30 June 2017, went to Carlos Santana in concert

Bina and I went to see Carlos Santana in concert at the Phoenix Ak-Chin Pavilion. It was the first time we’ve ever seen him play life and it was amazing!

2017 18th - 21st in San Diego for a long weekend vacation on the beach.

2017, 18th - 21st in San Diego for a long weekend vacation on the beach.

We got a room, with a small but impressive view of the ocean. 

We got a lot of time on the beach and some wonderful seafood dinners.

Bina and I were able to meet up with her brother and he was our guide around San Diego.

Bina likes to make friends where ever we go; here a couple that she met.

and...

The three days went quickly and we had a great time. We are looking forward to doing this again!

My New Baby!

I've had my old car for almost 10 years. I could get a few more years out of it but I took the plunge and got a new car. Both my old and new cars are Mazdas, the old a Miata and the new one a Mazda-3.

I've been thinking about a new car of some type that could be used for my massage work. That means it needs to be able to take a folded massage table into the back of it. This Mazda-3 hatchback has plenty of room for my table and more.

Also, there was a bunch of discounts and stuff that made it financially good to buy now. I even got a great price to trade in my 2007 Miata. 👍🏼

I do have to admit, I nearly got a tear in my eye as we drove off from the dealership and saw my Miata being driven into the back lot by the sales guy. One more nice feature Bina will ride in this one much more than the Miata. She did not like how low the Miata was.

Antelope Canyon, Page Arizona

October 7th 2016 we drove up to Page Arizona to tour Antelope Canyon. We timed our trip to be there when the tempretures would be comfortable. We left around noon time from our home and the drive up there was about four hours. We’d booked a hotel for friday night because of the four hour drive and our schedule tour time was 8:30 on Saturday morning.

Comfort in Page Arizona

We woke up to 62 degrees Saturday morning, it was refreshing. After an early breakfast in the hotel were off to Antelope Canyon. The canyon was only about 10 minutes away from our hotel.

Ken’s tours that we used for our tour is located within Navajo land. Before you can get to the Ken’s there’s an $8 fee to get in the Navajo owned park. The tour cost $20 per person and toally worth it. there was about 15 people in our group and the guide was very friendly and knowadable. He even would stop us and show the best photo places & angles.

When we walked out to the canyon, it was pretty uneventful. Once we got to the edge of the cayon we saw the metal stairs we’d need to go down to get to the bottom of the canyon.

The trip through the canyon little by little worked back and forth up to the top of the canyon rim.

Bina doing tai chi

When you come out of Atnelope canyon at the end of it, you zip-zag through a last few turns and pop out at ground level up on the rim. The trip was wanderful and it’s an amazing place to see.

Dinner at Carefree Resort Restaurant

Bina along with several of her students decided to go out for dinner at the the Carefree Resort restaurant. It was burger nite, the meal consists of a burger of your making, fries or sweet potato fries or onion rings, and a glass of wine. I was invited to tag along with them. 😀

We all had a great evening, good and great conversation. It was also one of her student's birthday, so we celebrated that also.

And we were treated to a lovely sunset.

Kodi is up and running!

While I was in Panama the couple we were trading emails with prior to showing up told me about a very cool device called Kodi. It's like a Roku box but is open to apps/plug-in and there's lots of fun stuff it can do. It costs about $50 and I got it from Amazon.

We've been unplugged from the Cable/Satalite companies for a long time now. We currently are getting local TV from an over-the-air digital antenna and internet based movies and TV shows from a Roku device. I decided to explore what the Kodi device could do. It has WIFI so you don't even need a cable attached to it.

From the Kodi website: "Kodi® (formerly known as XBMC™) is an award-winning free and open source (GPL) software media center for playing videos, music, pictures, games, and more. Kodi runs on Linux, OS X, Windows, iOS, and Android, featuring a user interface for use with televisions and remote controls. It allows users to play and view most videos, music, podcasts, and other digital media files from local and network storage media and the internet".

I was told to get a blue tooth remote for it because it would make using it easier. This little guy is so cool with it's chiclet size keyboard and even a touch mouse pad.

I've been using it for a short time and it's very nice. I've found all types of movies, TV series and it even an app/plugin to get live streaming local radio stations from across the internet. The interface in not quite as polished as the Roku but it's got a lot going for it. It's not for the technology faint hearted, it'd not hard to setup but you need some average AV skills and be willing to read through some more detailed manuals. Its also cool that there's Kodi software for most devices.

Kodi Screen Shots

Morning Coffee Relaxing in Front Courtyard

It's Saturday morning August 28, and one of the first cool morning. Bina and I sipping coffee in the front courtyard.