Author: Bill

Quiet start to the day. Up and enjoying a quiet cool morning and just about to have some breakfast when the power went out. Dammit Emmit. Options were to: starve, order out from Polly’s or go out to Blues. My Bride wanted to go to Blues, so away we went. I got me an icy cold Budweiser and ordered Biscuits and Gravy, 2 eggs and a couple of pieces of sausage.  Angie got a basic breakfast with a Mimosa. Got our breakfast. Angie said hers was okay….. mine was unremarkable. It wasn’t bad, but not good. We sat and had another drink and caught up with some of the old gang before finally loading up and heading back out West.  By the time we got back, my belly was gurgling and flopping…… not good. I can’t say it was breakfast, but I can’t say it wasn’t. I had grass to mow, so I drank some water and headed out. Thankfully the weather wasn’t screaming hot and the grass wasn’t overly tall or thick. For a couple of days there I thought I was going to get away with out mowing this weekend, but the last couple days you could almost stand and watch it grow. Dammit Emmit~! Got our yard done fairly quick, came in and got a bottle of water, cooled off a skosh and then loaded the truck up and  headed in town. I got the ATV yard knocked easily and quickly and did a little weed eating (had to get the places I didn’t get last time) and then back out to the house. I didn’t need to do any weed eating at the house so I got everything done fairly quickly. I have finally cooled off, got some more Christmas presents ordered and now am ready for a shower as soon as I finish this. Don’t have a whole lot of diving next week either…… dammit Emmit~! I think I have one or two Cruise Ship days, so that’ll be a couple of dives… the rest of the week still looks pretty skinny~~

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

Slept in ever so slightly after getting to bed way past my bed time. The wedding had a nice crowd in a gorgeous location. Other than a brief rain shower and some falling rust – everything went off pretty much, without a hitch. The DJ had the bass and the volume turned up enough, it was literally vibrating the rust off of the roof on the old overheard canopy we all were under, so everything got a fine layer of rust sprinkled on them during the course of the program [inside joke] and you had to keep your glass covered lest you had to strain the rust between your teeth when you drank. Thankfully, he turned it down considerably while we were eating, so you didn’t have as much coming down during the meal. The wedding cake and the buffet table got their fair share of droppings…. Ahhh island weddings~ For the most part though a very nice event. After dinner and the program, they played the music a hellva lot louder than I cared, but what would you expect from an old red neck ? My ears and my nerves finally had about as much as they could take so we said our farewells and made the long drive back to our end of the island. For my worriers…. while I did have a beer or three…. I made sure to keep myself in respectable enough shape to get me and my Bride back safely to the house.

Angie made us some French toast for breakfast and made sure I had my ration of sausage (Kielbasa) and bacon. The rest of the day was pretty laid back. I made a run to the dump and after way too much more chair time finally went out and worked on the passenger seat belt in DD II. I don’t remember if I mentioned it, but it quit working and I didn’t like hauling my Queen around without being belted in. Thankfully, I got it working again with a lot less hassle than what I was expecting. I just dumped a bunch of random pictures from my phone, so you got kind of a hodge-podge tonight….. I’ll try and put comments under some of them.

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

Up again bright and early….. well, maybe not quite so bright but up and moving. Spent a quiet 30 minutes or so before I went and rousted my Bride for her second day of work. She another she wanted another 2 sammiches for breakfast [happy heart over that] and she was gone. I decided I wasn’t going to be quite as inactive today… 1) because sitting all day is hard on these old bones and 2) some stuff just needs to be done [not to mention I felt just a smidge guilty] so once I knew my Bride was safely at her destination, I made myself another humdinger of a breakfast. I allowed an adequate amount of time for that big breakfast to settle a little bit, got up and knocked down some cobwebs that was bothering me, scrolled on line for a bit, did dishes, scrolled for a bit, went out with my new weed eater and got my weed eating from the other day done, sat and cooled off and shopped for a little bit. I am starting to get a couple of Grand Baby Christmas wish list ideas starting to trickle in. Without any shock on my part – the first item I looked for was out of stock…Dammit Emmit, so the season has begun. No worries….Pa-paw has got this. I did some other odds & ends stuff, vacuumed the floor and in general was less sloth like today. My Queen finally came rolling in bringing dinner with her. We have already eaten and I am keeping her in drinks as we both sit and enjoy the almost cool breeze we have flowing through the house now. The shop just pinged on the employee chat page and said ‘no boat‘ tomorrow. Apparently they were trying to get one together and one person called out sick so they are cancelling the boat (only two left and they get the ‘local’ rate– definitely not enough to justify taking the boat out)  Dammit Emmit~!

No work for either of us tomorrow – so we get to sleep in. Two friends of ours are getting married tomorrow and we were invited, so we’ll be going to that. I was looking forward to hanging out with my buddy Dave, but sadly he is back in the states again contending with an ailing parent. From what I understand his beautiful wife will be there, so at least Angie will have a friend there.  J/K – There should be quite a few other people there we know (the couple used to hang out at Blues when we did) so looking forward to catching up with them. Also – there will be slightly above average chance that it will late (and I will probably have a drink or so while I’m there) so I probably wouldn’t look for a blog tomorrow  night  😉

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

Up at the crack of darkness this morning…… while we don’t do the time change thing here, it does start getting daylight later and later as we start the move into our Winter months and should go without saying, darker a little sooner, even though I just said it~~ Even though I don’t have anything scheduled, my Bride was scheduled to start back to work after her Thanksgiving break from her job. I like to be up with her and make sure she gets breakfast and off safely. Which I did. I actually wound up making her 2 egg sammiches this morning, which made me happy to see her eating that well. She gathered her stuff, loaded into DD II and headed out the drive. After I was sure she was safely at work – I commenced to do a whole lot of nothin‘~! And- I did it all day long. There was some intermittent piddling -n- there, but mostly nothin’~! I didn’t think I was that good at it, but amazing I guess, what you can do when you put your mind to it. ‘The Guy’ never made an appearance and I haven’t heard a word out of him. Still no big loss. I did not get out to use my new weed eater….. maybe tomorrow since I will be sans truck again.  🙁

Managed to find a movie to watch before switching over to Hell’s Kitchen last night. The movie was A Christmas Story Christmas. The new sequel to A Christmas Story, which was a staple in the Hein household for many wonderful years on every Christmas morning. It wasn’t great, but not bad…… lots of references to the original. So sad Darren McGavin couldn’t be in it…. and am mildly disappointed they didn’t wind up in a Chinese restaurant with a “smiling” duck. Went from there straight into Hell’s Kitchen. We have just decided to start the whole shebang over with and was watching Season # 1 last night. Kinda neat to note the differences in the show between then and now. I was reminded today of a new series I may check out tonight….. don’t want to burn out on Gordon to quick. Just about caught up with new diving pictures, so will have to start showing you some older stuff soon…….

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

Pretty retired kinda day today……. piddled….. put my new weed eater together and made sure it worked…. it does…yay~ Actually did a little Christmas shopping today. Just those kind of gifts that you have to get early, but done and now out of the way. Spent a little time on-line getting some long over due stuff done as well. Waited for ‘the guy‘ to come back and work on the lawn mower, but in true island fashion haven’t seen hide nor hair of him as of yet (was supposed to be here at 1:30). No skin off of my nose…. I have another lawn mower and a new weed eater now, so to hell with him if he don’t show up. Going to get my evening stuff done. I usually try to wait until 4:00 Central Time, but that is now 6:00 my time and I just don’t want to wait that long. Writing this is my second to last thing to do, so I’m close to moving to the couch for a movie and some Hell’s Kitchen.

Have to play vehicle tag tomorrow. My Brides car is still MIA, so she is taking my truck to work, which means I have a legitimate excuse not to do anything on it. (body work, trying to figure why the damn seat belt doesn’t work, etc.) I guess I can finish weed eating the strip of grass on the other side of the fence…..or…. just lay on the couch and watch TV all day…… after all… I am retired.  😉

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

Crap~!! I had this just about finished, talking about my trusty little weed eater dying on me yesterday, and it dawned on me I had already mentioned it – so I went back and looked and — sure enough…. dammit Emmit. Amazingly ‘the guy‘ showed up when he said he would [almost] and looked at my weed eater and a lawn mower that I’ve had sitting for a while. He diagnosed the lawn mower, fiddled with it a couple of minutes and had it running. He said it needs a couple of adjustments because it will not stay running, but said he could do it fairly, reasonably, kinda cheap. I approved that repair. Then he looked at my weed eater and commenced to tell me how ‘bad‘ of a weed eater that it was, couldn’t get parts, hard to work on, yadda-yadda-yadda. If he had any idea what that little thing has been through in the past 2+ years, he would have kept his mouth shut and been duly impressed. That thing (aside from doing two yards) has countless hours up on the ATV trails and has more than earned it’s keep. I let him run his gums and ignored him. He continued to fiddle with it and finally said it needs a new coil. He even made an honest effort to find out much the part would be, but without a model number, the young lady on the phone could not give him a price – and – you apparently have to half disassemble the weed eater to get to said model number. So he said, quite honestly [in my opinion], you’ll be better off getting a new one, and- recommended the type he thought I should get. $400+ dollars and not sure it is available on the island. No thank you sir….. So my other lawn mower will be repaired tomorrow for a nominal fee and I will figure what out to do about my weed eater. Dammit Emmit.

It is now 5:00 in the afternoon here and I’m debating ordering pizza for dinner (I have a nasty pizza ‘itch‘ that needs scratched soon). We have dropped the island kids car off at the airport (we normally pick them up, but island Daughter apparently has managed to pick up a case of the Flu and appreciatively does not want to get near us [[thank you very much]] – hence dropping their car off) — AND— I have a brand new weed eater sitting in the next room, waiting to be assembled. And yes, it is identical to the one I had (after all, I have lots of extra heads and stuff for it) and if I get any where near as good as service out of it as I did the first one…… I’ll be tickled pink~! Plus, I can still get a second opinion on my first one  😉 Can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.

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

Everyday continues to boggle this old mind just how freakin‘ fast time is going….. You would think I would be getting used to it – but – holy moley~! I guess maybe part of it is due to the fact the older I get, it just keeps speeding up. Whadda ya gonna do ?? Just try and keep up with it I guess and not let the old man in~! This past week we had a cruise ship (or two) in almost every day. I was on every boat that we had go out and got to tell you, it makes for a very long week [that goes by screamingly fast]……. My Photo Shop skills are improving (and getting faster) but when you’re dealing with 700 – 800 pictures a setting, it still takes you a while. Not complaining, just would like you to understand why I am not on here quite as often as I used to be…… I have been getting in some movies with my Queen though. Can’t be all work and I would hope, you understand, that sometimes, I’m just not in the mood to get on here and type. You really don’t want me writing when I’m really not in the mood.  😉   We have been watching movies made for my Queen….. sappy movies and here recently, dang near ALL of them are centered around Christmas. We did watch one, that although semi-sappy, was quite funny and entertaining. I strongly recommend this one, but be advised…. language can get a smidge rough in it….. definitely don’t want to watch it with your young children although people of all ages will definitely be able to relate to it…. especially in todays world. Name of the movie is Jexi. I didn’t even have to write it down to remember it. If you wind up watching it, please let me know what you thought of it.

For whatever weird reason…. we have zero dive boats scheduled for the next 7 days…… zero…. none…. nadda…. Dammit Emmit~! I will definitely have time to get caught up on all kinds of odds and ends. Don’t know  if I’ll actually do any of them… but I digress. I need to get my truck inspected for registration renewal, and I need to get it in for a new set of brakes. My little ole weed eater crapped out today on me after a solid 2+ years of getting it’s proverbial ‘ass‘ worked off. It just stopped…. mid weed eating.  I suspect I may have fouled the plug, but I do not have another plug, the right wrench (well, I do, but no idea where it might be) or the inclination to fool with it, so I called a guy. Gonna probably be stupid expensive…. but the exasperation/aggravation it is gonna save will be well worth it (to me).  Almost at my limit, so gonna stop here…. still have lots of pictures for you, but tend to get lost on which ones I have already used, so please excuse duplicates~~

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

Up after a really funky night of sleep, if that’s what you can call it. Lots of goofy dreams. Seems like I was awake as much as I was asleep. I must have got comfy or something late this morning because the alarm went off and scared the bejeezus out of me. I rarely ever sleep until it goes off. We left the windows open instead of running the a/c so maybe that was it.

‘Nuked‘ me a breakfast biscuit (still no propane) and had it before heading down to the pier. The boat is out on this end of the island all week because we have a slew of cruise ships in this week. Got down there, got my gear put together and ready for a morning of chasing cruise ship divers. Had 11 divers total this morning. 5 certified divers on the first dive then joined by 6 ‘Discover’ divers (people making their very first SCUBA dive). Always an entertaining dive to say the least. I chased everyone down and made sure I got my shots of everyone. Pictures edited and posted and getting a note in here before joining my Bride on the couch (she is already watching sappy Christmas movies)  😉

Long day tomorrow – 2 Cruise ships and 2 dive boats (4 dives) so it’ll be late by the time I get home and even later by the time I get done editing and posting– so probably nothing on here tomorrow night. Not sure if I’ll be up for any writing Thursday either…. we are going out for our Thanksgiving dinner and I’m hoping it will be good enough that I stuff myself – – with having my appetite returned~! In case I don’t get on here….. I hope you all have a warm and wonderfully Happy Thanksgiving and that you get to spends lots of time with the people you love.

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

(Vera— couple of big eel pictures below)  😉

Up this morning with the intention of getting the grass cut before taking off for Blues for breakfast. Until we get our mystery arrival of propane, most meals will have to come from somewhere else. Still can’t get over the fact calling for a replacement tank for our propane on Friday afternoon….. and they’re ‘not sure‘ if they will be able to get it to us before Thanksgiving. What a crock~! Sadly, I will be busy enough, I don’t think I’m gonna be available to pester them to let me come get a tank. (They are only about 20 minutes from us) Butt wipes…. good thing we weren’t planning a big Thanksgiving dinner. But, I digress. Mother nature decided I didn’t need to mow before leaving I guess, as it poured early in the morning, leaving the grass soaked and soggy. So we had a nice relaxed morning before heading out to our old haunt. Jim was there this visit and I got to hang out and chat with my friend for a bit. He wasn’t there my last couple of visits and it was good to see him again. I ordered me the big boy breakfast burger. I guess I should have taken a picture, but I didn’t. This is a ½ lb cheeseburger, with 2 eggs and 2 pieces of sausage and all the dressing. Hoo-Wah what a sammich. It really is to big for one meal, but just to dang good to leave any on the plate….. My Bride had a french toast casserole (or something like that). We both were stuffed. We sat and had a drink and caught up with a couple of folks from ‘the old gang‘ before finally heading back to our end of the island. With a blazing hot sun and a really nice breeze going all day, the grass was actually cuttable and even though my belly was bulging (for the first time in 3 weeks!!) and I wanted to lay down and watch TV — I made myself go out and cut the grass. After a quick cool down, I headed in town and got the ATV yard knocked out and then back here to finish weed eating around our house. I opted not to do the strip on the other side of the fence since it was still in pretty good shape….. that and the fact I was soaked in sweat by that point and the heat was now disturbing my big boy breakfast cheeseburger (and the 2 or 3 Budweiser’s on top if it)  😉

I have since had my shower and now and clean and cool and comfy and looking forward to some couch time (even though it won’t be to watch my Colts). I have the Bills/Browns game on in the background but it just ain’t the same. For logistics reasons, I am sitting out of the morning dive but am on the afternoon boat, which will be cruise ship divers….. so I’ll still probably be editing late enough that I’m not sure I’ll be able to get on here. We’ll see. Maybe I can get my propane in the morning……  😉

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

Man, has it really been 4 days since I’ve been on here ?? Don’t time fly when you’re having fun~! Been a wild long busy week. Chasing big groups of people around underwater and taking tons of photo’s. I recently upgraded to Windows 11 on my laptop and in the process, lost the photo editor that I liked using so much. Guess it’s a good thing I already had Photo Shop/Lightroom loaded onto my laptop. Dang shame I don’t know how to use them [very well] yet. Two very complex editing systems. I actually sat down today after getting a butt load of little projects done and started watching tutorials….. OW….. that was painful for an old brain like mine. Guess I’m gonna have to unlearn a bunch of stuff. I’ve also decided I’m gonna reach out and see if I can find and hire a tutor here on the island. Those on-line tutorials do a good job –if– you already know the basics of those programs….. and I, sadly do not~! The dealings I have had with the programs so far is showing me my photo’s quality should go up multiple levels once I learn them, but I’m afraid I have a long way to go to get there……. but I’ll get it~!

Guess you already saw that in the midst of diving my brains out – I hit the milestone of 1000 dives~! Shoot…. I’m almost at 115 already. Somebody made a suggestion of FB I kinda liked….. he said I should get a picture of me making my 1000th skydive and put it up next to my 1000th SCUBA dive. I’ll look into that when I get a free minute  LOL. This coming week looks to be every bit as busy, if not a smidge more so, than last week. We have 4 days of cruise ships this coming week, with one day having two ships at once. Two of those days that I know of, have two dive boats scheduled each day – which mean long days diving and even longer days editing and posting pictures….. so I will probably be slacking doing this again……. sorry~~~~

On the medical front….. my belly is doing really good. I’m into my second week of my second medicine fixing the issue with my small intestine. The vast majority of the bloating is gone and my belly feels better than it has in many months~!! My appetite has returned (some times with a vengeance) and I now have to be careful not to eat to much so I can get back down to my fighting weight. I haven’t been on a scale in a pretty good while, but I feel like I’m down to at least the weight I was when all this started.  Now to work on getting rid of the rest of my gut~! My Queen is still working through some of her stuff. New doctors are conflicted about some of the issues, but so far she is doing pretty good. I’m keeping my eye on her and making sure she is getting healed up as well~! She has been watching ‘sappy‘ movies all afternoon and is happy as a lark doing it, that makes me happy. That’s my limit for tonight.

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