RickkciR

In May of 2020, I almost bought the farm. Thirty minutes of sustained ventricular tachycardia sent my heart rate completely out of control and landed me in the hospital. That episode ultimately led to the implantation of my ICD (implantable cardioverter-defibrillator), a device I hoped I would never truly need. I wrote about that experience here: 48 Hours of Hospitals https://rickkkcir.blogspot.com/2020/05/48-hours-of-hospitals.html At the time, I believed the ICD was insurance. Something I'd hopefully never have to cash in. I was wrong. In October of 2022, my ICD fired seven times in roughly an hour. A week later came another trip to the hospital and another reminder that heart rhythm issues don't care about your plans. I wrote about those experiences here: Lucky 7 https://rickkkcir.blogspot.com/2022/10/lucky-7.html No Jolt This Time Around https://rickkkcir.blogspot.com/2022/10/no-jolt-this-time-around.html Fast forward to last week. Almost six years after this journey began ...

Two of our closest friends have a wedding anniversary just three days apart from ours, and historically we’ve always celebrated together with a short getaway. Years ago, those trips usually meant Galveston, but more recently we’ve upgraded to Mexico all-inclusive resorts. This year, Lucy and I decided we were heading to the Playa del Carmen area to take full advantage of our UVC membership and finally experience the Impressions brand — the top tier of the vacation iceberg. At the moment, there are only two Impressions resorts in existence, both relatively new, and we chose Impressions Moxché by Secrets because it was the easier of the two to visit. Our friends Mark and Nancy had been dealing with a difficult year. Mark is still recovering from multiple back surgeries, but we extended the invitation anyway in case they felt up to traveling. To our surprise, they accepted, and suddenly it was game on. Initially, the pricing was steep. On the open market, the rooms were over $8,500, bu...

 Funny Shit .. at least to me. Got kicked out of my third UVC FB group... which branched it to more than a few.  Over the years you realize there are a lot of skin thinned folks on the 'net.  Some get a lil power hungry in their 'admin' roles on groups and pages. (I admin non-travel related 1/2 doz myself).  Funniest thing to me i'd realized early last year, most of them are either from the 'left' (you can tell by their Profile pages) .. or  .. as of late I noticed; Canada.  Just a fact.  Hell, we've got more than our share of 'them' in our blues states and cities.   What happened you might wonder? _________________________________________ Now understand... I found that list this person claimed they had created, shared off by someone else, and noticed at least two errors in it.  After 30 seconds, had created an updated , corrected version of non trademarked info.   Hell, I even created a better one for Adults Only for my person...

  ETA Cruises: Back From the Dead… or Just Another AI Fever Dream? There I was, minding my own business, when my old ETA Motorcycle Cruises posts suddenly started getting traffic again. Not one or two random clicks either — enough to make me think: "Wait a minute… did somebody actually revive this thing?" So naturally, like every aging biker with internet access and too much caffeine, I went digging. WHOIS lookup showing the mysterious domain resurrection. The Original ETA: Gone Like Free Beer at Sturgis For anyone who missed the drama, ETA Motorcycle Cruises was basically declared DOA around 2020. The old references floating around the web said things like: • “ETA Motorcycle Cruises, LLC: DEAD” • “ETA closed its doors” • “cruise-eta.com: DEAD” Then COVID hit the cruise industry with the subtlety of a drunken dude on a Road Glide trying to park downhill. But Then… The Domain Rose From the Grave I checked the WHOIS data and nearly spit coffee ...