On The Beach In Puerto Rico

Beach Scene

Donna and her family lived on Puerto Rico for a couple years in the late 60’s because her dad was a sea plane pilot fly­ing a Grumman Goose for Antilles Air Boats. The family would often take advantage of the nearby beaches. Here is a photo showing Donna, her sister Sandy, family friend Frank and big brother Steve playing in the sand. What’s that in front of them, did they build a sand castle? No, wait a minute, that’s little brother Scott’s head, they’ve buried the poor kid alive.

I know they dug him up before the tide came in or crab plucked his eye balls out because we visited him and his family in Washington state back in July of this year.

I Sprained My Blogging Muscle

Eclipse

I’ve got/had a bunch of stories I kinda want to write about, but can’t seem to get them from my head to the keyboard, so I’m going to start small:

When I finished my rollerblading route this evening I remembered that there was supposed to be a partial solar eclipse today. It was scheduled to start in our area about 5:30 and continue until sundown when there would be 40% of the sun’s face covered by the shadow of the moon. It was already after 6:00 PM and the sun was already so low in the sky that because of our tree filled neighborhood, I had no clear view. The “photo” above was taken from in my driveway and shot through the big magnolia in the yard across the street.

49,000 Orange Skinny Plastic Posts

Not My Photo

Not My Photo

That is all that separates us plebeian I-95 drivers from those that are willing to pay extra to travel in the Express Lanes in the center of Miami. The lanes run for about 10 miles from central Miami to Exit 12, Miami Gardens Drive. What they have done is take two existing lanes and segregate them from the other 4 or 5 with plastic poles and charge your SunPass device 75¢ to $1.50 for the privilege of riding in these special lanes. Trouble is that during busy times, and I saw a couple of them last week, these “express” lanes are no better than the regular lanes.

About the time I was watching a car squeeze through two of these poles to go from the Express Lanes to the regular ones during Friday evening rush hour, the Purple Whale was passing through the 49,000 mile mark on his odometer.

Like A Virgin, Touched For The Very First Time

Every Thursday for the last few months Donna’s sister Sandy, her husband Paul and Paul’s mother Dottie have had a masseuse come to their house to give each one of them a massage. Because Sandy & Paul are in Miami right now leaving Donna and I to “babysit” 99-year old Dottie, Donna took Sandy’s place and I got Paul’s spot.

Back in the day when I was cycling a lot, a few of the guys in the bicycle club swore that after doing a long ride a massage was just the ticket to work out the kinks. After every Aiken Bicycle Club’s yearly century rides and at most other 100 mile fund raiser rides offered by other cycling clubs there was a masseuse available. I was only mildly curious as to what a massage would accomplish, plus I’m kinda cheap, so I never took advantage of the offer.

As payment for our “babysitting”, Dottie offered to pay, so I was finally getting that massage and I wouldn’t have to ride a bicycle 100 miles to get it. This was nothing like the 20 minute long concentrate on the legs post century massage though, but a full 1-hour deep tissue massage. Well, what did I think? It was not unpleasant. It was not the be all to end all in muscle relaxation either.

It is eight hours later and I still feel a little beat up in a few places. Maybe it is because Kelly used the same amount of pressure on me, a classic ectomorph that she uses on Paul, who is more of a mesomorph and 30 pounds heavier. Or maybe I am just like Mac from that old Charles Atlas body building ad that was on the inside back cover of the comic books of my youth.

Trailering the Purple Whale

Trailer

Donna flew down last Sunday to spend some more time with her sister. I drove the Sonata down to Florida yesterday. This is a couple of firsts (for a while) as we can’t really remember the last time Donna flew on a commercial airplane* without me sitting next to her and the first time we have spent more than 5 nights apart since 1983. This is also the first time I’ve driven that far without her sitting next to me since way back when we first knew each other back in 1976.

Kids, don’t try this at home, somewhere on I-95 I caught up to a shiny trailer hauling who knows what and thought that maybe I should take one hand off the steering, root around in the center console, find my camera, pull it out and press some buttons while driving at 80 MPH.

*She did fly on a couple of military hops to visit me once while I was on Guam before her (back in 1976 too.)

Bloody Moon

Bloddy Moon

I got up slightly early this morning to go out and see the “Blood Moon.” Because of the total eclipse of the moon by the Earth’s shadow it appears reddish in color. I left the house so I was probably the first customer of the day at the local DD. With my cup of coffee I started heading west hoping to find a high spot with a good sight line of the moon as it set. I tried a couple of spots, but couldn’t find the right combination. at this point the moon was still high enough in the sky that it was easy to see no matter where you were. As I drove along and the Earth’s shadow crept across the moon’s face it didn’t look very red. When I stopped just after the eclipse reach totality I rolled down my tinted window and Boom!, the moon was red.

Trying to hand hold a zoomed in shot of the Earth’s satellite, even with the camera braced against the car roof, means you are going to get what you see above. The two horizontal streaks are a set of power lines that got in the frame.

Now That’s Scary

Black SoxIt is that time of year again. There are bright orange pumpkins for sale everywhere. Place a large whole one on your porch for decoration or place a small one on the dining room table as a center piece. Or cut one up and make a pie 9don’t forget to bake the seeds for a delicious seasonal snack. Or of course you could carve that sucker up into a jack-o-lantern.

Every year the Valve Store(tm) has a little pumpkin carving contest and every year I think I’ll carve something up to enter, but my artistic imagination is far superior to my artistic carving ability. One time I did make a Miata-O-Lantern, but not in time to enter in the contest. This year it will be different, I’ve got the perfect idea, the FRS logo.

There won’t be many employees who think it is scary, well except for the three Red Sox fans I know of…