Back to the Back Yard: Washing the Deck

I put a deck on the back of the house several years ago. Every year since ( including the year I built the deck) I have used Olympic water proof with the 6 year protection. By the time a year passes, the deck badly needs another coat.

I complained to the guy at the hardware store and he said I needed to clean the deck first. I always clean the deck first. But he said I needed to clean the deck with Olympic deck cleaner.

I decided to give it a try this year and applied the cleaner to the deck. It smells like bleach, so, I was careful not to get it on me.

After spraying an ample amount of cleaner on the deck, I hosed it off. The guy at the hardware store warned me not to use a spray nozzle, so, I unscrewed my nozzle and rinsed the deck using the hose. I probably rinsed with enough water to full a swimming pool (a small pool). 

Now we'll see if the cleaner works its magic. I will let the deck dry this week, then I will be applying the Olympic sealer with 6 year protection this weekend.

Florida Projects: how to afford it

I have heard from several asking how we could afford the Florida Project (going to Florida for a month). In this article, I will share with you some of our secrets!

First, our Disney Visa Credit card. We have the extra point program and charge everything we purchase. We earned enough points in two years to pay for our Disney year passes! That means we are visiting the parks for free!

Next, we visit Down Town Disney a lot. Down Town Disney has no admission fee. We also visit the Disney resorts and tour them. They don't have admission fees either. And there are free shows, for example: Yeeha Bob at Riverside, magicians at Boardwalk, and nightly movies under the stars - all free!

We had a house with a full kitchen. So, we bought groceries like we normally would, and ate two or three meals at home per day. Compared to staying at home? No additional cost.

As part of our normal budget, we go to the movies about once per month and eat out once or twice (sometimes more) per week. We transferred that normal spending pattern to Disney. We did, admittedly, splurge on some Disney dinning experiences and those contributed to the cost of the vacation. While I am glad we had those experiences, I would skip them next time and thus save on a lot of the restaurant costs.

We normally do a summer vacation - either Myrtle Beach or Florida. That is part of our yearly budget that we save for. We learned that for the cost of a hotel room for two weeks? We could almost rent a house for a month! Renting a house is a lot cheaper than hotels. When renting a house there are many options with many price choices - we just had to find one that fit our budget. 

In addition to house rental and restaurants, we drove our van 2,500 more miles than we normally would have. That gasoline cost us an extra $370.

You could drive from New York to Florida without stopping (20 hours) but we get a hotel along the way. I got great deals on hotels - I found a HoJo for $47! The hotels added to our vacation cost.

We extended our vacation with several stops. South of the Border is a free stop. The USS Yorktown required admission. Hershey World is free, but has some optional activities that you must pay for. And touring the Gettysburg battlefields is free.

Going to Florida for a month isn't cheap. But we were able to do things that kept the costs under control. House rental, hotels, gas, and some restaurants totaled up most of our vacation cost. But we used our credit card points, transferred our normal spending habits, and rented a house to help keep costs low.

Florida project last day

I enjoy Gettysburg and we visited at least once a year. My family doesn't have the same enjoyment but they put up with it. The Boys have increased interest. However the attention span of that interest usually lasts only a few hours. So what I enjoy doing is getting up early while everyone is still asleep at the hotel. I will visit the battlefield and walk pickets charge. So today on our last day I am walking pickets charge as I am dictating this blog entry.

The purpose of this trip was to see what it might be like to live in Florida for me I work in shop and did many of the things that I normally would do. For the rest of the family however was a vacation. My wife does not have work and the boys do not have school. I consider for myself this trip to be a success. Linda is quick to remind that I did not have to deal with homework and Boy Scouts and sports and all of the other normal activities that often happen. But then again if we move to Florida when we retire we wouldn't have to deal with those items anyway.

By 11 o'clock we will have the van packed up and finish the last leg of the trip back to New York

Hershey Chocolate World should be ran by Disney

We have visited Hershey Chocolate World every year (sometimes twice per year) for fourteen years. This year may have been our last. Because in all of our many visits, this was the worse.

To begin with, it was very crowded. We have visited during the first weekend in August for the past six years and know it can be busy, but nothing like today. We were packed so tight it was difficult to move. I often complain about the crowds at Disney - those crowds are unlike this. It can be impossible to move from one area to the next. At one point we lost Mike in the crowd and spent ten minutes searching for him. Another time a guy stopped in front of me blocking the only way through and I had to shove him to make a path. Many other times I had to run into people and push my way through crowds standing in the walk ways. Chocolate World is too small and too poorly laid out to support this many people. It either needs an expansion, a redesign, or cut off the number of guests allowed in.

There was also a larger than normal number of foreigners in attendance. Normally, people from around the world interest me and are of no concern. But this group was part of a large family whose social norms did not match ours. They reserved a quarter of the seating in the eatery even though they used only a tenth of the tables. They ignored their small children having fist fights and being disruptive (running into others). They were in appropriately loud during shows which was disruptive. And they had a tendency to lounge in walkways - lounging included removing their shoes, rolling up their paint legs, and sitting stretched out in the middle of crowded areas. No one at Hershey is doing crowd management. Hershey is allowing this to happen.

Hershey has a new 4D show that is fairly expensive - $8 for around 15 minutes. Hershey fails to amplify the movie introduction and the crowd would not settle down making it impossible to hear what was happening.

There are morals that we must teach our children. An important moral is that there are consequences. When you do something bad, or even illegal, there is punishment - a consequence - a price you must pay for that behavior. This ridiculous 4D movie tells us the evil bad guy is just misunderstood. And when the audience votes that the bad guy must receive a consequence? Instead, the heroes apologize for misunderstanding the villain and they set him free - no consequence. The bad guy isn't bad, we are bad for making the bad guy bad. It is our fault.  We should bare the consequences for hurting the bad guy's feelings. This is the most screwed up moral I have ever seen in a story!

The free chocolate ride had a 20 minute wait. In all the years I have never waited 20 minutes! And when we made it through the line, they stuffed eight people into a car that would have comfortable fit four.

Hershey does a tour of the town using a trolley car. In the past when busy they would bring on additional cars. We arrived at 2pm and the Trolley was booked for the day! We talked to the agent to buy tickets and the lobby was so loud due to the crowd that is was impossible to hear her.

We decided to get ice cream. Two of the three possible stations were open and the lines stretched into the seated area. After standing in line for ten minutes the line advanced to the point were we could see a sign sitting on the floor that said we  were in the Milkshake only line! After complaining that this was like the DMV. We moved to the back of the ice cream line. We weren't the only ones, many discovered they were in the wrong line. So, when we ordered our ice cream we complained and asked to talk to a manager, but the girl just laughed at us as if she couldn't understand English.

We were not happy campers. And making it worse? The restroom sinks were flooded and the garbage overflowing. Clearly, Chocolate World was suffering from severe mismanagement.

You can tell us that summers are always busy, and we would agree. But we have been at Chocolate World on this very weekend for the past six years and have never been so mad, so frustrated, and so disappointed. 

We can usually make it through everything in three hours, but due to the crowd and the lines, it took four hours resulting in a $10 parking fee. We were charged $10 because Hershey was overloaded. Hershey being overloaded is, as I see it, a short term problem because veteran attendees like us will stop coming. Not just stop coming in the summer. But stop coming during our spring trips as well.

Should Disney take over Hershey's chocolate world? Absolutely!! 

Florida Project: Gettysburg should be run by Disney

We woke from a wonderful night's sleep at the Holiday Inn. We hardly noticed our room was next to an elevator causing us to hear the elevator all night. Once awake we jumped in the van, and headed north with only three hours to go. 

We go to Gettysburg at least once every year. We have the routine down pat. But this year I wanted to try something different. I wanted a tour guide who would explain what we are seeing. And, of course, I wanted to video it because that is what I do.

We went to one of the Gettysburg bus tours. I made sure I had permission to video before I bought the tickets. But at the first stop, the tour guide told me I couldn't record. As a result we left the tour group and walked all the way back to the tour bus center and demanded a refund.

We then found a park ranger who gave us a guided tour of Pickett's Charge for free - and I was allowed to video anything I wanted.

We went to the visitor center and got some great information. When we were ready to leave we wanted a snack from the snack bar, but no one was there. We selected our snack but no one was available to take our money. We tried four different cash registers at the visitor center but found no one willing to take our money! We finally gave up and left snackless. Not to mention parking is a rediculous mile away from the visitor center.

In the evening we went on a ghost tour in the town of gettysburg. The tour guide was excellent and very animated. We walked down Baltimore street in the dark. Some genious decided to install six foot tall parking meetings and to paint them black such that they were invisible at night. A fifteen year old,who was listening to the tour guide, walked straight into the meter with enough force that I am surprised he didn't get a concussion.

Fresh from Disney, we started to question: what if Disney ran Gettysburg?

If Disney ran Gettysburg, you would have to pay $15 to park your car, an $100 to enter the town. You would park 3 miles away, but a tram would take you to the battlefield. There would be a 30 minute line to see  each monument, and a gift shop every 100 feet. Twice daily visitors would be treated to a parade across the battlefield that would include floats and dancers in period costumes. When hungry, you could have a turkey leg or a Mickey Ear ice cream from one of the many food stands along the way. And you wouldn't need to walk Pickets Charge. They would have an air conditioned ride with animatronics. 

I think I would prefer if Disney didn't run Gettysburg.

Florida Project: on to Virginia

After a rough night's sleep we got ready and left the Days Inn. I wasn't sure if someone had spilt beer outside our door or urinated - either way we stepped over the liquid. The parking lot was very slippery. When Linda tried to load a bag into the van she fell into the van.

The hotel was a short distance from the USS Yorktown. The world war II aircraft carrier was a joy to tour. Last year we toured the USS Carolina, a battleship, which was a better tour because the buttons that played the audio tour recordings worked on the Carolina.

After seeing the Yorktown we headed north. I was moving at a fast speed with four cars in front of me. Suddenly out of no where a car from the opposite direction did a U turn in front of us. As soon as I saw the car headed our way, I dropped my break pedal to the floor. Luckily no one was behind me!

The lead car hit his breaks and went into the median. The other cars were able to stop before colliding. With my foot of the floor, my anti lock breaks kicked in. I had full maneuverability and planning to steer into the median if necessary rather than collide. Luckily, I had been the first to hit my breaks and was the first to come to a stop. Just as quickly as we had stopped, we were able to pick up speed and return to sailing down the highway, the near miss left in our rear view mirrors.

When we passed into Virginia, Linda was fast asleep in the passenger seat. To stay alert, I decided to open a bottle of diet coke I had purchased. I can't explain this but for whatever reason the contents were under pressure. When I unscrewed the cap foam exploded from the bottle and hit the ceiling. While keeping the van on the road, I quickly put the cap back on. But that just caused it to spray me in the face. Finally, the cap was back on the bottle. Linda woke and found me dripping in Diet Coke foam. It was on the ceiling, the steering wheel, and all over my pants. 

Linda used her roll of paper towels to clean up. I was passing a tractor trailer while Linda was trying to dry my pants. She had a large wad if paper towels and was scrubbing my crotch. The truck driver looked down and saw this and almost drove off the side of the road.

After last night's hotel disaster, Linda picked tonight's room. She is trained in travel and tourism. Not only did she get us into the Holiday Inn, but we are staying for $20 cheaper than the Days Inn was.

Tomorrow, we head into Gettysburg to see the battlefield. It should be a good day!