mango pineapple smoothie

 Hot.   So hot here in central Florida.   The sun just beats down relentlessly.  I have become a believer in solar heating.   How hot is it?

This is the last day of June and in the months of July and August it is going to get much worse.   But that is the bad news.    What about the good news?    All of that heat is heating up the ocean water.   Just look at all of those nice warm water temperatures in the 80's.

The water is so nice that you can just walk right into the water.   No chill at all.

Doesn't the water look inviting?   Well, come on down to Florida and enjoy the swim.

And for the surfers, you just never know when the surf will be up.   After all, there isn't any surfing in Idaho, or Indiana, or Oklahoma, and the list goes on and on.    You have to be here with surfboard at hand waiting for the big waves and the words "Surfs Up".   Just picture yourself sitting on the beach sipping a mango pineapple fruit smoothie.   Yum.  

I'll see you at the beach.   How will you recognize me?    Why, I'll be the one with the mango pineapple smoothie.   Have a good day.     Lew

Quest for Freedom

 

The quest for freedom and a better life.   It is hard to imagine what the living conditions were to cause these people to chance making an ocean voyage on an overloaded raft such as this.   They are all brave individuals, each and every one.   It saddens me to think of the ones who don't make it on their ocean voyage from Cuba to Florida but drown.  

I recently visited a recreation center her in Orlando called the Marks Street Senior Recreation Center.

The building has such a grand entrance.

I like to collect stamps and there was a stamp show being held there.   Just before leaving I walked around a bit.   That was when I saw this plaque dedicated to Tugboat March 13 Day.  

I wanted to find out more and so I went home and did a search of the internet.   The "March 13" was the name of the tugboat.   It's actual name is "13 de Marzo".    Just briefly a group of Cubans attempted to come to the United States and freedom on a tugboat but were intercepted by Cuba and sunk.   Many people lost their lives and this plaque serves as a reminder lest we should forget.   An internet search fo Tugboat massacre, Tugboat March 13, Tugboat 13 de Marzo, and Tugboat Day will give the whole story.   On the plaque there is a list of names of those that perished.

Names.   Just a series of names on a plaque.   What hits home is when you can see the names of the people on the plaque.   That makes it all so much more real.

The spellings of the names vary slightly between what is on the pictures and what is on the plaque.   I wonder what their aspirations were, their dreams, their goals.   There are pictures of many more of the individuals on the internet and I recommend reading the story of this terrible tragedy at one of the many internet sites.   I count myself lucky that I have been born and raised here in this country.   Have a good day and county your blessings.    Lew

Attack of the Mosquitoes

They're back.   Mosquitoes!   They return to central Florida every summer when the rainy season begins.  

Pesky little critters.   And persistent.   They don't give up until they bite me.   If I wave my hand to swish them away, they just return very quickly to try again.   It is a case of "it's either them or me".    I like using a mosquito racket for self defense.

I know that they look like a toy but they really do work quite well.    They "zap" them with electricity.   This is me from a number of years ago with my mosquito racket.

I tried to make the pesky insects an endangered species by reducing their numbers with the mosquito racket.
But they just kept coming and coming.   But the racket does work pretty good in clearing a work area of mosquitoes for a brief period of time.   Anyone know of other methods for eliminating mosquitoes?    Lew

memories

Memories.   Happy memories.   Unexpected pleasant memories.   Sometimes memories are suddenly brought to mind by a "triggering event" like an old song, a picture, and sometimes (rarely) by a food.   We were at a restaurant called Texas Roadhouse to have supper.

This is one of those western style restaurants where they have a bucket of roasted peanuts on the table and you throw the shells on the floor.

I love roasted peanuts in the shell and I start chowing down on the peanuts as soon as I get seated at the table.

But the coup de grace was yet to come.   The waitress who seated us had a basket with hot sourdough rolls and what I thought was butter.

But what I thought was butter wasn't just plain butter, it was honey butter.   I didn't discover this fact until I had buttered a roll and the flavor of the honey butter was so familiar to me.   I instantly had a memory from my childhood from when I was about 10 years old.   My parents would on occasion get some honey butter from the store for use at home.

I absolutely loved spreading the honey butter on plain bread and especially on toast.  At the restaurant I am not sure which I liked better, the entree or the rolls with lots of honey butter on them.  Sometimes simple pleasures are the best pleasures.   Take pleasure in the aroma of a flower as you pass by.     Lew

gator vs bobcat

This is from a news article and I wanted to share it with you.

This is Florida: Gator stalks down bobcat on pond bank

Someone walked out his back door, turned and rushed back inside.

The call of the wild was on and he needed his camera.

He watched as a Florida alligator came out of the water and crouched low at the edge. A bobcat up the bank looked into the brush and trees.

"He was sitting on the edge of the pond, with his face away from the pond, his back to the pond."

He snapped the first shot from inside the house, but the call grew stronger and he made the decision to get a closer look and channel his inner Steve Irwin. "I came running down here with my camera, approaching the pond and I snuck up behind these trees."

Not only was the bobcat oblivious to a Florida gator bearing down, it also didn't seem to notice him coming its way. "I was still surprised the cat didn't notice ... that I was here. And so I decided to snap a few more shots and that's when I saw that monster come out of the water."

Low. Quiet. Out of view.

He could have been on a far-flung trip to the Serengeti, watching a giant croc stalk a wildebeest, but why go so far with a National Geographic documentary attack just outside his back door?

"It took my breath away. I realized at that moment that I was about to witness something that I didn't know if I even wanted to see."

We counted 40 paces from where the bobcat was before the attack to the pond.  He kept watching through his lens, snapping away and the gator took a slow, stealth line to the bobcat's back.
Suddenly, he felt the photographer's dilemma: warn or let nature be.
Nature would take its course.

"My heart was racing," as the gator came within inches of the bobcat's back -- crikey! -- "but I'm glad it ended up the way it did."
It may have been the gator was just protecting its turf. It may have been its jaws had a similar sort of reaction time as the bobcat's ability to sense danger. Maybe they were old friends, and the ole gator was playing a joke on the ole cat.
Mere inches away, the estimated 10-foot, 300-pound alligator finally came close enough to trigger the bobcat's escape.

The bobcat scampered up the bank and into the woods:

the gator's jaws opened for the first time as it ran away.

"I'm glad he got away to live another day."

This is a news article which I did edit for privacy concerns.   The first time that I read it I held my breath with the suspense.   I am also glad that it ended the way that it did with the bobcat getting away.   I thought that all of you would enjoy the article.    Lew

a no-go

Just like at NASA at the Kennedy Space Center when they have a "no-go" for a rocket launch because of weather, I had to declare a no-go on spotting the space station flying overhead due to cloud cover.

This was the sky when I stepped outside at 6:40 am to watch the space station pass overhead.   But there will be another chance for me to see the space station again on Friday, 5/18.   The weather above looks much better for that date.

I hope that some of you who read this have better luck.   Let me know if you get to see the space station go overhead.
Look at my previous blog titled Space Station for more information on spotting the space station in your area.    Have a good day.    Lew

Space Station

N2YO.com

I came across this site quite a while back and thought that it was pretty neat.   It shows on a map where the space station is currently located in its rotation around the earth.   How do you like the little space station icon for current location.

The best viewing for me is going to be on Tuesday morning 5/16 at 6:42 am.

I will be sure to step outside at that time to view it. Tammy the cat usually wakes me up between 5:15 am and 5:30 am to go outside. I am looking forward to trying to spot it because once when I was in Oak Ridge, Tennessee a long time ago I saw the space shuttle go over and it was so bright and it moved fast so that it was easy to spot by its movement. (was that a run-on sentence?   Any English teachers out there?)
You can change the map to satellite.

And even hybrid. It's a fun site.

Let me know if you actually see the space station when it passes over you.  It should be fun and a bit of an adventure in trying to spot the space station going by overhead.    As Neil deGrasse Tyson says, "Keep looking up."   Lew