Author: Bill

Much later than I want – but this one needs written. After a lot of discussion and thought, it is with a mixed bag of emotions that I have decided to pack up and move back to the states . My Bride is not going to be able to return to the island. She is going to be fine, but will need to have specialized medical assistance near by if needed. Something this island just cannot provide. I have already gave notice to the shop that I am leaving. I already have my truck sold and a good line on getting rid of most of the household stuff. I would like to be out of here by the end of the month, but don’t know if that is doable. Still a ton of unanswered questions and dang few answers to go to them. Our girls have been doing a wonderful job tending to their Mom, but I need to be doing that and can’t do it from here.

Not sure how many more of these I will get written as I have a million and three things to get done, so will apologize in advance for that. I’ll get on here as time allows and keep you updated the best I can. I appreciate you all stopping in and listening to my ramblings and hope I can resume these again [regularly] at a later time.

Good Night Y’all – – – – – – – – – – — – – – – Thankx for stopping in~!

Slept in ever so slightly, but only because I stayed up way later than I should have watching New Amsterdam. If you’re looking for a series, I highly recommend this one. I am told that season # 5  just came out/or is about to, bad thing is, Netflix is only showing first two. Guess I’ll have to go looking for the rest. I sure hope it’s easier than finding a Colts game.

Wasn’t in the mood for breakfast, so I just had a banana so I could take my meds. Several small piddly things I needed to do today and really didn’t want to, but it  had to be done, so I finally forced myself to get up and go. Stripped the bed and gathered up all the dirty clothes. Dropped them off at the laundry, went by the Post office [aways a treat], stopped by the dump for the weekly visit there then drove to mid island to the pharmacy there. I was getting really low on Actifed and that is the only place I can find it in hundred count bottles -and- they’ll let me buy two bottles at a time. I also picked up some Mucinex trying to shake the crap in my chest. A 40 count box for $ 38.00 which I thought was a little pricey, but whadda ya gonna do ?? On the way back, stopped at the car place and had them look over my brakes. He said he needed to price parts before he can quote me a price. He did add some brake fluid, which mysteriously made all of the brake “symptoms” go away…. so I may just skip the expensive part for now. From there I stopped at Blues and talked to my friend Jim. A cold beer [or two] and a friendly face made my day considerably better. I say that because news from the states about my Bride has not been very good. We are getting her [slowly] patched up, but it is starting to look like returning to the island is not going to be a good idea. Dammit Emmit. Not making any return plans just yet, but time will tell. Back at the house, made the bed and then made me a bite to eat. Kind of in a fog right now, worried about Angie and what is coming down the road. Test results are slow coming in, that is the toughest part though, not knowing anything for sure but I firmly believe progress is being made. Looks like I get to dive the next 2 or 3 days in a row. That is good, it is a welcome distraction and keeps me from dwelling on crap I probably shouldn’t be dwelling on. Sorry I missed last night. There was a CRABBS meeting and I attended it. I did get me a pizza and thankfully, it was fairly decent…. so there’s that~~

Good Night Ya’ll – – – – – – – – – – – Thankx for stopping in~!

Pretty typical start to my day.  I had an appointment to get my Queens car to a mechanic (yea, still trying to get that figured out) and the neighbor needed to borrow my truck, so it worked out well, he could take my truck and pick me up when I dropped the car off. I showed him on the map where it the place was and he said he meet me there at 10:00 [my appointment time]. I left early enough to plan on arriving 15 minutes early or so. I got to where I thought the place should be and commenced to spend the next 35 minutes driving around looking for it. I stopped and asked 5 different people if they knew where it was at. Several blank stares, one that didn’t speak English and one that said I think it is over by NAPA auto parts (it wasn’t). I had spoken to neighbor by that point and told him to go ahead and do what he needed to do and I’ll keep looking. Another couple of people who had no idea what I was talking about and neighbor shows up again and pulls into the spot where I am sitting. While I had got out of the car to talk to neighbor, the mechanic called ( I had called him no less than 10 times)…… I called him back and turns out I was only a couple hundred yards from him. Car finally dropped off. Young kid, clean cut, decent manners. I was hopeful. Back at the house, made me a nice big breakfast and was just settling in when mechanic calls and says car is ready. “BOOM” – mind blown~! I asked a couple of questions and he answered them intelligently. Turns out neighbor had to go back down near where the car was, so I copped another ride. Asked the mechanic a few more questions and again, more intelligent answers -and- he only charged me 30 bucks~!. I still have my doubts, but only time will tell. I have also scheduled my truck in there for Wednesday, so if my Bride’s car is not fixed…. he has some es-plainin’ to do. Keeping my fingers crossed.

Finally heard from my Bride after her Doctor’s appointment. Sadly, the news is not as good as I was hoping for and it looks like she will stay in the states for follow up until at least the end of January. It absolutely kills me to be away from her for so long, but she is surrounded by love and will be getting the quality care she needs. For that I am eternally grateful, so I can deal with it. Please keep her in your good thoughts and prayers.

Was supposed to have a small boat tomorrow, but it got cancelled as I was typing this…. Dammit Emmit. Now not sure what tomorrow brings………. crap~!

Good Night Y’all . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Thankx for stopping in~!

Up a smidge before my alarm this morning whether I wanted to or not. Seems as though I wasn’t smart enough to take my tired old touchas to bed last night when I should have. I got wrapped up in that new series (New Amsterdam) and stayed up a wee bit later than I planned. Not the first stupid thing I have ever done, and an above average chance it ain’t gonna be the last one either. Anyhow~~ Got all my batteries bump charged and my gear all lugged out to the truck.  Oddly, wasn’t in the mood for breakfast so I opted for a bottle of Spark on the drive to the marina. Not real smart, but it worked for what I needed. Fairly full boat today. A Dad and his 4 daughters, and 6 other folks. 3 of them were regulars, so I still had a fairly good size group to get pictures of.  As I got ready to go over the side for the first dive, someone hollered “Dolphins~!”  I did not hesitate and as I splashed into the water 2 big dolphins and a smaller one come cruising by me. I went as fast as I could in some very ‘sporty‘ water, to get my lens uncovered and my camera turned on. Because I use a ‘wet’ lens for my wide angle, I have to ‘burp‘ the lens before I can start taking pictures. By the time I got all that done, the dolphins were long gone. DAMMIT Emmit~! I have got some really nice video of them before,  I have taken from the bow of our boat, but that was the first time (since I started diving) that I ever got to be in the water with them. Oh well – I did get to see them. As we dropped, the current picked up and got stronger as the dive wore on, which is never any fun. As we was wrapping the dive up, the dolphins came back by. I tried to get to them, but the current was to much to fight against and they were cruising along. I tried to zoom my lens and I did manage two pictures of them, but terrible, terrible quality. DAMMIT Emmit~! I actually saw them a couple of times during the dive, but just to far away for a decent shot. Second dive I was busy trying to get people pictures when one of the Dive Masters grabbed my arm and pointed….. the dolphins. No current on this dive and I took off. I did manage to get close enough this time that I didn’t need to zoom and managed a couple of shots that turned out good enough, you can at least tell what they are. Jeezzzus those things are huge~! I wish they would have hung out with us, but happy to get the shots I got.  What a great way to spend a Sunday~! Nothing scheduled for the entire week coming up…… Look like it’s gonna be a long week….. especially without my Queen here. She has her appointment with the Pulmonologist tomorrow. Please keep your fingers crossed for a good diagnosis so she don’t need much ‘fixin’ and she can come home to me.

Happy Birthday to Son-in-Law Michael~!

Good Night Y’all ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ Thankx for stopping in~!

Stayed up way past my bedtime last night. I started a new series and it has me thoroughly engrossed in it. The name is New Amsterdam (Netflix). It’s a medical show, pretty standard plot lines but very well acted and draws you in. Only two seasons to it but I am already on episode 9 of the first season. At the pace I’m watching it, I’ll be looking for another series by Tuesday, but only because I’m diving tomorrow and will have pictures and stuff to do until 5:00 o’clock or so. I got up early because I want to be tired enough to go to bed early tonight for my normal 05:30 wake up. Made me an awesome breakfast this morning. I made up a batch of Stove Top stuffing and mixed some of it in with my scrambled eggs (but let the eggs get about ¾ done before you do) and I had my Lil Smokies and a glass of milk. I had forgotten just how good [and filling ] that is. Yummy~! Wasted an incredible amount of time on line watching mostly stupid videos before coaxing myself to get up and go to the store. I had to reload stuff to eat for next week. Sadly, I guess all the island holidays have delayed shipments and shelves were mostly empty. I was looking for another small chunk of ham, but they were completely out. Dammit Emmit~! I got the last tiny bag of $6 salad mix. Couple of tomatoes. Couple of packs of chicken and turkey lunch meat (Deli was closed), some Beer, Vienna Sausage and a couple of other odd ball things. Still cost me $145. May have to look into fasting for a while….. geeesh~~

Came back and got everything put away and settled in on the couch for some more of my new series. Had a can of Sardines with some crackers. Haven’t had that in a while and didn’t realize just how much I enjoy them. The ‘Adult’ Christmas  parade was scheduled to start at noon today, but I didn’t hear anything until about 1:30. Loud….OMG…. I had to turn the TV up to hear over it and town is a little over a ½ mile away~! It has since quieted down a little bit, but still going. At least I could turn the TV back down. That’s about it. Exciting huh ? We’ll see what I can come up with tomorrow. Back to the couch.

Good Night Y’all # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # # Thankx for stopping in~!

Up bright and early after a mostly mediocre night of slumber. I let the task of finding a parking spot for today’s event, get into my head (I was afraid I was gonna have to hike a dozen blocks lugging all of my gear) and didn’t sleep as well as I normally do. I got up and shook it off figuring I’d just do the hike if that’s what it was gonna take. I had the option of parking in the Gecko (ATV) parking lot, but was fairly convinced the gate would be blocked by the time I got back, even though it is properly posted ‘Do not block’, because…. well…… because I know the mentality of the majority of the drivers on this island. As fate would have it, I found a spot right across from the Gecko lot and slid into it. I gathered up all my gear and humped my tired old touchas down to the pier and waited for our boat. We had 12 people signed up to do a DSD (Discover SCUBA Dive). Before they even got to the boat, 2 had to drop out because of the medical questionnaire, but we had 2 ‘walk ups’ take their place. By the time we got them on the boat and out to the dive site, we were down to 8, the others changing their mind and opting to snorkel while everyone went on the dive. Photographing DSD’s is always a challenge, for multiple reasons. Some are anxious, scared, excited….. you name it. They are all over the place and the Instructors have their hands full keeping everybody safe and in check. I occasionally have to drop my camera and help. Today was one of those days. One young lady at the back of the group was rocketing towards the surface (not a good thing). The Instructor didn’t see her [in time] so I took off to catch her. I got her, got her calmed down and started back down with her. She ‘said‘ her ears were giving her problems, so I worked with her to get her back down to depth and handed her over to the Instructor when she showed up. Understand, when I say I dropped my camera….. it is tethered to me, so it stays with me, it just hangs down by my side so I have both hands free. I have did some nasty damage to my camera doing that before, so I have changed my technique a little bit to keep my camera safe(r). Finally back at the dock, got everybody off loaded and I was on my way. I got to the main street where the parade for J’ouvert was just starting and I got across the street just a couple hundred feet ahead of the parade……whew~! (and – the gate to Gecko’s was blocked)  😉

Safely back at the house, I sat and enjoyed an icy cold Budweiser and a cool breeze before coming in to start editing pictures. I got done nice and early and started in on my evening stuff way ahead of schedule but wound up with a case of neighbor-interupttus. Neighbors came over and we chatted for a while. They are back at their place now and here I am. I got a wonderful text from my Bride with a picture of her and my Number # 1 fan Vera. So happy they finally got together. I have tomorrow off and then am diving Sunday….. screwball schedule…… next week looks to be real sloooooooow~~~  🙁                          Catching up on some random pictures I’ve taken this past week or so.

Good Night Y’all * * * * * * * * * * * * * Thankx for stopping in~!

Our Christmas tree

Up a little earlier than needed this morning, but I was awake and it seemed silly to just lay in bed. No dive boat again today, which meant a very leisure start to my day. I got most everything done yesterday, so my day was wide open. I sat on the computer until about 10:00 or so before getting up to make me another hearty breakfast (with hash browns). After that very satisfying meal, I worked on the year end results for my music trivia on FB and then did my dishes and then vacuumed before settling in on the couch for a movie. A Daughter had recommended one called the Glass Onion and it popped up on the screen when I opened Netflix – so I watched it. It was entertaining. Entirely over acted, but I think that was by design. I stopped a ¼ of the way into it and made me a big batch of hot delicious popcorn and grabbed an ice cold Budweiser.  It didn’t make the movie any better, but made watching it a lot more enjoyable.

Cruise ship in tomorrow and as far as I know we will have people wanting to dive…. yay…. that is a good thing- it means I get to dive~! The ‘bad’ part is, J’ouvert is still going on downtown and it is hard to walk through there let alone driving and finding a place to park. Probably be about as well off just to walk from the house, but I have a lot of gear to carry…… a lot~!   Nope, not looking forward to this one at all, just because of that, but I gotta do what I gotta do. Getting ready to head back to the couch. Probably watch another movie. I quit watching Hell’s Kitchen….. just doesn’t seem right watching it without my Queen here with me. I was watching Judy Justice, but don’t like the new format. I’m sure I’ll find something.

Good Night Y’all > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Thankx for stopping in~!

(Vera— eel pictures in this group)

No boat this morning so I got to sleep in a little bit and actually did. Of course, some of that in part was listening to the raging party going on downtown until the very wee hours of the night and then a monsoon type of rain that lasted about 20 minutes. I actually had to get up for that and close the shutters as rain was coming through the screens. I went ahead and went whizz while I was up, popped some Ibuprofen and crawled back into bed. Thankfully it didn’t take me long to fade back out and I managed to sleep until about 06:45, which for me is really good. With not a lot planned for  today, I took it easy and got caught up on online stuff before making me a righteous breakfast. Couple of eggs, some Lil Smokie sausages and some hashbrowns. I rarely ever make hashbrowns, but I picked up a bag of the kind I like my last trip to the store and this morning seemed like the time to make some. Delicious~! I had to make a dump run and then I stopped and filled the truck up. From there to the Post Office……. jeeez that was a mistake. I managed to almost wind up in the middle of one of the many parades going on. After a 2 mile detour and a 2 block hike, I finally made it into the Post Office. Picked up my mail and [sadly] had to go to the front desk to mail a package….. holy moly…… these people are almost as bad as the McDonalds here on the island. I “only” had two people in front of me (actually one but one really old dude cut the ever growing line behind me to get in front of me and I felt sorry for the old timer and did not say anything) The two people in front of me wound up taking almost 25 minutes between them before it was finally my turn. A [what should have been] two minute transaction took almost 15 minutes. Good Lord….. my patience had run completely out by the time I finally got out of there. I hiked back to the truck just to find out that most of the streets in town were blocked off (for parade routes) and what should have been a 6 minute drive to the house, took almost 15 minutes. Island time on a whole other level…… Wow~

Back at the house, I finally convinced myself to get up and mow the lawn. Dodging small rain showers I got the mowing and weed eating done, so hopefully good there for another week or so. Been going through old bank and credit card statements trying to find a payment to a medical place here. I got a call a couple of days ago from a clinic saying I owe them almost $2000~!! from two years ago~!! Lord gimme strength. 2 years….. no bill from them or anything and now they want it paid asap~! I told them you waited 2 years to bring this up – I’m gonna take my sweet a$$ time to look for proof to refute it. How can they do that ??? Is that even legal after two years ?? Jeeez~~~~

Good Night Y’all – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –  Thankx for stopping in~!

Happy New Year family, friends and all you others out there. Well sir….. since my last little diddy on here, I have had quite the week. I will openly confess, sometimes I don’t write anything cause I just plain ole ain’t in the mood…. NOT the case this past week. The old fat boy has been getting his touchas worked off (and mostly loving it). With the exception of one day I have worked double boats 7 days in a row. I took one day off toward the end of that run and sat and edited and posted pictures all day that day. Then another double boat, then the next day was nadda….. but I had a family photo shoot here on the island, which actually turned out to be 6 families, which kept me late shooting and then getting the pictures posted. Usually not a lot of editing to those pictures because they are so sharp and crisp, just have to edit out the occasional random strand of wind blown hair, weird back ground objects that I missed, etc. It still was late enough that by the time I finished I was ready for bed. Back to diving today, but mercifully, only one boat (2 dives) and a small group, so pictures done and posted by my normal time today.

Not a lot going on here other than diving my brains out and I ain’t complaining about that. I miss my Queen, but happy knowing she is with our babies and Grandbabies and that she is also getting her health in check by qualified doctors now. Really not a lot to rattle on about, the ya-hoo behind us decided to burn a bunch of something…. not sure what it was but made me sicker than a dog. It finally started raining hard enough toward the end of the day that it put the fire out, but the damage had been done. Breathing good clean air today, I feel 100% better and back to my grouchy old self. I was getting a little bummed shooting all those cruise ship divers [first timers] and hadn’t got as much as a nickel out of any of them in tips. I guess they were saving their pennies for Christmas. Something changed though as this past week, the Venmo flood gates have opened and tips have been pouring in, along with the photo shoot the cashflow situation is looking much better~! Happy New year to me~!

With that crazy busy week or over with, our dive calendar as went blank. Nothing scheduled for the rest of the week until Friday when we have another cruise ship in. Hopefully will have a chance to get the brakes on my truck replaced (squealing horribly) and also get my Brides car in the shop (if I can get somebody to answer the damn phone). There goes all that tip money~~  😉

I wish each of you reading this a safe, prosperous Happy New Year~!

(Happy Birthday to my Honeybear)

Good Night Y’all / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / Thankx for stopping in~!

Up much earlier than I needed to be this morning, but old habits die hard. The boat was actually scheduled for a half hour later than usual, so I had even more time plus the fact it is out West, so a short commute to boot. Bump charged all my batteries, loaded everything in the truck just as it started to sprinkle. May as well go ahead and get wet now, as I will spend the next 4+ hours being wet to one degree or another any way. Our guests finally showed up, running a little late, so just a late start to the day all the way around. The sprinkling quit leaving us a pretty partial rainbow as we headed out. Both dives were mostly unremarkable, but on the first one, I got to spend about `10 minutes with a gorgeous little Green turtle. This little guy hangs out on the wreck we were on and I was the only one there [at the time], so it was just me and him and he let me take all the pictures and video I wanted. The other divers finally showed up and I had to go to work. Fairly small fun group. I like those kind…. they like to ham it up a little bit when I pull up my camera and it just makes taking pictures that much more enjoyable. Finally back here and already had my shower. Pictures are edited and posted (some of the tutorials yesterday paid off – but I’m going need to watch some of them again) as my editing time seemed to shorten up a little bit today~!

Next couple of days are double boats, so I doubt seriously if I wind up on here or not. Not even sure about FB, will just have to wait and see. For now…. I’m gonna make me a chicken breast sammich with a slice or two of tomato and a glass of cold milk before settling in on the couch for some idiot box.

Good Night Y’all – – – – – – – – – – – Thankx for stopping in~!