dramatic sunset

When I first got out to Siesta last night I wasn't sure if I would get much of a sunset at all because of the cloud cover.  But clouds can also make for amazing sunsets so I felt it could go either way.

It ended up being an extremely dynamic sky last night.  I probably took about 50 photographs and almost every one is completely different from the ones taken before and after.  I picked out what I think are the best of the night, and the best representation of the sunset.

It started out cool calm and collected but it wasn't long before the sun broke through the clouds and started to make it's final descent.

I really like the water's edge where it gets that pretty reflection.

It took maybe 30 seconds for the sun to break through the clouds entirely and suddenly become this brilliant light in the sky.

It felt very "walk in to the light", or like the end of Hocus Pocus.  So bright!

I mean who saw that coming?  Not me, that's for sure.  After marveling at this for a few minutes I continued on, thinking the sky had shown me all it's splendor for the evening.

I was wrong, it continued even after the sun had passed the horizon, or the horizon clouds anyways.

It was like a little encore presentation.  I especially liked the clouds trailing off to the right that look straight out of fantasia or something.

And the colors.  Oh the colors were brilliant.

As usual this hardly does it justice.  I swear there was a swath of emerald green going through the middle .  I mean, how can you argue with a sunset like that?  You just can't.

And as quietly as it started, the sunset ended.  It was like a closure sunset.

I can leave Sarasota today content with these being the images in my mind.  I am still trying not to jinx myself, I will believe it when it all happens, but I should hopefully be moving onwards and upwards today.  For now I've got to wrangle that bad cat and all his accoutrements.  Wish me luck!

why I love Florida

That's right, it's a mother and a baby, just crossing the road, hanging out together, being nice.  It's weird seeing animals like this so up close in my car with the top down as they were just tall enough to look down their noses at me.  Still it was hard to get close enough to get a good picture with my phone.

But they were plenty adorable!

Seeing the deer renewed my interest in scanning the roadside vegetation for animals, otherwise I probably wouldn't ever have noticed this hawk:

Again, I know, I wish I had a camera with a better zoom.  I was just proud of myself for spotting him at all.  I love how he was fine with sitting right there until he realized that I had spotted him and then he had to fly away.  Just like kitty, don't look at him!

The same can not be said about the show stealer who I met when on a run last evening.

I thought for sure he would run away as I got close but he didn't at all, though he seemed nervous at first.  I don't know why, in case you can't tell he was HUGE!

Eventually I figured out that he wasn't going to run away so I was getting more up close and personal with him taking his picture and he eventually came out of his shell (rim shot) and turned in to a get me bodied back up dancer.  Pose for the camera now *click* *click*

I like how it looks like he's smiling.

Now I want to go to a petting zoo.

my feelings exactly

I'm not going to lie, I was disappointed by the VMA's last night.  Mostly because this didn't happen, and was instead replaced by a weird multi-britney dance team.  I could have done with 75% less of the Lady Gaga manologue as well.  Britney's face says it all, although I also really enjoyed their interaction when she had to get on stage to accept her award.

It reminded me a lot of this:



Otherwise, I'm glad Nicki Minaj won because she was just so cute when she got up to the microphone.  She was the only person that seemed genuinely excited to be winning.  I also enjoyed Beyonce rubbing her bump after her song, even if it was a little theatrical.

I guess overall I just woke up this morning with a feeling of sadness that the Britney tribute did not go down as planned.  What a missed opportunity.

haha thank you jonathan

a nice place to read (?)

I went downtown yesterday to Whole Foods for a juice and a shot of ginger.  I was hoping to be able to find a spot outside to sit and read but it was a crowded saturday so I ended up driving a bit down to Van Wezel and this spot.  You may remember it from this post.

While it looks quite picturesque it was not exactly the best day for sitting here and reading.  The Irene related winds were whipping to the extent that you had to keep your fingers on all four corners of the book to keep the pages still enough to be able to read.  And my idyllic spot at the end of the cape was really just an opportunity to be misted every time the water spramp* ashore.

*bonus points if you know that reference

Anyways, it was still a nice place to sit and enjoy my juice and my book.  I'm reading a meghan recommendation right now that is so so good.  I will surely do a post when I'm finished with it, which I'm sure will be soon.

So excited for the last week of August.  So so excited.

blast from the past

The best part is that it's saturday night, the appropriate time to be watching this.

I am having so many memories watching this.  I did not, however, remember my new favorite line from anything ever;

"I asked for a 6, you gave me a 9.  What are your eyes upside down or something?!"

zing!

I'd hang out here too

Almost every time I pass this spot that same white bird is standing right there in the middle.  The first few times I saw him I assumed that it was somehow an easy place to catch fish, like bears catching salmon.  I've never seen him act the slightest bit interested in anything in the water however.  From what I can tell he's just standing there zoning out, enjoying the water rushing around his little feet and the gentle gurgling below him.

I tried to get closer to him to take a better picture but I seriously took no more than two steps beyond that picture and he flew away in a panic.  I didn't think I would be so terrifying or I wouldn't have disturbed him and I felt kind of bad.

That is until I passed back by here on my way home and saw that he had returned, with some friends for protection:

I like that they aren't all the same.  More of a ragtag group of street toughs.  To be honest I do think these birds have nerves of steel for hanging out so casually in what is surely alligator infested water.

Apparently I am scarier to a bird than any aquatic reptile.

I'm inclined to accept that.  I can't say I'm getting any argument to the contrary from any other species.

I blame kitty for infecting me with the crazy gene.

is this true?!

I can't tell, I need my smart friends to investigate:

this

From what I can gather it's saying that I've already been exposed so there is no point in fighting it.  I am just going to continue in my downward spiral to being an isolated malcontent with no hopes or prospects for the future.

Thanks kitty!

And thanks reddit, this is why I shouldn't check you early in the morning.

thanks Irene

Apparently the counter-clockwise rotation of Irene has pulled dry air down from the north, creating some really beautiful weather down here.

There is definitely a hint of hurricane in the air though, the wind seems to be whipping through the trees a bit harder than it should, and there have been a lot of dark ominous clouds that barely have time to gather before they are swept out of sight again.

I think we might get a little rain that's actually Irene affiliated but for the most part it looks like its headed straight towards you guys up north.  But if I learned nothing else from those stupid hurricane tracking maps that we had to start doing every year as school began, it's that most of them fizzle out and go away anyways.  Or maybe our science teachers just quit caring after like the first week so I just thought all the hurricanes went away.

Either way you guys should be fine.  The only person who's workplace I can picture is Meghan, and I imagine that when in trouble she would just crawl in to a sarcophagus, so I'm just going to suggest the rest of you follow suit.  It's the safest place you could be during any natural disaster...I would guess.

In the meantime I'm going to enjoy what looks like it's going to be day 2 of fantastic, hurricane-adjacent weather.

getting some work done

DON'T BOTHER HIM!

The closet in my dad's guest room has kind of turned in to a junk closet, especially as of recently.  You can imagine my displeasure the first time I saw him jump up on the mound of junk and then immediately disappear behind it, followed by the sounds of things crashing and breaking.

He's been spending a lot of time in there recently so I decided to take a peak and see if I could spot him.  I didn't even have to turn on the light as his glowing eyes gave him away pretty quickly.

Taking a picture proved to be impossible without the light on, and hard nonetheless.  I took this from farther away to try and give you some perspective of where he is but you can barely even tell he's there:

It's just like the cave of wonders.  Except in his version it's not, "touch nothing but the lamp" it's, "touch nothing but my booty".

That sounds like a tayisha busay song...a tayisha busay song that needs to be written.

: )

I really like all the birds in Florida, I can't help but smile when I see them.  Especially in situations like this where I was on a run and came around a corner to see these four guys like some kind of rowdy gang waiting in the shadows for me.

Whenever I stumble upon these sandhill cranes they stop whatever they're doing and just stand completely motionless as they watch me go by.  The only thing that moves is their heads so they can keep their peepers on me at all times.  I don't get the impression that they are wary of me, more like they are waiting for me to let my guard down so they can give me a pecking I won't soon forget.

On a less violent note I went to the beach later to watch the sunset and ended up enjoying it with these funny guys:

I love how they all line up and look like they are watching the sunset together.  Every once in a while one of them would waddle up to the surf and just scream at the ocean for a little bit before waddling back to his place.

They will also keep a watchful eye on me but it's in more of a, "please please don't make me have to move from my spot that's my favorite spot on the whole beach" kind of a way.  This of course always gets to me so I end up walking down the beach in a crazy zigzag pattern so as not to disturb any of them.  Especially the ones that are sitting down, I think I love them most of all.

I was all excited to take pictures of the sunset, which I haven't watched in a while, but once again it was no sooner than me getting to my favorite spot when I turned around and noticed the wall of dark clouds that were fast approaching the beach.  Of course I had left my top down again so I had to go back well before the sky had even begun to change colors.

I'll find time to try again though, I certainly have plenty to kill.  Besides I'll take any excuse to go to the beach and watch the birds.

shut up

Thank you craig for sending this to me.

It's all happening again!

This turtle is considerably smaller, and this stretch of road had plenty of places to go besides directly in to him so we managed to avoid a collision, but I was nervous.

Just like last time there was a pick up truck barreling down on me from behind and I know the instinct seems to be, "when in doubt, smash the car in front of me" so I braced myself for impact but he actually ended up stopping and getting out to carry the turtle to safety.

With the frequency that I see turtles when I'm driving I'm surprised I don't see more animals when I'm walking around here.  Since it's been raining EVERY DAY here lately the area along the sides of the road are pretty much like wetlands.  When I'm walking I find myself frantically scanning the water for alligators but I've yet to see one.  I hear their gentle grunting in the night so I know they're in there, just waiting for me to let my guard down.

And snakes, I'm surprised I've not seen any snakes either.  I think what's scarier than not having seen them is knowing that I must have passed right by them and not noticed at all, because there is certainly no shortage of snakes in Florida.  Still not as bad as when I was telling Andrew's mom about how much I love the drive on 17 between 95 and Charleston and she said, "Oh yeah, it's beautiful, but that whole area is horribly infested with rattlesnakes.  They hang out in the trees!  I wouldn't drive through there with the top down."

Just thinking about it now is giving me the heebie jeebies.

I need to go take a shower now.

how is she so nice?

Driving around lately I've been seeing a lot of dogs in cars just looking around at people and smiling.  I wish so badly that I could take Bella on a trip somewhere in my car but she's just so large.

She's like, "oh I'm not large, I'm just big boned"

She really is too, she's so bony so when she climbs in your lap it's not a painless experience.  Jon asked me what would happen if I sat down on the floor and let her cuddle me, so I tried it while I was there and now I know the answer.  After stomping all over me because she couldn't decide if she wanted me to pet her head, her side, or her butt, she finally just sat down on me and proceeded to methodically push with her front paws against the rug so she was steadily pressing back in to me and crushing me.

Of course I tried to take pictures/video but it's really nothing but blurry fur.  I like taking pictures of her inside because you get some idea of how big she is but it's hard to see her unless I use the flash, which she always looks directly in to, making all the pictures look like this:

Haha that picture cracks me up.

: (

Jonathan! You've never looked better!

Is it mobile tanning?  Are we finally there?  Is it the future?

I'm not sure I would have gone with "Brown as a Biscuit" for my slogan.  I think I would have held the think tank overtime until they came up with an alternative.

I do give them credit for positioning her so she has her legs casually thrown over the back wheel.  It's that extra attention to detail that sells the product for me.

Well that and the model of course.  She's casual, she's breezy, and she's brown as a biscuit.

just another beautiful day at the beach

Nothing but white sands,

Crystal clear water,

Nice bird friends,

And a fast approaching wall of dark terror clouds.  Why do I always find myself gawking at the beautiful ocean, never thinking to turn around until it's all too late.  And why do I think I can leave my car parked 20 minutes away with the top down?

I have nothing to offer you

source

Not one but two people were referred to my blog from the site, www.jobsforsmartpeople.com, which raises the question, "why?"

Is this supposed to be an example of a job that a smart person has?  Perhaps they need to do a little more reading on my blog and they'll realize it's really neither a "job" nor is it particularly "smart".  A better referral website might be www.activitiesforboredpeople.com.

Ooh, does such a thing exist?  Sadly, no, it does not, but perhaps I should register the domain name.  I mean, I would totally go there, wouldn't you?  It certainly has more to do with my blog than jobsforsmartpeople.com

This is almost as perplexing as my blog coming up on that russian porn site.

mirror mirror on the wall

He doesn't even need to ask, he knows the answer.

I envy dog owners as dogs generally look like they are nice and happy and smiling.

Whereas the detective usually looks like he's about 5 seconds away from mauling you.

"Who me?  I'm an innocent nice nice guy"

"Just kidding, I'm angry!"

I make bad choices

I once again found myself in alligator alley with the needle dancing in the red.  I don't know what my problem is.  This time I was going in the opposite direction, and I guess I thought I had enough gas to get to the gas station that I stopped at the last time I almost ran out.  I thought this gas station was right at the edge but apparently it's not at all so I once again almost ran out of gas.  I took this picture when I arrived at the pump, I'm not sure how many miles my car had left in her.  At least the cruise control didn't shut itself off like the 3 series did.

And for those of you who said that the fences keep the alligators away from the road nowadays (scott) let me just say that I definitely saw alligator road kill this time.  I have yet to see any giant pythons but I will scream like a little girl as soon as I do.

In keeping with my theme of making bad choices I decided to put the top down when I stopped for gas.  I think I was just so relieved to have made it that I thought nothing else could go wrong.

As you can see it looks like blue skies and fluffy white clouds, but that is the florida rain phenomenon.  You never know when it's going to strike, the sun can still be blindingly bright but it's just a deluge of rain.  This was the case shortly after I got back on the road, deep in the heart of alligator alley.  There was no way I was pulling over to put the top up so I just rolled up the windows and relied on the aerodynamics of fine german engineering to keep me dry.  It did ok, I'm not sure if having the windows up and the windscreen helped or hurt the air flow in terms of keeping me dry.  The rain kind of formed a rivulet along the window which, upon reaching the back, flew around and in to the car for a gentle steady hosing. Otherwise though I remained pretty dry.  Just kind of a windy mist swirling around the inside of the car, kind of refreshing actually.

I don't think I will be making a habit of going rain riding in my car though, but it's good to know that I won't get completely drenched if I get caught in the rain.  As long as I keep my speed up.  It's kind of like that movie about a bus that had to speed around the city, keeping its speed over fifty, and if its speed dropped, the bus would explode.  I think it was called, "The Bus That Couldn't Slow Down".  source

I'm glad that Jonathan sent me this as it caused me to listen to nothing but Britney the whole way down and back.  I seriously hope that article is telling the truth, I can't wait.  And maybe I will still be homeless when the VMA's come around so it will be no big thing for me to camp out for a week before hand so I can be right up close!

Silver linings, silver linings.

yep

source

Someday I'll have the real life version of this to hang on my wall.  I'm almost certain of it.

I know I have been in Sarasota too long when people at the local businesses recognize me and comment on my business.  Like the guy at the deli at publix, wtf?!  Even if I have been at the grocery store a lot recently I don't ever get things from the deli section, so when he said, "haven't seen you around here lately" I was confused.  I guess he just sees me walking around the grocery store?  I'm guessing this is the same man that once asked my father how long he and I had been together.

I need a bigger city as soon as possible.

jet skiing

It went a little something like this:



True story.  I actually started my day yesterday by diving off the second floor of my villa in to the swimming pool.  Don't believe me?  Ask kitty, he was there.

Anyways, Scott really did take me jet skiing yesterday which was so nice.  I wasn't able to take too many pictures as it was a bit rough and my phone has proven to be too fragile for use in any setting more stressful than a slightly warm library.  I ended up just taking pictures at the beaches we stopped at.

We had gotten here by travelling along the beach on the Gulf, exposed to the surf and its endless waves. I kept thinking of the Golden Girls when Blanche is talking about that woman's book and how she had to take a dramamine to get through the part about the waves.  It got to a point where that's how I felt, just wave after wave after wave, my thighs hurt just thinking about it now.

So anyways we stopped here so we could give our sore bodies a break for a bit, but ended up moving on after discovering that our beautiful beach was horribly ant infested.  The water wasn't much better either, the dramatic change in color is from the beach just dropping off right there, it also marks the start of the deadly deadly undercurrents.  We basically stopped long enough for the ache in our bones to subside before heading away from the Gulf and deeper in to the intracoastal.

After going down some uncharted waterways we ended up getting spit out right next to the sunshine skyway bridge which was super cool.  How many times have I driven over that bridge and looked out at the boaters with envy in my eyes?  And it was awesome to see the bridge from the water.

We stopped on the other side at another beach:

Complete with shady place to rest and have some snacks:

With a view of the sunshine skyway through the trees.  You might have to blow up the pic to see but it's there!

I couldn't believe we went that far north.  We weren't able to travel very quickly because of how choppy it was so I was surprised when we saw the sunshine skyway bridge.  I feel like it takes forever when I drive and I certainly travel a bit quicker in my car on the interstate than you can on a jetski.

I definitely feel how far we went today, my muscles and my joints are painin'.  I am thankful for yesterday though, I appreciate any situation that makes me (however temporarily) forget about all the other things going on in my life right now.

As long as I keep avoiding my problems they will eventually go away right?

I'm going to keep telling myself that.

don't look at him

He's angry.

We're all angry.

Found out I lost out on another apt.

shooting the moon to redeem myself

I took this as a sign that I was going to be able to redeem myself from the previous game, and from the previous night at pool, but I actually ended up losing this game too.

So I started thinking about the expression "shoot the moon" and where it came from.  After a not very long google search the best I came up with was these definitions from the urban dictionary.  My favorite is #4.

So anybody have any idea?

Oh and congratulations scott on beating me once again.  I will have my day.

beer and billiards

Scott met me at Shakespeare's to play pool, and so I could knock a few beers off my list.  I liked the name of this one, and then I liked the bottle even more.  Katy and I were just talking about how important the cover of a book is and how the image can make or break the book before you even pick it up.  This of course flies in the face of the whole, "don't judge a book by the cover" thing, but we both agreed it's true so get over it.

And talk about a well named beer, I can think of no better way to describe it than robust.

I needed to eat before I could play pool so I was already on to my second beer before we even started.

Sticking to the theme of picking my beer by the name I went with "old engine oil".  It wasn't bad, it was supposed to have a chocolate flavor that I didn't get quite as much as with some of the others I've tried, but it wasn't bad.  I would get it again if I saw it on a menu somewhere, mostly because I'll remember the name.

Anyways, I blame the beer (and the racking) for the travesty that occurred on the billiards table that evening...

I guess I forgot the part where Scott was some kind of pool hustler.  If the games didn't cost a dollar each, and go by in a matter of minutes, I would have stayed longer and tried to improve my craft.  Unfortunately this blood bath was over before it even really began.

I'll redeem myself next time.