Feeling Average?

So, at best, sometimes you feel just "average"? How cool would it be if we could just make it mandatory that others saw us from a photoshop reality? Way cool.

Magazines do it all the time and keep the celebrity royal appealing to us.

Check Faith Hill out
Click the Redbook picture.

Mermaid

When Christopher Columbus came to the new world 600 years ago, he spotted what he thought was a mermaid and wrote that they were not quite as beautiful as the paintings he had seen. You have to wonder what was going through the poor man's mind.

Well.............................duh Chris, I think you spent too many days on that ship.

This was my first time in Florida waters in SCUBA gear...but first, let me plug Rachel and Don Domingo and my friends at Maui Dreams Dive Company in Kihei, Maui, HI. Maui Dreams is where I consider my birthplace in diving therefore everyone else will always be compared to them.

Looking for a manatee dive, I was plugging around on the internet and found American Pro Dive Shop in Crystal Springs and was more than pleased with my experience. It seems you don't SCUBA with manatees but snorkel. Since this was summer and the waters are warm (73 degrees) there weren't very many manatees to spot but we managed to locate a couple. We slipped into the water pretty early before the other shops had arrived. Captain Keith dropped anchor in pretty shallow water and we approached the manatees. Most of my experience has been in salt water and the green algae and less than pristine visibility took some getting used to. The manatees were easily approachable and we spent quite a time photographing and just hanging out. After about 30 minutes we left the area and went out further to the caverns. The caverns were much clearer and we dropped into the hole where some of the fresh spring water was coming from. Our depth was eventually around 50 feet and saw several blue crabs, blue catfish, shrimp and a gobe or two. I would advise you to book your dives early because they fill up fairly rapidly.

There's this marker in the entrance of the cavern that seems to be a prophecy of sorts. In the mid 80's, manatees were down to 1,500-2,000 in the USA. According to the dive masters at the dive shop, populations now could be somewhere between 6 and 8 thousand. They've now become "protected" as opposed to "endangered".


Here's a montage of my dive with the manatee.

Click here.

FedEx vs. Government Bureaucracy -- Newt Gingrich

Curmudgeon

Main Entry: cur·mud·geon
(click the speaker button)
Function: noun
Pronunciation: (")k&r-'m&-j&n
: a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man
- cur·mud·geon·li·ness /-le-n&s/ noun
- cur·mud·geon·ly /-le/ adjective

I'm blaming it on the airline industry this week. Yep, I'm becoming a curmudgeon of sorts. Now there are those of which I have a familiar relationship would beg to contest the word "becoming" but let's not be nit-picky.

In the middle of last week I found it necessary to leave Huntsville, Alabammer and head for the sunny beaches of Saint Augustine, Florida. After scrambling out of bed very early Wednesday morning, I did my last minute packing, loaded up the bags and headed out just a short distance to the airport. Realizing I needed to turn the rental car in with a full tank, I stopped off at an all night gas station where the pumps refused pump more than 15 cents worth in a minute. Realizing it would be noon before it would fill, I blasted off in search for another. After a quick fill up at the Chevron station I hit the road in a light rain and after missing my turn I realized my timing might be in jeopardy. After a 5 minute detour I got back to the right road and made it into the rental car lane, turned the car in and dragged my two bags to the check-in counter.

The man at the counter eased my fears about being late by good naturedly telling me that the 7 AM flight now would be the 9:15 AM flight and that since my Delta Connection in Jacksonville would be very long gone by the time I got there, I would have the opportunity of enjoying the ambiance of Atlanta's accommodations complete with airline employees who would be coming to work that day with a very nasty attitude that would surpass the one I was quickly gaining. Hmmmph!

Mr. Friendly at the counter had already used the word "weather" a lot and so other people in the airport were calling loudly on the cell phones and using "weather" in their conversations as well. It seems the crew was late arriving the night before and they would need rack time to fulfill layover requirements. With expectations already hardening in my head, I entertained myself on the internet by informing several people (who could probably have cared less) that I would not be arriving in Jacksonville at 11:30 AM but would be arriving at 1:50 PM instead....due to "weather". Oh well, not so bad, I kept telling myself. I could be in St Augustine by 3:30. Oh, I had forgotten I was flying on Delta. My bad.

The 9:15 flight became the 9:30 flight and as we sat in the cabin waiting to move, then the WWA-Waitress With Attitude (flight attendant) informed us that it was federal holy law that we must abide by airline employee's instructions and that we should not disable the smoke detector in the privy. She also used the word "weather" several times. Many were not impressed.

Eventually arriving in ATL, I grabbed some lunch at a Chinese place run by a bunch of Russians, sat on a stool facing a wall and listened to lots of folk talk loudly on their phones about the "weather". "Weather" had caught on pretty well and "weather" was now the blame of everything small and great from a bad hair day to splinters in chop-sticks.

The waiting area for my flight was overcrowded because of the "weather" and Delta was almost giddy for having "weather' to blame for all their maladies. The scapegoat for being late every other delay is up for speculation. I sat for quite a while afraid to give up the seat I had waited several minutes for but eventually got up when they announced new departure times twice. I went to the shops and looked at overpriced things I would never really buy and took my chances in the aisles nearly being run over by those carts hustling pre-teens and old(er) people with walkers to different gates.

Eventually Jacksonville became a reality but by then, due to "weather", I now found myself in traffic headed for St Augustine that would rival any day on the I-10 in Baton Rouge. At 6 PM, I checked myself into the hotel, ate at the IHOP and awaited more adventures in travel.

Abysmal Use Of Airwaves

Mika Brzezinski, Joe Scarborough and another twit argue over the Paris Hilton story. I actually agree with Brzezinski but why is there even a need for MSNBC? Hold on, there's a point to this blog.

Last night, I became distracted while popping a bag of microwave popcorn and before I knew it, the room was full of smoke burning my lungs with the smoke alarm piercing my already partially deaf ears. I grabbed the bag, put it in the sink and ran water over it and tried to open the window but success was fleeting, for the window had a stop bolted on it and prevented it from opening more than 4 inches. With my lungs choking, the alarm squealing and room visibility hazy, I opened the door for a fresh breath and met a wide eyed woman who thought she was going to have to bail out of the second story. "Is everything alright?" she asked. I coughed and told her it was merely burning popcorn. Rolling her eyes she retreated into her hole in the wall and I went back in the room hoping 10 firetrucks wouldn't appear outside my window.

What's the point of this diatribe? I'm surfing the web looking at useless stuff while everything I own that's washable is in the laundromat downstairs. I've even used up an entire container of Febreeze but I can still smell it. So, that's why you're reading this pointless piece of garbage, that with a large dose of boredom is why I was even watching the MSNBC drivel. I get to blame surfing the web and finding this stuff on my adventures with Orville Redenbacher.

4 th of July, 2007

4th of July, 2007
No, I didn't get to go home on the 4th of July.

I love the 4th as much as anyone but I'm up here in Madison (Huntsville), Alabama and it's been a couple of weeks since I was home to see my family

Oh, by the way, click any of these smaller pictures for the bigger version.

Henry

This is the youngest grandson. He's Jared and Jaime's first. Henry's not talking much but his smile lights me up.. I'll be home in a week and a half for his first birthday party. I might be able to play with him if I can fight through the gaggle of other grandparents, uncles, aunts and assorted relatives. Presently, he's still not too sure of me because I'm not around him too much just yet....but it will come.

Hagan

I talked to one of my other grandson's last night. Hagan has become quite a chatterbox over the past couple of months. He used to keep me at a safe distance too but now, it seems we can talk at length about "ball" and Jill. Jill's his aunt's dog that inhabits 3 or so family homes all on the same street. As you might imagine, he's quite the camera ham and will let you pose him for quite a while before he gets tired and begins to rebel. His dad says he's going to be the aggressive one. We'll see. He's Darren and Donna's second son.

Devin

His big brother, Devin, has been wrapped up with baseball this spring. Who knows what he'll be in to when that's over. That's him smacking that ball last April with his mom behind the cage holding his little brother. Devin tries hard to be humble but I don't know if it's working. He's a whiz at video games too.

Weekend with Roy

.....Acuff, that is. Roy Acuff reigned supreme at the Grand Ole Opry when he was alive and well.

This past weekend, early Saturday, I left Huntsville, Alabama hoping to find an adventure in Nashville, Tennessee.

On weekdays, it must be a pretty robust place with lots of new building construction and sporting new 8 lane super highways. My GPS was leading me toward old downtown and the Ryman Auditorium.

If Nashville is Mecca to country music fans, the Ryman has to be the Holy of Holies.

A converted church that still has stained glass windows,the Ryman was the home of the Grand Ole Opry for years until Gaylord Entertainment began hosting it at Opryland.Years ago, Broadway Street was the heartbeat of country music. It's just a half block from the original Grand Ole Opry and spawned country stars like Roy Acuff, Little Jimmy Dickens, June Carter, Johnny Cash, Hank Williams, Patsy Cline, Ernest Tubb, Minnie Pearl and others.

Many like Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Roy Orbison had early success there.

Still today, country music hopefuls make pilgrimages here in hopes for that rainbow, playing for tips during the day and playing in groups at Tootsie's and any number of bars during the night.

This town's brand is definitely music and the Music Row area is lined with music companies small and great.

As you drive the area, recording and production companies are separated only by attorney offices and virtually every light pole has a half dozen posters advertising some singer, musician or banjo player.


During the day, some open up their guitar cases and play for tips until time to tune back up at the lounges.

Nashville nods to others other than traditional hillbilly music icons. There's a Hard Rock Cafe and a Coyote Ugly with young men and women sporting multiple tattoos, body piercings and purple hair walking the sidewalks in front of the Wildhorse Saloon.

While many come here

in search of their dreams

some are not so lucky and found the end of that rainbow a place of discouragement, despair and loneliness.

But as Willie Nelson once sang, "Sad Songs And Waltzes Aren't Selling This Year".

At lunch, I dropped into a Chinese Restaurant. Just before leaving, the waiter plunked down the ticket on the table accompanied by the traditional Chinese Fortune Cookie. Ironically, the message in the cookie pretty much says it all.


(I promise, I really got this cookie and took the picture myself)

Call me a pessimist but I'd guess the lucky numbers wouldn't win me the lottery either.

Darlene and the Turtle

Click here for the video. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1949224483272421365&hl=en

Well, I could have stayed there forever but........

........you just have to move on. At the end of May, I had another amazing chance to stay on Maui and live my life away from the responsibilities that really provided that vacation. Actually, my job for the trip was to be Darlene's personal photographer. It seems I spent much of the time taking pictures, both with the digital SLR as well as the underwater Canon.