Pages

31 March, 2007

The Start of a Really Long Weekend

Well, as of 11:30am Friday, I officially became retired from the State of Washington. I took my watch off and am getting used to not wearing it. I've been trying to sleep in without much success. I'll have to keep up the effort in this regard.

It'll be interesting to see how quickly (or not) I adjust to this new lifestyle. Heading to Belize on the 12th will probably help in that adjustment. We'll see.

It was a weird Lotto day today. While I was at Safeway getting  groceries, I bought five bucks-worth of Lotto and five of Mega. The girl  at the counter asked if I wanted five Hit5 tickets instead because then  the Lotto tickets would be free. I almost said no. Instead I ended up  with five Hit5s, five Lotto, and two Mega (she split them 2 and 3). I  felt rich as I left the store - my wallet positively bulging with  largess... well, a bunch of lottery tickets anyway. Who knows, this  could be my lucky day!

My father-in-law, Norman, and I are going to be doing a little  experiment while Dianna and I are in Belize. He's been using Net2Phone  to call us for the past couple of years, so I downloaded it the other  day and installed it. We're going to see if we can use it to communicate  with each other while we're down there. If it works, that'll be great.

If not, email will be the communications method of choice for the  foreseeable future. There's some question because I've read that while  Belize Telecommunications, Ltd., held a legal monopoly in Belize, they  routinely blocked all Skype, Net2Phone and other VOIP (Voice Over  Internet Protocol) type communications, including things like Microsoft  Internet Messenger. But, since their monopoly ended sometime last year,  supposedly, they don't block those things anymore. However, I've heard
(read) from several sources that they still block them - at least  periodically. We'll see and I'll let you know. It would be really neat  to have that capability - and affordable too!

No comments: