This And Thats

When we got back from Alabama I wrote a post every day for a week.  Since then I just haven't felt like writing much of anything.  I feel I need to write something, but the mood hasn't really hit me yet so we'll just have to see what comes out...

• I ordered my new glasses yesterday.  I've had trouble reading the newspaper for a while now so I was due.  The frames I picked out were only a hundred bucks, but the lenses I got were mighty expensive.  Oh well, it's something that I'll wear almost every waking moment every single day.
• I glossed over it, but we had a really good time with friends last Saturday night.  My wife puts a lot of work into cooking, cleaning and decorating for these things, but she enjoys it greatly.  I try to help where I can but staying out of her way is usually the most help to her.
• The weather has finally seemed to turn toward spring.  We have gotten above freezing once or twice in the last couple days with more on the way, so they say.  I'm still not convinced that we haven't gone into a new ice age and won't believe otherwise until I can sit outside in a t-shirt comfortably.  I kept my chin up about the lingering winter for quite a while but have finally succumbed to the exasperation everyone else has had for months.
• Which reminds me of the word snirt.  The term coined for the mounds of dirty black snow and dirt by the sides of the road as melting begins.  The ugly part of thawing out.
• Work continues to take up my life all week.  I'm still on mandatory overtime and will be for at least this whole month.  Probably the biggest reason I have been neglecting this space somewhat.  I've put in for a little time off this next quarter, I hope it gets approved.

I've been stuck at this point in writing for a while now, so I guess I'm done.  Good cheers to all and go Badgers!

Happy Mardi Gras

We had a Mardi Gras themed party with friends last night. My wife again put out a great spread of food, here is the king cake from a local baker.

Sorry, just not in the mood for writing today but I wanted to post this.  Terry got the baby.

In Like A-Lyin'...

It is only a few days from the beginning of March and we are much below the 'average' temperatures for this time of year.  Tonight's low is -11ºF with wind chills of up to -30ºF tomorrow morning.  I guess I'll have to warm up the car tomorrow - wait - I've been warming up the car every morning for months on end now, this is supposed to stop happening, right?

In fact, 11º is the highest we'll see until Sunday, they say.  And why not throw in some snow?  Not a big storm, just a little here and a little there for days on end.  After all, a fresh layer of snow covers all that dirty melting stuff and makes everything beautiful.  Right?

Okay, I'm starting to lose my patience with winter.  That's all I got.


If you want more, watch this short video about the water on our planet. It's worth the while!

Wild Child by Nightwish

After writing for here every day for a week I have taken over a week off.  Nothing new, except maybe one girl we know having an affair with a friend of mine then wanting a divorce from her husband with a baby on the way from her new beau and kicking her husband out of the house so the new guy can move in all in about 2 months time, no, nothing going on but for work keeping me busy with mandatory overtime.  So until I have more time and energy, know that we are well, and still holding out for springtime.

Here, enjoy two of my favorites at once, Nightwish performs the WASP song 'Wild Child.'

Alabama Beachcombing Bounty

The only thing left that I haven't shared from our trip to Alabama is the shells I collected on my walks along the beach.  I could have collected hundreds of the mid-size and smaller shells, but I mostly looked for unique, good quality shells. The picture above shows all that I brought home with me except the starfish.  And all but two shells are now on display in a vase on the hallway shelf - where cats cannot get into it.  I think it turned out pretty well.

Alabama Vacation Pic Dump

Well, everything I wrote about happened even if the order might be a bit fuzzy.  My brain is foggy enough on its own, but going back to work after a full week off has fried it pretty good this week.  Enjoy the pictures, I took the liberty of captioning them because, you know, I'm just that kind of guy!  And I captioned all 34 pictures, so it's like another, usual length, pictorial blog post!
Happy Friday, everyone.

All pics are after the break.

Alabama, Part 4

Thursday morning I took another walk on the beach before anyone else was up.  I gathered just a few more interesting shells and another starfish, this one would break on the trip home, though.  It was very chilly out and ice was everywhere, even in the pool.  We went out for lunch and had some leftover spaghetti for dinner that Dan had fixed us the night before.  Sand was all over the now-drying roads, also we saw water softener salt at the intersections.

 

And I finally got some more smokes and some whiskey for our last night.  We were running out of everything.  We had only packed supplies for 3-4 days but we did do a couple loads of laundry in the condo so we had clean clothes to wear.  In the afternoon, Kate and I checked out the indoor heated pool and hot tubs.

Friday morning we were finally leaving town.  Not that we wanted to, but it was time - past time to get back home.  Again I awoke early, early enough to catch the sun rise over the gulf.  We had a longer drive to the Mobile Regional Airport than it would have been to Pensacola but we didn't want to wait one more day to fly out.  Mom and Dan were gracious with our unexpected stay and drove us to the airport.  Again this airport seemed even smaller than Madison's and for some reason that surprised me again.

Thank you for checking out our trip to Alabama last week.  If my writing seems somewhat less than enthusiastic it is only because my brain is fried from trying to catch up at work this week.  Alabama Pic Dump tomorrow - but for now, Thank You Mom and Dan!

Alabama, Part 3

Monday was pretty stressful around midday.  We found out that our flight out the next day was canceled due to weather, weather that we didn't have yet.  We settled down once we were rescheduled for the same times on Wednesday.  So we went out to eat again, maybe even for lunch and dinner, I don't remember. I think it was after dinner that we all walked down to the shore, though.  It was a wonderful view in any direction, especially my wife's direction. ;)


On Tuesday it got interesting.  It was rain with temperatures at or just below freezing during the day.  We went out to lunch at Lambert's - home of the Throwed Rolls, I remember this one because of the weather.  The roads were fine while we were out.  On the way back we stopped at a few places so I could get some whiskey, but to no avail.  Stores were shutting down.

These people did not know how to handle a little ice and it scared them.  Or rather, the a lot of ice that would eventually accumulate because they don't have salt or experience scared them a bit.  Anyway, I got a picture of icicles on a palm tree and on a porch, and settled for a couple beers that night.  Oh, and the 'chase the ace' game kept us entertained, along with watching the news people freak out.

Wednesday morning I was up early again so went down to the frozen beach.  Ice coated everything, yet it was thin, rough ice, not a slippery as it could have been had it been thicker.  I did not slip on the beachwalk or the frozen beach but I could have if I tried.  It was this morning that I found a lot of interesting shells, large shells, and even a couple starfish up on the beach.  I also saw quite a few dead jellyfish on my morning walks.  I did find a small sand dollar for my Mom but, unfortunately, it broke on the way back upstairs.  It was the only whole one I saw on the beach, any day we were there.

When I got back to the condo things got weird again.  Or flight out that day was canceled.  Again.  Pensacola airport was shut down until further notice.  Later our flight from Atlanta to Madison was rescheduled for later that night, but there was no possible way to get to Atlanta in time even in good weather (unless we could fly there!).  My wife spent a lot of time on the phone; we could fly out of Mobile, about an hour and a half away, on Friday or we could wait until Saturday to fly out of Pensacola, a half hour away.

Alabama, Part 2

On Sunday morning, January 26, I got up relatively early and before everyone else, so I thought I'd venture out and down to the beach.  It was a bit chilly out, but there was no one around yet and I seemed to be one of the first to leave my footprints on the shore.  I found several shells, but nothing very interesting yet.

Later we took a drive, they took us on a loop up to Mobile and back.  On the way we stopped at a local restaurant, one of the 5 or 6 Tacky Jack's in the region.  Tacky Jack's is a colorful place, inside and out.  It seems to be one of those places that must be visited when in the area.  If I'm down there again I would like to try a different location.

After lunch we hopped on the ferry across Mobile Bay.  It was an interesting trip, lasting about 45 minutes, that took us past a few platforms on the bay like you can see above Kate and Mom in the pic.  I took a picture of an informational sign on the ferry to read later.  That platform (different than the one in the picture - there were dozens as far as you can see) is in only 11 feet of water! 

After the ferry and a short drive into Mobile, we found the USS Alabama in a complex that included several planes, helicopters and tanks.  We didn't pay to go inside or board the ship, but we were able to see much just from the parking lot.  It would take several hours to do the tour and see everything, but I was happy with what I saw.

It was a long drive, but since it was Sunday the traffic was good and we loved our stops and all the scenery.  I didn't take pictures of where we went to dinner any time on this trip, so I forget what was dinner this night, but we were good with everywhere we ate out on this trip.  We did NOT go to the Waffle House, but I probably saw 18 different ones - they were everywhere.

Alabama, Part 1

My Mom and her husband Dan left for the gulf coast of Alabama shortly after the new year and are staying until the beginning of March in a luxury condo on the Gulf of Mexico.  As a Christmas present, they offered trips to all their kids to come down and spend some time with them.  We had never taken a vacation in winter before so we accepted their generous offer.

A week ago Saturday we flew from Madison to Atlanta to Pensacola.  As we were flying from Atlanta to Pensacola I thought of Mike Firesmith, the Hickory Head Hermit in the right column.  Perhaps we flew right over him, I'm not sure where he is exactly in Georgia.

The Pensacola airport was a bit smaller than Madison, I'm not sure why that surprised me.  Mom and Dan were there to pick us up and drive the half hour west to Orange Beach, Alabama, kind of a suburb of Gulf Shores.  The Blue Angels fly out of the Pensacola airport.  They said they've seen them flying since they've been down, but we did not see them in our time there.

The development where they were staying had two buildings, the tallest buildings in the area as far we could see.   Luxury condos that were built at an unfortunate time, in the late 2000's when the market crashed, so only two of the four planned buildings were built.

We arrived about midday and settled in after a lunch out.  Temperatures were probably in the low sixties, not very warm but better than where we came from.  Madison was about to get another blast of stupid-cold air.  Meanwhile, we were adjusting to this view: