Back up and running

It's been a few days since I last posted. I hope it has not discouraged you from making comments, as Dylan recently did about his space career. I feel very proud to know one of the first who will venture beyond the pull of the Earth's orbit and try to make it to Mars. What a wild dream. Danny, this beats Alaska by a mile, and Grandma Terry and Aunt Sue, start saving the frequent flyer miles.

As of today, I've stopped using my PC and gone to am iMac. A lot of reasons for this, including that Sue wants me to do more web page work for her and to set up a Blog for ITECS. It's going to be an interesting transition period. I have the iMac up and running and there are a lot of things I like about it already. The keyboard is brilliant and allows for much faster pokin'. I have to dwon load all my old photos from the PC to the Mac. That'll take a few hours. For now, we have to live with what we have.

View of Shuttle launch from NSB

Well, it's been a busy couple of days. We met with a contractor to do the master bedroom and bath, He'll be the same guy who does the garage. We meet him Saturday to look at the contract. I looks as if it will take a bit longer than I anticipated, with the master finished some time in November and the garage will be closer to the New Year. That's the nature of remodeling in Florida.
One of the nice things about Florida, especially NSB, is that you can practically sit on your front porch and watch the shuttle launch. This photo was made at about 6:36 this evening from about a mile from Faulkner Street. Dylan, I'm sure, will love it.

Monday, back to the real world

Monday morning and back to the real world. Was up early and had to get back up in the attic to cover an AC vent with insulation that was removed by our second contractor, Crazy Tom. The darn thing has been weeping from condensation (the vent, not Crazy) and I was attempting to fix it. But before I could do that, I had to get a light up there so I could see, and I had to add three-quarter inch plywood so I would not have to walk on the beams or the top of the ceiling. then there was the matter of cutting away about two square foot of roof in the attic (it's the back end of the old hip roof that covered the porch when they dragged it over her to make it the front of this house. It now looks like the house is actually three old Cracker Cottages that were tied together and roofed over.)
So you can understand that it was incredibly hot up there and by 11:30 I was wringing wet and then the SawsAll blade broke and, well, that was it for the day. The Faulkner Street Saga continues tomorrow.
BTW, August 7 is my Dad's birthday, he would have been 81 tomorrow. Here's a picture of him taken in December 2004 at his home in Niantic, Ct., which he and Mom share with Kathy and her husband, Chris Waszczak. The second photo is of the actor Douglas Fowley.

Fowley was Dad's older cousin on the Daly side of the Guinagh side. Dad only knew him a little. Fowley had stayed at my grandparents home in Queen Village, New York, at the beginning of the Second Wolrd War, when Dad was about 13 or 14. By then Fowley was a well known character actor in Hoyywood. He went on the make over 80 movies. Which seems funny, because Dad always used to say, "Life, it's not like the movies."

Bright night Shuttle light

Bright and sunny this morning with temps lower than expected. Sue was up early as usual, reading the WSJ on the front porch while the dogs chased what few cars were on Faulkner Street from the front yard. During Dylan's visit he painted the fence out front and did a wonderful job. He's a great kid. And he had a pretty good time over the 10 days he was here, visiting Disney, Epcot and Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. By the way, I think there's a night launch on Wednesday, I'll try to get a photo from the beach, meanwhile here's one from the last night launch, Dec. 12, 2006, the day we took possession of 608 Faulkner Street.

All wet and on the edge

It's another beautiful day in Paradise. Susan is at the north beach relaxing after a very stressful week. We rode to the beach this morning on our Townie bikes after having breakfast at a little diner we found not too long ago at the end of Faulkner street where it meets Canal Street. The temperature this afternoon is in the mid 90s, but there was a cool breeze down near the beach. Another beautiful day in Paradise.

Waiting for the T-storms

The sun's up over the river and from the front porch it creates a wonderful background to the tall cabbage palms across the street on the old Connor Grove properties. It's cool right now at 7:35 a.m., in the mid-70s, but reports say we're to see upper 90s today so we'll certainly see some T-storms.

First past the post -

It's been raining in northeast Florida since Dylan left on Tuesday morning. Most of the rain has been in the afternoon, with the occasional mad burst washing out the sand base to expose sea shells that I like to think are a million years old, give or take a month or so.