What's up with the rubber ducks on cruise ships? The cruising rubber duck game.

Taking a cruise? Or maybe you just got off a ship and saw rubber ducks randomly placed around the ship. 

A few years ago a trend of hiding rubber ducks onboard for others to find took off. It became so popular that several cruise lines have banned the duck custom and crew will dispose of any rubber duckies found hidden on the ship.  

Does the official duck ban have your interest in these scavenger hunts more than ever?

Looking for ducks?  Get your Rubber Duckies and Duck Tags! Amazon pays me an affiliate commission on sales made through links.

Read more

#COVID-19 - Coronavirus updates from the CDC

I am featuring this post for quick reference to updates on Coronavirus / COVID-19. Feel free to link to this, stevemiami.blogspot.com

---

See Also: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)

Read more

Adios USA? Stories of Americans who moved south of the border to Mexico

Millions of Americans dream about living in Mexico - and millions more do!

From Oaxaca to Baja, Guanajuato to Puerto Vallarta, Lake Chapala to the Yucatan, more than two dozen women from all over Mexico share their stories in this new book.

“Why We Left: An Anthology of American Women Expats” is a fun, inspiring and humorous read you'll enjoy from cover to cover, full of useful and encouraging words of wisdom from 27 women who made the move and couldn’t be happier. In inspiring words straight from the heart, the contributors share their plans and preparations, hardships and challenges, joys and satisfactions as their new lives in Mexico unfold.

Read more

Are you social on social media?

Any of this sound familiar? Do you take surveys about coffee, retirement towns or birthdays? Do you know your forever drinking twin and the warning sign of your hometown?

And do you Share, Copy, Paste, Repost, Recommend your business associates, friends and family to others?

I originally posted this in the comments of a Facebook posting and decided to bring it to here to the 'Steve Miami' blog for additional exposure. Some of you may be aware that I bought a franchise and now book group travel, cruises, all inclusive resorts, etc.. Please consider me when planing your Cruise, vacation to Sandals, or booking a private tour. I'm building up my business and appreciate your support by telling others about my business. The franchise is called -------- and my website is #.

So are you a social media ninja? Quick to share a funny picture. First to answer a crazy survey? You know the people, they're totally networked. They photograph all their meals. Spend a lot of time taking surveys about silly things (also called 'click bait' designed to collect demographics for marketing). They make an effort to search for that perfect MEME or emoji to post. They watch and like all sorts of very cute animal videos, for hours on end. That's why I thought what a great way for friends helping friends using social networking tools that they already love to use (think of that old commercial, "she told two friends, who told two friends and so on and so on"). I apologize for the going off on a tangent, I'm really more curious about the psychology of social media than posting a rant.

My experience of friends clicking my links or shopping on my amazon links or reposting information hasn't had positive results. The friends still post food and pet pictures, search for memes and take surveys but when asked, they rarely post or share something. My requests are usually ignored.

If you can 'copy' and 'paste' a website address (URL) onto your own timeline, in a group, on a message board or in a tweet-you are helping your friends more than you may realize. Word of mouth is a great way to promote something.

Hey I already know that you have an extra 60 seconds or you wouldn't be reading this.   

And if you happen to have 2 minutes to spare, a review and some stars on FBwould be great!

Thank you all!

Read more

MTA Train and Bus Status LIRR MetroNorth

Here's a handy widget that shows bus, subway and train status on the Long Island Railroad and MetroNorth

I just copied this from the MTA with no guarantee of accuracy.

Read more

Top Travel Gadgets

I've been trying to pick up a pair of noise reducing headphones that fold up for travel and while evaluating my options I ran across the Jersey Journal's, Top 5 gadgets for Travelers. I don't necessarily agree or disagree with the list but a lot of people are planning their summer trips, so this list could be helpful if you're taking a flight in the near future.

• Apple iPod Touch: The top-of-the-line iPod Touch stores 32GB of songs, movies and TV shows, with a relatively large, video screen.


• Noise-reducing headphones: Little ipod earbuds don't block out a jet engine's roar, so something stronger is recommended. The Bose QuietComfort 3 headphones are considered the best choice, but Sennheiser and JVC offer decent options that cost much less.


• Knee Defender: A bit obnoxious, okay this is totally obnoxious and rude. The knee defender locks on your tray table preventing the seat in front of you from reclining. Just be warned that seat karma will back at you for this evil trick.


• Scanner Bag: A luggage tag with a quick-fold pouch inside to hold your “pocket stuff” when you go through airport security.


• Nintendo DS Lite: I don't play video games, so I can't kick in any comments except recommend you wear your headphones when playing the games (or for that matter wear headphones while watching your portable DVD player or anything that makes noise). The author this list likes the Nintendo more than PlayStation Portable because of the interface and ease of use.

I'm thinking an Amazon Kindle or Sony Reader would be tops on my travel gadget list. I have trouble sleeping on long flights so this would be an opportunity to cut down my book list backlog. Hopefully inflight cell phone access doesn't catch on (cringe).

Add a comment if you can recommend a decent pair of headphones to use on a flight. Thanks!

Read more

WeatherPlus forecast widget

A look at the weather in South Florida

Read more

have you seen Google Transit?

I'm not sure how long this has been around but I just discovered another cool product on Google. This is called Google Transit which invites riders of twenty-five transportation services in the United States, as well as eight other countries, to log onto Google Transit and plan their trip. It is still in beta, a standard tag on most Google products :)

I took the product for a test drive, trying to stump it. The NJ Transit option is only for trains so I attempted travel from North Bergen, New Jersey to the Port Authority Bus Terminal in New York City (a bus route, no trains conveniently located).
Estimated travel time: 2 hours (normally 20-30 minutes on the bus).

• Start out walking to the closest Light Rail station (about 30 minutes on foot)
• Take the light rail to Hoboken (about 15 minutes)
• take the Sufferen train to Secaucus Junction (opposite direction from NYC)
• Take Penn Station train (about 15 minutes)
• Walk to Port Authority (about 9 minutes)

Okay I admit my test wasn't very fair, because they don't offer NJ Bus options on the site yet, but even without any bus options, the test was a success, if a bit time consuming!

I gave it another try attempting to travel from Tampa, Florida to Penn Station in New York and received a polite message telling me they don't have transit schedule data for that trip. I was hoping to receive a message, "walk from Kennedy Boulevard in Tampa, Florida to Grant Street in Salem, New Jersey (over a thousand miles, wear comfortable shoes) and board a NJ Transit train hehe. No such luck.

This transit tool has huge potential. From the broad travel (I'm thinking door-to-door directions going trans-Atlantic) down to the granular level on a city bus, think of all the non-intrusive ads Google can sell along a route. Car service, coffee and breakfast enroute to the airport, parking at O'Hare, airlines, hotels, rental cars, tour agencies, a florist or dry cleaners at the destination of the bus.

I'm sure in a matter of time the google wizards will have options for "go from living room to kitchen and Avoid Highways". I'll take another look at Google Transit in a few months and see what evolves.

Read more

HopStop.com - a nice mapping site for New York, Boston, DC and San Francisco

Are you trying to use Subway Trains, Busses or Buggies to get around town? Don't know your A Train from a B Train? http://www.hopstop.com/ is a very cool transit mapper, for New York, Boston, Washington DC and San Francisco.

Another Subway mapper for NYC is "onNY Turf". Going on an interview in an unfamiliar neighborhood? This is pretty nice, you just enter an address in and OnNY Turf will show you which subway stations are nearby. http://www.onnyturf.com/subway/

Just looking for cross streets without the maps? Click over to the NYC Address Locator

Read more