What we did in 2004

by Dan Ciarlette

(Edited and generally nitpicked by Diane)

FY2004 is still under construction and will be until December 31, 2004.

01/03 Dan and Diane's sisters threw her a birthday party.  We'll post some pictures when someone who took some gives us them.  Diane's sisters stayed for a few days and we all went to The Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC.  We had brunch there and then walked off the food.  A gentle reminder - always were good walking shoes when going to Biltmore.  :)

2/20 Today was my birthday and Diane baked me a cake

2/26 It snows in 10aC.  Our house is snow covered.  Our dog Poochie asked "what's this white stuff??

3/20 Diane and her friend Brenda went to a weekend scrapbooking outing.  I partied the whole weekend.  I terrorized CompUSA and Best Buy and reinstalled Windows XP!!! - wild man.

3/26  Today Diane and I drove to Alabama on our way to our CRUISE!!!!!  We're going on a sea cruise sea cruise sea cruise

3/27  Today we got to New Orleans.  We're spending a little time in New Orleans before setting sail.  The hotel Diane found was very nice and only a couple blocks from the French Quarter.  The view was pretty nice as well.  For lunch we went to Mr. B's.  Diane and I had some awesome food.  New Orleans has great food.  Diane had the shrimp.  It's a little messy so she donned some personal protective equipment.  I had my picture taken with a very pretty woman.

3/28  Today we set sail.  In the morning we went over to the river walk and checked out our boat.  Once we got on the boat the first thing we did was go to our cabin.  I found a woman there inviting me in.  Then we checked out part of the dining room

3/29  Today while walking down the hall a woman asked me into her cabin!  I was so excited I stayed with her the whole week!!  If you notice, we had Tennessee shirts on   Little did we know that this boat was filled with Red Tide Alabama fans.  Yes, I did call them Red Tide rather than Crimson Tide all week.  The nice thing about Alabama fans on a cruise ship is that they left their gun racks in the pickup trucks in the parking lot!  Today we enjoyed some time at sea and hung around our balcony taking pictures.  Here's Diane - and here's me (of course I had to have the bridge in the background.  Tonight was our first formal night dinner.  The guy to the left of me just came back from Iraq about 3 weeks earlier.  When we got back to our room we found the first animal of the cruise in our room.  It wanted pictures with Diane and I.

3/30 Today is another nice day.  The skies are clear and the boat's moving gracefully through the water.  It's relaxing times like this with the warm breeze, gentle waves, and standing on the balcony that get you to think really deep thoughts.  Things like, "I wonder if I could pee off the balcony?"  Alas, the railing was too tall and I was too short.  Tonight we found another animal in the room.  Diane played with it for a little bit then I did.  It looks like may have also had a couple drinks...

3/31  Today we are in Jamaica!!  Today's excursion is Black River Safari.  I bought my really cool "No problem" hat there too.  We drove to the Black River boat dock through some very pretty but very poor areas of Jamaica.  There we saw pretty birds (1, 2, 3)  and alligators (1, 2, 3).  On the way back we went to the front of the boat and got a picture.  Tonight, another animal got in our room.  I must not be locking the balcony.

More to come.  I'm tired of resizing all the pictures so they download fast.

6/4 This evening I decided to cut the grass with my new John Deere L118 tractor.  I really like the tractor.  But, while cutting the back yard, the wheel fell off.  Yes THE FRONT RIGHT WHEEL FELL OFF!!  Here's a picture to prove it.  Luckily it didn't happen while I was mowing the hilly part of my lot.  I could have flipped it.

Dan and Diane Ciarlette