Author: Bill

After a semi-decent nights sleep – which I really thought would have been better because of the manually activity I put out yesterday working on our Christmas decorations……. but I digress…… up and trying to get in the mode to get several things done I had in mind today…….. you know – it’s funny how often those things don’t work out~~~ I ‘computed’ until breakfast was ready and then promptly settled my big old nash into the couch. Feeling bad abut it – I made my self make a bottle of Spark and guzzled most of it while I finished the latest episode of Hart of Dixie. When that episode ended – I got up and cleaned the patio windows while my bride did breakfast dishes. We both finished up about the same time and used the ensuing smoke break – to get started in on our beach. For the next 4 hours or so – I raked, dug, pulled roots, raked some more and shoveled lots and lots of sand. My Queen even came out and got into the effort with some plant relocation and landscaping efforts. Somewhere around 4:00 we called it a day. Hot, sweaty and covered in sand – we headed in for showers and some alcohol.

I wish I would have taken some before pictures because it will be hard to appreciate what all we have got accomplished so far without them…… we still have some to do – but confident it will be finished before our next set of visitors. After the showers, my Queen made us some chili spaghetti.  I could not stop myself and ate enough to kill a buffalo or two…….. I was so upset with myself….. burned up all them calories and then turned around and ate probably enough to gain another pound or two. Oh well — I’ll learn one of these days – but it was soooooooo good~!

Nestled in on the couch watching more TV – I couldn’t hardly keep my eyes open, so figured I better get this out of the way before I lapsed into a food coma. Got a little running to do tomorrow – which includes going to pick up DD~!!.  Mechanic called and said come and get her~! Was a short in the wire he found…. and these other butt wipes already stuck me for $500 for a new computer. One of my stops tomorrow is to have the conversation about getting my $500 back….. I refuse to accept any answer other than “yes, we will return the money to your account”. I will feel better now – knowing when I run off to dive or work, my bride will now have a vehicle for her use…… at least for the foreseeable future. Don’t know if we can justify owning two vehicles for very long, but we’ll see.

Good Night Ya’ll & & & & & & & & & & & & & & Thankx for topping in~!

After sleeping in just a skosh this morning – I got up feeling a lot better than I expected to. I was pooped enough yesterday when I hit the sack – I slept good but figured my old, fat body would revolt against the amount of activity that I partook of. I was very happily wrong. Matter of fact – I think it is just reinforcement of the fact that I need to get my old fat body out and start doing more stuff. I feel better, I sleep better….. only down side is that I’m eating everything in sight, but I think I can overcome that with getting back to eating smarter……. (can’t help but laugh a little bit when I say things like that)

I managed to get the maintenance dude to leave me a ladder on the patio yesterday – and I committed to getting my Bride up her Christmas lights. Although I have spent most of my life going up and down ladders and spending inordinate amounts of time on them – each year I look less and less forward to having to do it. Dunno if it’s age, being sadly out of shape or what, but I thought I was dreading going up that ladder to put those lights up. However, I know how much my Queen wants those palms lit up – so after breakfast – I dutifully set about my task. I leveled out some of the holes around the trees, raked up some sea weed and then started wrapping the trees, which includes multiple trips up and down the ladders as I jockeyed the lines of lights around the trees. Thankfully, I felt a lot more comfortable on the ladder this year than I did last year. Not sure why – but kinda felt like my younger self as I scurried up and down it this year. The trees are now wrapped with lights. Cords are all buried and hidden. The beach has been raked (well, our little section of it). We did a preliminary plug in, and it looks like one strand of lights is deciding not to work, which really pi$$e$ me off, because I checked them all before I put them up…… but we’re gonna wait until it’s a little bit darker and try it again. Because well over half the lights didn’t work last year when I put them up – we bought several more strings – only this time we opted for multi-colored lights, so anxious to see how they look.

I’m writing this early – so I can get a shower and sit down and relax on the couch – so probably won’t have pictures up of the palms lit up tonight – but sure my Bride will post some once she sees them — I’m just crossing my fingers all the lights work….. if not – I’m probably gonna have to go buy more lights and restring the one tree. I’ll keep the ladder handy, just in case.

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

Raking our beach~~~ (Nice back ground view for “working” – right ? )

How many of you use an extension ladder to light your tree ??   😉

Hiding the wires….

IMG_3910   <—— Video

Don’t know what came over me last night – fat, old, out of shape, alcohol, lazy or maybe a happy combination of all of them – but I just could not get my self up to get on here and do much of anything last night. I couldn’t hardly keep my eyes open and was in bed sound asleep by 9:00. I really didn’t have that tough of a day…. not sure what it was but sure hope it don’t start happening a lot~! Shortly before I headed off to bed – a good friend back on the island for a bit called to remind me that I had agreed to meet him and some of the other Blues Crew at a local resort for a friendly game of golf the next morning. I did remember committing to it – so I told him I would be there. I guess another good reason to head to bed early as I had to get up by 05:15 to be able to be at the golf course by 07:30 for tee time. Originally scheduled for 8 guys – it boiled down to 6 – but we spent the next 4 hours swatting the little white balls around and chasing them….. and drinking beer. I was the only non-serious golfer of the bunch and was along mostly for the beer and comedic effect. It was a toasty 86° and a steady 12-15 mph wind. (the course sits right on the water)…..  Due to the fact most of the time – I couldn’t hit the ball more than a 100′ or so – I would just walk after it and kind of ‘mega-putt’ my way to the green. It didn’t take long to figure out just how bad of an idea that was….. some of the holes were par 5’s on the side of small mountains…. holy-moly. The steeper the hill got – the more prone to getting back in the golf cart I became. I wound up walking the better part of probably 4 holes and entirely too many hills sprinkled in there. I feel pretty good saying I got my cardio in for the rest of the month. We finally wrapped it up and met in the parking lot and agreed we needed to go to a local watering hole and talk about our games a little bit. We wound up down on the board walk, having drinks and watching all the people. The place was packed in anticipation of the boat parade that was taking place this evening. My Bride and I had originally planned to go down to watch it, but that got thwarted when we were asked to pick up our island ‘kids’ at the airport and take them to their house on yon Western mountain top. Looking back – we are both really glad we did that as I don’t think we could have tolerated the crowd that was already at the board walk – let alone what we both knew it would become. We went last year and enjoyed it – but neither of us are upset we missed it this year………..

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

Up and slightly more motivated this morning by a little better nights sleep — after my morning cup of coffee and getting my morning ‘constitional’ out of the way – I grabbed our big bag of dirty laundry, my FWAV stuff and headed out the door. First stop was the laundry….. also a motivation as my Bride advised me she was down to her last clean pair of underwear. My comment of wearing them inside out for double use, was not well received……. While we have a laundry room that comes with the building — it is a 100 yard hike to it and the stuffy room it sits in is filled with quarter eating excuses of machines that malfunction more times than not. The dryers are equally non trust worthy and on a couple of occasions when they do work – worked so well, they actually melted a couple of my shirts. So we decided a long time ago – that it is worth our time, energy, laundry and sanity to just have it sent out. We drop it off in the morning and in the afternoon go back to pick up a couple of small bags of clean, nicely scented, folded, laundry……. worth every penny~~ Dropped off laundry and then off to the bank. That trip is usually something I do not look forward to because of the attitude of the women who work behind the counter, but my last several visits have been almost enjoyable and this was the same. Even though she had well over $ 4000 in cash she had to count and verify, along with a dozen checks to process – she did it with a smile and in a reasonably timely fashion. From there I worked my way through downtown to stop in at my newest mechanic’s place. He happened to be outside, actually working on DD. Always a good sign. He explained what he was doing, what he has done and what he plans on next. He said he didn’t need anything from me, so I left him to the task. I forgot to stop by the Post Office to pick up mailers for my Queen [my bad] and headed on back for breakfast that she was working on. Rest of the day was a little computer work and finishing up our last season of Heartland. Can’t say I’m upset about that – as each episode just got thicker and thicker with drama. We started down the list my # 1 Fan (Vera) gave me, of new shows to check out. First one is Heart of Dixie – we are actually enjoying it and already half way through the first season. Rain storms are starting to kick up and I guess we are supposed to have some the next day or so. Not complaining as we could use the rain here on the island, but tends to dampen outdoor activity a bit (no pun intended) – that’s okay too…. we can watch TV while we wait for it to end~~

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

Our version of road construction

Getting in the holiday spirit – Kinda

Well dammit Emmit…….. after breakfast – I could just not get my a$$ in the mood to do much of anything except sit and watch TV……. so that’s about all I did today.  We did have a little bit of fun/excitement to start our day off again though. First trip out to smoke this morning… we saw dozens of little tracks coming from a suspected nest site – we didn’t get to see the actual hatching this time – but the tracks made it obvious we had more babies during the course of the night. Yay~!! On a subsequent trip out to smoke – a small movement caught my eye…. it was a baby turtle… I guess running a little bit late from the rest of his brothers and Sisters…. but he was dutifully making his way to the water just as fast as his little flippers would take him – and right behind him… another little turtle. I ran and got my phone for a picture or two for you. I never get tired of seeing them little dudes~! I made sure they both made it into the water. Rest of the day was pretty tame until I ran my Bride into town around 3:00 for a hair appointment and then sat here dutifully waiting for her to ping me to go pick her up. I sat here for 2 hours just piddling around on line – although I did manage to just about finish our Christmas shopping~! My Bride finally pinged me and said ‘never mind’ – she would get a ride home with Gail…..Dammit Emmit…~! I could have been doing stuff those two hours….. so I jumped up and went out for a smoke and knocked out a little more landscaping while I was out there and then came in and put new insulation around the front door – trying to keep all that wonderful cool [expensive] air, inside the condo….. My bride pinged me and said she was on her way – so I thought I’d get you all a note out real quick before she got here.

Plan is to do all the stuff tomorrow, that I had planned to do today – guess we’ll see how that works out……  😉

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

IMG_3861 <— Video

Up late later last night than expected…. we got wrapped up in the newest season of Heartland and all the drama that is going on now with Ty and Amy having their baby after Ty damn near died…… that and my Queen was dealing with some really unexpected GI issues….. so late to bed, but up at a pretty normal time and thankfully my Queen feeling a smidge bit better. We spent a pretty typical morning up until breakfast and a little bit more Homeland, before I settled down behind my laptop and spent the next 4+ hours or so getting my books caught up for the Fish With A Vet organization. A mind numbing pain in the a$$ detail – but it has to be done and I signed up for it….. so I sat and knocked it out.

A few more episodes [and a new season already] of Heartland and by then the shadows had reached out far enough, for the next several smoke breaks….. I wandered out with clippers and a rake and worked on my landscaping. It is coming along nicely and my Bride is happier with it as I go~ She finally made us another nice dinner of Chicken Cordon Bleu with rice and corn. Some kind of gravy or stew over the rice would have put it ‘over the top’….. but still very, very tasty. Now a word or two for you all and some more pictures….. Gonna take laundry out tomorrow, plus take care of some banking business for Fish With A Vet and probably stopping by to check in on DD and see if there is any progress being made there. Will try and snap a new picture or two as I go. Speaking of which….. the Christmas Winds are officially here along with a beautiful full moon. Standing out on our patio now at night….. we actually get a bit ‘chilly’ as temps dip down into the upper 70°’s….. [aweee – right ?] A gorgeous cool breeze now with ZERO humidity…. Ahhhh – life is good. Some pic’s from today and some more dive pictures…….

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

Conch shell~

My Queen~~

We made it until a little after 9:00 last night before we both collapsed into bed. I dropped off almost immediately to sleep and don’t think I moved a muscle until a couple minutes after 07:00 this morning. That was exactly the kind of sleep I needed. Would have loved to got another two or three hours of that kind of sleep – but that is just purely wishful thinking on my part~! Had a nice small breakfast and just kinda hung out on the couch. Even though we both got a good nights sleep – we were both still moderately worn out from the day before, so that’s how we spent most of the day. Our ‘Island Kids‘ installed Netflix on our TV using their account – so we looked up Heartland and found there is another three or four seasons we can get (for free) on Netflix – so that is pretty much all we have done is catch up on the drama that is Heartland. We both agree, we think we like Netflix better….. seems to be faster and definitely has a much better picture. I did manage to get a little bit energetic as the sun dropped and went out and started a little landscaping on our out of control bushes….. so I made my first real dent into them….. so the plan is to expend a little energy each day until I get the bushes and the beach back in the shape I want it. We have a massive hole right off of our patio (left over from multiple big turtles digging in it) and I want the place looking spiffy for our next set of visitors……

Really not a lot else to carry on about. I have a ton of diving pictures I know you haven’t seen yet – but I’m not sure what I have put up yet and what I haven’t…. so bear with me if I wind up with some shots you’ve already seen.

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

Captain J T drawing out the dive plan~

As I stated yesterday….. up at 04:00 this morning……yuck~! I still can’t believe I did that every day for 17 years……. anyhow… Up, a splash of coffee and out the door. I dropped my Queen off at her assigned location and then drove back around to park then hike my happy a$$ to where the divers were supposed to meet. We was supposed to be there at 05:30 and I arrived about 5 minutes early. Then we all commenced to stand around – for 30 minutes before anybody showed up…… good grief – it was just like the military – Hurry up and wait. I could have slept in another half hour…. and I’m telling ya right now – I could use it right about now.

We finally loaded on the boat – got all of gear put together and out we went. Even though I was on the last stretch of the race – I was second off of the boat. They dropped me off as they proceeded around and dropped the other 13 divers off strategically around the course. I hit the water at 06:15 and for the next 3 hours and 15 minutes, I bobbed around in the water keeping a careful eye out for anybody that was getting tired or was in distress. There were also about a dozen kayakers paddling around as well and a couple of boats patrolling the course. Let me tell you…… 3+ hours is a long time to bob around in the water. Thankfully, nobody needed any help this year – from me or any of the other divers or kayakers. When the boat finally came around to scoop me up – my legs were like jello and I couldn’t hardly climb up into the boat. I was as water logged as I  ever wanted to be, but it’s a good feeling to know you are helping keep the swimmers safe. After I got unloaded back on shore – I staggered back to the truck – put up my gear, got on a dry shirt and then moseyed across town where my Queen was at. They had the entire down town area blocked off and there was no way to get to her in the truck. I found her and we trekked back to the truck. Both of us properly worn out by then.

We came back to our nice cool condo. I cleaned my gear, took a shower and collapsed on the couch. We finished up SUITS – well, kinda – there is one more season, but in it’s infinite greed, Amazon Prime wanted $19.99 to buy the season…UMmmm – no. We looked around at different shows and finally agreed to a couple of movies. Rambo – Last Blood….. a little bit cheesy, but hey~ It’s Sly and I had to see it~ The other one was one called The Hangman with Al Pacino. Good movie with a fun twist at the end. Gonna put up pictures I took during the race today – kinda of a look from my perspective…. and then hopefully an early bedtime.

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

A Looong day…. our CRABBS Christmas party…. a lot of Vodka and Cranberry and a reeeeaaaallllllly long day tomorrow…. tired – ready for a shower and a nap before having to get up at 04:00 tomorrow morning to be a safety diver for the St. Croix Triathlon tomorrow…….. so pictures from the party tonight….. and I’ll try and snap a couple of pix tomorrow…….

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

Got two more dives in this morning with wonderful vis (100’+) – sharks, eels, turtles…… just plain ole good stuff— BOTH dives~!!   Back, showered and hungry enough to…… well, never mind~~  😉 My Bride decided we needed to go to Blues for a bite to eat and a ‘drink or two’  BaHaHahAAaaaaa…….  We each had a wonderful meatball sub…… MmMmMm good…… and a ‘drink or two’…..Hehehehehehehe…. I am not too d runk to type – but MUCH too tired…. so I’m gonna share some pictures of the night and a couple of pictures from my dives with you all….. I’m gonna put up my music trivia and then go to bed – will not pass – will not collect #200….. just go to bed……. 😉

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

Not sure if it’s my eyes that are blurry — or the picture~!!