Something just a little bit different for my blog today. Today is November 1st, 29 days away from my birthday, and this year, on my birthday I am going to give away this Dell desktop computer plus 17″ flat panel monitor (and a bunch of extras) for free! You don’t even have to pay the shipping.
This is my latest installment for Throwback Thrusday from Vagabondrunn (see Throwback Thursday (7)). Yes, I finally was able to get some images of me. This one of course is me showing off my two passions at the time, baseball and music.
Actually, not much has changed, except now I am the one taking the photos. I still love baseball and music (although I no longer play the clarinet). This photo was taken in March 1981 by my mother of course. So there you have it, me at age 11.
Have you posted your throwback Thursday photo? Leave a comment below and let me know where to find it.
We are getting ready now for a nice weekend in Ennis at the National Polka Festival. Here is me and the little dude, William hanging before the festival begins. I have been able to take many photos of William each time we visit but this has to be one of my favorites. You can see the reflection in my glasses as I hold the camera way out in front of both of us, while William is trying to figure out what in the world I am doing.
The Polka Festival is something we have tried to go to each year for the last few years, but this year Deborah is competing in the Polka competition with her dad. This is nothing new to Deborah. She has been going to the Ennis National Polka Festival since she was about 5 years old, but this will be the first year to join in on the Polka dance competition. The Ennis Journal interviewed Deborah for the festival, see Polka Royalty Bid, which was a very nice article about her and the festival in general. Sorry the full text is only available when you log into their site but we will try to get a copy of it to be posted here or on her blog.
The main part of the festival starts tonight at 7pm and goes through Sunday at 3pm. It will be a long and very tiring weekend but a lot of fun as well. Our son and his family (including our 2 year old grandson) have driven down from Colorado to be here as well. We have already taken some photos of him in his new vest, he didn’t know quite what to make of it. We were able to get into town and get a few photos before everything got started. I love the expressions here on their faces. Especially when you know William has to be pulling Bryan’s hair. The vests were all made by Deborah over the previous year for this weekend.
I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Memorial Day weekend.
Well, one of my fellow bloggers, Run’n Like a Vagabond in his post, Throwback Thursday, has challenged us to do our Thursday blog post as a throwback photo post, so in lieu of my image of the day post, I am doing a throwback Thursday photo post. This image was not taken by me (as you might have guessed), and I am not the one sitting in the chair.
This is probably the first time I have ever posted a photo of myself in my earlier life, but also probably the first time I have posted an image I have not taken myself. So, if you are up to the challenge, do a post for Throwback Thursday and come back here and leave a comment and will make sure you get linked in.
Please, go easy on the photo itself here. Thanks.
Another beautiful day down here in the south. This is such a great time of year in this part of the country, but we all know it will be short lived. Hot scorching days are just ahead. Today was one of those days I didn’t have to go anywhere at all and was able to get some work done here in my office.
First thing I did this morning was finish up my welcome video for my blog pages. I had been putting this off for some time and finally got it done. Instead of me rambling on, after watching this from another blogger it game me the idea to use it in my video. I put this video together yesterday and finished it up today. The refresh rate on the parts where I am talking are not as good as I would have liked, but I think it worked out ok, let me know what you think in the comments below. This is the only time I am going to actually put this video in a blog post, but since this blog post is my “daily post”, this is part of what I did today.
That was pretty much my first try at time lapse but once I saw found out how to do it I was a little enamored by the whole thing. You can really find out a little more about yourself by watching some of these videos. First thing Deborah said was she didn’t realize that I was actually so left hand dominant, me neither.
I did manage to get in my 4 miles of walking today and a long day of general work. No wildlife today other than or normal neighborhood of squirrels. Something neat I found today blogging wise was this new application that will allow you to use video comments, called seesmic. You can see their latest post here, Thwirl with Friendfeed released, you can also sign up for their alpha test at seesmic.com. I am going to try their wordpress plugin and see how it goes.
Here is a question for you. What do you do if you are in the thrift shop and you see a ridiculous deal on this?
Well, if you are me, you grab it fast!
Opportunity almost never knocks when you are ready to receive it. It is more like a neighbor, who, having something very exciting to show you, shows up when you are in your robe and slippers. Usually, to seize the opportunity when it comes you have to act very fast. Scott and I have both wanted to learn how to play the guitar for a very long time. We were not actively searching for a guitar, but this one found us. We promptly left the shop with it, went down to the guitar shop and had it re-strung and tuned.
Viola, a beautiful, sweet sounding guitar ready for playing. My first lesson is scheduled for Tuesday, 2:30pm. Wish me luck…
Update: well it seems that Scott is going to take on the leaning of the lessons, I will enjoy listening to him play. There are only so many things we can do in our life and listening to him play will be a good one for me.
Update: well Scott lasted about 4 months and did quite well, but his photography was far more developed than he could ever be as a musician so he is sticking with photography.
This Saturday we installed what is to be the first of several radio antennas on the roof of our house. Scott climbed to the top of the roof and mounted the mast and antenna while I ran around on the ground fetching tools and lending moral support. After it was installed we went into attic to retrieve and feed the wiring from the antenna on the roof down the inside of the wall of his office and then out at the base of the wall by an electrical outlet. Hot doesn’t even begin to describe the temperature in the attic!
The hole saw’s that we own have been used for years and are quite crappy so after fighting with the hole drilling for a while Scott decided to bring out the big guns. I retrieved the new sledge hammer and it did the trick. Now the scanner is working great with the new antenna installed. It does look a bit sci-fi though. This antenna is called a Ham Discone Radio antenna and Scott is going to be using it with his Radio Shack Pro-2052 (dual truncking) scanner until he get a 2-meter ham radio.
Can’t wait to see what configuration the next one has. Hopefully it will be a little cooler the next time we try this. The heat was just incredible today and Scott probably lost 10 pounds just trying to feed the wires through the attic into his office. This antenna can now be seen quite a ways off, maybe we can use it some day to put Christmas lights up with a star on top, you will be able to see it from Birmingham.
Spring weather was here at our house just long enough to make the dogwoods bloom and the grass start growing. Now it is dry and cold again. (35-40 degrees at night). The grass did get tall enough to cut though and Scott, trooper that he is, decided to test out his dad’s new John Deere lawn tractor. I am not sure how thrilled his dad was seeing that we have a yard full of big boulderous rocks, but here is Scott as viewed from my office window.
Problem was that his head was cold. Here is his solution to the problem. Is this proper attire for winter lawn mowing???? He decided to dawn his full winter jacket, and his motorcycle gear. Gloves, face mask, and full face helmet. Spring will arrive soon and we will soon be complaining about how hot it is here in the southern part of Alabama, just like we do each year, but today it is cold.
This was one of the most special trips that Deborah and I have ever taken in our life. Not because of the destination, but because we made the whole trip a special time of recommitment to each other, and we did it together, in a place we both love very much. I will never forget this trip, it was one of those special moments in life that you know is special when you are there, but is impossible to re-create again later.
Being able to just focus on each other was a great gift and we both had a fabulous time together.
Scott and I love to snorkel and there is a wonderful place to do this in the Keys called Dry Tortugas National Park . Our day began early with a half day trip out to the park for some snorkeling and sun. The last time we went out to the park we took the Fast Cat boat. This time we decided to take the Seaplane through Seaplanes of Key West. This turned out to be a great decision. We were treated to an aerial view of Key West and other keys as well. On the way to Dry Tortugas and back we spotted sharks, sea turtles, shipwrecks and even passed a biplane with rider. If you ever have the chance to go the seaplane is our recommended mode of transportation to get there.
Fast Cat
Our plane on the right. (yes, the little one)
Aerial view of Key West
The outermost wall that surrounds the moat is where most of the snorkeling is done. You are allowed to snorkel outside this wall about 200 ft out into the ocean. There is no snorkeling within the moat, but there are some very happy, super large fish that live there. When you are at the fort you can also take a tour of the fort itself. We have taken the tour before so this time the trip was all about the water.
We have come out here several times before and have pretty much snorkeled around the entire fort. You can see from the image above how beautiful the water is around the moat wall, this time we just stayed in one area that we enjoy out away from the rest of the tourists and boat traffic.
Aren’t we cute?
Me
Fish
Sea Turtle
Sea Turtle close up (Yes, we were that close and he was that BIG!
Scott, having a discussion with a Grouper
Tony & Maria Valles (our seaplane companions)
Here we are, sunburned and smiling.
Dry Tortugas Lighthouse
Cuban “boat”
As we took off from the park to head back to Key West our pilot informed us that there was enough time for us to do a fly by of the light house which is out on a separate island. When we flew by the pilot noticed a boat (if you can call it that) on the shore that he hadn’t seen the day before. We circled around again and the pilot told us all to be on the look out for any people waving from the island.
We were able to see several men waving shirts at us and after a few more passes we were able to count at least 6 Cuban refugees. Since this island is located so close to Cuba many refugees end up on this uninhabited little island and have to be picked up by the US government. The pilot made one last pass over the island after calling in the situation on the radio to the proper authorities, waggled the wings of the plane back and forth as if to wave at the men and then we were off headed back to Key West. The pilot was signaling to them that he had called the Coast Guard and someone would be there soon.
This experience especially touched Scott and I because we once again realized how amazing it is that we live in the country that we do and how privileged a life we actually live here.
Shipwreck
Biplane with rider
We arrived back at the hotel for some quick showers and a little rest then it was off to Duval street for some food and fun. Our dining experience for the evening was at a place called the Tree Top Cafe. The food was fabulous and the restaurant is indeed upstairs and nestled among the tree tops of Duval street. We ate a rather early dinner and had the entire place to ourselves.
Shopping was next on the agenda and so we were off to walk the length of Duval street going in and out of shops, not looking to buy anything in particular, but mostly just taking in the different characters we met along the way (and there were many). Our evening was topped off by sharing a piece of Key Lime pie at Margaritaville , Jimmy’s place.
Today, while Scott was at the store he made his way back to the fabric department and found some lovely fabric for me. He brought it home and told me it would make a wonderful head cover to add to my stash. Here it is:
Isn’t it beautiful. I should be able to get two covers from this piece. Wow what a special husband I have.
