Author: Bill

Today started again much earlier than either of us wanted – but to meet obligations, choices were slim…… up and preparing for the day – an early morning email negated the first of the days plans….. not really upset about it – as I wasn’t really shot in the ass…. butt about the meeting we were supposed to attend any way. We still had to go pick up my Bride’s car, so a trip back to mid island was gonna happen whether we liked it or not. My bride set in and about to make us a small breakfast before we lit out – but switching on the stove reminded us both that our illustrious gas company had NOT yet delivered our propane, so I made a quick call to our favorite West end restaurant and before you know it, we were dining on eggs, bacon and waffles….. well….. I  did…. my Bride had ¾ of ONE waffle before calling it quits. She is under the misguided impression eating less will help her lose weight………… Imma shut my mouth right about here. Breakfast done, we headed to mid-island….. I dropped my Queen off to recover her car (with the 1 out of 7 items needing fixed – fixed) As she headed back to the West – I went to talk to ‘dude’ about getting my lap top fixed. Understand…. this is my 3rd visit to this guy and still have zero intel to work with about getting my lap top fixed. He was at lunch – could I come back in an hour ? SURE…. home was only 45 minutes away and I’d be happy to kill an hour waiting on him to come back from lunch. Blues was only 10minutes away – so I opted to go and drink beer until dude got back from his friggin’ lunch~!   Which I did. Came back to find out he was back, but was walking his @#$%^&*( dog……….. So I waited……. and waited…… I think it’s about time for another beer……. Dude finally shows up – and the estimate he had written for me was wrong because he didn’t realize – I had ‘that’ computer….. seriously ???? I brought the *&^%$#@ thing in twice already…. so another look and” I’ll call you back” [again….. disgusted, but calm…. I headed back to the house. Stopped at the dump and pitched the [now] 4 bags of garbage I had sitting in the back……. FINALLY back at the house for some peace and quite, only to find out my Bride’s car needs another $800 worth of stuff done to it….. Dammit Emmit~!  That conversation done and settled…. sat down to unwind and try to keep my composure…. no explosion…..yet. A new email told me that an ‘expert’ on my camera is going to call me tomorrow afternoon and walk me through my camera, to help me explain some of the things I have been learning in the tutorials [and confusing the hell out of me] and answer any and ALL  questions I have about my camera set up….. OOOH Happy day~!!  I have literally been losing sleep over some of this………….. well crap…. already at my limit….. shi…. shoot.  Condensed version….. island ‘kids’ stopped by….. drank, ate, left and here I am…… munching on a chopped ham and LETTUCE sammich……. My Bride is working tomorrow and I will be sitting [semi-patiently] at my computer waiting for a call from California…. my pictures from here on out – should be MUCH better… dare I say ? Epic??  😉

Good Night Ya’ll * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Thankx for stopping in~!  [old pix]

Home Sweet Home

Up again way earlier than I wanted, but we had to have my Queens car at the garage by 08:00 and it’s a 30minute drive, so we both got up early enough to get our old people morning stuff out of the way. We got the car dropped off….we had 7 things we need to get fixed on the car – but only three were urgent. Neither of the low beams worked, one brake light didn’t work and the horn didn’t work. I figured all the other stuff would require parts being ordered. They would call us when the car was ready to be picked up……. I asked if they had any idea how long it would be and the reply was ‘somewhere between now and 5:00’ uh, yeah, okay…….. Thank you ? Went from there down the street a ways to the garage that worked on my truck. Last week, my gas gauge quit working (the truck runs fine – just the gauge is shot and a new gauge was just put in, in January) Text and phone calls have went unanswered so I thought I’d just pop in and talk to him…… that would have been a really good plan if he was there, maybe too early? …… Dammit Emmit~! Since we were close- we decided we would run on into town to one of our favorite breakfast places and have a bite to eat. Happily, Toast Diner did not disappoint~! Going WAY over board… I ordered their biscuits and gravy [a meal in itself] and topped it with 2 eggs and 2 sausage patties and a cold glass of milk….MmMmMm GOOD stuff~! Plus we sipped a Mimosa while we waited for our meal. Entirely too full – I waddled back to the truck……. Stopped by ‘my’ garage to check see if mechanic was in…… NO……Dammit Emmit~! From there and rolled out past the propane place and ordered another bottle of propane – as we ran out last night. Silly me….. you would think when you tell the place and you’re out of propane, you would expect to get your delivery that same day, after all, it was early in the morning. You would be mistaken…… island life. 5:00pm here now and still no sign of the propane dude…….

Came back to the house running in between a bunch of frequent little rain showers….. chatted with Cynthia just enough to understand her schedule – and as her and Shawn led a tour out of the gate I pulled in with lawn equipment [I had committed to helping them get the yard cleaned up there at the shop] and as they headed up into the hills and got soaked showing folks around the mountain top – I weed eated…. weed ate…. and mowed their shop yard. Luckily the rain held off until I got done – but I am sure they got soaked.

Back here and made a couple of calls, still trying to get my lap top fixed….. nothing there yet either – finally sat down and watched a truly, truly stupid movie. Dammit Emmit~! Good news…. my pizza place opened up 5 days early (starting tonight) and immediately after watching my Sammer Jammer open his birthday presents from me and Oma (( A big 8 years old today~!!!))  – I ordered us pizza~~!!!! I am hurrying up trying to get this done before I take off to go get it~!! So – tomorrow probably another day of frustration….. oh – BTW – car place just called….. could only fix one thing out of the 7, so will not be able to get it inspected and registered…… dammit…. but hey! Pizza here shortly~!!!  YAY~!!

Good Night Ya’ll – – – – – – – – – – Thankx for stopping in~!!

Up again – much earlier than I would have liked, but again it was in preparation of making a couple of dives, so no complaining here. The morning was nice and cool and because I was up well before my alarm went off, I got to take my time, get my morning stuff out of the way, load the truck and enjoy some time with my Queen before heading back out to Salt River for another morning of diving. ”Amped” at the prospect of getting to dive a seldom dive-able spot, I headed out. I was told this by invitation only dive was going to be very experienced divers and was looking forward to that as well. I got to the dock my usual 10-15 minutes early only to find out I was the last person to show up…… bummer~ I got me a spot on the boat…. even though it wasn’t ‘my spot’…. but I figured that’s what I get for being last – so- lesson learned. Half way to the first dive site, it became readily apparent, the sea and the wind gods were not gonna cooperate – and the chance to dive ‘the spot’ was not gonna happen…… dammit Emmit~! Oh well, the beauty of diving ‘a wall’ that drops to just over 3000′ – is that you can pretty much go as deep as your nerves will let you. Not saying we went past our ‘safe recreational limit’ of 130’……. but we made the most out of our first dive… chasing sharks and big eels, that sadly stayed out of range for me and my camera to get to [safely]. I did do ‘zoom’ lens shot – just so I had a shark picture in the collection of pictures and you’ll be able to tell from the quality of the shot – I was not very close  🙁   Finally back on the boat – we took an extra long surface interval – to help rid our bodies of nitrogen that we built up as the plan was to do another deep dive. Which we did…. more sharks and eels out of range – one big turtle that wanted nothing to do with me and easily left me ‘in his dust’ as I chased him trying to get a picture. The visibility was just as nasty on these dives as the day before and once again – I only took 124 pictures between both dives and saved just 34 of them. I experimented taking pictures of the divers I was with, as I knew them all from the Instructor/Dive Master class I took pictures of, so they were all used to me up in their face with a camera. It gave me a lot of good experience shooting people and working to understand the power of my strobe flash. So- not a lot of critter or sea life pictures for you out of this collection, but still a fun look at life under the water……. We have to contend with life issues the next couple of days – so probably not a lot of new pictures…. so I’ll try and stretch today’s pictures out a little bit.

Good Night Ya’ll + + + + + + + + + + + + + + Thankx for stopping in~!

Wow….. just re-read last night’s post….. that was a mess…. sorry about that – between being wiped out by a long day in the sun and then slamming [apparently a LOT of] drinks I went down hill pretty quick….. A good solid nights sleep, appropriately rehydrated and a couple of hours of salt therapy (diving) and I’m in much better shape~! Both dives left a little bit to be desired today… a really rough sea and mediocre visibility made for a less than desirable dive and also made taking a decent picture almost impossible. I was hoping the second dive would produce better conditions…. but it was not to happen today. Sea was just as rough and we apparently were in the vicinity of coral that were blooming and visibility was 40′ at best. Normally on a two tank dive like today – I take somewhere around 300 pictures and wind up saving around a 100 of them….. today I took a total of 97 pictures and saved 27 of them…… Guess it’s a good thing I get to go again  tomorrow~! Tomorrow is the ‘by invitation only‘ dive and I hope the winds and the sea gods cooperate enough, that we to get to go to this specific dive site. Like I said earlier – I don’t want to jinx it – so will wait until tomorrow’s post to tell you about it.

That’s about it – came back, got my gear rinsed. I got summoned by Island Kids to come help get a couple of machines that were stranded out in the woods back – That done and back here to my Queen. Haven’t started drinking [yet] but can’t afford to get too tore down tonight anyway – I want to be ready for tomorrows dives~! So – pictures from today…. I think you’ll be able to see all the stuff in the water that was making visibility so bad…….

Good Night Ya’ll . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thanx for stopping in~!

A ‘late’ morning… 08:00 as I ‘slept in’ after falling asleep somewhere around 02:00 this morning waiting for the electricity to come back on after the second round of being off…. I had make sure we weren’t going to be attacked by locals or Godzilla or some shi……. crap, while the juice was off. My Queen was already in bed and had made it through the first round of outage… [45 minutes] – but 20 minutes later,it went off again and the room got stuffyenough, shecame out, and proceeded to blind me with hte little portable light she had. IhadJUSTmanahedtodozeoff sittingon thecouch….. drenched in sweatbut too tired to not fall asleep……..THANKFULLY,  another half hour or so, the juice came back on and I immmediately, cooled the bed room off and fell my sleepy ass into to bed…….

Fast forward to about -8:00 when I came rolling out tomyQueen already up and a couple of cups of coffee in front on me…. After a right tasrt breakfast…. I finally drug my tired a$$ out tostart cleaning gutters….. what a daythat was…. not only were the gutters filthey, the roof was ‘shot’ as well…. so while I cleaned gutters – Ialso worked on th4 roof…. in 90 °+ plus temps….. LOTS  of water breaks, one heavy shot of spark, some serious cloud cover off and on and a mere 6+ hours later…. I called it quits…. the gutter was 99% done…..

to long of a story to explainsome of this.. but, neighbors,boooze, some good dinner [albeit slightly over coooked] (not the cooks fault)….. probably 2-3 drinks tomanyand I ma lucky to be sittinghere awake enoughto type…. so —– I’m done. Hope to makeit to the bed so my I can sleep in conditionedair comfort…. probably soe typo’s on here… but just too tired tocare……..

Good NightYa’ll……. Thank for stoppping in~!

Original title for the blog tonight huh ? 😉 Should give you some hint how this one is gonna go probably….. Up earlier than planned after getting to bed really late and then a rough time trying to get to sleep… oh well, maybe tonight.  Did not get a heckva lot accomplished today…. I did breakfast dishes and I worked on the stove… one of the knobs was leaking propane when you used it and besides stinking the house up – it was a little bit dangerous, but I’m 99.99% sure I have it fixed, even though I did manage to shoot a flame out the front of it one time that did manage to singe my mustache a little bit. Just a good thing I don’t have eye brows or hair….. no harm, no foul. Aside from that – didn’t do much of anything else….. studied some more tutorials on my camera and watched several truly, truly stupid movies. Choices for the type movies we like are slim pickin’s…. or I’m just not smart enough to find them…. pee-uuuu. I tried to feel bad about about not getting out and walking, but just couldn’t make myself do it – and just flat refuse to feel bad about it. There is tomorrow, although I am thinking seriously spending the early half of the day cleaning the gutters. The greenery I see poking out over the edge of the gutters, tells me they probably need it – and since that is our sole source of water [other than the 5-6 cases of bottled water we keep on hand for emergencies and guests] I figure I better get up there and at least take a look at it. The little feller who I pi$$ed off by mowing my own grass probably ain’t gonna do it for me. I’d feel better having an extension ladder to do it – but I don’t have one –  but the heavy duty 8′ step ladder I do own will probably suffice…. and yes girls and damn neighbors….. I promise to be careful~! Old decrepit fart that I am.

I have back to back dives scheduled for this weekend. I don’t normal like to dive on weekends because the boat is usually full of ‘weekend’ divers that have no friggin’ clue what they’re doing and thoroughly annoy me in the process, but I am trying to get a little extra water time with my camera – and Sunday is supposed to be a “by invitation” only ‘bad a$$’ boat load for a special dive. There is only one place I know of to dive with those needed qualifications. I have only dove it once, but fell instantly in love with it when I did it – so I’m very happy to be invited on that particular dive and could not say no when I got the invite~! I’ll wait to after the dive to tell you about it (I don’t want to jinx it – this dive only happens a couple of times a year)

Well dang….. I managed 500 words out of this one after all…. rest of pictures from yesterday…….

Good Night Ya’ll % % % % % % % % % % % Thankx for stopping in~!

Up a smidge earlier than I would have liked, even though I went to bed at mostly reasonably hour. I was getting up early to have time to do morning stuff before heading out to go diving – which is pretty much like getting up early to go fishing…. I never minded that either and always look forward to both. Especially when I’m going out on my favorite dive boat~! Got mildly distracted this morning and wound up driving to the dock without my wallet, phone OR BEER~! I was really okay forgetting my phone, mostly okay without my wallet….. but no beer?!?!?! OMG….!!! My Queen realized what happened and dropped off my wallet and phone on her way to work…. just so happens that a guy I met a while back was on the boat today and he brought beer and offered me one, which I happily accepted [even though it wasn’t Budweiser]. We sat and talked about the dives [his Daughter was on the dive and getting certified] and drank beer and it just made the day’s dives just that much better. We finally packed it up and took off. I decided another drink was in order and since I was so close (and my Queen was working there) I figured I’d swing by Blues and surprise my Bride, catch up with the Blues crew and have another drink. Well, I had more than one drink – but stayed well within my limits, gave my Bride a kiss goodbye and headed back West. Got my gear all rinsed and started loading pictures from the day. I got to spend as much time as I wanted experimenting with my camera today as I wanted and loved every second of it. While they were not big time adventure dives [deep, with sharks, etc.] I had an absolute ball. The boat was full of ‘new’ divers and even one DSD (Discover Scuba Dive) – I managed to stay out of everyone’s range unless I swooped in for a picture. Most of the time I spent sitting in one spot trying out different camera settings and I was perfectly happy with that. Just a fun, wonderful day in the water. I was not even that upset that the visibility left a lot to be desired. I took a total of 284 pictures today – I wound up saving 56 pictures…..and I could probably whittle that down a little more…. but small steps. I hope you agree, that the ones I am keeping are a much higher caliber than my usual pictures.

Our neighbors came over in search of food….. no – not like out Damn Neighbors, that never bought food and just stole ours….. he had placed a ‘to go’ order with my Bride of a bucket of wings, knowing she was working at Blues today. They sat and had a drink with me while they waited for Angie – who wound up putting in a long full day. She finally came rolling in with said bucket of wings – the neighbors sat politely and chatted with Angie until I ran them off……. They quickly scooped up their wings and were gone.

My Bride now sits quietly on her phone with her drink, while the work day slowly fades away…… not sure what tomorrow has in store for either of us… I’m not diving and she’s not working…… what to do – what to do…………..

Good Night Ya’ll > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Thankx for stopping in~!

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It’s late[r] than usual…….. I have been drinking for the last 5+ hours…. managed to feed myself and my Queen a damn fine burger…… didn’t do SQUAT today, so nothing to ramble on about….. so I think I’m gonna put up some more old pictures (from 5 years ago) and call it a night~!

Two tank dive in the morning – so a chance to play with my camera and try and get you all some more fun underwater pictures…………

Good Night ya’ll * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Thankx for stopping in~!

OUR Brood [minus my mini-Jeni]

Up at and at it again…. not really looking forward to the day. I did manage to get the number of the expeditor that I was wanting, but she never returned my call [and probably God only knows why] which meant I was left to handle it myself. I’m pretty sure you all have your own tales of dealing with the BMV or DMV, whatever you call it and I’d be willing to bet, most of those tales are not ones of pleasure. Take that, soak it PCP and stick it on an acid rocket ship and that kinda gives you our island BMV….. but it had to be done, so I got into my traveling shorts (shorts with enough pockets to hold all of my stuff) and headed out.  Happily amazed to be waved directly into an inspection stall [I thought] and after a sweaty 15 minute wait – starting taking directions from a large man, whose shirt was soaked in sweat, and also apparently not very happy to be doing what he was doing. ”Honk the horn” [didn’t work] … dammit Emmit….. ”Turn on your lights” [low beams didn’t work]… DAMMIT EMMIT…. ”Hit your brakes” [one brake light out] *&^%$#@ EMMIT~!! I knew about the one brake light…. everything else was an unhappy surprise (or actually worked)…. didn’t pass inspection…. Well SH*T~!….. couldn’t apply for new title or registration until everything fixed.  This is the primary reason I wanted to go through an expeditor…. cause here on the island – expeditors ‘know’ people and they don’t worry so much about those petty little things like head lights not working….. the second and probably more aggravating thing is that the island is full of vehicles that do not even have lights in the vehicle [bulbs, or even the light sockets] but they drive them anyway, because they’re not gonna get pulled over.  ( another ‘local’ thing)  I can’t do that. Besides the fact I am an old, ”rich” white boy – I sure as hell would get pulled over. I would have had all that fixed anyway – because I’m a responsible, functioning, human adult. Just the principle I guess~~~~

So – back at the house – I pulled out the lawnmower to go over one section of grass that was really tall when I mowed it – and it needed it again…. before coming into the house and settling in on line to try and learn more about my camera and lights. In the middle of all that – I got to take a little time out to listen to our ‘Damn‘ neighbors who called (after drinking a little bit) to give us a hard time and tell us how much they miss us….. well, something along that line anyway 😉  Always great to hear from those two~~!

After watching several hours of watching online tutorials on how to use my camera, and having a drink or two myself….. I wound up ordering me a new lens for my camera. LOL – I may not have any idea what I am doing with all that stuff….. but I’m gonna look cool as hell doing it~!   No new pictures – so I’ll put up some you may have not seen yet….

Good Night Ya’ll – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Thankx for stoppin in~!

Cousins

Introduction to Stephanie’s wedding in FL

Little ole Me

Up again a little before 07:00, but felt pretty good and eager to get our day started. I was still trying to find a Notary  to witness the title transfer of my  Queen’s new car — which after a harrowing couple of hours, I managed to find one. Sunday morning adds a whole new dimension to the challenge. Nerves calmed… slightly ( I still had to make sure she would show up)…. I was eager for my next step of the day…. having Island kids Shawn and Cynthia join us for a ”brunch” of biscuits an gravy (and bacon of course) Over the last 40+ years – my Bride has become quite adept at Biscuits and Gravy….. a HUGE step forward from the ‘paste’ she served me 40+ years ago in Germany…..The breakfast was delicious and we sat and chatted about all thing prevalent to upcoming events. They are going back to the states for a bit and so on and so forth. We finally had to run them off so we could meet dude with the car and the Notary [I hoped]. We wound up at the designated meeting spot about 10 minutes early and I was elated to see the Notary already there [I recognized her from a previous engagement]. A couple of minutes later – dude showed up with the car….. it was still intact, papers were signed and notarized and we were all on our way toot sweet…… I was ermazed~!

Back at the house, I settled in on line and in nothing flat had insurance on my Bride’s new convertible. While I was doing that she was outside working on the  car and ‘making it her own’. She was happy, which automatically makes me happy. The day wore on as I looked for an expeditor to take care of the paperwork tomorrow to get the car re-titled and registered in my name. My luck there ran out – but I am confident, tomorrow, I will be able to get done what I need done…. expeditor or not.

Relaxed, watching one of the worst movies I have ever seen [rated # 4 by Netflix] – I made me a couple of hotdogs and choked them down during the movie. Tomorrow I’ll work on getting the car titled and registered, so it will either be a really good day or it won’t – – no in between. I am also going to try to make ‘at least’ one boat dive this week – just to soak in the sea and play with my camera….. may even have to do two separate boat dives…… we’ll see. Rest of my DSD pictures from the other day……………..

Good Night Ya’ll ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) ) Thankx for stopping in~!

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