Harborwalk, FOCCUS, Clogged Drain

Yesterday we spent the morning at Destin Harbor taking pictures of Penny’s latest quilt.  This is the first visit there since they opened the new boardwalk.  They did a good job.  Now instead of looking like a mish mash of fishing boats and tourist offerings the harbor area can hold its own against any other similar tourist attraction.

It now has a wide boardwalk lined with boats on one side and booths on the other offering fishing trips, dolphin cruises, pontoon boat rentals and any other Gulf adventure you may want.

Here are some pictures:

This plaque  is inlaid into the boardwalk.

Lots of birds (pelicans and herons) hang around the docks and I had to take some pictures of them to add to my collection.  As if I don’t have enough already.

 

This guy did a little dance for me

This guy was watching the white pail for a possible meal

Is this close enough?

Eglin is the training base for the new F-35.  One flew over us while we were in Destin.  It’s being escorted by a Navy F-18.

Yesterday evening we saw another FOCCUS couple for marriage preparation.  We will see them again on Sunday.  They are a nice couple – fairly typical of the ones we see.  Having one  or both partners in the military presents a special set of problems for couples. 

After they left our kitchen sink clogged up.  Most of my afternoon was spent trying to unclog it. 

I verified the drain trap was clear, removed it and put one of those rubber bladders in the line that seals the line and forces water down the pipe to hopefully clear the line.  That would have been fine if the clog was before the air vent.  All I ended up doing was filling the air vent to overflowing onto the roof and then having to catch all the water that drains back into the line from the vent.

Finally I snaked the roof vent with my 20 ft snake but it still didn’t clear it.  So it was off to Lowes to buy a bigger snake – 50 ft to be exact.  I snaked that into the vent and at about 40 ft it still didn’t clear – I was beginning to worry. Finally I heard the water drain at just over 40 ft.  I ran lots of water down the drain to be sure it was clear.

I celebrated my success by looking at the pictures I took yesterday and writing this blog.  Now I have to go clean up the mess I left in the kitchen.

Storm Watch

It looks like TS Debby is going to shape our lives for the next 2-3 days.  When the storm track was first published it had the storm going to South Texas.  I told Penny if I were in New Orleans I’d be worried (thinking that is where the storm would finally go).  For a while they did have the storm going there.  Now they have no idea where it will go.  It’s moving at walking speed.  It appears to be going Northeast – but who knows.

It’s been a while since I’ve written.  Not much going on.  I’ve been cleaning up the yard.  The storm speeded up the effort a little.  It also slowed it some with the rain.    I’ve secured the kayaks and got all the important stuff inside the shed. The cars are gassed up and I got gas for the generator.  Now I keep an eye on the storm and it will determine what else I need to do.  We’re not expecting much trouble.

The best site I’ve found for monitoring the storm is the weatherunderground.com.  They have their “wundermap” that displays any and all  the info on the storm on 1 map.

The week hasn’t been eventful but lots of things have been running through my mind as I’ve been doing my chores.

First I noticed on the computer that this same lady, who is a 56 year old mom, must live in both my town and Jacksonville.  The add on AOL shows her picture and says she has a secret that makes her look like she is 27.  (27- not 26 or 28)

I told Christy about an article in this months Discover Magazine about the Inner lives of dogs.  It’s a great article. It answers questions like: Do dogs experience the same emotions as people?; Why do dogs prefer HDTV?; Do dogs dream?; Do dogs smile and laugh?  It also decodes dog’s barks and wags.

I picked all the ripe tomatoes and peppers in the garden.  If it gets windy here it will lay the plants down.   This will be the last significant harvest from the tomato plants.  I’ve got a couple of new plants beginning to produce fruit now so if the storm doesn’t wipe the garden out I’ll have a few more tomatoes from those plants in a couple weeks.

That’s it, it’s my bed time.  Good-night.

Recital Time

I just returned from Jacksonville and Sophie's 1st ballet recital.  It was a good trip.  Penny and I got some 1 on 1 time with Lucy while Sophie was at rehearsal.   The recital itself was fun.  Sophie loved the attention and she did well on the stage.

She was very excited about wearing makeup.  With all of us taking pictures there are more than 300 pictures documenting Sophie and Lucy’s day.

We had the post production “party” at Dreamette and Penny and I both had “off-the –diet” cups of soft serve ice cream.

Here are some pictures:

 

Death in the Family

My nephew David committed suicide yesterday  and while I had no strong emotional connection with him it still hurts inside.  His brother and sisters are going through the normal grieving process but it is harder for them given the fact that David took his own life.  They each are asking “why?” and wondering “what if” they had done something differently-could they have saved him?

Having a sibling die is not something you give a great deal of thought to until you reach your senior years and begin anticipating your own death.  So when you lose a brother or sister unexpectedly you are suddenly faced with the whole death, religion and meaning of life questions that your mind just brushes over in other times.  Suddenly you realize that your siblings wont be with you forever.  You realize that those shared experiences growing up aren’t all that meaningful to others and soon may be forgotten to the world.  With David’s death the normal overwhelming flood of emotions is complicated by guilt, anger and confusion.  It’s got to be especially stressful for Debbie, Donna and Rich.

Include them in your prayers.  Love and cherish those you still have with you.

Magical Mystery Morning and Amazing Afternoon.

That’s what we call our day when we spend it spoiling Sophie and Lucy.  Karen is out of town and we volunteered to help Tim with the kids.

Today we started out with breakfast at Bob Evans.  Then  we went to the premier showing of Madagascar 3.  Our  routine for movies is to get a bag of popcorn and a drink the distribution of which Penny then regulates.  This is the 2nd movie we’ve been to and it has worked out well.  We tell the kids that if they behave we can do this more and , so far, they have behaved.

We then lunched at TGI Fridays and shopped for some white sandals for Sophie.

Both girls then took a nap before going to dinner at Chili’s.

At Chili’s there was a volunteer balloon twister that came to our table.  She made Lucy a balloon butterfly and Sophie a balloon mermaid.  Sophie drew the face on the mermaid.  Here’s what they look like:

The Yellow Plague

We went to the dentist today and then since it was Tuesday morning we went to Tuesday Morning.

I ended up buying a set of DVDs called “The Complete National Geographic”.  It contains every issue from 1888 through 2008.  That’s a big stack of magazines.

I put the DVD set to the test by looking up a map that the magazine had in it in 1969 showing the Earth’s Moon.

When I worked for NASA the test conductor for Apollo XIII’s Saturn V rocket had this chart on his wall and I found one part of the chart particularly interesting.  It shows the familiar “man in the moon” as the moonrise image we see on the moon.  It goes on to show at high moon the image of a pretty lady with the crater Tyco as her amulet.  The setting moon looks like a rabbit.

I found the map easily and was able to zoom in on the part I was interested in and copy it and here it is.

I saw the moon differently after looking at this chart and now maybe you will, too.

I think having this reference material at hand should be fun and if I ever have time to waste  it’s a great toy to play with.