a single upstairs.  It is nice to be able to retreat to the AC after a trip to town or sweatfest around the pool.  I have to admit to not spending much time in the room other than for sleeping.  The days have been busy and, the heat notwithstanding, it is nicer to be by the pool, the river, or the bar.  Fortunately, despite the time change (7 hours), I have slept pretty well.  I usually get a power four or five hours and then toss and turn a bit before getting up.

Kayaking and Walking, Tidewater, VA, October 2011

Posted on by chappyshi

I headed off to see my sister Kim and brother-in-law Don on Sunday, 2 October, after working the night shift the previous night and catching few hours of sleep.  I got down there in the late afternoon in time for an early dinner before heading off  to church.  Upon our return to the house we just took it  easy.  Kim was exhausted because she got no sleep the night before.

On Monday morning, I headed off the MacKay Island National Wildlife Refuge on the border of VA and NC.  I never noticed it was there before though I been through it once on a road  trip with Kim and Don.  It looked like there should be some good paddling, walking and wildlife watching opportunities.  Unfortunately, I could  not figure out where exactly I should be able to put my kayak in so I ended up taking the 5.5 mile walk around the inland ponds.

I did have some good bird sightings and saw either a nutria, muskrat, or beaver swimming about working on its abode. As for birds, I saw numerous Great Blue herons, American egrets, osprey, Belted kingfishers, Eastern meadowlarks (cool birds)  and the occasional what I think were Gadwalls or American Widgeons, an American Bittern, etc.  I also saw a couple of smashed snakes on the trail including one that was likely to be an adult water moccasin.  All in all it was a nice day.

On the way home, I stopped in at the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant near Kim’s for a beer.  There I had a tasty Loose Cannon Ale and a Reissdorf Kolsch.  I also tasted the Aventinus Weiss which was very good.  Hopefully they will still  have it on tap the next time I stop in.  For dinner we went to Cogan’s Pizza, which except for one sub par experience, I have always enjoyed.

Tuesday was a slow day for me.  The mid-watches still take their toll.  I was finally able to get going in the afternoon and headed off to one of my favorite kayaking spots down Suffolk way, Burnt Mills Reservoir.  It was a beautiful paddle but I think I have explored almost the whole reservoir by now.  I always like to see what is around the next bend and there are very few more to go around.

Finally, on my way home and back to work on Wednesday night, I put the kayak in at Deep Bottom Park on the James River SE of Richmond.  That is another one of my favorites.  The river flows straight through the area but also has a huge offshoot loop where the landing is.  I went around the loop all the way for the first time and stopped into this huge lagoon to look for birds.  Usually I see tons of Great Egrets there but that day I was limited to Great Blues.

I had a passenger the whole time I was on the river.  What I gather was grasshopper landed on the prow of my kayak when I put in and stayed there for the whole trip until I landed.  First time in a long time I have paddled with a companion…

Three Days in Tidewater

Posted on by chappyshi

I went down to see my sister and my brother-in-law in Suffolk, VA, on my three day break this week.  What with my work schedule recently, I haven’t done much on my days off but try to catch up on my sleep so the trip was a nice change.  I drove down on Sunday after a few hours of sleep in the morning.  That afternoon and evening was just hanging out, lazing in the pool, and chatting.  I was good to see Kim and Don who I hadn’t seen since late February or early March.  Kim’s friends the Kent’s came over for dinner which was based on some awesome ribs that Kim did in the oven.  We even got to break in Don’s new Cornhole boards.

On Monday, my intent was to go down to Virginia Beach (VB) in the morning, have some lunch, and head back to Suffolk to kayak.  I hoped to stop in at the Beach Brewing Company to check out their establishment and taste their beer but since they were only open on the weekends that did not pan out.  I did get out on the beach for a couple of hours where I read the paper and enjoyed the scenery.  Since I haven’t had good experiences lounging and swimming at the beach with much of a drive in front of me I didn’t make it into the water.  They don’t have much in the way of changing facilities at VB and I didn’t relish the thought of making the drive back to Suffolk with a bathing suit full of sand.

I did have a tasty Starr Hill Brewery Northern Lights IPA and chicken Caesar salad for lunch at the 11th Street Taphouse Bar and Grill.  They had quite the beer selection that made me want to grab a nearby hotel room and just hang out for the rest of the day and night.  As it was, I head back west only to encounter traffic slow downs and blockages due to bridge openings and car fires.  I was able to get off the highway onto a road I recognized and planned to get on eventually so that worked out okay.

By the time I got back to back to Suffolk, I decided not to kayak and headed toward a local place called Cogan’s Pizza where they have a pretty good beer selection.  I missed my turn and ended up at Buffalo Wild Wings which wasn’t a bad thing.  There I tasted the Beach Brewery Pale Ale but was not impressed.  I did enjoy immensely the O’Connor Brewing Company Great Dismal Black IPA.  Black IPA’s are quite the rage in the craft brew community this year.  I have had at least four different ones this year and enjoyed them all.

Monday night was relaxing.  We did leftover ribs and such and watched a movie that I didn’t make it all the way through.  I was still running on a sleep deficit and despite that fact that I should  be awake nights because that is the shift I work, I still had to crash.  As it was, I woke up early and tossed and turned before finally giving up and getting up.

I did my two crossword puzzles for the day and read a bit of the paper before heading out to kayak on Bennett’s Creek which is just a short drive from Kim’s, and if you read anything I write, you will recall is one of my favorite places to paddle.  I put in at the local park and either paddle upstream until  I run out of creek or paddle down to the James River and back.  The journey was a good as ever with numerous sitings of wildlife including Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets, Green Herons, Belted Kingfishers, Red-winged Blackbirds, Ospreys, and one Muskrat.

Since it was Don’s day off, we got together with Kim for lunch where I finally did make it to Cogan’s Pizza and we enjoyed a tasty Supreme pizza and I had a Bell’s Two Hearted Ale, always a favorite.  We had a bad experience there earlier in the year when the service was iffy and the pizza cook seemed to be having a bad day but they were back in good form on  Tuesday.  Later in the day we caught up with friend’s of Kim and Don, one of whom is a preacher, at the movies to catch “Horrible Bosses.”  That  was an incredibly raunchy, but very funny, movie, albeit interesting to watch sitting next to a preacher.

We had a quick dinner when we got home which was about 1830.  I was tired and called it a night early.  I wanted to get up early in the morning to get on the road home w/ a stop en route to paddle.

I stopped at one of my new favorite spots on the James River, Deep Bottom Park, in Henrico County off Route 5.  Unfortunately the tide was out and I couldn’t get all the way into this large pond off of the river that I wanted to go into.  I have seen hundreds of herons and egrets in there and wanted to see if I could get some pictures.

The birds there are very skittish so I hoped to just float around and minimize the disturbance.  That was pretty much a no go since there were huge mud flats exposed due to the low tide.  I ended up paddling back past the launch and up a creek I had seen previously but not yet explored.  It wasn’t a bad paddle overall but it was hot and my boat was leaking so I wrapped it up sooner than I intended.

Thankfully, I had an easy trip home and got a few things done before I had to go to work.  I had a productive and relaxing three days and it was great to see Kim and Don.

Briefly Back

Posted on by chappyshi

I have been bad about blogging which if you care about following me you already know.  I can’t say what the problem is but I am trying to get past it.  It has been a wacky seven or eight months what with starting work again as a contractor for a major corporation and then getting the opportunity to apply for the same job at the corporation as a full-time employee w/ benefits.

Forgive me if I don’t mention any company names.  A few years ago I would not have worried about doing so but,  even though I have never made good or bad comments about a company I have worked for or am working for and would never do so in my blog, I still feel it is risky to be too specific.  So much for free speech, eh?

The new job involved a major learning curve mostly for call center support but also for systems/desktop support.  I feel like  I have done quite well.  I may not be the star for the newly established support center but am certainly one of the stars.  Finally starting as a full time employee this week has been  the cap on the whole venture.

I finally have health benefits which is mucho beuno as you will see later in this entry.  Additional benefits besides health such as education and training  with the company are a big positive.  As I have mentioned to some of you who might read this, the pay is subpar, from my point of view, as much as  25% less than many of us in the group have earned, but the benefits help to make up for the direct loss in income.  I think the opportunities for the future with this company are very good.  I am already enrolled for a web server admin class in May which bodes well.

On the personal side, I have been laying kind of low.  Having been w/o health insurance since last June, I haven’t been riding my motorcyle or skiing much.  My last health insurance quote was for $450 a month due to pre-existing conditions.  Thanks “Obamacare!”

I did get up to Vermont for my good friend Linda’s 50th birthday in December.  I stopped in Avoca, PA, about halfway up, to see my friend  Terry and his boys.  I think that Linda was surprised when she saw me with the crowd at her house but who knows.  That was an 1100 mile road trip crammed into about three days but well worth it.  I did get about 2.5 hours in on the slopes at Killington on the way up which was nice.  Only time I have skiied since I tore my ACL at Seven Springs in 2008.

Turkey Day was spent with my sister Julie who lives  about a mile away from me.  Christmas was spent with my sister Kim in SE Virginia.  We went on Christmas morning to her husband’s parent’s house for breakfast and the ceremonial tearing apart of the Xmas presents for the kids and grandkids.  Madness I  say!

It took a longer than I expected drive to go camping at the northern part of the Chesapeake Bay a month or so ago.  And I didn’t have the cash I needed to get into the “unattended” gate at the park.  Of course, I saw 3 or 4 park staff members there including one who stopped by my campsite to give me the money I had overpaid for the site.  I figured it would just be a donation to the park system but…  I was at Elk Neck  State Park.

For those of you in the know, I am playing in a Cornhole league that friends of mine have sponsored  for a few years.  On Fridays, when the WX is good, we all get out and throw some bags.  Unfortunately, the WX has sucked  so my partner and I  have to  hook up w/ the teams that we missed games with and make them  up.

I mentioned that I was glad to have health benefits again through my employer, who wouldn’t’ be, eh?  Recently my blood pressure and cholesterol levels have skyrocketed despite my efforts to keep them down using natural supplements.  My blood pressure was so high the other day I almost went to the emergency room.  Being a man, that was of course out of the question.

I  did go to “Urgent Care” at my doctor’s office the next day.  My blood pressure was still high.  I got an EKG which was okay but had some possible  anomalies.  I got an immediate referral to the cardiologist at my “doctor’s office” and since I was paying out of pocket I had no insurance “people” to deal with, which was nice.  Unfortunately, the cardiologist scheduled me for a “Nuclear Stress Test” for which I had the insurance coverage but no documentation.

I have had to put the test on hold.  Hope I don’t die first….

Family and Friends Are the Best

Posted on by chappyshi

I took a three day weekend starting 11 March to see my sister Kim, who had had surgery, and my parents who were visiting Kim and her husband Don to help out post surgery.  It was really great to see everybody but a particular highlight was meeting up with Aunt Anita and Uncle Dean at the Trellis Restaurant in Williamsburg, VA.  Aunt Anita had had hip surgery two weeks prior and should have been resting for six weeks but as usual she was out and about active as ever.

We had a great and very extended lunch…about 3.5 hours.  The server and the restaurant accommodated us w/o complaint as they should have.  Business died down considerably after the lunch rush.  We relived old times  but mostly updated ourselves on recent times and Aunt Anita and Uncle Dene invited us, the Chase kids in the area, to get together with them in Richmond sometime in April.  I certainly hope that we can make that happen.

Here are a few pics from the luncheon:

Happy Holidays!

Posted on by chappyshi

I would like to wish a happy and safe holiday to all my family and friends.  I am with my sister Kim, her husband Don, three dogs, and a cat in the Virginia Tidewater area for Christmas.  I will miss being with the rest of my family who are in Northern Virginia, Alaska, Asia, and Europe but hopefully we will all be together for the holidays in the next couple years.  I am with them in spirit or maybe I am in the spirits…who knows.

Pictures from Vacation in Salvo, NC, on the Outer Banks

Posted on by chappyshi

It took me longer than I had wished to get all these pictures together.  The downside of digital photography is that we can take too many pictures and look at them before printing or publishing them with minimal  monetary impact.  Nonetheless, I spent the time and put together a set of pictures from our recent trip to the Outer Banks.  Many thanks to my sister who made the arrangements and paid for the place!

Check out the pictures here on my photo album or browse to my photo album from the main page of my blog and look for the Salvo vacation pictures.  The only real downer of the vacation,  other than a couple of trips  to Urgent Care centers, was the traffic.  For one four hour stretch, we averaged 19 MPH!

Greetings from the Outer Banks!

Posted on by chappyshi

Trips to “Urgent Care” not withstanding (everyone is okay), we are having a great time at the Outer Banks (Salvo, NC).  Thanks especially to Julie for getting the house.  We have nice a house with pool and hot tub and are about a five minute walk from the, very uncrowded, beach.  Of course we are BBQ’ing like crazy!

Traffic was hell getting down here.  It took Kim, Don, and I 5 hours to drive the 125 miles down here.  Julie, Ed, and Ryan had about a 9 and 1/2  hour journey from Centreville.  Dave came down Sunday.  He had the longest drive but made it in less than seven hours.  Locals say the traffic was nearly as bad as they could recall it being.

Julie and Ed took a short trek down to the beach Saturday night but the rest of us didn’t make it out until Sunday.  Unfortunately it was in the mid-90’s with a wicked wind blowing from the south.  The wind was blowing major sand so we didn’t last too long on the beach.

Sunday night we had heavy thunderstorms, the wind switched to the north and abated considerably, and the temps dropped down to the mid-80’s.  That made for much more enjoyable trips to the beach!  This morning has been much of the same.  I headed down to the beach with my coffee, watched the sun rise, and took some pictures.

Here are a few pictures from the trip so far:

The GOP Wants to Penalize Me for Being Single?

Posted on by chappyshi

In the Washington Post article dated May 16, 2010, “Conservative thinkers tout three innovative and controversial proposals,” Robert  Stein, who served as deputy assistant secretary for macroeconomic analysis in George W. Bush‘s administration, suggests that the tax code benefits retirees who didn’t have children.  His theory is that those individuals who marry and have children contribute more to the Social Security and Medicare systems because their children contribute to the system also.  More “buck for the bang” as it were…

Personally, I thought that what each individual pays into the Social Security benefits them as to the return.  Just because you as a parent have one or more kids paying into the system does not make you any more worthy.  While it might look good now to have more people paying into the system, those individuals are just as likely to avail themselves of the retirement benefits in the future as anyone else.

As a parent with children, one already gets significantly more Federal tax breaks than does a single filer.  It was always a quasi bone of contention with one of my military coworkers, who had four children, that he paid next to no Federal taxes after all his deductions while I, with no kids, have paid taxes for 32 years…allowed to take only the standard deduction.  To take it one step further,  non-parents have no children burdening the public school system which makes me wonder even more why there should be so many tax allowances for having children.  I am not really complaining but saying that childless taxpayers  who put less of a strain on and contribute more to the public well should pay more into Social Security and Medicare is a bit of a stretch.

I am am no tax specialist but to simplify what Mr. Stein suggests which is to up the child tax credit from approximately $1500 per year to $4000, here is how I would have made out on my Federal tax return in 2008 if I had had four children.  Could I really have had the government pay me $8000?  Just think, if I had ten kids, I could get paid $80,000 a year by the government.  What a concept, eh?  Right…the tax burden is just reduced to nothing.

File Status Deduction for Children Tax Burden
No Children $0.00 $8,000.00
4 Children (Current System) $1,500.00 $2,000.00
4 Children (Proposed System) $16,000.00 -$8,000.00