#OSCARSSOFRICKINHILARIOUS!

It's great to see the racist Hollywood left get their comupence. Affirmative Action reigned supreme last night.
Almost wish I would have watched it!

IDOL CURIOSITY

What the hell was she going for? The Messiah look? She failed miserably.

LOVE HATE AND FREE SPEECH

O

Is this my safe space? Can I do my healing here? 

I stopped writing a while back, a good while back. It wasn't an intentional act, I just ran out of things to say. Rather I just ran out of the need to say things. Also, it has always been a struggle for me to say things in a coherent way. I majored in sleep studies in high school. One of my favorite places to sleep was English comp class. That is why my punctuation is sorely lacking, e.i. The sentence above that starts with the word "Rather", I'm pretty sure that sentence should have been part of the sentence before it. I just didn't know for sure how to hook it up properly. I was supposed to use a conjunction maybe? Or a dangling participle? I am sure a dangling participle does not apply, I just never get an opportunity to say it. Dangling participle hehehehehehe.

Ok now I have that out of my system I do have some things to unburden, without fear of recrimination, (good word huh?).

That fact is I have made some people I care about very angry with some things I posted on FB. I even pissed off someone after Castro took the dirt nap.

All I said was "One Castro down, one to go". Later I posted a meme about Obamas list of many failures. This resulted in some back and forth that led us to our neutral corners and we haven't spoken since.

The problem is some of my liberal peeps out there are beside themselves with angst and in general almost all of Hillary and Bernie supporters found out that participation trophies don't buy as much as they used to.

We had to put up with 8 years of the divider-in-chief and most of us were expecting to have to survive 8 years of one of the most notorious politicians in history.

I mean hell, the Clintons had to be the inspiration for the Underwoods, the similarities are striking!

Anyway, the good news is since I am trying to tone down my rhetoric on FB I will resume my venting on my blog. 

The bad news is since I am trying to tone down my rhetoric on FB I will resume my venting on my blog.

Blame Joe.

De feet

Submitted for your approval, a man, a washer and dryer and even number of feet. Now imagine if you will after doing a load of laundry the count of socks is off by one.

A tear in the fabric of the space time continuum? A sock thief from another planet or dimension?

Or just another laundry day in the Twilight Zone!

IT'S ALIVE JOE!

Sort of, I forgot how to use this thing, maybe this is just what I need since sharing my political views on FB has been met by love Trumps Hate. Ehhhhhhh yeeeeeee.

HALF-STAFF, HALF-ASSED

The governor of our great state assigned me to my first duty this morning.

Not directly of course but via email to all the state properties including the State park of which I was working security today. The first order of the day for security usually is to run "articles" back and forth to all the gates. Seeing how we have some 30 miles of incredibly beautiful roads on this the largest park in the state, it takes a good while to make 2 trips to all the gates.

It is of course a fantastic way to spend the first half of the day.

As I was leaving the park office, the property manager told me he got an email from the Governors office to have all the flags lowered to half-staff. It was in honor of our service members who were killed in Chattanooga as the latest victims of radical Islamic terrorism.

He walked out with me and he lowered the flag that was in front of the office building he works out of.

I told him I would be honored to lower the rest of the flags in the park.

I got in the DNR truck and headed down the hill.

My first stop was not a gate but a house reserved for the Governor and family when they visit this reverie from big city life.

This old, but well kept cabin has its own overlook. After I took my hat off and lowered the flag I stood back and took this picture.

As I coasted down the steep switchbacks heading to the first gate I contrasted in my mind an image of what Obama deemed worthy of honoring that had stuck in my crawl since the shooting. 

Obama finally gave in later this day and had the White House flag lowered after Mitch McConnell, my Governor and others shamed him by lowering the flags under their purview.

I continued making my rounds delivering "articles" and lowering flags around the park and I seemed to remember a flag that was at the Lodge so I headed that way.

There are many guests staying at the lodge this time of year and there was a group sitting on the "porch" within close proximity to the flag, laughing it up and enjoying a rare rain-free morning.

I again took my hat off and lowered the last flag in the park, I got back in the truck and drove around the lawn and looked back on the half-staff flag, but it just didn't look right to me.

It seemed way too low so I stopped the truck, took my hat off again and adjusted it to a level I thought my Governor and Property Manager would approve of.

I turned to leave when I heard someone from the aforementioned group holler out to me (we don't yell down here, we holler).

"Hey what's the flag being lowered for!?" He hollered.

 "The Governor ordered all the State properties to lower them to half-staff in honor of the murder victims in the Chattanooga terrorist attack", I hollered back.

"Ok, thanks," he hollered in return.

As I headed back I wondered how they would process this information.

I didn't have to wonder too long because in just a few steps away from the flag I heard their conversations return to the same care free manor complete with laughs and guffaws aplenty.

I turned back and looked while thinking I could understand this if it were a bunch of teens or even young adults. But these were people around my age, a bunch of old farts.

I wasn't expecting wailing and gnashing of teeth, or even the donning sackcloth and ashes.

But maybe a few minutes of conversation diversion to the tragedy in question.

Not that what they did was anything vulgar like going out and playing a round of golf just minutes after seeing an American beheaded by Islamafacists.

No, I just would have felt better if they would have shown just a few seconds of solemn attitude, just long enough for me to get back in the truck and head back up the hill.

Oh, the image that I had in my mind that Obama deemed more worthy than the lives sacrificed by our military......

Like they say, a pictures worth a thousand words.

THE PARTY'S (almost) OVER

O

Sitting here in what has become a ghost town within a ghost village trying to figure out how the hell four months slipped through my fingers so fast.

Well, almost four months, in just two weeks I will be hitching my wagon and heading up north. Hopefully way after the other snowbirds have completed their great migration North as well as the spring breakers.

I've made that trip home before in the middle of spring break caravans, it's took all the worth of spending a week in Clearwater away. Can't even imagine trying to make that journey hauling my home behind me.

My time here has had mixed results, mostly on the plus side. 

The one negative aspect would be going from having the entire area where I park at my home park all to myself, to having many fellow volunteers all around me. Don't get me wrong, I've enjoyed making friends with most of my comrades, but I am not used to the drama created by one or two misfits who have a need to create angst where none exists.

I don't do drama and I don't have time to waste one minute of my life on those who do.

On the positive side:

This has been the shortest winter I have ever lived through.

Also, I have for the longest time had a great interest in South Florida's geology, geography and history.

Every since my 2nd marriage went to hell I have had a fantasy of having my bike down here, spending months and getting to know south Florida and the Keys.

Now sitting here in the Industrial Area of the park, the park visitor numbers have definitely slowed to a trickle giving me time to debrief myself on what I was able to do and see this season.

It's safe to say I have left a lot on the table for next year and years after that.

January and February's weather was not conducive for long road trips on the bike (sorry, I don't ride in shit weather anymore). And the half-day schedule for 80 hours a month make stringing more then a few consecutive days together a bit of a challenge.

In all, I've made the trip to the Keys 3 times, two of those being to Key West where a great time was had by all.

The last time was when I went to Key Largo alone for some camping and scuba diving and a great time was had by me.

All those ventures to the Keys was by truck, not by bike. Even the trip I did to Key Largo by myself, the hauling of a hundred pounds of scuba gear made the bike impossible.

I guess I could have got geared up in my scuba attire, tanks, BCD, weights, dive mask, fins and all and rode the bike. Wouldn't that have broke the internet with people snapping pictures, creating memes and such?

I have made some nice short 250 mile runs on the bike though. Maybe not as grand as riding across Seven Mile Bridge while tracing Standard Oil and Florida East Coast Railroad baron Henry Flagler's "overseas railroad to Key West".

But I did get to ride to Lake Okeechobee, Everglade City and many little hole in the wall places in between.

I do have one last 3 day break coming up next week and I've got one more road trip in mind.

I would like (weather permitting) to ride to Palm Beach and tour the home and museum of the oil and railroad tycoon, Henry Flagler. He and his FEC railroad are responsible for bringing the masses and development that changed Florida forever.

---------------

I've just finished the book The Last Train To Paradise, it was a non-fiction about Henry Flagler and his vision for developing Florida's east coast via his intrepid railroad building prowess.

Powered by Standard Oil profits he created a network of swamp crossing rail and developed most of Florida's east coast paradise, including but not limited to, Palm Beach and Miami.

Then he set his aging sights in his "overseas railroad" to link the Keys to the mainland all the way down to the most happening to town in all of Florida, Key West.

I've always stole glances at what remains of the hurricane cursed sections of the railroad bridges that run along side the "overseas highway" while driving to Key West.

Before there was a Seven Mile Bridge for cars, there was a Seven Mile railroad bridge.

Much of the Roman style viaduct arches and spans are still standing giving testament to the the men who toiled like ants rebuilding an anthill over and over as hurricanes came and killed many and threw lengths of rail into the sea like Pickup Sticks.

The hurricanes that seemed hellbent on destroying Flagler's Key West pipe dream during construction in the early 1920's seemed to have offered Flagler an uneasy truce after completion.

That is until 1935, the Labor Day weekend hurricane made the others look like pikers.

A rescue train from Miami was sent to rescue hundreds of men who were building the overseas highway.

The train arrived to the first group of people just in time to get them loaded only to have the railroad cars ripped off the track by a 30 foot tidal wave.

Didn't matter to the Engine 447, the rail bed was mostly gone anyway.

The only saving grace, Henry Flagler was no longer around to see it. He also was no longer around to save it and to pour countless more millions into a project that never really ran in the black.

Though the "overseas railroad" may have hauled thousands of paying paradise seeking passengers, it never did haul much of the bigger revenue generating freight that Flagler envisioned.

But even though the Overseas Railroad never paid anywhere near the Standard Oil dividends, having that link to the Keys and all of the east coast of Florida made much of what the Sunshine State is today and Henry Flagler is credited for the development of Florida, and rightly so.

-----------------

Now just two weeks out from the morning I will break camp and head to Indy I am beginning to feel that tug of homesickness. I miss my beautiful home park, my little hillbilly cracker house on the lake and Nashville Indiana itself. What a great little town I have adopted as my own.

But of course it goes without saying I miss my peeps the most.

Thank God and Steve Jobs for my Ipad and the FaceTime app, but seeing my grandson growing up without me on a tablet will just get you so far.

I miss all my family, well except for little sis, she and my buddy Bob her old man have been here just a 20 minute drive up the Tamiami Trail.

It's been lots of fun hanging out with them, not to mention all the free great meals I copped and free laundry service!

The friends I have had the most contact with since last May are my coworkers of the DNR persuasion.

Things will be different there with the loss of a friend who was a DNR employee. I got that message while on a road trip to Okeechobee.

He was a really good dude, he dropped dead of a heart attack in the shop, we were the same age.

It will be sad to not see Shawn any more but will be great working with my DNR pals again.

I feel really appreciated there and I'm proud of the work I've done for the park.

Nashville seems to be as much my hometown now as any place I've took up residence in my closing in on 60 years.

Left Loogootee as an infant, lived inner city Indy for the first 6 or 7 years, moved to the Greenwood area for my Wonder Years, got married and moved to my folks back yard. Got divorced..... Got married again and moved to Martinsville. Got divorced and moved back to Greenwood, then to Camby. Got married and moved to Indy, got divorced and moved to Grenwood again. Got a home in wheels and moved to Nashville. I guess my home still is in Nashville even though me and my home on wheels are here in SW Florida.

All the above locations save Florida are in my home state.

So I guess my one true home would have to be the entire state of Indiana.

Just not in the wintertime anymore.