Living the life most people just dream about~

Up much earlier again than I cared for this morning, not sure what the deal is, but have got to find a way to get a tad more sleep. I guess going to bed at a decent hour would help that, so I’m gonna try writing a little earlier in an effort to hit the sack a little earlier.

Got an early morning text from Deb saying they weren’t going up to the yard today, so no reason to come up (Angie was gonna get the new fence painted while I built a gate) That meant I had to stay at home and do nothing but eat and relax….. Awww….. dang~~~~ 😉  My Queen me a great big breakfast with all my favorites (no hotdogs) while I relaxed on the couch and watched the idiot box. Following that nice big breakfast, she joined me for a day of watching movies, pausing periodically to take phone calls from each of my Daughters, wishing me a Happy Father’s Day.  Holidays, particularly this one, pulls a little harder at the heart strings knowing I intentional packed up and moved away from them. A decision though I do not regret – don’t believe I ever will. Over the course of the day, I got to chat with all four of them and a couple of grand babies as well  🙂  As the day wore into afternoon, my bride whupped up a big mess of spaghetti (another favorite of mine) and we sat and watched more movies while we ate. I am almost ashamed of myself for the day I had today – but hot damn did I enjoy it~!! I had to get up and move a little bit as I’m at the point where I can hardly keep my eyes open, so here I  be….. I hope all you Dads out there enjoyed your Fathers Day as much as I enjoyed mine~!

I have one more task I am going to work on before I crash — in the last 2 days, I have started getting text messages saying “Your Uber code: 5620” or something to that effect…. but I am getting 20-30 of them in a row. I have texted STOP – I have even got nasty about it – but they are still popping in. We don’t even have Uber on the island, so if I can figure out how to un-install an App on my phone – I’m gonna try that and see if it will stop it.

Not sure what tomorrow brings – but for tonight – Happy Fathers day and good night ya’ll — Thankx for stopping in~!

 

As it turns out….getting ready to head back up to Blues this morning — I again made me a couple of eggs with another hot dog….. trying out my Zataran’s and ketchup theory. Definite improvement~! Not something I would like every morning, but it’s quick and hot. Got up to Blues just a shade after 08:00 and went straight to work. By shortly after 10:00 I had the fence completed. I had salvaged some lattice from around the yard and tacked it up just to see what it would look like. Jim was tickled with it. I intend to go back up in the morning with my bride and pop the lattice off and let her paint it while I work on the gate.

One of the places I salvaged lattice from was a section up in the back to keep the dogs out of a particular area — so I went around and grabbed some chain link fence that I had salvaged from the area I cleaned up last week. I wound up spending about to hours hanging a section of chain link across the area where I took the lattice from, so everything is back in order now and ready for us tomorrow morning. We should finish it up by noon or so and then I’ll probably take a little time off to let ‘wounds heal up. When I was working the section of chain link fence – I ‘found’ a small wasp nest and one of them buggers got me directly on the end of the elbow. Not sure what kind of wasp it was, but it burned like fire when he stung me and now, some 12 hours later, the elbow is swelled up and still burns almost as bad as it did when it first stung me. Pretty potent little bugger~! I also have a blister on each hand (gone soft from non-use) that I manage to rip each of them open today, so I’m a little worse for wear, but nothing I won’t recover from.

Came home, again sucked up some conditioned air, got a shower and relaxed on the couch watching the idiot box with my Queen. I decided to treat myself tonight with pizza using a new delivery service here on the island. It still took and hour and a half to get pizza…… but it was pizza and I didn’t have to go after it~! I ordered some wings for my bride and we sat and watched Dirty Jobs while we ate. My bride is now in bed fast asleep and I’m looking forward to joining her —

Tomorrow is Father’s Day — if you’re lucky enough to still have your Dad in your life – enjoy him as much as you can. They go away entirely too soon.

Good night ya’ll — thankx for stopping in~~!

   

After going to bed at a reasonable hour last night, I woke up a little before 06:00 after a much better nights sleep, no doubt fueled by 3.5 hours of intense physical labor in a blistering hot sun followed up by consumption of lots of cold refreshing adult beverages  (guess that sounds mildly better than hooch or alcohol)…… whatever the reason, it felt good to get a decent nights sleep. My body felt a hellva lot better than I expected it to and aches, pains and cramping muscles were almost none existent~! Yay for me~!! I also learned [another] painful lesson yesterday as well – in that I had opted to skip any type of breakfast before I launched into my day of manual labor. Big mistake…… you don’t get to be my size by eating lettuce and skipping meals and by 09:00 I was feeling that mistake, so this morning I whipped up a couple of eggs. I “require” some kind of meat with my breakfast – but instead of making my typical sausage, I had a couple of left over hot dogs from the previous night – so I grabbed one and cut it up into my eggs. It was different. While I love hot dogs – they didn’t blend with the scrambled eggs as well as I thought they would – I ate them, and it wasn’t terrible, but will probably be a spell before I do it again…… maybe…. OOH…maybe if I have some ketchup with the eggs instead of my Zataran’s~!  Or both~!!   We’ll see~~  😉

So with a breakfast [of sorts] in my belly and my little cooler with bottles of water – I wound up at Blues a bit before 07:00 again and launched straight into digging more post holes. First hole I dug turned out to be the toughest of the 4 that I was digging (go figure) – but I got the  holes dug, the posts set and actually got a several of the rails put up before I had to start cleaning up my stuff as the folks in the trailer got ready for another day of serving some of the best BBQ on the island. My ‘breakfast’ served me well, as I did not wind up with that mid morning slump like the day before. I should have the fence finished tomorrow and may even get the [custom] gate built and put up as well. I didn’t take any pictures of my progress today – but will tomorrow when the fence is constructed, then one more when it’s been painted and finished. I sat and had a couple of beers with Jim when I was finished when I got a text from my bride saying I needed to stop at the hardware store and pick up a handle for the commode on my way home. No rest for the weary…..  I stopped and picked up said handle and came home and had it installed in fairly short order.

The rest of my day was taking it easy on the couch with my Queen watching movies. She also surprised me by making up a batch of egg salad. She done so good — because I LOVE me my egg salad…… she’s probably gonna regret it tonight though…. 😉   DAMN it was good~!

That’s my space for tonight…… tomorrow is another day….. new blisters…. more sweat but at least I don’t have any more post holes to dig……… I hope.

Good night ya’ll —- Thankx for stopping in~~!

   

Does this really sound ‘good’ for you ?

 

I heard long ago, probably from my Dad – there are two things in this world there is no such thing as…… and that good shoveling and bad…. well, considering my audience – I’ll stop there….. After this morning…. I’m adding another ‘thing’….. post hole digging – admittedly though, that would probably fall into the shoveling category.

I got up shortly after 06:00 this morning after a very mediocre night’s sleep, greeted once again a beautiful sunrise. My Queen got up about the same time so I started the coffee and went out for a stretch and a smoke. I have recently started a small stretching routine during my morning nicotine fix — nothing fancy or exotic – just overall stretching of most muscles. I have found I don’t get quite as sore during the day doing that.  I have also started a regime of CBD oil – so I don’t know if it is the oil or the stretching or both – but I find myself feeling a little better at the end of my day. Today may have been an exception……. I got up to Blues shortly before 07:00 this morning and launched right into my fence project. I got the posts cut to size, positioning mapped out and started in digging post holes. I started in the place I expected to be the toughest to dig (right up against the trailer) because of the gravel in the area where the trailer sits. Tie me to an ant hill and smother my ears in jelly was I ever right….. wow~~ Turns out I had to get through approximately 10″ of packed chat and gravel to get to anything that even resembled dirt. I also discovered that I am considerably more out of shape than I ever imagined….. good grief….. The muscles (in my body) used for pile driving a post hole digger have not been used in a long time….. a very long time……. the energy needed to do that for a sustained time apparently escaped my body as well……. after this morning, I am starting to accept the fact that maybe the old gray mare [stallion] ain’t what he used to be….. and it sucks. While I may not do a lot to maintain myself….. and have no real expectations of ever being a Jack LeLaine (for those of you old enough to know who that is)…. I didn’t think I had shriveled up that bad……. I’m not sure if it is the age, out of shape – a blistering sun or a happy combination of all of them – but the end result SUCKS~! Maybe a wake up call…… anyhow, I stayed with it and got two of the post’s dug and set (turns out the second hole wasn’t any easier). Because they were going up in the path of the people coming in and out of the trailer, I shut it down for the morning about the time they started getting busy in the trailer prepping for the start of their day. Came back to the condo and sat on the couch and sucked up condition air for a bit before getting my shower. It was spooky how weak my arms and hands were…… I fully plan on being back up there in the morning to get the last two poles set —- guess I’ll use that as a ‘work out’ plan of sorts……. provided I can get out of bed in the morning……..  😉

Good night ya’ll — Thankx for stopping in~!

     

 

       

Well… dammit Emmit~! I had big plans of getting up to Blues bright and early this morning to start in on my fence but for several goofy reasons I’m not going in to — It didn’t happen and I wound up spending half day pecking away at this thing (laptop) and the second half of the day watching the TV and some movies. Got up long enough to run up to the store for some essentials (smokes, hamburger and hooch) and then came back for more of the idiot box…… a really  laid back kind of day that is just good for the soul~~~ We did get interrupted once by the exterminator…. but that really was not a lot of excitement…….

So I’m gonna leave it at that…… here are some pictures for you and we’ll have to wait and see what tomorrow brings.

Good night ya’ll — Thankx for stopping in~!

 

 

 

   

Got to sleep in a bit this morning, but only because I woke up in the middle of the night and peed for approximately 17 minutes. Well, probably wasn’t that long, but it certainly felt like it. They say corn is crop – a pee [pea] is a relief — Hey – I’ll take it if it lets me sleep in a little bit. Got up, followed shortly by my Queen and we had our coffee and nicotine sticks. I told her I would like to be at Home Depot by 08:00, but fairly sure I wasn’t going to make it (cause it was 08:20 then) — so I aimed for 09:00. I was suffering from some upper GI distress – and I’m sure it had nothing to do with the amount of alcohol, or onions that I had the previous day. 😉  Finally felt safe to leave the general area of my bathroom and headed out to Home Depot to pick up materials I need for the fence I am putting up. Spent 30 minutes or so and finally had DD loaded with everything I think I’ll need for the job. Pictures to follow in the next day or so. Delivered the load to Blues and got everything unloaded. It was already after noon by that point, so we had to sit and have a couple of drinks~! I did have another hotdog [yes- with onions]. We had  several more drinks and headed back to the condo.  I had been invited to a meeting of a local dive club that evening, and I wanted to get back and get showered up for that.

My bride and I both showered up and sat on the couch and sucked up some conditioned air and just took it easy until it was time to head out for the meeting. It was held above a restaurant called BREW STX — A place that specializes in their own local made beer. Interesting group of folks. They call them selves CRABBS. I haven’t fund out what the acronym is for yet – but I have come up with one that suits me (Crotchety Raunchy Ancient Bald Bastards) but I seriously doubt that is it, but they’re welcome to use it if they like it  😉  I volunteered for several events they have coming up, one which includes being a rescue diver for the upcoming Iron Man Triathlon.  I think that will be interesting as hell. Will try and get pictures of anything I get myself involved in for you. I think I signed up to join the club as well, but started drinking when I got there and not entirely sure now if I did or not~~~ : )  Finally packed up and came back to the condo. It looks like we have new neighbors for the next week. Kinda looking forward to meeting them and being able to tell them we LIVE here and telling them about our beautiful island.

The plan now is to get up fairly early and get some work done on the fence at Blues before it gets brutal hot — so I’m gonna put some pix up for you and call it a night….. hopefully sleeping all the way through the night AND sleeping in 😉

Good night ya’ll …… Thankx for stopping in~!

 

 

  IMG_6103

 

Had to have DD up to the garage this morning at 09:00….. rolled in and dropped it off to have new brakes put on it. I figured it wouldn’t take more than an hour or so – well, okay 3 hours (island time)….. so I meandered down to Blues to wile away the time. I wound up being a substitute driver for a guy needing to move a couple of vehicles around the island. It was a nice distraction and killed an hour or so. Got back to blues and drew up some plans for a new fence Jim is wanting put up. Finishing that, I sat down at the bar and got a beer and waited for a call from the garage saying my truck was done. And I waited…. and waited…. and waited, the whole time pouring down really cold beer that was going down a whole lot easier than it probably should have. By 12:30 I had a pretty good buzz going probably speeded up by the fact I didn’t have much of a breakfast – so I ordered one of those primo hotdogs and wolfed it down. That helped…. and I continued to wait. Finally at 15:00, I had about all the beer I could stand (and still stand/walk) and walked back up to the garage. Mechanic ‘just brought the ticket in‘……. yeah, yeah – how much do I owe you ?  $ 195.00 (plus the $70.00 I had to pay up front for them to order the parts in) Seems a little steep for a set of front disc brakes – but whadda ya gonna do ? At least now DD should be good to go for a while……. I hope.

Not much else to chat about and it’s past my bedtime….. so I’m gonna leave it here and put up the rest of my pictures from the dive the other day.

Good night ya’ll —-Thankx for stopping in~!

Tried desperately to sleep in this morning, but the urge to visit the bathroom was just too overwhelming, so about 06:00, I begrudgingly rolled out of bed and semi-sprinted to the bathroom. Between that feeble effort of a sprint and all of that brilliant sunshine pouring into the living room – I was up  🙁    whether I wanted to be or not, so I washed my face, brushed my teeth….. arranged and straightened the few remaining strands of hair on my head…… and walked out to the beautiful view I get to wake up to every morning. Plus I get to listen to the surf pounding in while I stand there and enjoy that first cigarette of the day and that view. My Queen was an hour or so behind me, so I had a fairly quiet start to my day. We had coffee, and just kind of lounged and enjoyed a peaceful start to our day. It got to be 09:00 and my belly was growling, so I went in and started a nice big breakfast for us. Eggs, bacon, hash browns, 3 kinds of sausage, toast and a small glass of milk……. Mighty fine way to kick off a day~~!

Kind of recuperating from a fairly busy weekend, we were both content to sit and watch the idiot box, with lots of reruns of COPS and North Woods Law. We finally decided we’d had enough of that and started watching some movies. First one we watched was ” A Walk in the Woods” with Robert Redford and Nick Nolte — about 2 older guys who want to hike the Appalachian trail. It is something I would love to try!! Yes, even now at my advanced age…. I think I could do it, probably wouldn’t set any speed records – but would love to try in it none the less~!  A guy I worked with who recently retired, completed it and I am in awe of him. It was a good movie – you’d probably enjoy it. The next movie we watched was called “Jungle” Based on a true story — Main star was the kid that plays Harry Potter. I wouldn’t pay to watch it, but for free, it was not too bad……. For reason’s I’ll probably never figure out – I felt the need to watch “The Shawshank Redemption” again. I have seen this movie (or at least pieces of it) 3 dozen times and always enjoy it every time I get to see it. I think maybe, it has a little more meaning to it, knowing now, that a couple of the final scenes were filmed here on the island – and it’s kinda neat, to see the scene and know that I have been to those actual locations and recognize them now when I see them in the movie~!

After ‘Shawshank’ my belly was growling again, so I whupped up a cheeseburger and started in on this. Yeah, yeah, yeah….. I shouldn’t be eating this late at night…. but I’m retired, old, fat and don’t really care  😉   So – now with a full belly, I’m gonna load some more pictures of the dive at Cane Bay yesterday and then probably waddle my old, tired, fat a$$ to bed….. got to get my rest for that sprint in the morning~!

Good night ya’ll —- Thankx for stopping in~!

Hustled out the door bright and early to attend a seminar on reef restoration…. truth be told – it initially sounded like an easy way to get in a cheap SCUBA dive….. I showed up  at the grounds and was soon chatting up some of the various organizations that had set up camp there. Interesting, interesting stuff…… I have always been a fan of taking care of the planet, especially underwater – but this just enhanced it for me. I learned a lot from the groups actively working on restoring the reefs, damaged via nasty humans, or from an ever changing climate. Good stuff, they showed the ‘trees’ they plant to help restore the reefs and had some of the volunteers out there demonstrating what they must got through to keep the ‘trees’ healthy and producing new corals. Very cool, very interesting stuff~! After the seminar, they led a group of divers out to see the ‘farm’ of ‘trees’ they had planted. I was duly impressed. Groups of volunteers go our ever other  week to clean the algae off of the ‘trees’ to promote healthy coral growth on them. After viewing the work on the coral farms, we were free to explore the local area — very nice diving although there were entirely too many divers in the water for my liking. I did manage to get a bunch of pictures for you though. I also signed up to be a volunteer diver to help clean the ‘trees’. Not sure what all it entails, but I would get to SCUBA a little bit plus it supports a really good cause. More on that as it develops~!

I had promised Jim to help him with a BBQ wing competition, so after my dive, I had to hustle back to the condo for a shower and then run up to Blues to help Jim move his stuff downtown for the competition……. my Queen and I loaded everything into DD’s and headed downtown to meet Jim to get set up. Navigating some of the most F**ked up traffic on the planet – we finally got everything unloaded and set up. Not a big competition, but a gorgeous venue and lots and lots of friendly people. I did manage to sample all the competitors stuff – and in all honesty – Jim had them beat hands down…. I’m not just sayin that because we frequent his place once in a while. Okay, okay, okay~! We frequent it a LOT~! BUT – I have been grilling/BBQing a long time…… a damn long time. I have been eating grilled/BBQed material even longer. Let me tell you – and you old fat guys out there will know what I’m talking about. You don’t get a physique like mine without knowing your way around some chow~!!! Awards were given and our man Jim didn’t even get mentioned. What a bunch of horse $hit~! He did receive ‘most popular booth’ in the event – but nothing for taste/appearance or texture. Really ? How in the name of Sam Houston does that happen ?? Not saying there was any politics or anything – but C’mon…….  Any how…… we wrapped everything up and headed back to Blues to lick our proverbial ‘wounds’. We’ll live to fight another day~! Now back at the condo – showered, fed and sucking up a bunch of this conditioned air~~~!!   OOh-Rah~! Hopefully tomorrow is a laid back, eat a lot and do a lot of nothing day~!

Good night Ya’ll —- Thankx for stopping in~!

Up a lot earlier than I wanted this morning, sadly of my own doing…. My Queen had an early morning hair appointment. Got her dropped off for her hair thing and I took off to pick up the 100# propane tank that I bought yesterday at Home Depot. Ya’ll don’t know what you’re missing dealing with ‘local’s’ working at a big retail place….. yesterday looking for the tank – I ask four different people if they had the big propane tanks….. I got varying degrees of NO from the first 3 people I spoke with – fourth one said yes – but they were buried in the back and would take 2-3 hours to get them dug out. So I paid for it and told them I’d be back in the morning to pick it up…… only to get there this morning to be told they had no idea what I was talking about – even though they were holding the receipt I gave them showing it paid in full…… lord have mercy~~ They finally ‘found’ it and told me to  drive down to the lumber area and they would load it for me. I waited outside the lumber area for almost 30 minutes before they showed up with it….. I could have got snotty about it – but have found out, it really doesn’t do any good. Island time~!!! Finally in the truck and delivered back across island where it was going, just in time to go pick up my bride. She took me to Blues and dropped me off and left to go get her nails done while I went to work finishing up the fence line. I finally got it to where I was happy with it and sat down to have a beer while I waited for Angie to come back. Here is before and after shots:

 

 

After sitting and drinking entirely too much we loaded up and came back to the condo, where I promptly sat down and fell sound asleep. After a refreshing nap I got up and took a shower. Original plan was to go back up to Blues to listen to the band, but my Queen took pity on me when she saw how relaxed I was and we opted to stay in for the evening. Feeling real good about what all I got done today, I decided to treat myself to a pizza. Called Domino’s and they said they had a delivery person today (it’s iffy most of the time) so I ordered a pizza and some breadsticks. Now understand, Domino’s is less than 10 minutes from us and after 6 phone calls and 1 hour and 15 minutes later…. I finally got my pizza….. guess next time I’ll just go get the damn thing myself…….Island time…… not always a good thing.

Got a big day tomorrow. Attending a reef restoration seminar followed up by a dive to see some of their work – and then I think we’re gonna be helping the Blues crew at a wings competition up town that afternoon. Hopefully I’ll be able to snag some pictures at both~!

Good night ya’ll — Thankx for stopping in~!