Drawing A Blank Today

I’m drawing a bank today about what to post about.

Although I said I wouldn’t, I’m taking my scooter back to the shop to see if they can get it sorted out. It still isn’t running right. And I found a bolt on my floorboard on the way home. I buy a new bike, and I want to keep it perfect. Do all the maintenance and everything I’m supposed to do. The maintenance people don’t even care enough to put the bike back together.

I’m pretty upset, I’ll be walking all over the island again today.

Albie: Missing Cat

One of our Seven cats is missing, Albie. She has been missing almost a week. I am afraid she has come to an ill fated end. She was my favorite of our Seven,  both the bravest and the shyest. She was the smallest and seemingly the weakest, but she was the only one of our Seven who would stand her ground against any of the other cats and the chickens who tried to steal her food. Yet she always demanded that you treat her like a lady.

She started off as Al Bina, because she was all white, (except her tail). Then became Al B (but Al  was too boyish) so she morphed into Albie.

If she comes back she will be an even greater treasure and if she doesn’t, she will be forever remembered and missed.

Albie, photos by Sunshine

New Weather Radar

I should do a Flashback Friday, but don’t have a topic in my list I feel like writing about.

I’m glad it’s Friday, although it’s cloudy and rained while I was walking the dogs, the online weather still says sunny and nice today.

Yesterday I went to a commissioning of a new weather radar for the airport. I hope that now I can find an accurate source for our local weather. Here’s a news story about the radar. Above is a picture I took a few weeks ago.

Below is a video I took, walking around the balcony near the top

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It is a very cool radar, much more modern than the ones I worked on in the Navy.

It looks like I have a busy weekend lined up. Have a good weekend!

 

 

Week Flying By Like A Comet!

This week has flown by. I can’t believe it’s Thursday already.

I got my scooter back yesterday. It seems to be running OK now. Call me paranoid, but now it seems the brakes are worse. I’m not taking it back.

In the news, at the end of this year, we should see a comet in our skies. AND, if it survives it’s trip around the sun, we should be able to see it in the DAYTIME! I remember that comet in 1997, Hale Bopp it was cool.

I remember looking at it, and it was weird, because it felt like looking at something that you couldn’t quite focus on properly. I didn’t have my binoculars then. I got ’em now! I hope we get to see it!

Today should be a good day at work. I’m looking forward to the weekend. Let’s go lets go lets GO!

The Bus Is For Them Rich People

Last week I took my scooter in for it’s 3000 kilometer (3 megameter) maintenance. When I got it back it would cut out and bog down, and to accelerate, I had to open the throttle all the way. Yesterday I took it back. I figured that the spark plug wire was loose or something. They promised me I could have it back by lunch. At 3:30 yesterday afternoon they hadn’t started on it yet. and when I got there after work, they were working on the carburetor. I had to walk half way across the island to catch the bus. Now I have to take the bus this morning, and walk half way across the island from the bus stop to work.

They better not fuck up my bike.

There’s one guy that works there, when he’s there, everything always goes smoothly. When he’s not, it’s all shit.

Yeah, he’s on vacation.

I was listening to the BBC this morning about France legalizing gay marriage. The gays kept saying they were all happy they could have kids now. I didn’t think it worked that way. I learned it took opposite sexes to reproduce. I thought the gays wanted to get married so that they could cover each other on insurance, file joint taxes and in legal matters.

Anyway, I gotta go, because I have to catch the bus. I can’t afford the bus. It costs $2 each way. $2 one way and $2 back. $4 a day! That’s a weeks worth of gas for me. The bus is for them rich people.

Weird Fish

Not much of a post today, just a video of a weird fish.
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Monday Mayhem

Woke up this morning to two sick dogs. I thought there were two, now I’m thinking only one. Ditto has this medicine that the doctor said if he gets sick, stop giving it to him. Well, I’m stopping. This morning after our walk, bloody diarrhea all over the living room. And Ditto was so humiliated I couldn’t even be mad at him. One of my New Years Eve wishes was that Ditto would be healthy and happy for 2014, but I don’t know if he’s going to make it. I can tell he’s in pain.

It was a good weekend, went to the beach Saturday, and Sunday, went to a Guy Harvey Earth Day Mangrove cleanup. After the cleanup we had lunch at Morgans Harbor. Below are some videos and photos from both.

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Saturday Video Post

I’ve been stopping after work and swimming the half mile. I carry a tiny video camera that I can clip to my swim suit. These are videos of a Spotted Eagle Ray and a baby Eel that I saw during my swim.

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Flashback Friday: Hurricane Michelle

Hurricane Michelle didn’t come too close to the Cayman Islands, but we got big waves. I was living in an apartment about 100 feet from the sea and the waves started coming up to the porch. I was trying to nail some plywood into the concrete to cover my sliding glass door, when a huge wave came up. It was easily neck or head high to me, standing on the porch.. I was kind of in the corner of the porch, and as the wave wrapped around me, I put my back against the wall and tried to dig my fingernails into the concrete and not get swept out to sea. I was moving towards the two foot dropoff at the edge of the porch when the water started going down. My feet hit the floor again and I looked to my right and saw a waist high river of water coming out of my apartment where the sliding glass door was. I saw a cardboard box flow out the river. I was getting ready to grab it when I see the nose of my kayak start to come out the door. (I had put it inside because of the hurricane) My dog Ditto was standing on the kayak. I let the box go and grabbed the kayak instead.

My apartment and everything in it was smashed. The bed was smashed, the bookshelves were smashed to splinters. All my books and my computer was destroyed, as were a lot of my CDs. My tool box had saltwater in it, and I didn’t know it for a few days and the tools were ruined.

The cardboard box that floated away had, among other things, my dive log in it, and it was there I lost track of my number of dives. That logbook was number 19, of my scuba log books I had filled up diving at that time. Anyone who knows me knows I log all my dives, and I always have.

In the apartment, you could see how the wave  came in at an angle, bounced off the wall, hit the kitchen, lifted the refrigerator. (I found my underwater camera UNDER the fridge). Then it went in the bathroom and you could see like a whirlpool pattern in the wreckage. The glass dinner table was in a million pieces and the wave busted the window unit air conditioner out if it’s hole in the concrete wall. All the windows were broken and the window frames were ripped out of the concrete. There was glass everywhere, and if it had happened at night when I was asleep, I probably would not have survived.

It washed the tiles off the floor.

Hurricane Michelle is the hurricane that broke open the Turtle Farm. Before the big wave, all my neighbors and I were picking up turtles and putting them in the bathtubs. It was a nice, sunny day. Huge giant sea turtles were crashing ashore in the waves, breaking their shells. These big ones were so big that only one would fit in the bed of a full sized pick up truck.

I had insurance, but got ripped off bad. For Hurricane Ivan, I had much less damage but I was ready for the insurance sucker punch to the stomach and I didn’t get cheated, like everyone else did. (All the insurance companies blatantly ripped everyone off and then changed their names after Ivan)

I was the only one who stayed in the apartments. But things kept getting worse. The landlord was fixing all the apartments except mine. There was no tile on my floor, just black glue. Ditto was getting sick, and slowly getting covered in glue.

One Saturday, I couldn’t take it any more. I went to my office at work, made a cup of coffee and sat down with the paper in the cool air conditioning. I found one apartment, made one phone call, went and looked, and moved into the apartment. I stayed there six years, and it was the apartment I had before I moved into this house.

And that’s my Flashback Friday. Have a good weekend!!!!

Blog Birthday and West, Texas

Yesterday was this Blogs birthday. It’s been a long trip. I started on Blogger, then moved to WordPress, then got my own domain. I plan on keeping going as long as I can.

Big Explosion in West, Texas. That’s where Yellowdog Granny lives. She posted that she’s Ok. But I’m afraid we’ll find that some of her friends got hurt. She volunteered at the assisted living place near the blast. Plus it’s a very small town. Go read her post for today.

Do you remember there was a big train wreck in Japan about 10 years ago? I had a friend from Japan visiting. I took her to the airport to go back to Japan. It seems I just dropped her off and then I heard about the train wreck. I thought, “No way she’s even back in Japan yet, no chance she’s on that train”. Well, I took her to the airport, she flew to Japan, got off the plane, and got on the very train that crashed and she broke her ankle. Small world.

In almost every disaster since I’ve started this blog, I’ve had a blog friend near there. Every one.

Where I work, they want me to record an event for the radio station where I used to work. I am kind of torn about it, because I have a company that does that sort of thing. I don’t know whether to just do it real easy or if I should charge them.

Tomorrow’s FRIDAY!!! Can’t wait!