Author: Bill

Well here we go with another day….. trying not to let ‘those’ thoughts into my head, but wondering what in the Hell can go sideways today……. Most of the day was quiet [thankfully] before my Queen opted to head out to the store for more essentials (in her mind)…. I stayed and worked on taxes and a couple of ventures trying to drum up a little extra cash……. finally back – I pack muled in the load from the store of our ‘essentials’ before settling in on the couch for some more House of Cards and cooling off…… An earlier ping from our island ‘kids’ said they were up at Blues and would like us to join them. Due to some off scheduling that wasn’t going to be an option, joining them then, was not an option…… but by 3:30ish…. we decided we needed to go up and have a drink…. after all – it is St. Patrick’s day and even though major activities were cancelled due to that  @#$%^&* virus – we decided we needed to spend the afternoon with some of our favorite folks here on the island…….

Arriving at Blues just a couple of minutes before 4:00pm…. we ran into our ‘kids’ on the way out the gate as we came in. I would have thought they would have been long gone by that point…… but very happily they were not. In true island kid fashion….. they turned around and spent another very enjoyable hour discussing everything that we felt needed discussing – before climbing into their ride and heading back West to their end of the island, something we will be doing before long……… We stayed and chatted with good friends and total strangers until it was just 3 or 4 of us left at the bar and Eddie was shutting the place down. I gathered up my Queen, and were soon back here enjoying our A/C and the quiet we have come accustomed to when we get here.

About to starve and [apparently] to stupid to order of the wonderful eats from Blues….. I fired up my little indoor grill and dropped a half a dozen burgers on it….. I have already wolfed down 2 of them and [VERY happily] convinced my Bride to have one….. I sit and regale you all…… I wish I had tales of new and far away places to tell you about…. but like I have stated many times before…. living on a tropical island is a hellva lot different than visiting one…. and not every day can be a new adventure – no matter how bad you’d like it to be…… so for now….. waiting anxiously for tomorrow (supposed to sign lease).. gonna put u some old and new pictures for you~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

Selling my old phone….. iPhone 7 Plus….. 128 gig…..

Not sure what my Queen as riled about but Edward was in a good mood (great lookin’ shirts huh?)

Something to help soak up alcohol…. good ole greasy burgers~!

Doing something different with these…. instead of island pictures… a little insight into my previous life…… these were all from 10 YEARS ago….. most of them of my Sugar Pop

Big Sis – Ela~~

UUGGHHhhhh….. ya know…. there are just some days a feller ought to just keep his touchas in bed…… for me, today was probably one of those days.  Up a smidge earlier than I wanted to be, to answer natures call….. but not terrible. Got up, did my thing and walked out onto the patio into a breeze you had to brace yourself against. Because the sun was just getting started on the way up, the day hadn’t started to warm up yet and even though it was around 76° – I shuddered a little bit against the cool wind as I accept the fact I must be becoming more acclimated and in that little sense more of an islander. I finished my morning cigarette and went in to sit down at the lap top and get caught up on the latest craziness that is the Coronavirus……. I am seriously tired of hearing that word and all that bad puns that are going along with it now……. Caught up on the news and was enjoying the quiet I am afforded while my Queen is still in bed asleep, when the phone rings…… it is my new landlord to be. She tells me she needs to move this mornings meeting out to Wednesday morning…….. I politely say I look forward to seeing her then and hang up. DAMMIT EMMIT~!!!  I wanted to scream and beat on the table, because that just shortens the time even more that we have to get moved into our new place…… but I didn’t…… I didn’t want to wake my Queen up, so I sat and quietly fumed~~~~~

Shortly after my Queen came stumbling out….. emails started popping in from my tax lady. My files were loaded and ready to look at. I logged into my account and opened the file I knew would have my tax return in it……. tie me to an ant hill and smother my ears in jelly~!!! WOW……. because of some financial decisions we made early last year….. I knew I was going to get my hands slapped from Uncle Sam on my taxes….. but OOUUCCHHHhhh~! Almost as much as the back taxes we had to deal with last year…. Dammit Emmit~! A very expensive lesson learned, but not a hellva lot we can do about it, but pay it and make sure it don’t happen again.

Since we didn’t head out West – decided to take silver DD up to the body shop to see about getting a small under panel replaced on the truck (to up the selling price). We have the piece that was popped off – but the body guy said he can’t use it because to many clip brackets were broken off….. ordering a new one, getting it shipped here, painted and installed is going to be a lot more than I want to spend….. gonna have to think on it…. Dammit Emmit~!

Ensuing trips to the pharmacy and grocery stores were equally frustrating….. so whadda ya gonna do ? Go to the house, make drinks and watch House of Cards (which thankfully is getting nothing but better~!) Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

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

Both of us up a little early this morning…… even though I didn’t make into bed until Midnight last night. My Queen was tired and wandered off to bed around 9:00 or so – I opted to stay up and catch another episode or two of House of Cards. Really good show starring Kevin Spacey about the goings on and no-goodnik’s in the political scene around Washington D.C. I finally made it into bed though but still rolled out when my Bride got up a little before 07:00 this morning. Had our usual morning routine…. managed to keep electricity and internet the entire morning – which is newsworthy in of itself.

Around noon, I settled in at the laptop to start work on taxes for Fish With A Vet. Even though I was fairly meticulous about my record keeping for the organization this year…. I still had to go through and break out contributions, office supplies, and another 6 or so categories. I worked on it until about 4:00pm when I finally finished the first draft of it. Got it polished up a little bit and in the mail to our accountant. Now I just have to wait for what I hope is a very small barrage of questions from him.

Happily done with taxes – I joined my Queen on the couch for more of the idiot box…… quietly going through my mind, while I watch….. thinking about what all we have in front of us for the next couple of weeks. Our day starts out tomorrow by going out West to sign the lease on our new place. I suspect [if] once that is done, we’ll stop by WAPA, which is the very FUBAR’d equivalent of your Vectren and get the electricity turned on in our new place. Provided that goes as planned (and I seriously have my doubts) we’ll then run out to Home Depot and pick out appliances and whatever they have that we need. IF….. and that is a huge IF – we get that far, we need to stop by the store and replenish some stuff…. milk, eggs…. heaven forbid TOILET PAPER… because we are almost out….. from what I’m hearing most of the people on the island are acting like they have a little bit of sense and not hoarding it [yet]. If we managed to get that far – I’m sure dealing with that many island folks all day – I’m gonna be ready to come back and have one or six drinks…… at least. Keep your fingers crossed for me…… I haven’t heard back from my tax lady yet and tomorrow I’m gonna need all the help I can get.

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

Up early this morning after crashing a little bit early last night from being about 4 sheets to the wind and wound up with a nasty, nasty headache that managed to pop up…… but I did have the foresight to pop 3 Anacin and guzzle a bottle of water before crashing….. so other than having to take a whizz really bad – I felt pretty good once I got the afore mentioned whizz out of the way. Not sure what time my Queen made it to bed….. but she slept in giving me a couple of hours of quiet before she finally rolled out. We had just got a cup of coffee poured when the electricity went out [for the second time] —– it came back on for a little bit – then went back off….. in the process of it going out – we lost cable and internet as well. The building generator finally kicked on so at least we had electricity….. but the cable and internet bit the big one. I called the cable/internet company and they agreed there was a problem – and they were ‘working on it’. yay……. So we had our breakfast while looking out at our killer view, I swept up and start cleaning/throwing  stuff away in anticipation of the next two weeks getting this place emptied out and moving out West. We finished breakfast sans TV/internet and just chilled……. We finally got service back around noon or so. I had some tax stuff to take care of. One of the first emails I got was from my tax lady…… apparently we are going to get our a$$e$ handed to us and have to fork over a small fortune to Uncle Sam….. but it’s not a surprise this time…… just waiting to see how bad we’re gonna get smacked……… On top of that, our investment account has been going through the basement this month with the big scare over the Corona virus….. don’t have much of an account to begin with, but have managed to lose almost $10K since the first of this month……. That stings. Market took a nice surge yesterday…. but that’s a lot to make up just to get back to even…. always friggin’ something I guess.

Sorry, didn’t mean to go off track like that….. without ‘service’ we were left to our imagination to while the time away. There was supposed to be one of the biggest parties on the island today (A St. Paddy’s Day parade) but it got cancelled due to the virus….. jeeez I’m really getting sick of hearing about it and how ignorant the general public is responding to it…but again, I digress…… We heard there was going to be a party downtown anyway [sans parade] – but neither of us felt like it, so we stayed and happily started watching more House of Cards – which by the way is becoming very, very entertaining…… internet is still acting up a little bit – but gonna try and get some pictures up anyway. We’ll see…………

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

Whew~we……. Talked with future landlord….. sewer line has been fixed and we have an appointment Monday morning at 10:30 to sign our new contract for a place to live…. woo-hoo…….

Went up to Blues so my Queen could deliver the last of her Girl Scout cookies… woo-hoo…. While sitting there thinking my heart was going to beat out of my chest…. [but I think that was just a neurosis of mine]……managed to get mostly FUBAR’d while waiting for distribution of said Girl Scout cookies…. woo-hoo?

Back at the condo…. trying to upload pictures from today……. I think I got them… woo-hoo…… gonna put them up here and fall into bed……. I hope — woo-hoo……

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

Started my day off getting out of bed before I wanted to – which was probably a good thing because the call of nature was rattling my cage at that point and delaying dashing to the bathroom would not have been a good thing. Hustled out the door by 08:30 to make a meeting of the Vet’s organization I am the Treasurer for…… surprisingly, a very short meeting [Yay~!] – then we hit mid island to scope out a store my bride wanted to check out….. in true island fashion, it was closed…. so we motored on back to the condo for breakfast. We also had to find something new to watch, as we finished up You. A freaky little series that got a bit more twisted and morose as it went….. No surprise, as the recommendation came from our Damn Neighbors….. just another reason we love and miss them….. We settled on a new series (6 seasons) called House of Cards….. it started out kinda slow, but has definitely picked up and we both are ‘diggin’ it now that we are into episode # 5 already……. more on it as it develops.

One of the local dive shops was holding an Open house/party kinda thing tonight and I felt mildly obliged to attend…. won’t bore you with why….. but we cleaned up a little bit and ran ‘downtown’ to attend. Nice little event, but after about 25 minutes I was ready to go. I offered dinner out for my Queen, and while she was interested, we wound up at Blues instead for drinks. The place almost went into shock as we strolled through the gates, but it didn’t take more than a couple of minutes til everything was back to ‘normal’…… What should come as not surprise at all….. we wound up shutting them down. Craving some junk (because neither of us managed to order anything to eat)…… I headed to our local Mickey D’s… I had a hankering for some Fish Filet (with cheese and onion)….. we pulled in with only one car in front of us at the order station —- woo-hoo~! Looooong story short —- 22.5 minutes later, we had our order and was motoring towards the condo. Only a scant 10 minutes away – I managed to get 2 filet 0 fish in me before we got back….. back, in my ‘comfies’ and sitting here at the laptop….. I inhaled another filet 0 fish…. a medium order of fries and a damn tasty apple pie (YES~!!! they actually had some~!!!!)  Now belly full and starting to sober up [just a skosh]…. I am sitting here thinking about that double quarter pounder sitting patiently in the kitchen…… but I think that will be a tomorrow project  😉   For now, I’m gonna see what kind of pictures I have left that I don’t think you’ve seen yet…..

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

Another mostly leisurely day……. not sure what has got into us, but haven’t left the house much in the last week and a half or so….. being lazy…… saving money….. not sure what is behind it, but thankful to be able to do whatever the hell we feel like…… I’m sure the Blues crowd thinks we have moved back to the states or something. I personally think I subconsciously know that we have a pretty intense couple of weeks coming up very shortly – and I’m just enjoying the quiet and solitude right now of not having to do anything~~ I’m sure once we get started with the moving process…. I’m probably gonna be as busy and tired as I’ll ever want to be. So for now…… just chillin’ and takin’ it nice and easy~~~

Spent some time this afternoon updating Dive club records which included sorting through piles of paper that magically appear on my little worktop table that I sit at. In the process of going through that stack – I came across another ‘Tax Document’…….. Dammit Emmit~!!! I [thought] I submitted all that a couple of three days ago to my tax lady…….. Dammit Emmit….. now I had to scan 5 more pages and get them uploaded to my file on her server…….. It shouldn’t be that hard ya know…….. but I finally got it done while my Queen ran up and picked up some called in prescriptions and a couple of grocery items. Now – my Queen is back and working on a ham slice for us for dinner, while I finish up my odds and ends and try to get you all a little something to peruse.  We have a gorgeous sunset going on while the thunder of the big waves continues to lull us into a sense of inner peace…. for the time being… all is right in our little piece of the world.

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

GOPR5689  <—- Video

Another good night of slumber…. an agreeable breakfast and now wrapping up season one of You. That series just continues to get weirder and weirder… but I kinda like it. Even my bride is starting to warmup to it a little bit. If you have a bit of a warped sense of life as it happens…. you might like it…. maybe….. kinda……

Lit out a little after 5:00pm for our monthly CRABBS meeting……. Had a little smaller turn out than usual, but still an entertaining evening as we had a presenter talking about a dive trip they went on to the Silver banks. They had some fascinating pictures of a whale encounter they had. We also gave out a Life Time Achievement award to a fellow diver that I’m fairly sure everyone on the island knows. I had the privilege to dive with her a couple of times and she shared a ‘ton’ of underwater picture taking knowledge with me. She is an amazing underwater photographer~! She is leaving the island and will be sorely missed by a lot of people.

Came back here, made a bite to eat and uploaded pictures to the club FB page (CRABBS)…… I was gonna skip posting tonight because it’s going on 11:00 now, I’ve had a bit to drink, a bite to eat and am just plain ole tired….. but I get to sleep in (hahahahaha for those of you that don’t get to) so I thought I’d go ahead and get a couple of words up here. Standing out on the back porch with my bride smoking a cigarette, listening to the waves coming in. The weather is getting a little bit funky on us and we are starting to get some pretty respectable waves out there right now. Just before we took off for the meeting – we were having pretty consistent 5′-6′ waves breaking out over the reef. Dark now but from the sound of it – we are still having those same size waves…… the sound they make is awesome. It sounds like continuous thunder….. I’ve tried recording it several times, but it loses something in the recording. Several times, I thought about wading  out to where they start breaking, but that would pretty much be suicide and I don’t think even on a really good drunk night I would want to try that…. so I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it. Or come visit us and hear it for yourself……..   😉   Okay – done banged out more than I thought I could -so out for the night~~~~

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

Dawn broke without either of us this morning as we both slept in well past sunrise……. Ahhhh the retired life, and being lucky enough to be able to get that kind of sleep. Up, catching up on days events, breakfast and some more Shooter. We were expecting realtors to come by and look the place over and take pictures, so we didn’t want to get caught in the middle of something….. we had our breakfast and was seriously into an episode of Shooter when came the knock on the door……. I ‘kinda’ knew these people when we first got on the island….. they looked around…. asked a bunch of stupid questions, took some pictures and were soon on their way…… kinda makes our moving out seem a bit more official now. Just wish we had a place to move to~~ It’ll all work out though – I’m sure of it. We finished up Shooter…… sorry to see that one end (3 seasons)… we both enjoyed it. Trying out one now our Damn Neighbors recommended called You. Started out kinda of sappy, but starting to take a bit of a demented turn (I should have figured coming from those two) and I’m starting to get into to it now. I think my Bride is still on the fence about it – but we’re only 1 episode into it so far…. so we’ll stick it out a little bit and give you a follow up later……

Don’t know if you noticed the title of this blog or not….. 800…… just so happens to be my 800th blog~! I sure hope you all enjoy reading my nonsense as much as I do rattling on about it. If there is anything you’d like me to cover, by all means, drop me a note, text or whatever, and I’ll sure be happy to give it a shot. For now, my bride is making another batch of spaghetti – which means I’m gonna eat to much and be miserable….. but it will be a happy miserable….. if that’s possible. More pictures (diving I think)….. Thankx for reading~!

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

On the advice of a friend – I have been trying some Aleve PM trying to get a better nights sleep. Normally, Aleve, Advil and those types don’t do a thing for me other than not drive my BP through the ceiling…… Last night, after all my other medications….. I opted for 2 of the PM’s versus the one I have been taking….. I don’t know if it was the just the long lazy day, the amount of alcohol or what – but last night I managed a mostly solid 8+ hours of good sound sleep. Got up once to whizzz around 05:30, but went right back to sleep. Wow – a feller could get all kind of attached to that~! We had a day [oddly] filled with mostly clouds but hardly any rain….. probably hasn’t happened more than a handful of times since we’ve been here.  I hear tell that we have some ‘weather’ due this week along with some pretty sketchy seas that are due…. I guess time will tell – but it made for a nice cool day while we lounged and continued watching Shooter. Well in to the second season and we are very happy with it. Probably not a show for  everyone – but if you like military stuff and can appreciate the talent it takes to be a sniper – you’d like this one. If you don’t care for brains and ‘splatter’ – you might ought to skip it though  😉   Spent a small portion of the day out on the porch doing clean up while my bride made us breakfast and then some more clean up while she did the dishes. More Shooter….. and before long she was working on Dinner. While she started that – I sat down to start my ‘stuff’…… and the first part of my ‘stuff’ is catching up on emails….. Second email I open was from American Airlines.. telling me they had to change part of our flight for our trip back to the states…. in JUNE~! What the hell ???? We are talking about a trip a full two months from now and they already need to change it????  What the Hell ?????? I looked at their proposed changes and immediately clicked the “I can’t deal with those changes” button…… I’m sure it was called something else – but you get the gist of it. I got an auto response saying that I will receive a call in the next 24-48 hours from a representative to discuss my options……. What the #$%^&??????   2 Months from now and you’re already changing crap ???? What the !#$%^&?????? Just another good example of why I hate flying any more — these sorry @#$%@#$%^ just has to make it miserable……. and now I need to make sure I have my phone with me so I don’t miss these Sh*T heads when they call…… plus I get to deal with realtors that are apparently to busy or important, to call and make an appointment to come disrupt our lives tomorrow…… what the #$%^&*($%^ ????

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