Sunday, July 31, 2011

Picture frenzy

Okay working on getting pictures into various bits.  Great weekend.








Thursday, July 28, 2011

Cough *Hack* Cough

Well the new rug/carpet is down in my section of the office.  The dust is still in the wind from all the work and moving of things off desk tops.  A couple gals are fighting bronchitis which I blame on the bad air.  It looks nice I guess.  I mean I don't come to work expecting some gloriously appointed digs.  I work.  It's not for me to entertain or such but work. 

I was able to get a couple hundred pictures downloaded and I uploaded a few from the past month.  I have more pictures to get into my flickr account.  It truly is beautiful here.

Monday, July 25, 2011

Hot But fun!

I hope to download pictures from my camera today then upload a few dozen or five.  I tried to do it Friday but the place I go to had all 3 machines under the weather (aka slimed or broken in some manner). 

Friday the beach had a free concert that was back lit by an amazing storm front.  I snapped pictures so hopefully the lightning will show up in one of the frames.  It was intense.  Three out of four cardinal directions had massive thunderstorms.  The band wasn't very good but they were having fun.  Dreads and waist length hair swinging while they did bad renditions of Bob Marley tunes. 

Saturday was blistering hot but headed out west to Nick's.  Hadn't been there in a few weekends for one reason or another.  Nick played the cd he and Nick Jr had made in 2001 when they drove across the USA on a massive road trip.  It was three years before Nick Jr fell to MS.  Mind blowing on so many levels.  To see Nick prancing around, mocking his dad, getting pulled over by the cops for speeding while laughing and teasing a good 50 pounds heavier and healthier was bittersweet yet fun.  They went to Roswell NM and Nick Jr said, "Dad, I found my people."  Seeing the Oklahoma City bomb site was sad but weird because they pipe in this odd music and have chairs where they found the bodies of the victims.  Small chairs for children.  Nick Jr refused to go into Graceland so Nick shot pictures while trying to tell him it was iconic and a necessary part of the trip (Nick lost - they just saw the outside and went back on the road).  Nick Jr is healing and within a month should be out of the one air bed and back into his.  With his 6'4" frame the air bed isn't long enough and causes him troubles. 

Sunday friends came over and we barbecued and had a relaxing day.  The heat was nearly unbearable but July and August are the hottest months here so I guess I should suck it up.  *grin* and sit inside a/c locations.

Friday, July 22, 2011

Warm all over

So the local paper had to point out that the 90 plus weather with heat indexes of 100-110 was normal for July to August here and basically telling Floridians to suck it up.  I laughed since I already knew that was the mentality around the state.  Like Bernie pointed out...gators in Florida...go figure!

Storming nightly so I don't get online to write as much as I'd like since I have a healthy respect for electricity running down lines and zapping people into submission or caskets.  Florida has the highest rate of deaths by lightning.  And remarkably enough most of them are men - "Honey, I just want to get in another round of golf, the storm's blowing over"  Uhuh.  Lightning can travel something like five miles in clear skies to tap a person. 

Dunno too much more.  Heat, record high or not, is still draining.  The office chaos is still that.  Next week they rip up carpeting in my area and slather down the toxic glues to better enhance my working experience.  Like the boxing of files and offices that haven't been dusted in ten years hadn't already put enough stuff in the air to cause me to cough up a lung daily.  Oh well.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

31 States in Heat Wave

Well, duh!  Does everyone forget last summer was hot?  It is like the news stations all get collective amnesia every year.  Guess what...no really...guess?  Okay, well like there will be some nasty snow storms this year during winter.  There, quick run to the local betting parlour and lay down your coins and make some sure money on the weather predictions.  It's been bloody hot here since FEBRUARY...nice of the rest of the country to finally catch up.  They don't even bother telling us it's hot and we are in a heat wave locally because we already know it. 

The good news is we are back on track with afternoon and evening storms with lightning.  That puts much needed water back into the air and lakes.  The air I could do without the enhancements but the water table is down way too far so that's needed.  Gators have been sighted too.  In Florida.  Imagine that!

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Craziness

There's a local news story that is rather horrific on so many levels.  A 17 year-old was told he couldn't have a party so naturally he felt the need to pick up a hammer and kill both his parents then have sixty kids over to 'par-tay' while mom and dad were dead under the tarp upstairs.  The local morning talk show idiots had to make that the drive into work call in segment so I got to hear how many other idiots did the same thing and what repercussions - if any - happened. 

My folks understood kids would have parties when the parents left on trips.  They'd and their friends done it when they were young as had their nieces and nephews at times.  Mom simply set down some ground rules.  No live bands (kiss of death in my neighborhood because the parties always ended up with hundreds of kids - we all used to cruise around listening for live music and then crash parties back in the day), no liquor for kids under 18 (hello remember Irish here....we grew up thinking nothing of alcohol so it wasn't a 'big deal' to us), car keys went in bowl and designated sober person would either yay or nay the kid leaving if not they had to crash at house, and most importantly make sure to invite the neighbors (cops were never called if your neighbors were asked to come over if they wanted).  We had some fun parties and cleaned up better than it was (I think that was why Mom let us do it because she knew our Irish guilt would make us clean up everything so she couldn't complain).  We respected our folks and their rules. 

Apparently that's rare.  The calls coming in were tales of sending out flyers and giving the gate codes to three local high schools then charging five bucks a pop at the door.  The 'kids' made over two grand....do the math that's a ton of kids who now had access to a gated community!  One of the dj's talking had just found his son had a party after being told he couldn't and he was angry that his new leather couch got messed up.  Other folks ranted and called about misuse and abuse by their kids.  A slice of the world I find sad.  There's so few 'safe' zones for kids and to hear kids violate their own homes with out regard to their parents wishes and their neighbors is just another sign of society's slow decline. 

Monday, July 18, 2011

Murky

Middle of July and the heat is in the 80's to 90's with heat indexes coasting around 100-107.  Afternoon thundershowers and rain just serve to make air you can nearly see as you breath.  I got some editing done this weekend but not much in the way of writing.  The landlady has shown up pretty much every day even though the new guy moved in on Friday.  He's a lifeguard in his late forties, divorced and has a serious case of arrested development.  His unit has the cannabis aroma wafting from it constantly leading me to think perhaps they don't drug test at his job.  The landlady hasn't got a whiff yet or she'd go postal.  She is anti-pretty much everything.  She's trying to be nice but still I don't trust her.

I spent some time out this weekend.  Suzanne was over and I read my latest bits from The Building and did minor edits on the later episodes.  The sun felt good after the rains from earlier in the week but Sunday I didn't get out much other than under the canopy of the common area because I'd got enough sun on Saturday.  She and Jackie, my other neighbor, toasted themselves golden crispy while I talked with Cathy, a friend who can't be in the sun at all, sipping adult beverages and catching up.  We are supposed to head to the movies soon but Jackie and Cathy both weaseled out of going to see Cowboys and Aliens.  Suzanne and I both want to see that one.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

July coming in like winter

Just finished reading Ridgewalker's blog.  His image of the dark lady reminded me heavily of death's shadow.  For me I read the piece and nodded.  I get the dark mistress that pushs, pulls and prods me along life's winding path ignoring all the signposts along the way to different meadows.  The joke two things that are inevitable are death and taxes.  I would add change.  For me in my world, it seems change is a constant. 

The remodeling in the office building is on-going.  I can't eat my lunch in the cafeteria any more since they are dumping things there while they paint. Dust is stirred up constantly and the a/c is set on ice box (for the youngsters that's what growing up both my parents had for a refrigerator a closed box that they put in large blocks of ice to keep everything 'cold' and ice cream was a treat you had at the local dime store and the soda jerks would make the treat).  Good news is we can wear jeans and thus I only pull on my jacket once or twice a day.  Literally my nose is cold as are my fingertips.  Ridiculous when you consider it's 80 to 90 degrees outside even while raining!

Another area of concern and change is my living arrangement.  My landlord and landlady told us tenants a month or so ago they were getting a divorce and the units run my landlord would be handled by his wife.  Long story short...now they aren't getting divorced but the landlady is in 'charge' and her favorite word is 'change'.  She harassed one of the tenants so much he moved out immediately.  She is trying to 'upscale' a run down beach community set of units by charging everyone $200 - $400 more a month.  They are upside down on their mortgage and seek to pass on their poor business decisions to the unfortunates living there. So far she's given out tons of unenforceable and illegal new 'rules' along with demands. Oh, wait she put mulch bark into the landscaping that is washing away every time it rains - skilled huh?  She comes over every night and pounces on one of us spewing her vile insanity.  I am nodding and doing what I can to placate her while looking for another place and documenting all the nonsense.  Highly stressful. 

Good news is I am writing quite a bit due to all the mess!
Middle of picture is a turtle with its nose up.

Friday, July 1, 2011

Raining on and off

Summer is here and so are the showers.  The water table is at an all time low from everything the news folks are reporting so the rain is needed.  I could do without the lightning and thunder.  Ugh.  The nearby golf courses have a klaxon that alerts golfers from using steel clubs and making themselves so attractive to the elements.  That said every year a few get zapped.  There's a stat out there that more men die from being struck by lightning than women...hmmmm....gee really?? 

Catching up on writing again.  Heading to Nick's at least tomorrow.  I need to snag the pictures from last weekend off my camera.  Hope everyone has a safe and happy 4th of July.