Tuesday, February 25, 2014

In Like A-Lyin'...

It is only a few days from the beginning of March and we are much below the 'average' temperatures for this time of year.  Tonight's low is -11ºF with wind chills of up to -30ºF tomorrow morning.  I guess I'll have to warm up the car tomorrow - wait - I've been warming up the car every morning for months on end now, this is supposed to stop happening, right?

In fact, 11º is the highest we'll see until Sunday, they say.  And why not throw in some snow?  Not a big storm, just a little here and a little there for days on end.  After all, a fresh layer of snow covers all that dirty melting stuff and makes everything beautiful.  Right?

Okay, I'm starting to lose my patience with winter.  That's all I got.


If you want more, watch this short video about the water on our planet. It's worth the while!

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Wild Child by Nightwish

After writing for here every day for a week I have taken over a week off.  Nothing new, except maybe one girl we know having an affair with a friend of mine then wanting a divorce from her husband with a baby on the way from her new beau and kicking her husband out of the house so the new guy can move in all in about 2 months time, no, nothing going on but for work keeping me busy with mandatory overtime.  So until I have more time and energy, know that we are well, and still holding out for springtime.

Here, enjoy two of my favorites at once, Nightwish performs the WASP song 'Wild Child.'


Sunday, February 9, 2014

Alabama Beachcombing Bounty

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The only thing left that I haven't shared from our trip to Alabama is the shells I collected on my walks along the beach.  I could have collected hundreds of the mid-size and smaller shells, but I mostly looked for unique, good quality shells. The picture above shows all that I brought home with me except the starfish.  And all but two shells are now on display in a vase on the hallway shelf - where cats cannot get into it.  I think it turned out pretty well.

Friday, February 7, 2014

Alabama Vacation Pic Dump

Well, everything I wrote about happened even if the order might be a bit fuzzy.  My brain is foggy enough on its own, but going back to work after a full week off has fried it pretty good this week.  Enjoy the pictures, I took the liberty of captioning them because, you know, I'm just that kind of guy!  And I captioned all 34 pictures, so it's like another, usual length, pictorial blog post!
Happy Friday, everyone.

All pics are after the break.

Thursday, February 6, 2014

Alabama, Part 4

20140125 234Thursday morning I took another walk on the beach before anyone else was up.  I gathered just a few more interesting shells and another starfish, this one would break on the trip home, though.  It was very chilly out and ice was everywhere, even in the pool.  We went out for lunch and had some leftover spaghetti for dinner that Dan had fixed us the night before.  Sand was all over the now-drying roads, also we saw water softener salt at the intersections.
 

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20140125 243And I finally got some more smokes and some whiskey for our last night.  We were running out of everything.  We had only packed supplies for 3-4 days but we did do a couple loads of laundry in the condo so we had clean clothes to wear.  In the afternoon, Kate and I checked out the indoor heated pool and hot tubs.
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20140125 280Friday morning we were finally leaving town.  Not that we wanted to, but it was time - past time to get back home.  Again I awoke early, early enough to catch the sun rise over the gulf.  We had a longer drive to the Mobile Regional Airport than it would have been to Pensacola but we didn't want to wait one more day to fly out.  Mom and Dan were gracious with our unexpected stay and drove us to the airport.  Again this airport seemed even smaller than Madison's and for some reason that surprised me again.

Thank you for checking out our trip to Alabama last week.  If my writing seems somewhat less than enthusiastic it is only because my brain is fried from trying to catch up at work this week.  Alabama Pic Dump tomorrow - but for now, Thank You Mom and Dan!
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Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Alabama, Part 3

20140125 166Monday was pretty stressful around midday.  We found out that our flight out the next day was canceled due to weather, weather that we didn't have yet.  We settled down once we were rescheduled for the same times on Wednesday.  So we went out to eat again, maybe even for lunch and dinner, I don't remember. I think it was after dinner that we all walked down to the shore, though.  It was a wonderful view in any direction, especially my wife's direction. ;)


20140125 181On Tuesday it got interesting.  It was rain with temperatures at or just below freezing during the day.  We went out to lunch at Lambert's - home of the Throwed Rolls, I remember this one because of the weather.  The roads were fine while we were out.  On the way back we stopped at a few places so I could get some whiskey, but to no avail.  Stores were shutting down.


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These people did not know how to handle a little ice and it scared them.  Or rather, the a lot of ice that would eventually accumulate because they don't have salt or experience scared them a bit.  Anyway, I got a picture of icicles on a palm tree and on a porch, and settled for a couple beers that night.  Oh, and the 'chase the ace' game kept us entertained, along with watching the news people freak out.

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20140125 207Wednesday morning I was up early again so went down to the frozen beach.  Ice coated everything, yet it was thin, rough ice, not a slippery as it could have been had it been thicker.  I did not slip on the beachwalk or the frozen beach but I could have if I tried.  It was this morning that I found a lot of interesting shells, large shells, and even a couple starfish up on the beach.  I also saw quite a few dead jellyfish on my morning walks.  I did find a small sand dollar for my Mom but, unfortunately, it broke on the way back upstairs.  It was the only whole one I saw on the beach, any day we were there.

20140125 211When I got back to the condo things got weird again.  Or flight out that day was canceled.  Again.  Pensacola airport was shut down until further notice.  Later our flight from Atlanta to Madison was rescheduled for later that night, but there was no possible way to get to Atlanta in time even in good weather (unless we could fly there!).  My wife spent a lot of time on the phone; we could fly out of Mobile, about an hour and a half away, on Friday or we could wait until Saturday to fly out of Pensacola, a half hour away.

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