Scattered Thoughts . . .

As I've mentioned before in previous blog entries, whenever I am having health problems and feeling too lousy to accomplish much, I go back to my storage hard drives to revisit some of my old photos. I have many thousands of photos to sift through! Last night, while struggling with my eyesight (which is still a problem today), I scrolled through some photos on my big desktop computer's new pro-quality IPS monitor. This monitor makes viewing photos and websites a lot easier for me when I am having issues with my vision.   The folder I chose to sift through held photos from 2011 of a long weekend visit to Long Island. We had spent some time at Jones Beach that long weekend. I also have some photos from our walk along the Nautical Mile on Freeport's Woodcleft Canal. The photos of interest in this particular folder, however, were all the photos I shot of family members at my nephew's high school graduation party. (Although, truth be told, I shot a lot of really ni

As I opened my eyes first thing this morning, I was having difficulty breathing.  I couldn't catch my breath.  I would suck in lungfuls of air but it may as well have been water. I felt as though I was trying to breath oxygenless air in the vacuum of deep space.  I sucked air deep into my lungs... nothing... the air just went in and out and I still needed air. It was like the air had no oxygen in it... or like I had the wind knocked out of me after being slammed to the ground while playing hockey or basketball.     I also was having difficulty finding the energy to wake myself up enough to get up out of bed. I felt as though I went to bed completely exhausted, fell asleep, and now someone was trying to awaken me just a few minutes after falling asleep. This wasn't just trying to wake up. No, this was weakness like I had no control over my own body. This is something with which I am far too familiar... I quickly realized that this is bad news... bad, bad, bad news.  As I

Sheila and I have become huge fans of The Travel Channel's "Hotel Impossible". The show helps hoteliers in need who can't seem to grasp why they are losing business. In many cases, what many of these hotel owners and managers think is "acceptable" is absurd and that is the reason they are failing. What is worse is that I think most travelers could be better managers than many of these featured hoteliers. This makes for some interesting shows. The host of the show, Anthony Melchiorri, is an interesting guy and highly qualified to host this show or manage any hotel or resort in the world. His resume is quite impressive and his management style, vocabulary and behavior resembles my own. He knows when to get angry, he knows when to raise his voice and he knows when to back off, listen and be a bit more 'soft' when necessary.  His resume includes glowing reviews of his work and successes at The Plaza, DoubleTree Times Square, Lucerne Hotel and the histo

My Systemic Mastocytosis is rearing its ugly head again this week.  I could be feeling worse... but, I wish I was feeling better.  I feel as though I am in a constant battle which frustratingly involves two steps back and only one step forward, over and over and over... I'm very nauseated this morning...  weak...  overwhelmingly fatigued... mild tachycardia since awaking this morning (now down to 100 bpm... but was up around 120 bpm when I awoke). This is usually a sign that I had an anaphylaxic episode in my sleep before awaking.   During an anaphylaxic episode, if I am awake, I notice a marked weakness and heaviness in my legs, vision becomes narrow, and breathing difficulties start.  These are my usual signs of impending anaphylaxia and I must jump on emergency medications immediately... if I am awake, that is.  If this happens in my sleep, as it sometimes does, I must hope that my body responds naturally and effectively to this sudden drop in blood pressure. On the positi

For those of you who visit TripAdvisor before booking hotels and such (as I do), I felt I should point out something I recently noticed which affects the overall ratings of any hotel listed/reviewed in TripAdvisor. Let me preface all of this by saying that I think TripAdvisor is just awesome!  It is the best tool for any traveler.   We recently stayed at La Quinta Inn in Springfield, Massachusetts.  Overall, our stay was "fair" but there were enough problems to warrant looking elsewhere for rooms for our next visit to the area.  While I was reviewing the reviews for La Quinta in TripAdvisor to see if maybe I missed something when choosing this hotel, I noticed that many of the good reviews for La Quinta were rather short and each seemed to be the same length as the other.  Each of these "5 Star" reviews were around 50 words. Hmmm... that prompted me to look more closely... At the bottom of each of these short "5 Star" reviews is a line that states

As most of you already know, I am still trying to recover from an overly busy December as well as from our recent trip to Springfield, Massachusetts for the Amherst Railway Society's annual train show.  I am still so exhausted that I am having great difficulty thinking clearly.  Trying to focus on any one thing has proven to be impossible.  There are a lot of things which I would love to be doing but simply can't find the energy to even think straight. In the meantime, I spent a few days writing a review for Trip Advisor about our stay at La Quinta Inn & Suites during our train show weekend.  I was just notified that the manager of the hotel wrote a response to my review.   A partial view of one of four buildings housing the train show... Overall, I feel the manager's response to my review is acceptable and nice. That alone may indicate something positive about this hotel. He didn't give me any lame excuses as we have seen from other hotels. He didn't g