Year: 2009

Finis

It has been 1870 days (5 years, 1 month, 12 days) since taking the first Post Office picture of Summerall Station in Aiken to this one, the last, from Daufuskie Island last Saturday. In that time frame I have taken pictures of 453 Post Offices with the Emperor (or some portion of him) or his Mini-Me somewhere in the frame.

I started out with at least six more to do, those on the military bases in the state, but have decided that if I couldn’t get them all I wouldn’t do any of them. My out is that although the bases are physically located inside the state’s borders they really are on U.S. Government property. The two Marine Corp bases near Beaufort have no problem with visitors as long as they get a visitor’s pass. Fort Jackson in Columbia probably wouldn’t have been an issue either as it is a boot camp for the Army and they are used to visitors. The two Air Force bases are stricter and I would have needed to have been escorted on base by someone stationed there (only one of which I would have had someone to do that for me.) The Naval Weapons Station in Goose Creek was going to be the deal breaker anyway. Just the name of the place doesn’t sound like the kind of place they let civilians wander about, with a camera no less. Plus they used to keep the nukes for the subs at the Charleston Navy Base before it closed down and for all I know they still house the ones the Air Force needs.

There is still a slight controversy as to whether to include the second Hampton PO. It looks for all the world like a backwoods county home with pickups out front and it has no outward indications of any postal activity, no blue box and no signage. All I have is one small photo I snapped from inside the car because Donna didn’t want me to get out. So when we got home from that trip I wrote to the Postmaster of that zip code. A couple weeks later I received a reply stating that it is a Community Post Office, but I’m still not so sure I should include it.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 143

A Redneck Love Poem

Susie Lee done fell in love, she planned to marry Joe.
She was so happy ’bout it all, she told her pappy so.

Pappy told her, Susie gal, you’ll have to find another.
I’d just as soon yo’ ma don’t know, but Joe is yo’ half brother.

So Susie put aside her Joe and planned to marry Will.
But after telling pappy this, he said, there’s trouble still.

You can’t marry Will, my gal, and please don’t tell yo’ mother,
but Will and Joe, and several more I know is yo’ half brothers.

But mama knew and said, my child, just do what makes yo’ happy.
Marry Will or marry Joe; you ain’t no kin to pappy.

(Kinda brings a tear to yer eye, don’t it?)

Summer?

We took advantage of the early summer weather today to ride the tandem into work under the full moon. It was so nice that there were only a couple places on the way to work that a jacket was required and on the way home it would have been perfect for not a 10-12 mile an hour headwind on a 1/4 of the journey. It may not be officially spring yet, but it is starting to look it, as the Bradford Pear trees are blooming. Tomorrow, for one day, it is going to feel like summer with a high in the upper 80’s before return to the more normal 60’s on Thursday.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 143

Hodge Podge

Remember Photofunia? You know that Russian site where you uplaod yor photo and the site does some magic in the background and integrates that photo into a scene? Well here is another one for you, WriteOnIt. Their selection of images is not as diverse as Photofunia, but they do have a couple of other options that make it worth a peek – magazine covers and adding captions to some of there own photos.

Via io9:
Cartoonist Chris Gine has decided that he’ll draw three new robots (with… stuff) each week for a year, giving you a glimpse into just how much variety there is in the robot world. He is up to sixteen with 149 to go. Bots with Stuff. My favorite so far: #11, a robot with a really cool jetpack, but no friends to show it to. Although the very first one, a robot with a delicious groundhog is a close second.

Via Techdirt:
Sita Sings The Blues. Because the cost of obtaining the of copyrights on songs from the 1920’s, a weird mashup movie of that eras jazz vocals, the epic Indian tale of Ramayana and sumptuous animation couldn’t be released as a for profit movie, so instead, the filmmaker has decided to press 4,999 copies on DVD (just below a level to keep the royalty fees at the $50k she has already put up) and make promotional copies available for downloading from several web venues. These promotional copies are not subject to royalty fees or something. The filmmaker is going to rely on other ways of making money on the project instead of the whole find distributor Hollywood route, one of which is the “pay what you want” model by accepting donations. I’ve probably got a few details of this whole thing wrong, more info can be found on the filmmaker’s blog, Rogert Ebert’s blog and the films site. I’m downloading the torrent now and plan on kicking a few bucks Nina Paley’s way.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 143

Grandma’s Birth Control Pills

The doctor that had been seeing an 80-year-old woman for most of her life finally retired. At her next checkup, the new doctor told her to bring a list of all the medicines that had been prescribed for her.

As the young doctor was looking through these, his eyes grew wide as he realized she had a prescription for birth control pills.

“Mrs. Smith, do you realize these are BIRTH CONTROL pills?

“Yes, they help me sleep at night.”

“Mrs. Smith, I assure you there is absolutely NOTHING in these that could possibly help you sleep!”

She reached out and patted the young Doctor’s knee. “Yes, dear, I know that. But every morning, I grind one up and mix it in the glass of orange juice that my 16 year old granddaughter drinks…and believe me, it helps me sleep at night.”

Daylight Theiving Time

We moved the clocks ahead last night, somehow apparently stealing an hour of my time. Unfortunately for both of us, the now missing time was blogging time, so you will have to hope that I can somehow squeeze in an extra post this week so you can read all about today’s events. And trust me when I say this, they were doozies.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 143

Daufuskie Island

The main reason for ferrying over to this small barrier island off the South Carolina coast was to take a picture of the Post Office, we also wanted to enjoy a place that the primary mode of transportation is a golf cart. There are cars & trucks on the island, but only the full time residents, of which there are only around 200, are allowed to keep one. We also wanted to try and find the one and only cache there, Life of Leisure. It is a micro, which we aren’t having too much luck with, but listed as “not at all hard to find.”

I’m sure we were right on it and with the clue given as eye level, it should have been easy, but we couldn’t find it. The location is right near the 18th fairway of one of the Daufuskie Island Resort’s golf courses, so we had to dodge golfers and balls. There was a dead tree right on the spot that looked like it was a woodpecker buffet line with lots of holes that a micro could have fit in, but I didn’t see one, nor did I find one hidden under all the chips. Dang.

We were now 0 for 3 on micro caches this trip with the two failure to finds in Beaufort yesterday. Not only didn’t we find this cache, but we didn’t find a full size one on Hilton Head that we tried before boarding the ferry. We suck at this. But we aren’t about to give this up yet, instead of being discouraged by the failures we are now more set in our resolve not to be defeated.

The round trip ferry ride is $23 a person and a 3 hour rental of a golf cart is $50, so we crammed quite a bit of traveling into our day. The boat arrived on the island at 11:00 AM and we covered a bunch of ground before heading back to the landing for lunch at the Old Daufuskie Crab company. After lunch with not much time left until our return trip, we decided to stay until the 5:15 ferry, if we could keep the golf cart. We I asked if it was alright if we kept it over the 3 hour limit the fellow told me usually they charge an additional twenty bucks, but he said don’t worry about it, just be back by 4:00 PM. I’m sure his answer would have been different had it been high season, but I thanked him and we set back out to poke around in some places we hadn’t been yet.

Most of the roads in the resorts and planned to be resorts were paved, but all of the internal main island roads are dirt. Donna, who is normally driving averse, actually loved driving the golf cart around the island because with traffic being almost non existent and with a top speed of 14 MPH down hill, piloting the cart is a blast. We will definitely be visiting again, may not be for another year, but a return trip is going to happen sometime. There are lots of little stories to tell, but my fingers are getting tired from typing, so maybe another time. The island is only 2.5 miles wide by 5 miles long, so just look up at the attached picture and note the green line, that is our track from the GPS and some of those routes we traveled more than once. We covered some ground.

Started up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 142