Author: Bill

Up WAY earlier than I wanted to be this morning – especially after a mostly pitiful nights sleep…Dammit Emmit~!! Anyhow – rolled on out and got my day started. I got all of my gear ready…. I made me a breakfast sammich…. sausage, egg and cheese on a biscuit [Jimmy Dean] and took a bottle of Spark with me to drink on the drive to pick up Shawn and Kaidence  [I apparently have been spelling her name wrong – oops] and then on to where the boat was docked. (Salt River). It made a world of difference~! I had plenty of energy and now well into the day – I have yet [knocking on wood] to get light headed. First time this week I haven’t got light headed at least once at some point during the day. I have known for a long time now the benefits of a small decent breakfast to kick your day off with – just been too tired (and mostly too stupid) to follow through on my busier days. Something else I will work on as I try to improve my health and physique.

Had a 2-tank dive today with a much fuller boat – sadly there were a couple of divers on the boat that created enough ‘issues’ it took a lot away from the dives [for me] – but I guess you’ll have that every now and again. I felt bad for the Dive Master on the load – as she had her hands mostly full with those two……. None-the-less….. I was diving with friends in a beautiful location, so I made the best of it. I did manage some fairly decent shots, so I now have LOTS of dive pictures to share with you. The boat is full the next several days – so probably no dives for me until next week…….. unless…………. the dive shop owner caught me as I was unloading from the boat today and hinted that they have a lot of student classes coming up – and that she really would like pictures of them……… [[ I suppressed the urge to pump my fist and scream YES~!]] and casually said ”cool – let me know”. Keeping my fingers crossed that turns into a bit of a habit~! For now tho – looking at walking for exercise the next 3 days at least (unless I get a phone call)   😉

Got back to my Queen and got my gear rinsed and I got a shower – when I noticed a Subway bag in the fridge……. YAY~!!! My Queen surprised me with an island version of a ‘double meat club’ ….. my most favorite sammich from that particular establishment. I say island version because the folks on this island apparently have no friggin’ concept of ”double meat”. For untold reasons, it just confuses the hell out of them, but my Queen surprised me and I gleefully inhaled my sammich as I sat down to chat with you all…… so a really good ending to a less than stellar day. YAY~!!!

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

Happy Anniversary big Sis Ela and Daniel~!

‘Slept in‘ until almost 07:00 this morning…… man that was nice in that deliciously cool room….. pretty sure ‘conditioned air’ will be the mode we sleep in for the next 5 months or so as we slide gently into our Summer months and the temps go up a little bit. Got up and lounged on line catching up on all the Covid BS and pretty much the same thing on FB. My bride made us a wonderfully tasty breakfast of scrambled eggs and stove top stuffing. (if you haven’t tried that combination – I highly recommend it~!)  I am woefully behind on my walking, in my feeble effort to reduce the size of my belly – so even though I was pleasantly full from breakfast and it was nearing 11:00. Temps were up but there was a nice breeze – so I ‘made’ myself get up and put on my walkin’ shoes and scooted out the door. Back in just over an hour and logged almost 3 miles today. Middle section was mildly up hill and it had the old fat boy huffin’ and a puffin’ pretty good. Probably better for me than I want to admit….. but at least it’s a start. I had heard somewhere that SCUBA diving was pretty good exercise – so I did a Google search – and according to it – I can burn just as many calories diving…… ”[Google search] ” An average shore dive can burn 600 calories per hour, about the same as jogging. A single warm-water boat dives burn, on average 300 calories per hour, the equivalent to a brisk walk..”  – so I just need to dive more~!!!  Only thing is….. walking is ‘free’…. diving, not so much….. but it sure is a LOT more fun~!

Really about it – spent the rest of the afternoon re-hydrating and fooling around on-line. Checked out the camera I’m interested in and found I can get it on Amazon a lot cheaper than I was expecting. I’m trying to support local business’ – and my neighbor/friend/dive shop owner – who just happens to be a dealer for this particular camera – is bringing one in so I can look at it and check it out (‘a$$hole’ knows I am going to want it if I see it) so I would like to support him if it is not overly priced from what I could get it for on-line. We’ll see…………

Just back in from a smoke with my Queen…. I have been hinting about getting a lawn mower and ‘keeping up’ our yard – since the local dude who is supposed to do it, is doing a really miserable job. My logic is, that’s more exercise that I could really use and the place would look a lot nicer~! [of course, I’d have to get a weed eater with it, to make it look really spiffy] but my Bride is not real shot in the a$$ about the idea. So what do you think ? Should I get the implements I need and help keep the place looking really sharp – or just put up with the weeds and tall grass and hang out and b*tch about the way it looks ??

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

simple as 1, 2 3……….

Moo…..

Can’t wait to get in and check out this big ole dude~!

These are real – I had to touch them to make sure~!

Weeds along our fence line

Our back yard

Back yard with clothes line

Area was weed-eated a week ago…. I am struggling to deal with it

Up slightly before a very early alarm, after a messed up nights sleep. Once I get to sleep I do pretty good – it’s just getting to sleep that is the issue. Not at all uncommon to lay there for an hour or so trying to drift off to sleep…… I hate it. The plan, was to get up, do my morning stuff and get a small breakfast in me before I took off, as the past week, running out the door for most of a day of doin’ stuff without eating anything before I go, as proved to be slightly detrimental to my well being. Note I said the plan……….. unfortunately it did not happen…. but at least this dive shop furnishes a fresh fruit and some home made cookies between dives….. so I had a small tangerine and 4 cookies to help keep me upright when I needed it. I kissed my bride good bye (after wishing her a Happy Anniversary again [[42 years]] ) and I was off. I ran up the mountain and picked up Shawn and Kaydence (his Daughter) and in no time we were at the Salt River Marina and boarding IBIS….. my most favorite dive boat. A short sprint out to Salt River East for our first dive spot. I gotta tell you…… it felt absolutely wonderful to step off the back of that bat into that gorgeous blue water~!!!! The dive did not disappoint…. a beautiful turtle, a small sting ray and a couple of sharks – even though I could not get them in very close to me. The second dive was just as enjoyable…. more of a scenic dive versus big ocean critters…. but I got to bottle-a$$ around as much as I wanted on the entire dive~!!!! WONDERFUL dive[s]~!!

I dropped Shawn and Kaydence off and was back at the house by 1:30 with a bouquet of roses for my Bride. Since I  can’t take her out to eat for a nice dinner…. felt like I needed to do something to ‘mark’ the occasion…. especially since she let me run off and go diving for the first half of the day. Gear rinsed, me showered and chatting with you. Angie is working on Chicken Cordon Bleu as I type this……. 30 minutes later…… dinner was delicious, we’ve had our after dinner smoke and I am looking forward to crawling into bed and not have to worry about getting up until I’m ready tomorrow…….

Gonna try and get a good walk in tomorrow since I’m not diving…… I really want to get rid of some of this stomach~! Pictures are already edited (enough for a couple of days) so I’m set for the night.

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

Happy Anniversary to my Bride of 42 years~!

Up fairly early this morning after going to bed a lot earlier than usual. Sitting here doing my thing when I get a ping from the owner of the dive shop I frequent a lot. Instructor was doing a Rescue Diver course – and she would really like pictures of it. Tinkled pink she called me for it. Even though really short notice – I jumped at the chance. My bride was still in the bedroom slumbering away in that wonderfully cool bedroom. I gathered up my stuff and prepared to head out when she finally came stumbling out. I had time to have a coff of cuppee with her and a smoke, before loading all my stuff in the truck and head out the drive way. I’m not sure why she ‘enjoys’ me running off to dive – just really happy she does and the fact she lets me indulge in the sport/hobby. Is it a sport….or a hobby ? I took the road up over the mountain they call ‘The Beast‘….. a viscous kind of hill [small mountain] made only slightly better by the fact they repaved half of it. It is routinely used in the cycling portion of the annual Triathlon they have on the island every year. You may have seen pictures from the last couple from me, as I always volunteer to be a Safety Diver for the swimming part of the race. Sadly, because of the ‘virus’….. I think the event is being cancelled this year…….. [don’t get me started]……..

I showed up at Cane Bay just time for the instructor [Jeff] to start his class. Sure am glad I was just taking pictures….. I still haven’t forgotten how tough and grueling that class was. VERY tough and grueling.  I spent the next 4 hours swimming over, under and around and through 3 students and the instructor taking pictures. In all – I took right at 300 pictures….. done editing I wound up with 214 pictures. Suzanne should have lots of pictures to choose from. I will put a handful of them up on Cane Bays FB page…. and will use some for my FB page and my blog – but the bulk will go to Suzanne for whatever she wants to do with them on a flash drive……..

I have ‘fun’ dive scheduled for in the morning with Shawn and his Daughter, off the boat – a two tank dive. I can’t wait. I’m gonna do my best to make a dive every day this week…. or at least something close to it, to make up for my virus time mulling around thinking about boat diving……. So I should have LOTS of new pictures for you for a while.

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

Crashed a little earlier last night than usual…. (1, because I knew I had to get up early for ‘work’ and (2, because I was about half hammered…..not sure if those are in the right order or not – but showered, liquored up and tired – I was ready for some sleep in our now wonderfully cool bedroom. Turns out, that A/C  apparently is one of the deciding factors on how well we sleep – especially this time of the year when it is hot and dry and not a hellva lot of wind  [awww…. right?]  Up a couple of minutes before the 06:00 alarm I had set….. got up and did my thing before my Bride came stumbling out behind me……. it has been established that neither of us like getting up now before we are ‘ready’. Job had to be done though and we committed to it – so we were up and finally ”at ’em” arriving at the shop in time to help get most of the machines over and get the incoming folks ready for their ride. Paperwork signed, helmets issued and soon we were off. Let me offer up a piece of advice here folks [free of charge] — if you’re going to do something like an ATV tour – and the guides ask ‘if you have done this before – or rode an ATV before’……. Don’t lie to them…. because we can tell about 3minutes into the ride whether you’re lying or not. We had one of those guys today……. jeez Louise….. we got them through the ride though with minimal issues and back safely…… they expressed their gratitude with a VERY measly tip (and that was from 1 guy)……. but no doubt in any of our minds, they had a good time….. and in the end, I guess that’s all that counts.

Shawn borrowed a truck to pick up wife and 3 Daughters from the airport…. simply because we  ALL believed he wouldn’t get the four of them AND luggage into his car……. we were right….. ya gotta love old people who think about that kind of stuff…… they stopped by the house to get into swimming trunks while poor ole Shawn got to lug everything up the mountain and unload it in their house. We had drinks and chatted and caught up. We haven’t seen their kids since last year……… Spooky how fast them little porch monkeys grow up. Makes me wonder even more about our own set of ankle biters back in the states that we haven’t seen since September……. 🙁   They have all left for the beach now…. my Queen warmed up left over porkchops and we have since inhaled them and now I’m chatting with you. I have been reaching out to my fav dive shop trying to get a dive tomorrow……. if they don’t answer me – I may just grab a tank and go do the pier, by myself. Probably not the safest/smartest thing I could do – but I feel safe and secure doing that particular dive by myself….. so we’ll see. I just want to get in the water.

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

Up after a wonderful nights slumber…. yes, the A/C was on…. yes, the A/C may have something to do it with it – we’ll see. My Queen slept in while I got all of my morning stuff out of the way. Before I could get good and situated I found out I needed to get into the office PDQ to wrap up our job in there. A lot of minor details that necessitated that decision – but I gulped down my coff of cuppee, kissed my bride good bye and took off. As I said last night – it took me longer to get in and prep than it did to hit the one small place that need a splash of paint. That done, I closed the place up [and forgot pictures!] and was out of there to multiple places around the island. A ton of things to get done and lots of details I could go into…. but right now my belly is bulging from an obscene amount of my new favorite pizza, and I, quite honestly right now just want a shower and some sleep. One of the things I did manage to do during my running was stop by Blues and got to hang out and chat for a bit while consuming beer so cold it made your teeth hurt when you drank it. Aside from the icy cold beer – the company was soul soothing. To hang out and chat with dear friends and enjoy a bit of normalcy, tucked in quietly behind their fence with out masks or any of that other nonsense. Many more tedious things that taxed my nerves to the ‘inth’ degree during my round around the island – but the Blues pit stop made it all better.

Back at the house, we wound up having Shawn stop by and join us for said wonderful pizza and some good conversation. Pizza has been wolfed down, Shawn has taken off and I’m wanting to get in the shower. So with that, I’m gonna leave you dear people with some older pictures for the night. We are working tomorrow helping Shawn with a big tour he has – so wanna hit the sack a little earlier than usual [with the A/C running] and get ready for a busy morning tomorrow. And I’m sure I’ll be taking pictures~~!

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

I took a little extra time heading into the job site today, because I knew I didn’t have THAT much to do today and last nights sleep just sucked and it took me a little longer to get started. Not sure what the deal is on sleep – I would have thought as worn out as I was, I would have zapped out for the duration. Might have been something in the air, as my Bride didn’t sleep worth a crap either. I don’t think it was lack of A/C as sweating wasn’t an issue for either of us. I would love to understand sleep and the ‘older’ person better….. as I suspicion that has something to do with it. Anyhow, I finally got headed into town to finish up the job from yesterday. I worked steadily until around noon and then called my Queen in to help with getting the place back in order. We stayed at it for about an hour, got the touch up painting done and finally wrapped it up – almost. I have one little spot to hit tomorrow morning, but it will literally take me longer to get the place unlocked and in there, than it will to do the job. Overall, I am very happy with the job. I just hope the person I am doing it for will be as happy. There is a possibility of her wanting some trim strips added, which I am happy to do – I just want her to see it first without the trim and let her decide. Right now, the place is ready to go and I’m glad to be done with it for now so I can start diving again~!!

Back at the house now. Angie is in the mood for pork chops and is busy in the kitchen working on them while I chat with you all. I didn’t take any ‘after’ pictures, so I’ll do that tomorrow. In the meantime….. some more older pictures. I have some running to do tomorrow after finalizing the job and get everything done around here so my slate and conscious is clear for doing some diving~!

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

After another presentable nights sleep (sans A/C) – up with the sun and ready for today. Has to be better than yesterday turned out to be. I wanted to get an early start on my project in town, in case something unexpected come up. LOL…. Turns out I should have went in about Midnight….. I should have known by now, working on any building, especially an older one, on this island…. something is going to come up~! I was not disappointed. Sure am glad I didn’t estimate this job… I would have lost my a$$ on it. I finally had to admit that I was going to wind up killing myself (or risk at least a serious injury) if I  didn’t get some kind of help. I called my Queen, who had already made a run or two to bring me things I needed, that I had forgot. She was happy to come in and help me (I think)  😉  For the next 3-4 hours we worked on getting that ceiling up. Nothing….. let me emphasize NOTHING went like it should have. Nothing is square or plumb, there are no cross members between the rafters…… nothing. I am not exactly sure how the sheet rock is staying up there~! But drawing on years of experience (and getting MUCH longer screws…. my plan started coming together. My bride starting getting the hang of what I needed her to do and before you knew it all the metal was up on the ceiling. Yay~! By now, it was fairly late in the afternoon and I was pooped. I sent Angie on back to the house, put batteries on charge, put the extra metal away and general organizing of my tools – and crawled my happy tired touchas into my truck to join her. Happily back at our little abode, a quick smoke and a drink made and here I be. Making us some hotdogs, because we’re both too tired to fool with any thing else and thoroughly enjoying having my happy tired touchas in a chair~! Best part of the day ? (obviously besides having my bride working with me)  Not once did I think about the mess from yesterday. Never entered my mind until I got back here and saw my email again…….. So – a busy mind does help. I was supposed to dive in the morning, but I have already called the shop and told them I’m out until I get the job finished. Which hopefully is tomorrow. Then I’m gonna dive my brains out~!!  🙂  So for now, some older pictures you may have missed…. don’t want to put up job pictures until it’s done…  and a MUCH needed shower for me.

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

One lone little Papaya on this tree….

Woke up this morning after a really decent night sleep… fit as a fiddle and ready for anything….. until I opened my mail…… First thing I saw was a letter From Delta…. telling me our flights have been cancelled~! AGAIN~!!! DAMMIT EMMIT~! I spent the better part of the day conversing with Delta and looking for another flight. The more I looked… the more upset I got. I am so ^%$#@ sick of this Covid 19 crap and it being blamed for..well…..everything, I can’t hardly take it any more. It is starting to look like getting a decent flight out of here – one that doesn’t take 36-48 hours to get us to where we want to go, is not gonna happen. Not in the near future anyway. My Bride and I discussed it at length and I think we have decided now, that our next trip back is going to have to wait until the holidays. That thought alone depresses the $hit out of me and I’m already lower than a gophers basement. But between a day and a half to 2 days travel time EACH WAY (and wearing a silly ass mask that whole time), getting my credit score driven even further into the basement and just the general hassle of putting up with all this BULLSH*T…… it is just not going to be worth the hassle. So I hope our girls, my Cousins and all the people who made their own travel plans to meet up with us then….understand. GO*DAMMIT EMMIT~! [sorry Vera- best I could do]……..

In the midst of that – I suddenly remembered the work I was supposed to be doing for my buddy….. so I pinged him and apologized to him and told him I would get it in the morning and he was fine with it. All the while the space button and the Shift key on my laptop have been getting progressively worse about working. I have been using compressed air on them trying to get them to work better, but that’s not helping much. Out of anger and frustration, I popped the shift key off [I did it all the time on my computer at work] figuring I could clean it better that way. Well now it doesn’t work at all. JUST friggin perfect~! Now I have to take it in to get it worked on. I have to hit my caps lock button to get a capital now (using that other shift button is just not an option) so that just about rounds out my day. My Bride fed ME S.O.S. for dinner –  which I found to be ironically perfect for this day. My apologies for ranting and I hope this didn’t bring you down. Hopefully working in town tomorrow for a bit will get my mind off all this.

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

Another night of conditioned air sleep because of low winds and a little higher humidity than normal……. Awoke reasonably refreshed from a couple of semi hectic days……… a really slow start to the morning…. and against my preferred judgement… I ‘made’ myself get up and put on decent shoes and took off for a walk. I wound up having to ‘call an audible’ on my route, as the one I had planned on looking at my map – apparently no longer existed. Dammit Emmit – no worries….. My new path took me on a longer than expected route…. but only by a couple fractions of a mile, but longest to date. I did get a bunch of fun pictures, but they are slim because my first half  mile of every route starts out down the same patch of road. Got in close to 2¾ of a mile and wound up walking through town getting some fun glimpses of island history. Back and showered…. I had a sammich left over from last nights get together while I edited pictures.  It got to be well into the afternoon and we were due to head out to a gathering of the ‘Blues crew’ for a bit of a reunion. [Birthday boy] Shawn was supposed to join us – but because of issues with the airlines tryin’ to get his kids here on the island to see him – he got stuck at the house. Now I have always figured ‘a feller needs to have cake on his birthday’. We had one and a small gift for him we intended to give him when he got here – however – so I took off up that nasty piece of crap they call a road to their house. I delivered a[nother]  ½ a sammich, a birthday cake [with candle, one each] and a small gift of what is supposed to be a couple of fairly decent cigars. I lit the candle and made him make a wish – wished him well and came back and gathered up my bride to head to mid-island for said reunion…

Late, in typical island fashion (and then some) – we showed up with several other fashionably late folks. The reunion was well under way. There was not a single mask to be seen…. there were hand shakes, hugs, kisses and fist bumps…… it was wonderful. If any of you reading this are shocked or disgusted by it… {{sorry}} – all of us [there at the party] think the whole COVID thing is a farce……For the next several hours everyone hung out and just had a blast…… and boy-howdy, was it nice~! Now that we are official ‘West enders’ – we have that nasty 30 minute night drive back to the house……. especially if you have had a ‘drink or two‘  😉   A couple of friends pinged us to make sure we got home okay – – – you can feel the love even after the party. Enough for tonight. I [oddly] turned down a chance to take pictures for 11 divers tomorrow because of obligations I made to a friend to do some work for him tomorrow….. there will be lots of other chances……

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

Laying on the ground and growing like ahell

Have NO idea what these are- yet

My route this morning~~~

Quite the view  ( Buck Island in the background)

A very politically INcorrect crowd….. love it…