bigvalboy

http://www.reactiongifs.com/r/2013/07/happy-dance-.gif Fort Lauderdale 91

"My Friend" is a she, and no, I'm def not cheating. You're always going to be #1 wife.

LOL...My friend lives in Connecticut and texted me this morning. "Don't hold dinner <wink> All flights out cancelled we're getting bitch-slapped by the Nor Easter"

That was just beyond amazing... Two quotes that stood out: 1.) @ mile 50 "Just give me 60 seconds to feel sorry for myself" Wow!! 2.) "How we spend our future is entirely up to us. Each mile, each step, a new page written.What do you want the remaining chapters of your life to be about?

Not necessarily. Every situation is different. A friend of mine, who is a multi-millionaire said one day that "We should have dinner." To me that is a casual invitation. I was expecting to split the bill even though dinner was her suggestion. After we arrived at the restaurant she insisted on paying, which she does, more often than not, and I allowed her to do it. I feel under no obligation to automatically reciprocate the next time, nor would she expect me to. We are friends, and neither of us are keeping count. It was a fun post, and I took it mostly tongue-n-cheek, as was my response to #14, but most of the examples are archaic. There are so many variables, that it would be impossible to establish 'hard and fast' rules...

The inviter pays...but in casual situations, where dinner is a mutual agreed upon event, then the bill should be split.

French Chateau de Gudanes Rescued from Ruin This Chateau was featured last year, with renovations now complete http://www.chateaugudanes.com/ How many of us dream of owning and renovating a French chateau? A palace that was lived in by French aristocrats, where the rich, powerful and famous partied and where every room reveals a story from the past? Sometimes dreams do come true – read how a couple from Australia fell in love with an abandoned, unloved castle they saw on the internet and are bringing the incredible 94 room Chateau de Gudanes back to life… Karina Waters is from Perth, Western Australia where, in what “feels like a previous life now” she worked in corporate and tax accounting and lived with her husband Craig, a surgeon and their two children. In 2011 Karina and Craig decided to buy a home in France. They had lots of French friends who on their first viewing trip in the region of the Dordogne did their best to come up with ideas for “what would suit an Australian family”. Karina and Craig spent a week looking at the houses their friends had chosen. Karina says they were all “renovated, clean and neat, ticking the box for a quiet life”. She returned to Perth “frankly disappointed”, her ideal home would be more “shabby chic, rustic, petit chateau style” and she hadn’t seen anything that came even near that description. A year after the first trip, Karina and Craig returned to France, they had all but given up on the search but their 16 year old son Ben had seen a property on the internet that caused them to miss a heartbeat. An unrenovated chateau in the Midi-Pyrénées area that looked like something out of a fairy tale. They flew to Paris and drove 700km to view it. And what a history it has… A castle has stood on this site for several centuries. The first one was destroyed in 1580 during the Wars of Religion in France. Fantillon de Sales, the Catholic Lord of Gudanes was besieged in the chateau which was badly looted and all but demolished. The castle wasn’t rebuilt until almost 200 years later, when, in 1741 the Marquis Louis Gaspard de Sales who was known as “The King of the Pyrénées” decided to set up home there. An influential nobleman whose mother Marie Antoinette Miglos was one of Louis XIV’s aristocratic spies, he commissioned the prominent architect Ange-Jacques Gabriel who designed the Place de la Concorde, Paris and the Petit Trianon, Versailles. The construction was completed in 1750 and De Sales hosted grand parties in the chateau, lavishing money on guests who included prominent intellectuals and artists like playwright Voltaire. The chateau escaped destruction in the French revolution and was purchased by a local family. Some of the rooms have retained wallpaper from the days of the Empire. There are frescoes and murals, fabulous fireplaces, a stunning central stair case, darling dormer windows, metal work, vestiges of century’s old paint – the beautiful faded colours harking back to the days of its glory. It is an extraordinary building and there are great plans for it, though planning has been one of the hardest things Karina has had to deal with. Following a meeting with the Historic Monuments architect in Paris to explain her vision, documents were prepared, signed and despatched to various official departments. Karina waited several months, in the meantime attending intensive French language courses. She says the frustration of not hearing any news grew until she felt that they had “broken her positive spirit”. She took the difficult decision to inform the official parties that she was going to sell the chateau saying “I’m not feeling any love”. It was a bold tactic but, just five hours later, Karina received the go ahead to start work on the Chateau. The first job in the chateau has been to clean out all the rooms, filled with debris for decades, left untouched, it has been a massive undertaking. Karina and Craig have learned that things can and will go wrong, that there must be contingencies. Karina says that she just “deals with the issues at hand. My mother used to tell me ‘let tomorrow look after itself’. People ask me ‘what are you doing, how long will you stay in France, are you going to live in France, how will you live, can you afford it?’ To be honest, I don’t know and I don’t worry about it. I do what I can one step at a time.” Future plans for the chateau include possible commercial and cultural activities. Conference facilities, accommodation, weddings and a pop up café are being considered. Karina promises “It won’t be a typical hotel style setup but a unique experience”. Restoring it to it the glory of its elaborate beginnings is not financially or physically viable. Karina says “It is what it is now. Buddhists used the term Wabi-Sabi and we want to apply that to the Chateau de Gudanes. Wabi connotes rustic simplicity, freshness or quietness, or understated elegance. It can also refer to quirks and anomalies arising from the process of construction, which add uniqueness and elegance to the object. Sabi is beauty or serenity that comes with age, when the life of the object and its impermanence are evidenced in its patina and wear, or in any visible repairs.” In real terms that means making sure that they use the right construction materials to enhance the Chateau and respecting the geometry that exists in the building and the area. Each week Karina makes a point of visiting the town and dining at the bistro where the locals eat. Here she can meet with and update her neighbours on progress and sometimes enjoy a glass of wine and regale her new friends with an “Aussie song”. From the first days when the Chateau cast its spell on the Waters from Australia Karina says “I am no longer half asleep but have opened my eyes to a different perspective on life. Over the past few years I have experienced the fear, doubt, hesitation in making the decision to buy a home in France. But we have signed the contract, picked up the key and now stopped worrying. We are committed to our decision and have no doubt it is the right thing for us to do”. http://mymodernmet.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/french-chateau-hotel-chateau-de-gudanes.jpg

Fascinating...but he lost me at the six floor walk up.

What does this mean?

I've got a problem with #14...

LOL...we got it the first time.

My 3 cents...@Kevin Slater is correct. Keep expectations low, and don't count on group gatherings from specials groups. On my last cruise, the daily flyer for the LGBT meet up in the library said, 5pm meeting with "Friends of Dorothy" (I thought that was cute) At any rate, the crew is strictly prohibited from fraternizing with the passengers, and interacting with other passengers in close quarters like a ship could be problematic, not impossible, but unlikely. Also...depending on where you are cruising to, I would be careful spending too much time trying to hook up on shore. In many ports-of-call it is necessary to keep your wits about you and your guard up. As a tourist, you are a natural target. Since this is your first cruise, I would just go to enjoy yourself and to take in the whole experience of cruising. Go to see the sights and leave it at that. Good Luck...

If you Google "The difference between Chernobyl and Nagasaki/Hiroshima" you will see numerous articles that explain the difference. It's late here and I'm tired, so I can't do your homework for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saOHKFWW3tU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4YOTXZ7yTs

Great photograph...

The Hilton in Monterey Ca...More years ago than are worth counting. Ordered room service for breakfast, and a rather stunning late twenties college jock arrived as I was coming out of the shower wrapped in a towel. Me...all of 19 and a bit naive. He brought the meal in, set the table, and leaned over my shoulder and quietly said. "There was a fight in the kitchen, who got to bring you breakfast, I obviously won" He started to laugh, then put a copy of the LA Times down, and said, I noticed you are from LA, so I brought a copy of your local paper. He then went to the closet and got me a robe, which I never got to wear...Ahhhh youth.

Impressive. Two thumbs up. I don't like to drive 34 miles.

Oh absolutely, and no one should be faulting you for operating your business model like that, certainly not I. We just disagree on the approach. There was another very successful escort who used to post here, Juan Vancouver, but unfortunately he seems to have vanished. Juan Vancouver who had tremendous insight, and wisdom into the escort side of things, and would often help guide new escorts. He got a lot of push back for expressing the same thoughts that you do, and I was among those who disagreed with him, and actually did not hire him based on his perspective, but I always supported his right to do whatever it was that worked for him. During my working years, you could say that the tables were turned. I was selling a product, essentially myself, since there were any number of agents who could and would provide the identical service for the same amount of money. My goal was to convince a client that I was worth the money they were going to be paying me in the form of commissions. I was the seller, they the buyer. I spent countless free hours, talking with clients over lunch, dinner, out socially, trying to sell my services Sometimes I was successful, sometimes not. For me it was simply the cost of doing business. At the end of the day, Real estate, like many businesses is a numbers game, put yourself out there enough, "knock on enough doors", and eventually the positives outweigh the negatives. There were agents that would do absolutely nothing without being compensated, not a bit of information would be given for free. I was the opposite, I was extremely generous with my time and information...when all was said and done, that worked best for me.

Well that's where you and I disagree. Researching someone will only reveal so much about a person. I have invited dozens of escorts to a meet-n-greet at starbucks, and never once has anyone of them asked for compensation for that time, and in almost 40 years of hiring, dinner is almost always included in an evening of fun beforehand, and not once has anyone of them suggested to me that the hire starts at dinner which is on my dime, nor requested that they be paid for their time if I suggest a nice dinner afterwards. Meet-N-Greets can be relieving. It's my money, and I want to make sure that we are going to be a good match, especially over the course of a weekend. Chemistry is often everything in a successful hire. Met a nice kid a couple months back at a bar. After a brief conversation, he suggested that he spend a long weekend with me on the boat. I suggested dinner that night first, to make sure we would be a match. Half way through dinner, some vile racist comments slipped from his lips. I made it through dinner, called for the check, wished him well, and walked away realizing that it was the best hundred bucks I had ever spent. The weekend would have been an unmitigated disaster. Every escort is free to conduct their business any way that suits them the best, and I am free to hire anyway that suits me best. It's my money, I'm the buyer. That might seem cold, but it's how I see it. Sincerely wish you the best...

My mother and her sister hosted a large garden party one summer. My father was invited. When my father was introduced to my mother, there were brief pleasantries exchanged. My father thanked my mother for hosting the party and walked away. My mother turned to her sister and said, "That's the man I'm going to marry." Her sister told her how ridiculous that sounded, and said, "You have no idea who you are going to marry." My mother said, "Oh yes I do, and I'm marrying that man" They were married for sixty five years and inseparable, until my mother passed on at 93. My Dad was never the same. He died a year later.

Curious...Are you suggesting, trust but don't verify?