Solomon Bay, St. John, USVI

stone house door

looking out across Leinster Bay at Waterlemon Cay (far left)

near Ormond Beach, FL

again,

i hate my life.

all this cold makes me think of...

Cinnamon Bay in St. John.

I need to start putting a copyright watermark on my pics. I've been trying to come up with one. This is the best attempt thus far. Pretty lame, but will do for now.

I want to go back here

With Keith! :D

On a sailboat! :D

Like NOW!

a new athletic goal

I used to be a pretty hardcore athlete. I raced mountain bikes for 5 years and did some road bike racing as well. I even won some! It was great. It got me out of my shell and taught me a lot about self-discipline, sacrifice and mental toughness.

Most of racing is actually training rides with friends. My favorite rides were always those really long epic rides that we're also some of the hardest ones. It seems that the more you have to struggle to accomplish something, the more rewarding it is in the end. That was definitely the case in terms of bike riding. It gave me the physical outlet and challenge that I needed. All those endorphins kept me happy as well. :D

Then in March of '07 I blew a disc in my back and that really just 'effed up' my whole outlet. I can still ride, but not for long and not at the intensity that I'm used to. I feel slow and uncomfortable on my bike most of the time. Blah. I love bicycles and I will always love them and plan to ride them until I die, but will probably never be able to do those real long training rides that I miss so much. But maybe I can, you never can tell.

So in the meantime, while I slooooowly recover from an injury that happened 18 months ago, I've been doing some light running for a cardio workout. I'm easing into like an 80 year old would, but it's coming along pretty well. And it feels so great to feel my heart pounding and my lungs huffing. I need to be active to be happy.

So, I decided I need some kind of goal for myself to keep me on track with my athletic endeavors. Since I can't really run very far and can't ride very far either, but can do both fairly well for short spurts, I've decided a short-distance triathlon is just what the doctor ordered. Luckily for me, they have a series every summer in Shreveport intended for beginner triathletes. They do one short race in May (that's a swim, followed by a bike, then ending with a run), then another race that's a little longer in June, and then one a bit longer than that in July...kind of like easing you into a more traditional triathlon distance. Cool!

They don't have the dates posted for '09 yet, but here's what the one from this year looked like, and the distances should all be the same for '09.



The bike distances are just plain cute. Awwww, a 15 mile ride. Even with my effed up back, a 15-miler is a breeze, unless it was up a mountain, and it's Shreveport so no worries there. That 4 mile run is what scares me! Well, 4 miles doesn't scare me, but people will be watching....I won't be able to walk any of it! :P At least I have plenty of time to train. The real trick is the swim. I'm very into water sports of all kinds, but have never done much in terms of swimming laps. We do have a rec center here though with a nice big pool. It's ALL the way out on Industrial Drive, so that would be a perfect distance to ride the bike out there, swim some laps, then ride back. Course, that will be in the Spring. For now, I'll just work on the run and try to do a few short rides every week.

I'll be doing this to see how well I do, to see the improvement over the 3 events, to have some fun and meet some people, and hopefully to BEAT SOME PEOPLE LIKE RENTED MULES!

Stoked to have a goal!

cool things

i got a raise today. it was unexpected and larger than usual. hell to the yeah!

another cool thing is the abundance of alien clipart on clipart.com. we use clipart at the paper I work at, along with other stock art services. but clipart is the only one with their own alien-specific artist. that's all this cat does is alien art.

anyway, tonight I will be celebrating my raise not unlike this alien...

2 thumbs down

I've ridden bikes for many years now. I ride in traffic a lot and am used to dealing with idiot drivers who think being enclosed in a metal box gives them the right to be complete assholes to everyone else around them, most especially cyclists. All these years of dealing with idiots has taught me a few things, and one of them is that it's best to let drivers know when they are being idiots, but not by giving them the finger, because that just brings it to the 'road rage' level. So my preferred method of letting them know they are being an asshole is to give them a big old 'thumbs down.' It lets them know I disapprove, but I'm not calling them a name or trying to incite violence. Seriously, when you almost KILL SOMEONE they have the right to let you know it happened. Otherwise, you just go on driving your loaded weapon threatening people at will. And that's just not cool.

More often than not people take offense to my thumbs down. Like today. Coming back from lunch a car passes me and then makes a right turn directly in front of me, causing me to have to hit my brakes hard to avoid hitting the car. It was a woman driver (almost all the ones that try to kill me are women, WTF?)and I saw her look in her rear view mirrow after she ALMOST KILLED ME and so I throw her a nice big thumbs down, actually a series of thumbs down, so she gets the point that she ALMOST KILLED ME. So what really gets me is that as she sees me giving her my friendly symbol (trust me on this, I really want to flip her off, I mean fuck her, she just tried to kill me!) she hits her brakes to slow down, like she's gonna confront me or something. Oh lady, pleeeeease stop your car just once and confront me....pretty please....cause I have a LOT to say about it. But no, she just taps the brakes because that's all she has the guts to do in her big metal box. I wish just once one of these drivers who ALMOST KILLS ME on my bicycle would just stop and discuss it with me. Again, I have lots to say about it.

People use their cars like loaded weapons. The next time someone ALMOST KILLS ME on my bicycle I'd like to make them ride the bike and let me take the car and do to them what they just did to me. And then when they are unable to refrain from using the middle finger (unlike myself) then I can threaten them with my big metal car.

done got cool up in the 318, yo!

I miss George Costanza!

i feel like ralph

Phil: What would you do if you were stuck in one place and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?

Ralph: That about sums it up for me.

my life still sucks

but i hate it less today.

it really does make you feel bad when almost none of your dreams have been realized. when you have a dead-end job. no love life and no prospects. and are anti-social (not by choice) to boot. i feel like life is picking on me half the time. and it doesn't help when your emotions tend to resemble a roller coaster. but at least that means i'll be up again soon.

i need to leave this town. i feel uncomfortable here, not in my element. trapped! i'm supposed to live near the ocean. but i'm stuck here for longer than i care to even think about.

and i miss my best friend Ken! when you're like me you don't make close friends easily. he's the best one i've ever had and you're supposed to be near your close friends. i miss you, Ken. :(

i hate my life

that pretty much sums it up for me

I'm restoring a fiberglass boat....

...and am severely allergic to fiberglass. WTF! It's pissin' me off.

My arms got all hivey so I went to the doctor. He gave me a round of steroids and daily Zyrtec. The steroids wiped them out! Yay! So this weekend I took some better precautions and did not get anywhere near the boat without long sleeves. I guess the the gap in the cuffs on my shirt let some in, cause after doing some minor fiberglassing this weekend...BAM!!! I'm all hivey again. It's my new word, hivey. It means all eat up with hives. Did I mention it was pissin' me off? I mean, WTF am I supposed to do now? Ahhhh! I have all this time and money and dreams invested in the sailboat I'm restoring. Ahhhhh!

I researched and Dupont makes a Tyvek suit that is supposed to keep it off your skin, but at this point I believe I've coated my entire hometown in fiberglass dust, thereby making me allergic to Minden. I think I will move to Florida soon and think about a wooden boat, or perhaps figure out a way to afford a fiberglass one that doesn't need a lot of work.

In the meantime, I have 2 Tyvek suits. If this allergy persists and the Tyvek suit doesn't work well enough, I believe I am up shit creek without a paddle, in a sinking boat without a bilge pump...

how i get to work

Pretty in Pink

She may be a big old country dog, but she's all girl.

around my yard this weekend....

I found some little things....


like this cute little spider (about the size of a dime)





Spiders aren't usually cute, but to me this one is.


And my cat Hoppy, he's pretty small for a cat. Though the birds in the neighborhood fear his every move as he's been known to decapitate birdies....and bunnies.



Found some ome really big things in the yard as well...like these two cucumbers I pulled from the garden Saturday. Whoa! More like watermelons than cucumbers.





:D

I love this bike!

There are many reasons I love this bike, but the main one is that it has only...





:D

another reason I'm moving to Ormond Beach...

We match! :D

Sanford sunset

froggy buffet

Mom and I have been going to my grandfather's most nights recently to check on him and visit a bit. He expects us now and has been turning on his porch light for us. Lately, a couple of little tree frogs started showing up on the glass door every night to get an easy meal from all the little bugs the light attracts.





Neat.


One even posed for me. :D





Also noticed several critters in the little hedge by my back door yesterday. I have about the cheapest macro setup possible, a Lubot lens-in-a-cap combined with a 10x Lubot Loupe. Considering the whole thing cost only about $35 and works with my D70s, I'd say it was a major score!


This neat little moth, about the size of a black-eyed pea, sat perfectly still for me while I worked out my lighting (my Lite In Motion mountain bike headlight), as macro shots require a lot of light!





There were also a bunch of little cottony aphids on the same plant as the moth. They are about the size of a BB, maybe a tiny bit larger. To the naked eye they just look like little fuzzy gray insects. But put that loupe on them and...





CREEPY!
:D

MATERS!

Here's the first one. It's about the size of a golfball.

If I had a transporter...

I'd beam myself here:

People pic

I'm not real comfortable shooting people. But at work today they were stacking a new web leader press. It was an interesting process to watch them moving heavy press equipment around, raising half up with a forklift and then setting back down on top of the other half. It went smooth considering the logistics involved. Anyway, I got a really neat shot of the press foreman, Dennis.

i really dig taking pictures

This is the fan on top of my a/c unit at home. :D

I twittered this already but...

I was filling up my bottle at the water fountain at work today when Randy says to me, "I could throw some water on you and you could grow some more flowers on your shirt." :D





Hmmm, too many flowers or room for more flowers? With Randy it's hard to tell.


There was a huge chunk of time in my life when I wouldn't have been caught dead in a white shirt with a floral print. But this shirt kicks ass.

bad aphids

The garden is coming along.





I expected tomatoes by now but have mostly flowering buds, no tomatoes yet. Hope it's just due to planting them deeper this year (a friend told me to plant them deeper and they will produce bigger tomatoes). It would be a serious bummer to have put in all that work and get no tomatoes in return. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and trying not to worry too much yet. It's still early.


The romaine lettuce is jamming! But yesterday evening I found colonies of aphids on most of them. So after work today I need to de-bug the lettuce. Will use a soap insecticide of water and ivory soap. At least those nasty salad-eatin' aphids will be clean before they die.


BAD APHID

fun with photoshop filters

me at work

Where I went on my summer vacation

St. Joseph Peninsula State Park in Florida

new shoes

I'm not the girliest of girls, but like most girls, new shoes make me feel good.





Look, leaf-colored! :D

big girls get cold too

beer is good for more than just drinking

BEER BREAD

3 cups flour (sifted)
3 teaspoons baking powder (omit if using Self-Rising Flour)
1 teaspoon salt (omit if using Self-Rising Flour)
1/4 cup sugar
1 (12 ounce) can beer (or bottles - no need to discriminate)
1/2 cup melted butter (1/4 cup will do just fine)



1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Mix dry ingredients and beer.
3. Pour into a greased loaf pan.
4. Pour melted butter over mixture.
5. Bake 1 hour, remove from pan and cool for at least 15 minutes.


Is good. Is very good.

Amen!

From John McCain's South Carolina victory speech:


"We want government to do its job, not your job; to do it better and to do it with less of your money; to defend our nation's security wisely and effectively, because the cost of our defense is so dear to us; to respect our values because they are the true source of our strength; to enforce the rule of law that is the first defense of freedom; to keep the promises it makes to us and not make promises it will not keep."

Said what?

Bush announces $145 billion stimulus package for economy



While some extra money in my pocket sounds good, I have two questions:

How are we going to pay for this?

By the time it's all passed and the check is in the mail, will it even help?


The idea of this is to give Americans some disposable income so that we'll all go out and spend it on stuff that will stimulate the economy. Honestly, if I am given $300-$800 as a tax break, I plan to spend it on paying off current debts and/or bills. Of course, if I were a more responsible person I would put it into savings. I think the last thing I'd do with it is blow it on the kinds of thing Bush wants me to. Frivolous spending will just make things worse. Most of the things people will buy aren't even made here in America but in China. And of course the old dollar ain't worth what it used to be. As of January 18, 2008 at 07:36:23 PM GMT our outstanding national debt is $9,193,056,221,748.94. Granted that a large percentage of this (about 40%)is owed by the government to the government. I dunno, this whole thing seems counterproductive to me, unless that check gets here really, really soon, and people don't spend it all on cheap Chinese crap. Otherwise it's stimulating an economy, just not ours.

My 2 cents (which is about what a dollar is worth these days)

Fiery Sunset at Caney

What's more weird?

From the Minden Press-Herald

Casting call slated for Sunday at Mt. Calm
Written by Jana Ryan
Thursday, 10 January 2008

Jack Black film to begin shooting soon

An open casting call for the movie, "Year One," starring Jack Black, will be held from 1:30 until 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, January 13, at Mt. Calm Baptist Church, 331 Bailey Street, Minden.

The casting director is looking for approximately 800 people of all ethnic backgrounds, all ages and sizes for extras.

"Year One" is a Biblical comedy concentrating on Black's character finding "the meaning of life."

Production is expected to last 21 days, beginning January 21 and ending in February. Eight acres will be utilized in Sibley for the production, where Garden Films Production Co., a division of Sony, will be constructing a set-scale city for the film.

The Sibley site, located off Hwy. 164, was chosen for its sand content, which will be depicted in desert scenes.

The production will also be filmed in parts of New Mexico, but the main brunt of the film will be shot in Sibley.

Michael Cera will also star in the film under the direction of Harold Ramis, who wrote the script with Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg.

Persons interested in participating in the casting call will be required to fill out a registration form and are asked to bring a recent 4x6 photo. If no photo is available, one will be taken on site.

For more information regarding Sunday's casting call, call 377-1780.





So, what's more weird?

a) That Jack Black is making a movie in Minden?

b) That they are building a set-scale city in Scribley?

or

c) That most of a major motion picture will be shot in a location where I used to hang out with friends in high school for a little underage drinking?

It's all about equally weird to me.

The sky is only this blue in the winter