2012 July

A Tale of Two Cars

July 15, 2012 By Heather 2 Comments

I would like to share a tale with you. A tale that may make you laugh, shudder, and then make you laugh some more and possibly have you questioning my sanity in the end.

Nichole & I decided months ago that we were going to room together at Type A Conference. And since we live relatively close geographically to one another that we were going to travel there together as well. While Nichole and I grew up in the same small town and went to school just a few years apart, we really didn’t know each other and actually met at a conference 500 miles away from our beloved homes in Ohio.

Instead of flying I had the brilliant idea to rent a car from Enterprise instead of flying down to Charlotte. Splitting the cost between the two of us the car rental and gas was a heck of a lot cheaper than just ONE round trip flight. Nichole was instantly on board, especially given her luck flying to Type A Con the year before. (P.S. I had no idea about this at the time)

The day started off to a rocky start when I was delayed in actually getting the car since Enterprise couldn’t pick me up until well after we wanted to be on the road. But no biggie, it was only an eight and a half hour drive, we would still be there by dinnertime. Nichole lives about 45 minutes south of me and I have to say that I am pretty sure I made that trip in record time. Soon enough we were both loaded into the car snapping photos of ourselves and the Jetta to document our journey to Charlotte, NC.

Look at us unsuspecting fools. Had we known what was in store for us that day we may have opted to have an ugly cry right there in her driveway before shoving off. (Okay maybe once we got the Starbucks because I am sure that Nichole wouldn’t want us to scare her kids and concern her husband.)

Things were pretty smooth for the first couple of hours until we hit glitch number one, Nichole wasn’t able to get the car charger to work in any of the outlets in the Jetta. This was a bit concerning because we wanted to make sure that our devices stayed charged since nobody happened to print up a set of directions to the “hotel” we were going to be staying at for the night. (Why yes hotel is in quotation marks, you will soon learn why later.)

Somewhere in southern Ohio along I-77 we stop at a rest stop, after getting back into the Jetta we notice glitch number two; after I adjusted the steering wheel the key wouldn’t turn in the ignition. Well, I guess that isn’t so bad, I mean it wasn’t that uncomfortable to drive with the wheel a bit higher than usual. I mean I was concerned, but once I stuck the wheel back to where it was when I got the Jetta I was just relieved that the key turned and it started.

We decide to stop just south of Cambridge, Ohio for lunch at a place called Lori’s. We decide since it near 100 degrees out that we are going to crack all of the windows to help ventilate the Jetta while we eating lunch, this is when we encounter glitch number three; the one rear window doesn’t work. At this point I decide that maybe we should call Enterprise to let them know about the glitches and ask them what we should do. She said she is noting the account and if we would like to swap out cars at the nearest Enterprise we are welcome to do so. We decided not to and went in to eat our lunch,which was really good, very affordable, and they seemed to have outlets near all of the booths so we were able to charge up while we ate.

After lunch we go back to the Jetta and find a surprise when we started it up; the check engine sign in now flashing. I had no idea that they flashed and so I promptly called my hometown Enterprise to see what we should do. Again I was offered the chance to swap out cars and since we were only a few hours into our eight plus hour drive, swapping out cars seemed like a great idea. I told the gal where we were and asked her to find the closest Enterprise to us without us having to back track. She wasn’t sure how to look that up and Nichole actually found it before she did, thankfully only located about 26 miles away right off I-77. I asked if we should call ahead to the Enterprise to let them know we were on our way to switch out cars and she assured us that as long as we had our pink slip we would be fine.

And now since this post is already of epic length I am going to advise you to come back tomorrow to read A Tale of Two Cars-26 miles Later….trust me you won’t want to miss it!

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: enterprise picks you up, renting a car, type a con

Don’t let the Zombie Fish deter you from hitting up the Cleveland Aquarium

July 13, 2012 By Heather 13 Comments

Several weeks ago my two teenagers and I got up much earlier than they would have liked to on a Saturday to enjoy the morning at The Cleveland Aquarium. And when I say much earlier than they would have liked, I am pretty sure that anytime before noon would have been unacceptable. Plus side they napped peacefully on the way home.

The Cleveland Aquarium is located in the Cleveland First Energy Powerhouse building and from the outside it doesn’t actually look like a traditional aquarium. The building was actually built during the 19th century and provided power for the city of Cleveland. It’s very industrial and I love how the designers of the aquarium incorporated things like the smoke stacks into exhibits.

When isn’t it a good time to get your photo taken with a six-foot sea-horse?

After we were greeted by a six-foot sea-horse where the girls declined to get their photo taken claiming it wasn’t the right time for them, we were welcomed with a buffet style breakfast, which the girls happily devoured.

Once we finished with breakfast and a special presentation by our hosts, we were invited to enjoy the Cleveland Aquarium exhibits at our own pace. Sadly our pace didn’t match up with the pace of some of my friends who also happened to be at the event, but I was thankful for the time I had with my girls enjoying the aquarium.

It was really neat to watch Giggles walk around exhibits to get just the right angle of her subjects. The Chicken liked to inform me what everything was called and read the information on the placards that were by each exhibit. In fact when we saw the Scorpion Fish at the aquarium I had to ask her to repeat herself and I asked her several times if she was sure that the placard actually went with the exhibit that we were looking at, because really, they looked like Zombie fish.

Tell me that this doesn’t look like a zombie

The Cleveland Aquarium website tells you to plan about an hour and a half for your visit, and that is just about how long it took us to get through the whole thing. There was a bit of time when I thought we were going to be stuck at the touch tanks for the rest of the day when Giggles proclaimed that she wasn’t going to leave there until she touched the shark that was swimming with the sting rays. Thankfully she gave up that battle for another day.

One thing that I heard from many people who had visited the aquarium before I did was that they enjoyed the visit overall, they were just unhappy about the price and that they had to pay for parking. I admit that I would probably be hesitant to go on my own because of the fact that my children are no longer considered children in the admission based world, but looking at admission page, I would strongly consider an annual pass for our family. It would pay for itself on our 2nd visit and you get several perks with pass membership.

You, too, can take crazy pictures with your shark if you win!

If you still aren’t convinced that you should try it out then you might be excited to hear that I am giving out 4 tickets to the Cleveland Aquarium and your very own Mr. Shark. (Scrambled eggs and plate are not included.) To enter simply visit the Cleveland Aquarium’s website and tell me what thing you would be most excited to see while you are there. If you want to tweet about this giveaway, please make sure to include @CLEaquarium and @hdurdil (that’s me!) in your tweet and leave an extra comment letting me know that you did that. This contest will be open until July 20th, when I will close down comments and pick a winner using random.org.

Disclosure-Cleveland Aquarium provided tickets, parking and breakfast so that we could experience the exhibits. All opinions are my own and there is certainly no fishy business going on here.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: CLE, cleveland aquarium, things to do in Ohio

Learning to stand on my feet at Type A Con

July 10, 2012 By Heather 4 Comments

Ever since I returned from my road trip of epic proportions {more on that another day} and Type A Conference my brain has been swirling. It doesn’t help that I have two teenage daughters who seem to be sprinting towards adulthood no matter how much I try to ask them to slow down.

One of the biggest things that I learned is to….

…stand confidently behind my words. To write for myself and not write what others expect me to write. To be proud of myself and not shirk when someone asks me what I do.

At Type A Con I learned that if I am not passionate about what I write about, how can I evoke that same passion in someone else. To put it simply, I can’t.

Aside from taking photos at the conference as one of the photographers, I got to wear a new hat, or rather ribbon this time around.

I will admit that while I love photography and I am passionate about taking pictures, I was ~~sort of~~ freaking out about speaking to people about it. I suppose I should really get used to speaking because I will have to do it all over again when I talk Instagram at BlogHer in just three weeks.

I am so excited to start fresh in this new place. (I know it looks the same, but many thanks to Twenty70 hosting for moving everything over to WordPress and getting me all set up-I still can’t believe I only pay you $5 a month!) (Also it looks like the special that I got for $5 a month is now $10 a month for those signing up but sooooo worth it, Kelly is awesome!)

So did you go to Type A Conference? What did you feel like you most walked away with a better grasp of? Are you going to BlogHer?

edited to add-linking up here with the other Type A Conference posts