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It's been a pretty busy weekend, which is my not too many posts from me so far. I did come home early yesterday and managed to get sort of a half day off, which was much needed, but obviously I didn't spend that time blogging.

I mainly hung out with the girls and I also spent a good bit of time cleaning up the music collection. With having been moved across the network a few times there are quite a few duplicates and there are also some that are corrupt so I have been culling out the unneeded ones.

I also did a bit of gardening yesterday as well. We've put up one of those tent/gazebo things on the patio outside and I have quite a few of the plants in there. It's nice because while they will good bit of light it's not direct sun.

The girls and I also took a few photos which I will eventually upload to flickr but here are a couple for now. I'm running extremely late today so this is all I have time for.

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday, visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

It's interesting. Both the wife and I took photos of the back yard this afternoon. Here are a couple of pictures of the baby birds in their nest under my deck.

We had a great time yesterday. I was sorry we couldn't get together with Zonker again this year but I did manage to get my picture with the big ewok in his honor.

A friend of ours watched the girls for us but we had to be back by 5pm unfortunately. The fair closes at 6 and I was hoping to stay at least until the end. Perhaps we can make our way back down before they close. All of my managers are working Memorial Day weekend, which is also the weekend prior to my vacation so I might be able to shoot out of there early.

That's the giant Ewok looking dude

Right inside the main gate they have a pond. It's actually three separate ponds connected by waterfall. It gave me several ideas. I would love to put in a water feature like that in my back yard, or maybe even out front. Here are some pictures of the pond and it's inhabitants.

There are some big old fucking frogs in that pond.

The stallions were beautiful. We caught the show early and they were really amazing.

We also picked up costumes for the girls as well. Disney is having a special Pirates and Princesses party while we are there. They stay open from 7pm to 12am just for folks that buy tickets to the event, have special fireworks and other stuff. The kids (and adults) also come in costume of they choose, so we got Pete a pirate costume and of course RePete is the pink fairy princess. You'll have to wait until June for those pictures though, After letting them try the stuff on and ooh and aah over them I hung the stuff in my closet not to be touched until June. The problem with spending money on costumes at places like the Ren Fest is the fact that since it's real clothing, mostly handmade rather than crappy plastic costumes, the shit is expensive. Real expensive. Thus the no touching until we go to the Magic Kingdom. Oh by the way, this is their Halloween costumes for the year as well :)

I already have a purple shirt I picked up at the fair a few years back for myself and I got a vest to go over it but that was about it. I will get a pair of boots and a big belt between now and then at some point but that's about it. The wife is going to have to come up with something as well.

I now have a new found affinity for Mead as well. Particularly Chaucer's Mead. Damn that stuff is strong or perhaps it's just the fact that I haven't done much drinking since last October that makes it seem strong. I am a simple guy and I don't have the palate that some people have for their fine wines. A big old glass of ice cold Boone's Farm would do me fine of it weren't so cloyingly nasty. I do like sweet drinks though and the Mead fit the bill nicely. So nicely that I came home and ordered a bottle to be shipped to me. I have never had mulled mead but I am certainly planning on enjoying a bit once it gets here 2-4 weeks from now.

There are quite a few more pictures at the fair to peruse, most of them at my Flickr account. I am saving a few for my Tramp Stamp entries of course. You know I can't go anywhere there are people showing skin and NOT get pictures of the chicks with tattoos. I am branching out though and starting to take pictures of more than just the tramp stamps.

I found a new photography meme to participate in on Wednesdays. Obviously from the title of the post it has something to do with the alphabet. Each week we post pics relating to objects that begin with a different letter of the alphabet. This week we are up to "L"

A bad shot from my cell phone. Don't worry, this isn't my normal breakfast, I only have this healthy one every other day :) Don't ask me what the heck I made with all these liquor bottles, but boy was it good!

This one is Lake Hartwell back in July of 1998. Sure was low at that point.

If you would like to participate or just wanna find more folks that are posting photos go check out Mrs Nesbitt's Place!

Leave a comment letting us know you participated so other folks can visit your site, or just send a track-back and it will appear toward the bottom of this post.

I don't know what came over me but I forgot to copy the easter egg hunt pictures off the card and then the wife took my camera to Hilton Head with her, so I just copied these off last night.

Since all of my managers worked the holiday I picked the store closest to the house to work at and shot out the door around 12:30, 1 o'clock and snuck into the back yard to hide the eggs before the girls noticed. I came in through the hunt and after they showed me their baskets and outfits that the easter bunny had left I asked them if they had found the eggs he hid in the yard. They looked at me dumbfounded and then it was on...

The stuff on her face is where she had butterflies painted on there the day before at some kind of easter fair they had at the church the girls and their mother occasionally go to. I've been once but smoke started coming out of my hair so I beat a hasty retreat :)

I may have posted this already, or one like it, when I was discussing the wedding last month but I adore this photo.

This weeks PhotoHunt was particularly tricky for me, thus the fact that I am slightly cheating this week. The theme for the week is high.

Back in 2006 we flew my son to Alaska so that he could spend a week with a friend of his whose mom had moved up there the year before. How am I cheating this week? He took this photo from a very high place in the mountains in Alaska, rather than me. I still think the area is beautiful though and eventually would like to go up there, even if for just a few days.

I use a couple of different places online to store my photos, although I need to back a bunch of them up to DVD soon as well. Some of the sites I use are for sharing, such as Flickr, but some are also mainly for storage. One pretty cool photo sharing site is Photofun. It's free to use the service and share your pictures and keep them online forever.

They also have a photo printing service so you can make stuff like photo cards and other cool stuff. The service is pretty cheap to use and right now they are giving folks that sign up their first fifty 4x6 prints for free.

Not only can you get printed photos but there is all kinds of cool stuff like calendars, business cards, wall decorations, day planners and some other very nice photo gifts as well. I have a really nice printer now, just replaced it a few weeks ago after I ran out of hard-to-find ink cartridges for my old one, and it does print photos very nicely, but amateur business cards look horrible compared to a professional job. There's just some things that my printer doesn't do very well.

This is my open-trackback post for Wednesday and Thursday March 26th-27th (now that Wednesday is half over :)

This week's Photohunt Saturday theme is Metal.

We took this photo of the kids behind the Contemporary Resort when we took them to Disney three years ago. It's hard to believe it's been that long. The boy is off in the Marine Corps now and the girls have certainly grown quite a bit. Anyhow, the big Mickey Mouse ears were made of metal and plastic with lights around the inside of the ears.

This weeks Photohunt Saturday is also going to have to be my Saturday Open Trackback post as I am running behind and have to get my lazy butt off the computer and get to work. Happy Easter Weekend folks, I hope you have a great one.

Trackposted to Rosemary's Thoughts, A Blog For All, The Beauty Stop, 123beta, Adam's Blog, Right Truth, Oblogatory Anecdotes, Stuck On Stupid, Cao's Blog, Big Dog's Weblog, Phastidio.net, Conservative Cat, ARISTO_GATTA, Nuke Gingrich, Faultline USA, third world county, McCain Blogs, Woman Honor Thyself, Walls of the City, The World According to Carl, Miss Beth's Victory Dance, Pirate's Cove, The Pink Flamingo, , Wolf Pangloss, , and The Yankee Sailor, thanks to Linkfest Haven Deluxe.

My biggest Christmas present this past year was a new leather jacket. I love my jackets. My friends and a girlfriend chipped in and bought my first one for my 18th birthday. I still have it. Well, the Marine does anyway. I can't zip it up around my gut anymore unfortunately. 23 years ago I had that washboard gut look, now it's a bit more warped, thus the new coat. I've always like bikes if you couldn't tell from pictures. As a matter of fact, here's one of the Marine and myself about 18 years ago.

Makes me feel kind of old, actually.

If you're interested in finding a decent leather supplier you might want to check out The Bazaar Online. They have leather motorcycle jackets as well as just about anything else you might want including chaps and pants, vests, boots, gloves, wallets, purses and packs. The've also got a selection of novelty helmets and DOT approved helmets as well. Go check out the catalog if you are interested. I like the fact that they process orders the same day and offer the lowest price guarantee around.

Just remember, I don't have a vest that fits anymore, and I need a pair of boots. Father's day is coming and I wear size 10...

Today was actually a pretty decent day. I was a bit stressed out but only had one smoke this morning. I may be getting the hang of this thing after all.

I really haven't done a heck of a lot this evening since I got off work. I stopped to wash the car, guess that was the highlight of excitement on this spring-like evening. It was around 60 when I left work and I was able to ride with the windows down and the sunroof open. Very nice.

Mr Stretchy Cat has been allowing Pete to drag him around the house in a laundry basket this evening. It's hilarious. There is a heart shaped red balloon tied to the basket by a string which is what the cat wants and why he is allowing the indignity.

Although the wife is watching TV I have been going back and forth between watching and surfing the web, mainly news sites. I am also back at scanning photographs as well. A couple of them here.

This one was taken 21 years ago. I have posted about driving my friend Chris back to California at the end of his leave. This was shot at an overlook at the Grand Canyon as we passed through the area. Couldn't very well be near the Grand Canyon and not stop to at least take a picture, now could we?

I hate that this one has faded a bit. The exposure was off and using a cheap camera as well I am sure. This is Pete and the boys washing my 1972 Duster. This picture is probably eight or nine years old I suppse.

Going to keep on scanning, maybe it will give me something to post tomorrow :)

This is my sweetpea, Pete.

A friend of ours took a bunch of photos this past spring or early summer and this is one of my favorites.

Still scanning stuff. I will have some old pictures to put up in a few days.

Still scanning photos. This is your's truly and my cousin Charlie on Christmas in (I think) 1990. It could be '89 but I don't really remember.

I'm just as good looking, just slightly less hair.

I'm back to scanning some photos. You can't find cartridges for the printer I use locally anymore. I'm sure that I can probably order them online but I find that the more and more I use it for work I have been wanting a printer anyway.

Since I got a gift cart for Wal-Mart at the awards banquet tonight I decided to use it to buy an HP scanner/copier/printer combo. The prices on these things has dropped immensely. The last time I checked was five or six years ago and they were about three or four times the cost.

Since I now have a scanner that will work with Windows Vista I can start copying all these old pictures. Here's one from the late sixties. That's my great-aunt and myself.

This is about the only thing I am going to post today. As I mentioned, I had a meeting tonight and being as how it's been a long day on top of feeling like shit I am going to bed as soon as my managers call me with their sales and staffing.

I bummed a smoke around 7am, another around 11am and then got one from one of the managers after supper tonight, around 6. Not too bad. I had a pretty hard time with it today and have been in an extremely foul mood but I think I may have forgotten to take the Chantix this morning. I've caught up tonight and maybe tomorrow won't be such a hard day. If it's any worse than today I may end up cussing someone out at work.

Wish me luck as I am going to try and go without having a cigarette at all tomorrow.

The trip down to Nassau was fantastic! Just what I needed but not nearly long enough. That combined with the nasty plane ride home was enough to slightly tarnish the trip. Oh yeah, and I've been fucking cold ever since I got home.

We dropped the girls off early at school on Friday morning so we could get down to the airport. The drive down wasn't too terribly bad, we managed to get in the airport at around 7:30 Friday morning. It was actually very crowded and we had to wait through the line at security forever. Once we made it through the obligatory cavity search and managed to get to the gate I took one of the Xanax and settled down to wait for the plane. The ride down was pretty uneventful and I actually enjoyed it once we had been in the air for awhile. The Xanax didn't do shit to calm me down but I seem to be getting a little better at flying. At least I thought so until the flight home.

The airport in Nassau looks like it was built around the time that JFK was hanging out in the Bahamas although they seem to be trying to update it. We had to wait awhile to get through customs but we did have these guys hanging out playing the entire time.

Can't help the graininess of the shot. I was afraid one of the security guys was going to stomp my ass if I turned the flash on.

Anyway, once we made it through security and out into the general terminal, Breezes has a booth there that directed us to a shuttle bus. They provide transportation to and from the resort as part of the deal.

I really regret not renting a car or scooter while we were there. The caves where the pirates used to hide their shit and the villas all along the coast were truly a site to see and I would have liked to stop and take more photos than I did. We spent an inordinant amount of time either walking or riding the bus and while it's nice to let someone else do the driving, perhaps a taxi would be the best bet. A tad bit more expensive but at least they will stop when I want them to.

We got to the resort around noon and check-in isn't until 3 so they stuck armbands on us and let us roam around to check the place out until we could get our room. We tried their native brewed, called Kalik. It pretty much sucked. If you like Budweiser with a higher alcohol content and more carbonation you might like Kalik. It was probably closer to Corona than Bud but it was still crappy piss water. I much prefer Sam Adams and Guinness as well as other dark, full beers. They also had serve-yourself daiquiri dispensers there so I settled on Pina Coladas. I didn't drink much on this trip anyway. I wanted to make sure and enjoy the island in my own self-created stupor without adding too much alcohol to the mix. The water was too cool to get in, either the ocean or the pool, so we just sort of hung out. It was pretty overcast when we arrived and it had started drizzling shortly after we got there. You can see the rain arriving in this photo.

Normally you can see clearly to Long Cay and to the right the coastline as well, that's rain coming. It never did rain very hard unless it was while we were napping, which we did shortly after we finally got our room, which was closer to four rather than the three p.m. check-in time. It was actually starting to get pretty fucking irritating that they didn't have the room ready. I think we were both crabby and tired.

After a nice nap we checked the place out some more and then had dinner. There are a couple of different restaurants in the joint as well as the buffet. We chose the buffet and the fare was actually pretty decent. Nothing to write home about but I certainly had my fill. We made a trip to the Crystal Palace Casino right down the street where the wife won $100 on the slots. Some of that was profit :)

After the Casino we hung out on the beach for awhile where they were doing a circus show. Two of the four acrobats couldn't be there so it was OK, but nothing fantastic. After that we just hit the sack. Flying screws with my ears and we were both tired.

I will post more pictures and more about the trip later this evening. I've got a bit of house cleaning to take care of and then I have some work to do this evening as well. I have posted most of the pictures to my Flickr page if you want to see them before I post them here.