Living the life most people just dream about~

After staying up waaaaay past our bedtime last night to watch an extra episode of The Closer…. I rolled out this morning about an hour earlier than I wanted to – but it was that or wet the bed…. An option I did not want to explore….. up and motoring about, I got a lot of small odds and ends knocked out until my Queen come stumbling out about 2.5 hours behind me. After ample time to wake up – I invited her to join me on my ‘day of getting stuff done’ and after little consideration she said she wanted to join me. The day started off visiting multiple places trying to unload the transmission sliding around in the bed of DD. No luck, in desperation – pulled into the small dump site closest to us….. the ‘local’ gentleman that kind of “wrangles” the folks in and out of the area told me my load absolutely could not be left there. He then mentioned if a small ‘donation’ was made, he might be able to convince his boss to help us out…… A flash of an Andrew Jackson and a couple of minutes later, we were hustling out of the dump sans transmission….. YAY~!!!!

Next we headed to Office Depot to pick up a new router as previous conversation with condo management made it clear – that was our responsibility.  15 minutes and $ 180 later, we strolled out with a new router…… Yay~! [kinda]

Left there and headed for the West end of the island to K-mart to pick up several items my Queen wanted…… then motoring down the road to the local supermarket for previous mention needed items (bacon, booze, eggs, etc.) An hour and $ 230 later – we were headed back toward the condo with the day going our way~!  Yay~!! [kinda]

Back at the condo and 4 trips in and out hauling our stash in – and I had soon settled in to hook up our new router so I could give our poor little hotspot a rest……. almost 3 hours later which most of was spent with the Geek Squad…. and still no internet…. not Yay   🙁

We had to cut out by 5:00 to meet the other 2 couples we are going on vacation with up at Blues. We had several drinks (big shock huh?) called the company we are sailing with a dozen or 30 questions, before rapping up our little gab session for drinking and socializing with the Blues crew.

I should mention, during the course of this fairly long day – in my infinite wisdom – I managed to consume one entire Banana…… and with what was now a LOT of alcohol in me….. I didn’t do so good. I guess blood sugar or something got really low…. but it was all I could do to stand up….. DAMMIT EMMIT~! Cutting to the chase….. I got my happy a$$ back here and got some chow in me and am now ‘right as rain’. Valuable lesson learned…… EAT~!

I’m going to try and get the couple of pictures I took today up – but not holding my breath – I suggest you don’t either….   😉

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

 

Not sure I will get this to load as my little hot spot seems to be fading fast….. It took almost 10 minutes just to get my blog to load. Beautiful day of sunshine and a strong wind today. Being the weekend – we typically stay here, as most places are crowded by locals and the working folks who are off for the weekend. Other than some odds and ends on here (laptop)- we didn’t do much today but watch The Closer. If I hook our hot spot to the TV, it will usually work well enough to stream shows. Picture quality sucks at times….. but whatcha gonna do ? Now I have to disconnect from the TV and prop the hot spot up so I can get my lap top to pick it up [barely]….. I will be up at the office first thing in the morning to get the building manager to get our internet provider in here with a new router~!

I have what I hope it a really busy productive day tomorrow…. going to try and lose the transmission sliding in the bed of the truck….. going to try and get at least an appointment to get the seal around the windshield of the truck replaced (we have a tropical depression heading for us which mean lots of heavy rain maybe), we need to make a pit stop by the store for some essentials, bacon, booze, eggs and smokes and we are supposed to meet up with some friends up at Blues. We are doing a one week cruise aboard a sail boat the end of February with these other two couples and we’re meeting to begin discussions on what we want to do and where we want to go on the cruise. Yes – we get to decided where we’re going. We will be sailing around the British Virgin Islands – but we get to pick out the stops we will be making~! I already have the “one” spot I ‘have’ to get to….. I’ll talk a little more about it in depth as it gets closer – but this ‘spot’ has me wound up like a little kid at Christmas~! But like I said….. more on that as we get closer to it~! I’m gonna try to get at least a couple of [old] pictures up for you. Hopefully some new ones tomorrow as I run around a little bit.

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

The island has been catching a lot of much needed rain the past several days and with rain on the island comes power outages. Along with power outages we loose our internet…… sadly, the last outage we had was shortly after we got home last night from Blues….. and while the power eventually came back on, our internet router did not. The latest victim of power blinking on and off. I guess we should count our self lucky nothing else has fried yet. I tried using my hotspot on my phone – but it just was not strong enough to load anything for me. It was also late enough and I was tired enough, I did not want to have to hunt around for our little AT&T hotspot and get it hooked up, so I went a head and crashed without getting online last night……

Got up this morning hoping the router may have resuscitated itself during the course of the night  but that didn’t happen…… so I found our little hot spot and got it connected. We have internet now – but just barely…. not sure whether it will let me load any pictures or not. There has been a small uprising of sorts on the island lately about our local power company and the absolutely miserable job their doing….. sure would be nice to have a competitor in here so they would be forced to get their act together. While living in paradise has lots of perks – reliable electricity is not one of them and the constant on and off surges just reek havoc on electronics – and me thinks the ‘natives’ are getting restless about it.

Easy, slow day today, mostly watching The Closer — we are already well into Season # 6 now – gonna hate to see that one end….. Gonna try and load some pictures from Blues last night….. we’ll see how it goes.

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

A little while back, my number # 1 fan Vera – shared part of a poem with me. It moved me enough that I asked her if I could use it here to share with you all. She said that I could. Since today wasn’t much more than an odd job, a meeting and a  whole lot of The Closer – I figured I would take this opportunity to share that poem with you, especially since my day really wasn’t worth recounting.

I did a little digging while reading the poem Vera shared, one that she got from her Mother if my memory serves me correctly – and found out it was a segment from a slightly larger poem….. and I would like to share that with you in it’s entirety…

BRING ME ALL YOUR FLOWERS NOW

I would rather have a single rose
From the garden of a friend,
Than have the choicest flowers,
When my stay on earth must end.

I would rather have the kindest words
Which may now be said to me,
Than flattered when my heart is still-
And this life has ceased to be.

I would rather have a loving smile
From the friends I know are true,
Than tears shed ’round my casket,
When this world I’ve bade adieu!

Bring me all your flowers,
Whether pink, or white, or red.
I’d rather have one blossom now
Than a truck load when I’m dead!

-R.D. RICHARDS

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did…… Thank you Vera for sharing~~

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

Song titles seem to pop into my head all the time……… blessing or curse…. to be determined I guess. I had my meeting which went about a half hour longer than it should have, but still mostly productive. I’m not gonna bore you with the details as I’m reasonably sure you don’t want to hear about them anyway.

Spent the rest of the afternoon watching The Closer….. if you’re looking for entertaining television [mild language/violence] – this is the one for you. We are well into Season # 3 now with 4 more seasons to go…… yay~!

Really about it….. if it’s not pouring in the morning, I am gonna go up to Blues to get that little project knocked  out and then meet with a young lady from the VA to discuss some veteran related topics…… hopefully a fruitful venture and maybe I can score a couple of new pictures for you until I get back underwater or find some worthwhile things to photograph for you. If there is something you’d like to see or know about our little piece of paradise here that I have yet to touch on, do not hesitate to ask or bring it up – I would welcome the opportunity to look into it for you….. until then~~~

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

 

I guess I owe you all a bit of an apology…. I probably should not have got on here in the mood I was in last night. I just had a really bad day gang up on me and took it’s toll….. so I apologize…..

Really not a lot to carry on about today — Got up and needed to go up to the garage and pay for the work done on my truck. Went out to find the floorboard on the drivers side of the truck with about an inch of water in it…… great~! I think that will be a reasonably easy fix though with a tube of silicone….. I hope. Scooped out as much water as I could and headed down to the garage. I met the owner, nice guy, veteran, personable. We swapped a couple of ‘veteran’ stories and I paid him what I owed him for installing the transmission. I asked him about options for the old transmission and he just smiled and said “Good Luck”.  He also mentioned that the underneath of the truck had a lot of rust…… wonderful, just what I needed to hear – but wasn’t in the mood to discuss it – so bid him adieu and headed back to a nice breakfast my Queen was working on with the old transmission still rattling around in the bed of the truck.  We’ve had some pretty vicious Thunderstorms the past 2 days now – wreaking havoc with electricity and internet and most things electrical in the condo. I have the sensitive things like TV and Laptop on surge protectors….. everything else is on it’s on. Rain off and on all day long (so I can’t work on the truck) and we spent the bulk of the day watching TV whenever we had electricity and internet. Rest of the time, we stood out in the rain on the patio smoking. Hellva way to spend the day. Guess I kinda needed it after yesterday.

I have a Board meeting with Fish With A Vet tomorrow at noon and I spent about an hour preparing my paper work for it today so I’ll be ready. Got a really small job to do up at Blues, but it has to be dry to do it. Somewhere in this mix – I’d like to get my happy a$$ back under water…. but have to wait for wind, waves and T-Storms to lay down. May be a bit as they are calling for storms the rest of the week here. Relatively boring day today – and I’m good with that…… now to see if I can get some pictures to load……………………………..

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

Nope – not trying to sound like a Pirate….. just that aggravated….. we are getting closer to our goal of getting back to where we want to be – but OMG what it is taking to get there……  money, is what it is taking,  LOTS of it…….. jeeeezus~!!! Took the rental car up to have it cleaned up before taking it back to the airport (we smoked in it while driving it and that $ 30.00 cleaning fee is a lot less than the $250.00 fee they charge if they find out you smoked in it). Dropped the car off and went to pay the balance on it…… and after a very long, maddening, aggravating, pull  what hair you have left out, effort involving 4 phone calls and an hour and a half – I find out our rental is going to cost me $ 700.00 more than expected (for a total of $2300.00 for 5 weeks)~! Then, get an email from my accountant explaining the most recent letter from Uncle Sam on our now thoroughly FUBAR’ed 2017 taxes that ‘nicely’ explains, we owe another $ 1100.00 in taxes from 2017 (for those of you keeping track – that is now $ 7000.00 over and above what we have already paid~!…… run a stick up my butt and call me a corn dog…… when is this crap gonna stop ???? PLUS – I am still trying to get rid of the 500 lbs of transmission sliding around the bed of my truck…. and I owe another $ 430.00 for the transmission install plus getting rid of the old damn transmission~!  My nerves [and wallet] are not gonna take much more of this crap……. Island life my a$$~!!!!

Sorry you all – but I’ve had about all I can take for one day…… tomorrow will [hopefully] be a better day….. rest of the dive pictures~~~~

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

Well Goddammit Emmit~!!!  It’s been over an hour now and I got 1 friggin picture to load…. one…..ONE….. I went and shaved… took my shower (with water pressure than wouldn’t drown an ant)…and still only ONE picture loaded….. I’m beginning to think maybe the island doesn’t want me here…..  🙁   maybe tomorrow ??

Wow…. I must have been a tad tired-er than I thought I was last night…. I didn’t realize it, but my blog last night was number 600~!!  Can’t believe I have been rambling to you fine folks for that long….. so this, naturally, makes 601.

Got up this morning and started my daily routine only to find out I was supposed to have a dive club board meeting this morning. This apparently turned out to be “news” to most of the other people on the board. After a couple of hours of back and forth, it was finally decided we were meeting on the West end of the island. My Queen opted out of the meeting (since she is technically not a board member) and I jumped into DD [yes, we have her back – more on that in a bit] and headed to the West end… about a 30 minute drive from us. After a shaky start – we had a mostly productive meeting that wrapped up shortly after an hour. We made plans for pretty much the rest of the year and have several fun things planned, before jumping back in the truck and coming back home.

We did get DD back – but found the old transmission sitting in the bed when we went to pick it up. The shop is closed today and tomorrow, so I guess I’ll just have to let it slide around in the back until I figure out what to do with it. It sure is nice having her back though – so tomorrow – We’ll work on getting the car taken back to the airport. I think they have way over charged me, so that will be another argument…. I think my Queen is right…. I may need some Xanax or Valium before this is all over.  😉

I did manage to get my dive pictures from yesterday loaded and edited this morning, so here they are. Like I said, visibility left a lot to be desired, so picture quality suffered a little bit. To many pictures for one post – so the rest tomorrow.

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

I forgot to mention yesterday that I had a dive to make this afternoon – a lead up to a meeting of another group I am part of. It’s called Adaptive Diving and it’s about being able to support handicapped folks who want to SCUBA dive. We met out at Sweet Bottom Dive Shop – got our tanks and headed out to a place I have been wanting to check out. It is the Carambola Resort here on the island. The only all-inclusive resort that I know of on the island. It is not open to the general public yet, as it is still rebuilding from the damage from the storms (Hurricane’s Irma and Maria). Hard to get into right now, but our group was allowed access to make a dive off of their beach. Visibility left a lot to be desired and entry was a challenge as we had 3′-4′ swells to swim through to get out to where we wanted to drop. Fun site, course, a new dive site usually is…. even with bad visibility – it was a fun dive. Saw a couple of sharks that came in close enough for some pictures and one really cooperative turtle…….. I’m afraid you’re gonna have to wait until tomorrow for the dive pictures though….. it’s almost 10:00p here and I am pooped. After cleaning up from the dive – we had a meeting for the Adaptive Dive Committee. There was alcohol available and I made sure to cover my part — finally back here and showered….. I’m fading fast, so I’m gonna wait until tomorrow to upload and edit dive pictures for you………

Am told DD is ready~!! Part of tomorrow will be getting the truck back and hopefully the rental back to the airport~! I just saw my charge for the rental… $2000.00~!! That’s just for the month — I have another several days to add to it  🙁  Right now, just to worn out to do much else…. so signing out for tonight……

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

 

Well today went almost exactly like I suspicioned it would…. FUBAR’d and confusing. Door guys showed up bright and early and waltzed off with our doors. I ‘engineered’ what turned out to be a dang nice suitable replacement to keep salt air out and nice cool conditioned air in…… We had a small breakfast and several more episodes of The Closer until the guys showed back up with our doors…… OMG what a clusterf**k….. I finally jumped in and tried to help these guys, but patio doors are not my thing (apparently not these guys either) and got the doors to where they kind of work. Slightly better than before they fooled with them, so I am not completely PO’ed about it. Here again, one of the things I miss about the land of plenty.  If these guys did that kind of work back in the states – they would be drummed out of business in a blink — here…. not so much…. people are actually happy they show up…. happier if they managed to get something accomplished. Around 4:00pm – I finally admitted defeat and told them to go away. I cleaned up their mess and we put the porch back together, I put my tools away that they needed….. just a mess. It really takes it out of me to deal with that kind of incompetence…. and the hell of it is – I now need to work on the doors to try and make them leak proof – because the work they did loused up the seals on the doors. Island life~!  That’s one of the things I hate about renting…. we have made a lot of nice improvements to our unit — on our dime. If we owned this, I would have put new doors in, no questions asked. New doors are gonna be $8K – and I really ain’t up for ‘donating’ that kind of money, because the owner don’t want to spring for new doors. So we’ll have to settle for what we got for now…… That don’t make it any easier to put up with~!

With porch cleaned up and everything put away – we settled in for more of The Closer.…. we are really enjoying the show and already half way through Season Two now…… got hungry – so air fried some chicken wings while my Queen made fries in the oven. Can’t use the cooking barrel with anything else in the fryer…. but we are learning short cuts now – so we’ll get to it. Did hear the truck is now in the shop – but no word yet when DD will come back to us. Lord – I hope it isn’t the same mess the doors were~~ Keep your fingers crossed for us please. Some random shots from the past couple of days…….

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