Living the life most people just dream about~

Actually slept in a little bit this a.m. – and rolled out of bed, not feeling like I had been beaten with a bat all night. Didn’t feel great, not even good – but didn’t feel bad and in my book, at my age with the lifestyle I have lived – I’ll chalk that one up as a win~! Nothing on the books in particular to get accomplished today, I set about my morning routine, only to ‘remember’ that I really needed to do something with DD to keep rain from pouring in during frequent bouts of liquid sunshine. (that’s what we used to called it when I was stationed in Germany and it rained all the time…… liquid sunshine) so – shortly after a tasty breakfast, I lit out for ye old hardware store. I tried the small local one first [nearby] only to find out they only had one of the half dozen items I was after, so I cut across island to the Home Depot store……. jeeez I hate going to that store. Never cared for it to start with, but here on the island….. I absolute dread going to it. I was picking up some stuff to work on DD to keep the rain out. My gut told me to go with what I knew (Bondo) but instead I got what friends and locals referred to as JB Weld……. big mistake, I found out after I had ground down a 2″ square hole in the roof of DD. Long story, shortened….. (I should have went with what I knew)… but I think I have DD once again able to keep the rain on the OUTside of the vehicle….. guess I’ll find out after tonight as TS Dorian is supposed to make her appearance sometime shortly after Midnight.

After working on DD and spending an additional hour working on a couple of the doors in the condo (trying to make them airtight) I finally sat down on the couch with my Bride to enjoy a little rest and let my back calm down a little bit. Before I actually got to do that –  it was decided we need to go to Blues for drinks and maybe a bite to eat. Changing clothes, we were soon up at Blues, having drinks and chatting with many friends. A LOT of conversation about Dorian…… wow – I will be the first to admit out loud….. I did not live through either Irma or Maria here on the island, so I cannot speak to what it took to live through what appeared to be a disaster at it’s finest…. and I won’t even try….. but to my humble soul, it seems to me some of these folks are just flat freaking out over the possibility of Dorian hitting the island. If certain people read this, I may up set them, and that is certainly not my intention….. but it just seems to me there is a LOT of un-necessary worrying going on…….. CRAP – I’m already at 500 words with a lot more to ramble about…. so I’ll quit here. It may be to my advantage to ramble more tomorrow after Dorian has blown by…… until then, some random pix and a few more dive pix~~

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

 

Up early to get up to the clinic this morning to have some blood drawn. I thought if I got there bright and early – I could get in a head of the crown and get back here quicker. Apparently I was not the only one to think like that, but I finally got in, poked, bled and was on my way…. minus a couple viles of blood and $ 52.00~~  Jeeez~~ you have to pay to get abused around here……  😉

Spent pretty much the rest of the day nursing a sore back and watching The Practice.  My Queen offered up a couple of muscle relaxers and in the interest of being pain free – took them. I think they just kicked in, because it’s all I can do to write and keep my eyes open. Dammit Emmit~ So I think I’m gonna call it a short day soon and hit the sack.

I tried to schedule a dive for tomorrow but most boat owners are busy getting their boats into harbors and Marina’s in anticipation of Tropical Storm Dorian swinging by our little island, and apparently none of them are ‘going out’ tomorrow. I have been watching the development and path and am not overly concerned with it hitting us. We may get a little rain and wind out of it, but I don’t think we have anything to worry about — Guess we’ll see here in a day or so.

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

Actually slept in a tiny bit this morning after a mildly decent night’s sleep for a change. I got up and ran up to the store for some milk and odds and ends and came back to a nice breakfast my bride whooped up for us. It got to be 11:00 or so and I started loading DD up for a trip out West for a dive and dive club Board meeting. Met up with almost everybody and was soon in the water for an underwater tour of the pier. The pier is one of the top rated dive spots in the word and it seldom disappoints. This was a fun casual dive and I loved it. I got to ‘bottle-ass‘ around and take all kinds of fun pictures all while getting to see tons of life. Saw a couple of turtles… an [uncooperative] octopus, a porcupine fish, a small school of squid, flounders, and so, so much more. We were down there an hour and 10 minutes before we finally crawled out and got ready for our Board meeting. We met up with a couple of other folks that could not make the dive to discuss up coming events for the dive club. Munched on some loaded French fries (they were out of Tater-Tots)  🙁   and enjoyed several nice cold Budweiser’s while the meeting went on. Finally wrapped it up and got back here. A nice cool shower to wash the salt off and get my pictures up loaded. I took 103 pictures on the dive and wound up saving almost 70 of them. Again, to many to put up on here all at once so will spread them out over a couple of days.

Got to go get some blood drawn tomorrow morning for my appointment with Doc on Thursday — follow up on my Blood Pressure. I have been keeping a spreadsheet on it – and while it is still higher than what Doc wants – it’s a damn site better than it was, but I suspect she’ll change my medication again to get my BP numbers in the range she wants. I hate breaking in new meds…. almost always some goofy side affect that is fun to deal with……. guess we’ll see~~

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

A slightly better nights sleep, but up early again to help a friend haul some concrete. One of the joys of owning a truck….. even on the island (maybe especially living on the island because everybody mostly drives Jeeps or little cars) So you’re always gonna be popular, whether you want to be or not. Anyhow – I met him up at the Home Depot a little before 08:00. He said he needed 30 bags – at 45 lbs a bag that would have been close to 1400 lbs. That’s a lot for my little truck, but I thought it could handle it. Turns out they were 60 lb bags and the yay-hoo on the fork truck was bound determined to get them all on there. No….NO…NO…NO~!!! I finally wound up yelling at him to keep him from blowing out my back tires and shocks….. So we had to hand unload half of the pallet into the truck and I wound up having to make 2 trips to get them all hauled. Luckily, where they were being dropped wasn’t very far away and I was soon finished with the hauling and headed back to the condo

We had the volunteer appreciation dinner up at Blues last night with a decent turn out. Everybody had a good time, the food was delicious as always and pretty much everybody stayed until almost closing time. The band knocked it out of the park with music, so there was dancing….. even when a sudden down pour tried to put a damper on the party – a very good time in deed as Fish With A Vet USVI showed our appreciation for the help from our volunteers.

After I got home this morning – we had breakfast and spent the rest of the day watching The Practice. Also watching the Sea starting to reclaim some of that pile of Sargassum on our beach. I’m glad because when the wind lays down, that stuff has a powerful smell to it that can be really hard to take. It is also kind of neat to watch it being drug back out to sea.

I have a Board meeting for the CRABBS dive club tomorrow out on the West end of the island. We usually do a dive as a group before the meeting. I plan on making that dive as well as long as the weather is decent. Tropical Storm  Dorian is stirring up some commotion out in the Atlantic and we are kind of in it’s path – so we have been getting some pop up weather from out in front of it. I think it’s supposed to pass by us Tuesday or Wednesday. Should make for some great pictures if it gets close enough~! Here are the rest of the dive pictures from the other day…. Hopefully I get to dive tomorrow and get you some more pics~!

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

Yet another miserable night’s sleep – -but I’m sure you’re about tired of hearing about it, so I’ll just hush…… Up early enough to get my morning stuff out of the way before heading up to Blues early this morning.  Jim uses old rum barrels from the local distillery as his ‘fuel’ for his smoker and his supply of cut up pieces was out. I help him out on occasions, cutting the barrels in half, knocking the rings off and then stacking the pieces for him. Not necessarily a tough job – but in brilliant sunlight and being an old fat out of shape guy, it didn’t take but about one barrel to have my shirt soaked in sweat….. and I did 6 more barrels after the first one. That job and my mess cleaned up and tools put away – I sat and had a couple of icy cold Budweiser’s while chatting with Jim. I finally came back to the condo for some A/C and a much needed shower.

Wasn’t to much later, Angie took off for an appointment to get her hair cut and then spend some time and have drinks with the woman who cut her hair. Gail is a friend of Angie and mine and Angie was her last customer before retiring from the hair cutting business and soon heading back to the states. Her husband Bob – is the guy I was helping up on their roof last week. Both very good people and we’re gonna hate to see them go~~ Leaving me here to my own devices while my Queen shops and drinks…… I figured I’d better get a little something up here because we have the appreciation dinner I mentioned last night, at 18:00 tonight up at Blues and I figure I will be either to tired or to hammered to write when we get back – so here I am….. I got most of the bills paid for next month, as we will be traveling and I want to make sure they get paid. We will be back in the states early next month and I don’t want to have to fool with that non-sense stuff like bill paying while we are there. Thank goodness for being able to schedule payments~!

Gonna quit here….. many more pictures from the dive yesterday…….

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

Got up early again after another miserable night of slumber….. geez Louise – I need to get this figured out~! A little more excited this morning though because I was going to get to go diving~!! Staggered out to light drizzle and some pretty serious clouds ‘announcing’ more rain on the way. As you would suspect…. rain does not cancel out a dive [you’re gonna get wet anyways]……thunder and lightening is a whole different conversation, but there was none of that today. I don’t particularly like diving when it’s really cloudy because it takes away a lot of the light I need for decent pictures…..but…… I get to dive which is a good thing all of it’s own~! Made me a small breakfast, made sure my camera was charged and I had all of my gear – kissed my Bride and headed out the door a little after 08:00~

I arrived at the dive boat ‘on time‘ (10 minutes early) and loaded me and my gear onto the boat. A very small group today [Yay~!] A Dad, Son and Daughter….. the Dive Master and ‘Dive Master in training’ and the Captain….. I like it~!! A very short boat ride to the first dive site as rain chased us out to it. Salt River – West~! The site of the Columbus landing. Yes – that Columbus….. 1492 and so on……. Visibility left a little to be desired especially with not much sunlight – but saw a beautiful turtle right off the bat, a Barracuda, TONS of fish, sharks, spotted Eels and a giant Green Moray Eel~!!!!!!! Because of low light my pictures leave a little to be desired….. but I do have pictures~! After a wonderful hour long dive – back up to the boat – to more rain. A very short motor to the next dive site…. Salt River- East….. a bunch more rain…. a couple slices of oranges and a couple of cookies and ready to drop again. Sitting in a pouring rain getting geared up and OMG was it cold~!!! I was literally shaking by the time I got all my gear on…… That gorgeous blue water felt soooooo good dropping into it (83º)~! I think I now have a new ‘2nd favorite dive site~! Wow – the sea life at this site is incredible. Sadly, my pictures won’t show you a fraction of what I saw, but I hope you enjoy them none the less.

A couple of really busy days for me coming up…. but I am looking forward to them — a little bit of work up at Blues, a Fish With A Vet appreciation dinner, hauling some concrete for a friend and several other little odds and ends – but no roofs~! I’ll try and get some pictures during my running. For now – I have 78 new pictures from today — I’ll spread them out over the next couple of days. For now — we have voted for KFC tonight….. I’m probably gonna have to go get it….. but still… KFC~!

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

GOPR9152   Video

Well it should be obvious I didn’t write last night — after a longer than usual and hotter than usual day up on the roof yesterday,   I stopped by Blues to drop off some paperwork for Jim & Deb and slam a nice cold Budweiser. Eddy – seeing me pull in automatically had a Budweiser and a Crown and Coke sitting on the bar when I walked up. Seeing I was by myself he offered to pitch the drink, but not wanting to waste alcohol – I told him I would drink it. I handed over the paperwork, finished by beer and started in on the Crown & Coke. Geeez it tasted nasty. Never thought I’d ever hear myself say that about that drink — but tastes change as you make a few more laps around the sun. Still not wanting to waste the drink – I took it with me and brought it home to my Bride. She happily took it and made me a drink. She also offered up a couple of muscle relaxers in an effort to calm my now screaming back. So I caught a quick shower, and we sat and drank and chatted while I cooled down. I didn’t think the muscle relaxers were doing a very good job – so I popped 3 Anacin after about an hour…. probably not the best decision I have made in a while……. pretty soon, the day out in the sun, the work, the muscle relaxers, the Anacin and the hooch all kicked in~! Wow….. It was all I could do to sit on the couch and keep my eyes opened. Around 3:00 I told Angie I was gonna lay down for a little bit……. I went in and laid down on the bed and went out like a light until shortly before 6:00. I staggered out, made me a bite to eat and was back in bed by a little after 8:00.

Sadly…. I had one of the awfullest nights sleep I’ve had in quite a while. I don’t know what the deal was, booze, heat, working like I was 18 or what…. but wow was that a terrible night. I finally got up around 05:30 this morning – happy not to be trying to sleep. Other than a quick trip up to Blues this morning – I have done nothing but sit on the couch with a heating pad and watching our newest series (The Practice – Vera – I think you would enjoy this one) My back feels a bunch better, so there’s that….. I have scheduled a 2 tank dive for tomorrow, so I should get a bunch of new pictures for you tomorrow……. and I’m laying off work for a little bit to let this 62 year old teenager heal up a little bit.

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

Woke up this morning after crashing much earlier than I normally do last night. It’s normally not like me to fade out early, but by 8:30 I couldn’t keep my eyes open and stumbled into bed. I really hadn’t had that much to drink – but I was just zapped. After a less than stellar nights sleep [again] – I finally rolled out around 06:30 ready for whatever this day had in store. Nothing was planned for the day – so it was a relaxing start to get us going. It didn’t take long before I got pinged and asked if I could meet up at  Blues for a quick meeting of Fish with A Vet. Well — sure~~!!  Met up at Blues shortly after they opened (11:00) and met up with other Board members. We talked for almost 30 minutes before wrapping up the meeting. Rest of the group took off and my Bride and I opted to hang for a bit…. real shocker there huh ? A bit turned into several hours as friends trickled in and we sat and chatted. One of those conversations now has me reporting back out to the steep roof job (if it isn’t raining) to wrap that job up. As soon as it is done – I want to skip any kind of work for a while and schedule some dives before we get ready to head back to the states.

Back at the condo and cooled off (it is getting really good and toasty here as our ‘Summer’ gets into full swing)   Breakfast long worn off – I made me a couple of burgers while Angie decided she wanted Mac-N-Cheese and some fish sticks. My belly is now happy full and I thought I’d go ahead and get my thoughts of the day out for you early today. I took some pictures around Blues….. feeling a little bit artsy…. so we’ll see what you think. Gonna sign off so I can go jump in the shower… catch ya tomorrow~~

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

Woke up at 05:30 this morning thoroughly aggravated at the fact this was a morning to sleep in and here I was wide damn awake….. I had to pee like the proverbial Russian Race Horse but didn’t want to get out of bed yet. Dammit Emmit~! I must have managed to squirrel around and found a more comfortable position, because the next thing I knew it was a couple of minutes before 07:00, my Queen was already up and now I really had to pee~!! (but I did have a wonderful nights sleep for a change – yesterday was a big day for the old fat boy)  I got up and got my bathroom stuff out of the way and settled into a very comfortable morning routine. After a couple of hours, my Bride made us a tasty breakfast and we watched a couple episodes of our newest series Played…. it’s not bad, but I’m already looking for a new one. Thankfully it is only 1 Season long.

Angie decided to head off to the store(s) while I opted to stay here and get some much needed to be done paperwork completed. We both killed a couple of hours doing that. She got back, I hauled everything in and we soon had a drink made and settled in for a little more TV.

A brief rain shower, a little more TV and now here I am. Got about half a snoot full and ready for a nap~~ 😉  Seems like a good place to quit for tonight.

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

After a particularly rough night last night I stumbled out this morning with getting no where near ‘sleeping in’. Shutting down Blues last night probably didn’t help – but I really wasn’t in that bad of shape. I made me a salad after we got home last night – and trying to use up the last of one bottle of salad dressing – I think maybe I should have opted for the newer bottle, as I think the remnants of that last one may have been a tad sketchy~~ Whatever it was, woke me up about 2:30 in the morning and I spent entirely too much time sitting on the throne working out the issue……. finally got back in bed around 3:00 only to be woken up again around 6:00 for the same reason…… lesson learned….. don’t try to salvage the last of the dressing in an old bottle….. especially when here on the island when it’s almost expired when you buy it~! That all finally “worked out” – I headed out to meet our friends on the West end of the island at The Pier. I spent the next couple of hours taking pictures of 3 of my friends as they prepped and eventually made their first SCUBA dive~! Well…. 2 of them did – one of them just could not bring themselves to breathe under water…. but at least they tried~! Absolutely no shame in saying “Nope – not for me”. The other 2, Dave & Liz, took right to it and we got to spend almost an hour swimming around under the pier looking at all the wonderful sea life down there.

We finally came back to the bank, exhilarated and tired. We put the gear up and headed for a local eatery for drinks, eats and some great conversation. As fun as it is diving – it makes it so much more enjoyable when you get to spend some time with the folks you dove with, enjoying a bite to eat – a cold drink and talking about your experience. Being on a gorgeous beach on a tropical island doesn’t hurt any either~! We finally bid adieu and all took off. I came back, cleaned my gear and sat down to upload the pictures I took, as I knew our friends were anxious to see them. I have already shared them on FB so they could ‘steal’ them and share with their kids and families. Over the next several days – I’ll put them up here too.

We have big old rain clouds rolling through, teasing us with brief rain showers. Apparently supposed to get rained on the next several days….. we need it. This blazing hot sun down here doesn’t waste any time drying things out. That’s about it for me for today — got to get a shower and get the salt off me. Not sure what tomorrow brings… grocery shopping maybe~~

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

LizJeanette suiting up

My Queen