I found this news on dailymail.co.uk site about the Twin Panther cubs Larisa and Sipura who were born on April 26th and were introduced to the public last week. I have to admit great cat kittens are among the cutest creatures on the planet, yet they grow up to be such majestic and powerfully frightening beasts.
My wife was looking around at Boston Terrier ads on Craigslist the other day, this is how we found someone who was selling a Boston Terrier and purchased Porky our Black and White puppy, when she noticed several people posting ads claiming their Boston Terrier’s were dognapped.
Not only that but we did some research and learned that Arizona has a shortage of Boston Terriers which are in high demand, this combined with the fact that two dognappings in Mesa in the last several weeks mean that people need to be careful whenever they own a purebreed dog, especially one that is small in size.
People will steal anything to try and make a profit, even a family pet. Let’s face it, Boston Terrier dogs are family friendly and loving dogs, but they will go up to anyone and go with them. A thief could simply open the gate and call them and they would happily come and jump in their car, they just aren’t built to be protectors but family friends.
Be careful with your dogs people, make sure that you keep them indoors if possible, you don’t want your beloved family member to be dognapped next. This is doubly true if you own a Boston Terrier in Arizona it would seem.
-Justin Germino
Amazingly my son can draw and I mean constantly, he produces so many drawings that we can’t simply save them all without cluttering the entire house, yet he gets so hurt if we disregard or toss his drawings in the trash. So I try to scan the best of his works into the computer to show him his work is stored digitally for safe keeping, and this makes him happy. At five years old he just loves to draw and robots and monsters are his specialty, here are some of his drawings he provided with me this week.
|
|
Today was the final full day traveling in Cabo and we spent the entire day pretty much relaxing, with a final travel to Cabo San Lucas in the evening to do some shopping and eat on the beach. In the morning we had a couple’s massage on the beach provided by Cabo Azul hotel, the massage was fantastic, the lady who massaged me had large strong hands, much stronger than I would have expected and she ironed out my muscles really well. The only problem is I am very ticklish, and I could not stop giggling the whole time while she was jabbing her knuckles in my back, thighs and calves. She had asked me a few times if the pressure was okay, probably thinking she was hurting me.
We hung around pool side for several hours after just sunning and lounging, the resort has tons of very comfortable cushioned lounges by the pool, they have several hammocks and many shaded beds that you can just lie in all day. Some people just throw some clothing and claim these lounge spots early in the morning.
I have seen people lay pool side from 9am until sun down just lounging and eating, some people were so tanned you would think they were being cooked rotisserie style. Unfortunately even with the 70 SPF sunblock my wife and I were using, we both were sunburned on Friday after making it the whole week without being burned.
We flew back on Saturday July 6th early in the morning, which was a very simple and painless ordeal. Turned the rental car in, waited at airport for flight. The only thing to note is that you go through separate customs and baggage area in Phoenix airport because you are coming from out of the country.
Here are the final pictures from Cabo on June 5th, which was our last day.
Today we woke up at a quarter to 5 in the morning to head off and fish the day away, chartering a 28′ fishing vessel my wife and I drove to Cabo San Lucas to depart from the Marina. We caught a dozen fish including 5 Ahi Tuna and a dozen long thin fish with yellow spots on the side, I actually don’t even know the name of the fish because the deckhands didn’t speak a drop of English and I couldn’t make out the word of the fish in Spanish. I took some pictures of the water, the caves and rocks we passed, and while fishing a school of about twenty dolphins I managed to catch some pictures of the dolphins swimming in the water and one jumping out of the water behind the boat.
As we pulled back into the harbor flocks of pelicans surrounded the boat and one landed on the back of the boat only two feet from us and my wife snapped a picture of it. Our fishing trip lasted only about four hours, it was colder than expected when going to deeper water, and I was getting a little sea sick for some reason after eating a cereal bar on the boat about two hours in.
That evening we went to a restaurant called Tequila’s in downtown Cabo San Lucas, where the food was phenomenal but pricey like all the restaurants. They had delicious Tamarind Margarita’s and all of their herbs are freshly grown on premises. It was quite the delectable treat to eat there.
Afterward we chilled pool side, and slept once again facing the marauding mosquito’s as we prepared for our final full day in Cabo which came next.
Enjoy picture highlights from today:
-Justin Germino
We woke up on Wednesday June 3rd ready to have some breakfast, lounge a bit and then drive to Cabo San Lucas to rent a Waverunner and start skipping across the water. My wife and I ate breakfast on the beach before our waverunner excursion, we ate at a great place called Mango’s and they had the best Machaca burrito’s I have ever tasted. The both of us split a single entrée as they have three burritos on a single plate and the price was reasonable, only about $16 USD for breakfast including 2 bottled waters.
The wave runner was fun, I can tell you that with certainty. My wife drove and I rode in back as we careened through the ocean waves launching up and down with amazing speed. We are both used to riding ATV’s off road in the AZ deserts, but this was our first time on a Wave Runner, and the ocean really moves you when you crash into the waves. We rode around Lover’s Beach and circled a fancy Yacht that was anchored just off shore.
One hour went by in very short time, and we did realize that the company that rented us the Wave Runner stiffed us by about 10 minutes as they didn’t put enough fuel in it, and we had no watches on us in the water, so when the waved that our hour was up, we were stiffed by 10 minutes. We didn’t really care though, we had so much fun that we just laughed about the whole adventure in the water.
After we drove back to San Jose Del Cabo and walked the downtown area, taking pictures of a historic catholic church and shops in the area, for the evening we drove back to Cabo San Lucas (I know we do a ton of driving back and forth) to have dinner on the beach at “The Office” which is a 2nd restaurant by the same lady that owns Edith’s (See yesterday’s post).
The food here was just as good, but just as pricey and still ran over $120 USD for the two of us. I had a whole red snapper grilled and served, which was simply delicious. After this evening, my wife and I walked the beach back to the car, drove back to Cabo Azul resort and chilled in the outdoor hot tub for an hour before retiring for the evening.
Unfortunately, even though we bought mosquito repellent, the night of day 3 we were mauled by mosquito’s again that evening, suffering a dozen bites each and having to keep the light on the whole night to keep the mosquito’s away. One thing you will need to be aware of is that prepare to be a feast for the Mexican mosquito’s.
Here are the pic’s from Day Three from morning to night, enjoy:
-Justin Germino
After feasting on Javier’s food and enjoying the beautiful views of the Cabo Azul hotel on the first day, we went to bed prepared to have some fun after enduring our time share presentation the following morning. Instead we ran into a little bit of mosquito problem the first evening.
Since we enjoyed hearing the ocean we decided to leave our sliding door open to the bedroom while we slept, we didn’t mind the warmer air it was far cooler being around 75 degree’s than in Arizona. But only a few hours into sleeping my wife and I both woke up to dozens of mosquito’s assaulting our flesh.
I received about a dozen bites, and my wife had close to the same number, were were so bothered by mosquito’s that we had to turn the lights on and sleep with the lights fully on to dissuade and discourage the mosquito’s. They don’t seem to like flying in bright light and this seemed to keep them at bay so we could get a few hours rest.
One thing to note, make sure you have plenty of mosquito repellent when you travel to tropical climates, we bought some plug-in products and Bug Off spray at the local Mega store the next day.
We awoke pretty tired from lack of sleep and attended the time share presentation, which was polite and friendly for the first half. The guide showed us around the whole property, the gym, spa and all the features, we had a free buffet breakfast, but when they turned us over to the finance and sales person at the end of the presentation things got a little rough.
The salesman was condescending, rude and outright offensive, we endured his behavior just long enough to meet our commitment and told him we were done and were ready to move on and enjoy our day. I did enjoy the property enough that I would consider owning a timeshare there in the future, but I just am not interested in owning one at this time. Time share presentations are as painful and brutal as the TV Shows parody, they really are not worth doing even to save some money, as I was in a bad mood for hours afterward.
We spent the rest of Tuesday relaxing by the pool, taking in some sun and learning the way of the land. We decided to drive to Cabo San Lucas which is about 35 minutes away from San Jose Del Cabo to spend the evening. We setup our Waverunner rental for Wednesday and our all day fishing trip for Thursday. We also setup a couples beach massage for Friday as a great way to end the week together, to be massaged under a tent on the beach.
Adriano was one of the Cabo Azul hotel staff and was probably the friendliest and nicest person we met in all of Cabo, he recommended the restaurant Edith’s to eat at in downtown Cabo San Lucas and it was the best restaurant we have eaten at the whole trip and in my wife’s top 5 restaurants of all time. I had grilled Sea Bass, and my wife had a Shrimp, Lobster and Ahi Tuna combo, the food was fantastic as was the service and drinks. Plus afterward we just walked down the street and onto the Medano beach and enjoyed some walking near the waves.
After dinner and walking we decided to check out the famous Cabo Wabo Cantina for some live music and fun later in the evening, which was a blast (we had been to Cabo Wabo before during our cruise the previous year).
Pics from second day:
All in all the second day was great, neither one of us was sunburned yet, and we had seen and navigated around San Jose Del Cabo and Cabo San Lucas. Armed with mosquito repellant we didn’t get bothered the second evening at all by mosquito’s either, which was nice.
-Justin Germino
I had so much to tell and so many blog posts I could write that I have decided to make my vacation to Cabo an entire week long post series. I will cover the activities and highlights of each days and include a photo album on each day of the best pictures and shots from the day.
Our Cabo vacation was a week long getaway just for my lovely wife and I to sit back and enjoy some quality time alone together, with grandma at home babysitting the kids we had little to worry about and were able to relax and enjoy the trip.
On the first day which was June 1st we departed Phoenix at around ten in the morning and arrived in Cabo at just after Noon Mountain Time, Cabo is one hour ahead of Phoenix this time of year because of the Daylight Savings Time. The first thing you notice when getting off at San Jose Del Cabo airport is that you park on the runway and depart the plane from both sides walking down stairs to the ground. The airport is fairly small for an International airport and boarding planes directly from the ground is interesting.
To travel to Mexico, you have to fill out an immigration document and declaration document. This document is like a Visa which allows you to visit Mexico for up to 180 days, you also will need your passport and have to keep your “Exit” document to leave the country. These documents took some time to fill out, but you fill them out on your flight to save time.
We arrived and quickly learned that renting a car online has hidden fee’s and costs you don’t expect, like when you get a great deal on a car, know that you are going to be paying around $40 per day extra in insurance and liability coverage minimum. Our great deal was supposed to be a car for one week at $150 dollars, but wound up costing us almost $350 dollars because of the mandatory insurance policy, and the fact that I wanted additional collision insurance just in case.
The next thing you notice when traveling to San Jose Del Cabo or Cabo San Lucas is that you will be bombarded by time share salesmen, everything you want can be had cheaper if you are willing to donate 90 minutes of your time and life to being the target of a time share presentation. You are hit up from the airport, the car rental, the hotel itself and every single eatery you visit on the beach will all try to sell or give you activities for free for attending time share presentations.
In theory, if you don’t mind having to say no a thousand times, and donate 1 1/2 hours of your days to presentations in the morning, you probably could do 12 activities including Fishing, Wave Runner, Dinner Cruises, Dolphin Swims, even save $300 off your car rental for a week, all by enduring painfully grueling time share presentations.
Driving is fairly easy, there is only one main road from the airport to San Jose Del Cabo and that is Highway 1, and the town is about 25 minutes away. We arrived at the hotel only after missing a turn once, there are many roundabouts in Mexico and there are very few in Arizona so I had trouble figuring them out and which directions to take initially.
The hotel is just simply stunning and the most beautiful establishment we have ever stayed at in all of our years of traveling, Cabo Azul is the finest looking property we have stayed at, with Infinity pools, beach and ocean views, 3 restaurants, a market and gigantic suites, it truly is a luxury property.
Since we were over budget on the rental car, and we know we wanted to book an 8 hour fishing trip, this cost was $450 dollars, but with a time share presentation and booked through the hotel, I decided to get the deal and have it marked down to $250. In the end this turned out not to be worth it and I will tell more tomorrow.
We ate at Javier’s restaurant at the hotel that evening, which had some delicious Carne Asada salad (which was my entrée), while my wife had Lobster Seafood Enchilada’s which were incredible. The food was fantastic, and the service excellent, but one thing you will realize when staying in Cabo San Lucas very quickly, is that if you keep paying in American US Dollars, you will gradually overpay constantly, because the pesos translation rate varies place by place, and you often leave a little more in USD than had you paid in pesos. The food is also very expensive, we were hard pressed to eat at a nice establishment and pay more than $100 USD for two people to dine.
More to come on the dining, food, activities and experiences.
Here is the first day’s worth of photo’s mostly showing the hotel room at Cabo Azul, and the views from it.
Tomorrow will be Day two, which will cover activities, as well as the Time Share presentation speech.
-Justin Germino
After ordering a new Microphone for my TurtleBeach EarForce HPA headphones, less than 30 days later the new microphone just doesn’t work anymore. I confirmed it was the microphone after plugging in a cheap microphone into the headset which proceeded to work fine. I contacted Turtlebeach who offered to ship me a new microphone for free to replace it, and I await its arrival. In the meantime I am hampered from doing the audio blogging and screencasting demo’s I was supposed to be working on this weak until my new microphone arrives.
This is the 4th microphone I have had to get for my Turtlebeach HPA since I purchased it two years ago, it isn’t the company’s fault, the first one was dipped in iced tea by my 2 year old, the second one was thrown away by my two year old and the third one is the only one that actually went bad (maybe my two year old got to that one too without me looking). It is nice to know I can order the replacement parts still after all this time.
-Justin Germino
Today my flight arrives back in Arizona and I will be seeing my two boys after being away with my wife for six days, I just couldn’t imagine spending more than a single week away at a time, they grow so much and I miss being around them. I do however think it is healthy and essential for all couples to spend some quality time alone together, this is especially a harder thing to do when you are raising children and you should prioritize it. So now I face the day catching up with the family, unpacking, straightening the house and catching up on everything I need to do before beginning a new week.
I look forward to starting the week fresh and spirit renewed from my week long adventure, fresh random twitter poems to create as well starting on Monday.
-Justin Germino
