Author: Bill

Up much, much earlier than I intended, but my stomach this time was the culprit. It had things to do and was NOT gonna take no for an answer……. not even a “just another couple of minutes”……. and after I was done……. it just didn’t make any sense to go back to bed – so I stayed up and enjoyed and extra something of minutes of quiet. Camera’s, lights and batteries all loaded and ready to go, a unique breakfast. After making myself some tuna salad last night…. I got to wondering what it would taste like to dump a can of [drained] tuna in with my scrambled eggs in the morning. So I tried it. Probably won’t be doing that again anyway soon…….. it wasn’t bad…… but it wasn’t something I would look forward to again…… but now I know~!! Instead of my standard 2 eggs and and a chunk of Kielbasa….. I have been upping it to 3 eggs [scrambled] and no meat. I miss my meat…… well now that didn’t sound right did it ??  I miss my sausage….. well crap, that wasn’t a heckva lot better….. I miss my Kielbasa~! I actually miss my Lil Smokies that my Damn Neighbor turned me on to some “100” years ago. Can’t find them beggars on the island anywhere. Dammit Emmit. Speaking of our Damn Neighbors….. had a very pleasant phone conversation with them last night. Skipping all the drudgery details….. they re looking into maybe coming to our little rock for their work~!!!!! They have ‘met’ Kathy….. the traveling nurse I told you about a bit back and discussed some details and think that maybe a month or so here is doable……. Katie bar the door~!!! I don’t know if the island is ready for that. Not sure my liver is ready for that…. but I know my heart is ready to sit and discuss some of the most inane Bull$h*t imaginable…….. something we used to do a lot of…… I gotta tell ya— I am beyond excited at this prospect~!!! More as that develops~!

Today’s dives were pretty mundane….. I hate to say it….. but just okay…… I mean, I still got good fun pictures, but just not a ‘yell it from the mountaintop’ kinda day….. I have already went out and mowed a radical strip of grass across the alley from the house. It got that snort of rain the other day and you can almost watch it growing….. which means I’m going to have to resume mowing……. Dammit Emmit~! Scheduled an “island shoot” with my Island “kids” for their Daughter….. (NO…. I ain’t taking it past Island Kids…. whether my bride likes it or not~! She can be an Island Grandma if she wants) but I am looking forward to that — That should be a really fun day~! For now, I need a bite to eat and a shower, so we can get ready for the fireworks show….. we’ll see if it’s over 7 minutes  😉

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

Last night after I retreated to the couch watching some Will & Grace, the inside corner of my eye started itching and I noticed when I rubbed it, in an effort to ‘scratch’ it… it was tender……Hmmmm…… I told my Bride it almost felt like I had a sty coming on….. Hmmmmm~~  Headed off to bed in anticipation of a busy day. Didn’t have hardly any distraction from my eye other than it continued to itch off and on. Finally rolled out of the sack around 05:30 and could definitely tell something was amiss. Not only did my eye feel puffy…… I couldn’t hardly open it. Dammit Emmit~! I washed my face multiple times with lukewarm water (we don’t really ever have cold water from our faucet). There wasn’t hardly any puss or ‘crumbs’ [eye boogers, whatever you call them) but it made my eye feel a little better and open up enough to see out of. Rest of the morning was pretty normal aside from the puffed up eye thing. I ate and headed on out. I told the Divemaster if the pressure started to hurt my eye, that I was going to quit and head back to the boat. Fortunately, diving didn’t bother my eye any at all. Now as I sit here, it’s starting to itch again and still a little puffy. I don’t know what in the hell it is. It’s not a sty….. there is no obvious scratch or anything….. God only knows…… A cold damp rag (out of the fridge) makes it feel a lot better…… I’ll give it a day or so and see what it does……..

The first dive today was good and sharky~!! LOTS of good shark pictures to add to my repertoire.  😉  Our VIP guests (which is why Suzanne wanted me on the boat today) are decent divers and easy to get along with, so it’ll be a little easier week because of it. Visibility on both dives left a lot to be desired, but I think it’s because of the deluge we had yesterday…… certainly hope the Viz clears up~! Makes diving a lot nicer with good Viz~~ The island is celebrating hard today, today being Emancipation Day…. and that is is a public holiday celebrated on the third of July to commemorate the abolition of slavery in the Danish West Indies. The Danish West India Company settled on what is now known as the US Virgin Islands in the 17th century, and brought the trans-Atlantic slave trade to these islands in 1673. A little bit of a history lesson for you. It’s a big holiday here on the island and the entire island is celebrating loud and proud. Beaches and parks through out the island are packed~! Tomorrow as you should know is when we [as a country] celebrate our independence….. usually a pretty tame affair here on the island simply because fireworks are dang near impossible for anyone to get. You have have to be specially licensed to buy them and then, they are insanely expensive……. go figure……

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

Was wakened shortly after 01:00 this earl morning to answer the call of a very full bladder… That’s when I became aware of the fact it was raining…… not hard, but raining….. a welcome sound. Even here, on the ‘wet’ end of the island, everything is already brown and burned up (one of the reasons I have not mowed in over 2 wonderful months)…. but we really needed the rain….. so I took the pressure off of my bladder and then laid back down and fell asleep to the sound of the rain. It picked up enough I could hear it over the noise of the air conditioner. For the next several hours, I stirred ever so lightly and came out of my sleep induced fog occasionally to realize that it was raining again…. some times really hard~! Again, that’s okay…. we really need it… the whole island really needs it. Rousted again a little after six by the same pesky bladder….. I rolled out quietly to the still consistent sound of a decent steady rain on the roof. It continued……. through breakfast….. through my trip to mid island to drop off a needed flash drive to ‘the boss’. It rained hard enough at one point, it brought traffic to a stand still. You couldn’t see enough to keep driving, the wind shield wipers could not keep up. It was right in this time frame…. I discovered, several, new places that my truck is leaking……. dammit Emmit. By the time I got to my destination…. I was sitting almost ‘side saddle’ in my seat to keep from being dripped on. Dammit Emmit~! So- more work to be done on my truck. Even if I would have got back in time from my errand running……. my parking spot is about 6″ deep in water, so I waded to the back door and eased on into the house. Leak repair will have to wait for a dryer day.

Electricity went out, while I was out and about and was still out when I got back. My Bride and I sat and chatted about the day, until it finally came back on. It was out for about 4+ hours….. a little longer than usual. Now that it is back on, all the fans are going and it it is much more tolerable in the house. My Queen fed me some left over spaghetti [ it was delicious] and now here I am. While chatting with the boss – I found out I am diving tomorrow…… Won’t go into details, but the boss felt like I needed to be on the boat for these two dives in the morning….. so– I’ll take another day off somewhere else…… I’m just thankful to have electricity to get my batteries charged up.

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

Greetings and Salutations all……… welcome to July the Oneth…… Not sure but I think tomorrow is Thanksgiving…… good golly Miss Molly is this year blasting by or what ??? Jeeeez~! I know I have started a couple of these only to run out of space and talk about coming back to them but then there is all this other stuff that comes, goes and happens…… heavens to Betsy….. Ross e-v-en………

Let’s see….. I finished up about the wreck….. headache is gone for the most part… some body aches here and there but kinda figure that might be from just a tough week and being older than dirt. I did discover my truck is in a little worse shape than I originally thought….  🙁    I have to open the front door to get the back door open (on my side) Neither door closes particularly well any more and it leaks  when it rains [and yes, thankfully we have got a little bit of rain]… DAMMIT Emmit….. I just got it stopped from doing that and the smell of mold in the truck was dang near gone……! Well I am taking this weekend off, so I guess I get to spend some more time working on the truck…… dammit emmit….. I wasn’t kiddin’ about the tough week, and since the grass still don’t need mowed [[yay!!]] I was looking forward to a relaxing weekend of nothing……… dammit.

We had a wonderful dinner out the other night with traveling nurse friend Kathy… did I cover that already ?? She just pinged us the other day to let us know she is now back safe and sound in Alabama. Went out diving Wednesday last week on the North shore and had some of the ‘sportiest‘ sea conditions we have had in a while….  There were 8′ – 10’ swells…… yes indeed, kinda like being on the set of Deadliest Catch. One particularly large wave knocked two of our guest off of their seat, (coming over the side of the boat) but thankfully they caught themselves. It also washed all four sets of fins to the back of the boat. I dove for them (aiming for the railing pole to stop from going overboard) and our guests thought I was being washed overboard (they didn’t see the fins) so they dove on top of me to try and ‘save’ me. The Divemaster saw the end of all of this and dove onto top of the guests trying to help them…. it was quite the spectacle.  Long story shortened….. I saved the fins, the guests ‘saved‘ me, we did not lose a single fin and we wound up motoring out happy a$$e$ around to the West end of the island where it was a WHOLE lot calmer……. wow~! Had a boat FULL of Cruise ship divers today…. and I’m just gonna leave it at that……. Had a nice afternoon photo shoot yesterday, which resulted in 500 pictures to be edited and put up… Thankfully those kind do not need a lot of editing, but still takes a while to get them uploaded…….. just letting you know why I didn’t get anything put up last night……

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

Yesterday had the making of a truly wonderful day…… came >  < that close…… After an awesome nights sleep, a tasty breakfast I was out the door for some diving~! Had a fairly small boat and the folks on the boat were awesome~! A family and then two local friends of mine. The diving was good…… sharks— LOTS of them~!! Yay~!! BOTH dives~!! Got back to the dock…. shared a beer with the family that was on the boat. Mostly new divers, but they do a really good job for their experience level…. that’s rare. Headed back to the house, cause I needed to get my pictures up early, because we was meeting a friend for dinner ( one from the boat) She is heading back to the states the next day and I wanted her to meet Angie. She is a traveling nurse, working here on the island. Kinda pulled at my heart strings a little bit making me think of our damn neighbors. I’m cruising down the road, one of the very few occasions I had the radio on, the sun is shining, there is an awesome cool breeze (from a passing system way South of us), I’m sipping on my icy cold Budweiser thinking about how much fun dinner is going to be and {{{BAMMM }}}}. By the time I saw him, he had already hit me, dead center of my front door. I tried to swerve, but I had traffic coming at me and he was on me before I had a chance to do much of anything. I was only doing 30ish mph. He was trying to get out of a parking lot and said ” he just didn’t see me”  I pulled over to the side of the road.  The impact rolled him back into the parking area. I got out and headed toward him. An older gentlemen…. I’m guesstimating probably mid 70’s ?? Apologetic as could be. Kept repeating I’m sorry Mister, I just didn’t see you. I looked him over to make sure he didn’t get hurt. He said he was fine when I asked. I didn’t ask if he had insurance. He admitted he didn’t have any money and it certainly looked like he didn’t. He was on the verge of tears and kept apologizing. I looked at his car and his front end was decimated…. my truck, while obviously hit…. was in much better shape. I could open and close my door. I asked him if he wanted my information and he said no — I said “We’re good?” and held my fist up. He smiled, said yes, thank you, we’re good” and bumped my fist. I told him I hoped he had a better day. He smiled and turned back to go to his car. As of right now, I still have a light headache that won’t go away…. but it’s getting better by the hour. I should be good by morning. I’m pretty sure I did the right thing….. well dang…… I’m already at my 500 words, so you’ll have to wait to hear about the dinner and BIG waves.  😉  (Dinner was awesome!)

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

Miserable, miserable night’s sleep last night….. jeez Louise I would like to understand how in the blue blazes I can sleep like a baby for a week in a row then turn around and have a night like last night~! It took dang near 2 hours for me to fall asleep and when I did I had to get up an hour later and whizz…… Dammit Emmit~! Then went back in and took another 30 minutes to get back to sleep. Pitiful I’m tellin’ ya…. just pitiful~! Brighter things to come though. My Bride was fairly close behind me getting up so we sat and had a nice [mostly] quiet morning. I got my camera put together and out to the truck then came in and made me breakfast. No boat scheduled for today which normally would mean a day off, but one of our guests had mentioned she wanted to dive the pier, but really didn’t want to do it by herself. Sounded like a great opportunity to help her out and score me some nice, easy, slow time with my camera. She is a fairly solid diver so I didn’t figure she would need much tending to. She was wanting to find a Sea horse on this dive – and we found one… actually TWO of them~! Plus, an Octopus, a beautiful turtle, some squid and more fish than you could shake a couple of sticks at. About the only thing we didn’t see was a Sting Ray. Very enjoyable dive and I got to squirrel around with my camera a little bit. I also got to exercise my newly certified Dive Master status. We spent 80 minutes underwater before I started running low on air…. I was getting tired of mouth breathing by that point anyway, so it worked out well for me. I kept tabs on her air and she had a little more than I did so I knew we were good. Got her back to the shop safely and she was extremely happy. I have shared beer with her after some of our previous dives and offered her to come home with me for a beer and meet my Queen. (I don’t bring beer with me on a pier dive because I live so close).

We got back to the house, introductions were made and we each had [several] icy cold beers. We munched on some snacks and just sat and chatted and got to know each other a little bit. I don’t normally do stuff like that with our guests, but she is a down home Southern woman and we share lots of things in common, so it was just a pleasure to sit and chat. Tomorrow I go back to ‘work’. Bumped into the boss at the shop and she shared some of her plans for the end of the week…. It appears I am going to have a very busy couple of days coming up……..hmmm~~

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

A little later to bed last night after watching another Robin Williams movie (Worlds Greatest Dad [night before last – 8 out of 10]) and Angriest Man in Brooklyn [last night – weak 7 out of 10) and an episode or two of Will & Grace… logic says go to bed a little later (so you can sleep in)….. factor in getting up around 4:30 to go whizz (so you can sleep in) and you get…… up at 06:20 anyway because you’re awake and don’t want to wake your Queen up with your flopping and wallering… around in the bed……. dammit emmit~~ My Queen finally made her appearance a couple of hours later…. we did our usual routine except me doing dishes, I once again headed out to commence more work on DD 2.0.

A little bit more relieved – I could see where this was heading and felt a wee bit better about my decision to try this. Now to see how the actual body work was gonna go. I brushed up a couple of extra spots I found in the light of the new day and finally set about to check out the “island Bondo”.  Definitely not the stuff I grew up with…. and it took a little experimenting before I got the hang of the right mixture, but when I finally did – I went to work. It was kinda cool…. knowledge that I haven’t used in almost 50 years came rushing back. I wound up going in and getting my phone and letting Pandora play while I worked. In a FUBAR’d kinda way…. I was transported back to the days of trying to keep my old Chevy from falling apart…. working on the body with music playing to keep my brain occupied and soothed. Only difference now is the music is really old country [versus brand new rock-n-roll] and I’m an old, fat, out of shape, bald headed man instead of the up and coming young hippie I was back then…. at least that’s how I saw it in my mind…… humor me…. after all, now I’m an old, fat, out of shape, bald headed man~~~  I was going to LOL about that, but the more I think about it – it ain’t really that funny….. Dammit Emmit~!! Anyhow….. after what turned out to be a much longer day than I planned…… DD 2.0 is looking improved. Most of the big holes have been filled and covered. I did a little bit of preliminary sanding, just to get a feel for it – and I have high hopes, when it’s all said and done…. DD 2.0 will be looking good. For now though, since I stopped mid patch….. she still looks like an island truck, just one that is seeing some love. Will probably be next week end before I do anything else since I am diving for the next !!!!!!! YAY~!!!

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

Man– this stuff really does expand~!!

Up again way early for a day off…. but the bladder gets what the bladder wants after you ‘push it’ for a while…… Still a decent night’s sleep and my back actually wasn’t killin’ me. I think a big part of that though is muscle relaxers and CDB gummies…… probably contributing to the sleep thing too. My Bride stayed in bed a lot longer than me. I like it when she does that though, as she apparently needs it. We sat mostly quietly at the table until Angie got up and made us some pancakes for breakfast. Very tasty. Instead of staying at the table on my computer, I gathered up some stuff and was going to ‘work a little bit’ on my truck…… smack my mouth did I open a can of worms. As I started in on the small spot on my door, I thought well this won’t be to bad… LOL…. I also figured I might as well go and prep some of the other spots, that way when I use my filler – I can go ahead and do them all at once. Good Grief~! Tire wells weren’t too much worse than what I figured and as it turns out the little grinder I bought to cut tile with, turned out to be a real time saver on this project. Got the wheel wells done, then moved up to the roof…..O.M.G.  Now I had a pretty fair idea just how bad the roof was as I had duct taped all the bad spots….. I thought. I don’t think I can adequately describe how bad a shape that roof is in…..yes- I took pictures… lots of pictures, pretty sure that ain’t gonna do it….. Oh My Goodness what did I get myself into ????? I had one can of filler and the more I looked the more I realized that one can wasn’t going to be enough. My Queen ran up and got me another two cans and I wound up using them both~! All the holes have been filled and oozing out everywhere. I didn’t factor exactly how much expanding this stuff was gonna do…… but the holes are now filled. The cans say this stuff is formable, sandable and paintable but needs 24 hours to set. I hope it had set enough I can close my doors for the night. I’m putting up the pictures I have taken so far…… say a good word for old Double D 2.0….. she’s gonna need all the help she can get. The plan….. is after I have formed the fill, is to put a light layer of Bondo over it. What the hell….. it can’t hurt and got to be better than duct tape~!   😉

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

Yes…. that is cardboard that had been put in as ‘filler’ on an earlier patch job….

Up just a smidge before I wanted to this morning…. but not enough to louse anything up. Caught up on world events….. bump charged all batteries and put my camera together and hauled out to truck……. came in and made me a dandy breakfast and just thoroughly enjoyed it…… put my beer cooler together and settled in to get caught up on the wonderful world of Face Book….. LOL~~ Alittle bit into it, my bride came stumbling out. I got her coffee started just a little bit before I had to pack up and go. Boat turned out to be a lot smaller than original planned due to a massive Aww $hit…… won’t go into details but it made it a lot more comfortable with a lot less people. The loads weren’t easy, but we had a nice turtle encounter and a shark encounter that I got to capitalize on, so lots of good pictures. Just found out there is no boat on Monday which means a long weekend for me. I have set up a dive with a new friend on the island for Monday morning. She is wanting to do the pier and since I’m not on the boat, I offered to join her for the pier dive. Really looking forward to that. A nice long relaxing dive where I don’t have to ‘baby sit’ anyone. It’ll give me a nice chance to experiment with my camera as well….. so look for some awesome pier pictures on Monday~!

A nice afternoon with my bride when I goy home. I decided to have a couple of drinks with her, so it has been quite a pleasurable afternoon chatting and spending time with her. Had some left over KFC [hush Mouse] for dinner and sitting here reflecting on the day…… pleasant start to the day with a nice breakfast…. got to see my bride before I left….. two mostly enjoyable dives with lots of great picture opportunities…. drinks with Mein Schotzie…. KFC….. just an all around really good day~! Got a couple of days off…. hells bells…. I might even start in on my truck……. LOL…… it’s a thought~~

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

Up a smidge before I wanted this morning to answer natures call. Even though it was a day off – I wanted to be up to ensure my bride got fed before she ventured off to mid island for her second day of employ there at Blues. After I got her fed and on her way… I commenced to piddle…..maybe more of a diddle, which for the uninitiated, is a slightly slower pace than a piddle, which as you may recall is is what comes in right behind bottle -assing around. I made me a big ole breakfast and scarfed it down……… gathered up the garbãge including a “100 or so” empty boxes and took them out to the truck. I even remembered to grab the empty propane tank on the front porch that I have been meanin’ to swap out for the last 3 months or so. Swung, swang, ? Ran out past the dump and dropped off the garbãge and boxes…..stopped in and topped off my gas tank –  $60 for less than ½ a tank [don’t even get me started on that!!] Swapped propane tanks, stopped by the Post office and picked up a small truckload of mail… mostly from Amazon (more boxes for the dump later) and headed for the house. Stopped by the beach for a couple of pictures (that water was a gorgeous blue this morning) and of a new sign we have on the beach…. Hauled everything back and into the house only to find a yellow ‘Call to window’ in amongst the mail…..dammit emmit~! Back up to the post office… 2 more boxes……well the truck will be good and full for the next trip to the dump. Went through all the mail, changed water filters on the sink and the refrigerator [Amazon] – did dishes, swept the floor and some [[really]] light vacuuming. Got two big bags of sour gummies… trying to find some really sour ones…… these ain’t doin’ it (Sour Patch kids & Warheads)…. so if you know of any really sour ones, let’s hear it. That was about my day of diddling….. I waited for my Queen to get here. She surprised me with some mid-island KFC. She knew I had been hankering some (health department closed our local KFC…. real shocker)  LOL. So- I made her a drink and we sat here and munched on some of that greasy goodness…… that ought to pretty much alleviate any constipation issues…… 😉

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

One of the spots on the truck I’m “gonna work on” 😉