Alas my Florida Spring Break ends today. Cooler temps than I hoped, but better than DC — and nothing like strolling by a Swan’s nest to make it worthwhile …
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66 Responses to My Florida Nest, So Long For Now
Now on The Trail
Craig,
Those pictures make me wish I were in Florida right now — swans are so beautiful. I’ve been to Florida a few times and it’s really a beautiful state.
Really been enjoying your pics (both of DC and Tampa).
…. there’s no place like home.
Thanks! ….. (and thanks again for straightening out my email/password problem. I feel like things are back in control… which is always important to me, being the control freak I am)
Solar,
I’ve missed you ‘so’ much!
… love your comments and hope there’s more coming.
Do you remember the song I linked once when you were talking about Jupiter ‘way back when’?
Drops Of Jupiter by Train
“Tell me did the wind sweep you off your feet
Did you finally get the chance to dance along the light of day
And head back to the milky way
And tell me, did Venus blow your mind
Was it everything you wanted to find
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there….”
… and Jack,
You already know I was worried about you. Was relieved to hear things are going well.
Want to read some of your feisty comments!
Pat,
I’ve been straightening out some different computer problems unrelated to yours…. but my link and everything else on TM are working same as always.
Are you using the same computer you were having problems with a while back? Also, have you kept up on all your windows (etc.) updates, which you can check by going to Programs, then go to ‘Windows Updates’. If you’re not sure that your antivirus is working right, then you can check on your help menu too by typing ‘antivirus’ in search bar (if you’re not sure where to find it).
If you know when the problem started (approximately) you can restore your computer to a day or so before the problem started by going to your start button on the lower left hand corner of your desktop (mine is the shape of a globe); click on help and support (right site of list), then type in system restore in the help menu search bar. You can also get to system restore by going (from that same start button) to: All Programs; Accessories; System Tools; then click on ‘System restore’ (instructions are explained).
Actually, I think it’s always easiest to use ‘Windows Help’ menu and letting it guide and link you through the process (for just about anything you want to do). The Help menu is how I originally learned to use a computer and is still my best friend.
ps BTW, I’ve found that if you do the happy face sign the old fashioned way (like we used to: colon, then right parenthesis… that when you submit your comment: the system converts it into a happy face like the one on the chart).
Yikes… hope this wasn’t too much info….. once I get started, it’s hard to stop!
Craig, I can see that you have a lot of swamp water in your veins also.
dear flatus, craig, chloe et al
thanks for the advice. have tried some and gotten more in trouble from which have had to back out and retrace steps. easy to get lost when you don’t know the jargon or tend to interpret new meanings based on pre-industrial vocabulary.
the new ie10 does seem inviting so i may soon cast my fate to the winds of change. and then maybe not.
But you gotta know the territory!
Thanks for sharing the swans. Calm beauty.
Yes, you’re headed back to the wonderful late winter weather of DC. It was lightly snowing in the VA/WV mountains west of there last night as we drove through after LP’s regional final basketball game -- which they WON (on to the state tournament).
Chloe, that Train song is a great one.
Space songs, and swans, and the return of three of our regulars. It defiantly pays to ride this ‘trail’ on a Friday.
No such thing as a slow news day around here.
hurrah for lp! today the region, tomorrow the world!
yes, congrats to LP and to his mom and dad who drove him hither and yon in support of his sport!
West-by-God is such a beautiful state that the opportunity to drive one’s son anywhere while communing with nature and each other has to be a uniquely special experience!
Once again, Solar gets all the girls. Sigh.
Be careful around swans. Don’t get too close. They may be pretty, but they are fighting machines.
They’re kinda like James Bond and Pussy Galore. White tie and dinner jacket, lovely gown, and suddenly everyone in the casino is dead.
Love the swans…
Add a Solar appearance, how great is that…miss you guy…
always ‘suavecito’…
Beautiful photos…
Yes, Solar, stop being a stranger. I gotta work and can’t play here as much as I’d like, so how’s about picking up some of my slack for me?
Flatus -- ordinarily I’d agree with you -- but the damn coal, log and rock trucks on Rts. 33, 28 & 55 don’t allow for a lot of sightseeing -- especially after dark. But the ride up the South Branch of the Potomac was beautiful (no trucks). But it was me, the principal & her husband (my best sports buddy) and 4 16 year olds watching Hancock. The view out the windows was beautiful, but don’t over romanticize it.
I see a History Channel reality show, revolving around your life on the swamp and your encounters with the indigenous wildlife there, which you occasionally hunt and eat, with comic relief provided by the dynamics of your eccentric but loving family, which all have beards and wear overalls (even the women) whilst they clean your kills for the community wildlife boil.
This unique idea can’t lose!
“Once again, Solar gets all the girls. Sigh.”
That’s why you have to put him up in a wing of that palatial, lakeside, Minnesotan manse, about which I imagine you meander, in high-end imported loungewear. Win-win.
Some one should sue Monsanto for creating super weeds
Greetings from the desert.
Craig, sounds like you had a great vacation. Nice.
News from the AZ state legislature includes a bill to allow the legislature to veto and ban any federal law the legislature doesn’t like. An unconstitutional law to disallow congressional acts because they might be unconstitutional in the minds of legislatures. Quasi nullification!
“Solar gets all the girls”
Because Solar was brave enough to come play with us. He didn’t let all the estrogen, what still lingers, scare him off. He’s the man.
Holy crap Patd,
Look at what U started? Im getting a big head over here, and blushing is not my favorite color….
Pogo,
Great about the little Pogo-stick….
Chloe,……always been just sitting right there…just listening…..will lurk and comment a bit more…
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
E-PROF.l
After reading your post about Mexico, I would like to recommend the book “Invading Mexico” Americas continental Dream And The Mexican War. 1846-1848, by Joseph Wheelan.
I would say that it is the one that should be taught in all schools…full of History that is not revisionist. Has complete list of sources if one should want to check any information for themselves, letter from actual people fighting the war…like Gen Zachary Taylor.
How and where the Texas Map lines were deliberately changed by Pres. Polk in order to go to war…
How an Mormon Battalion was formed after president Polks offer that they could not refuse….or he would have cut off their heads…the actual battles as if you right there ducking the bullets…..great stuff.
Talks about the Freemont exploration and other exploration were done to evaluate plant, animal, and other things of importance, giving polk the thirst for stealing 44 % of Mexico….
I have the hard cover that was given to me as a present…but it should be in other forms by now….the library would have it no?……but if they don’t, they might not have it in the library either……an out of the area library would have it tho, im sure……Im willing to say that this is the best book ever written about an extremely embarrassing war…..that one one ever talks about…..not even when you posted about it, let alone taught in schools…….but it should be taught in schools…..would go a long, long way toward ending some stupid prejudices imo….will go and see what it wrote about the Irish that fought in that war along side of Mexico for you….it had a great chapter about it
later off to do some exercises…..
ps, Mr Wheelan is also wrote the book about…Jeffersons war, Americas first war on terror”
1801-1805
Champ,
A Heffner like Mansion in Minn……Im in. Im assuming of course that all the same immenties are included….Ha I don’t even know how to spell that….but I want em just the same…
Another plus having this in Minn, is that this is where my favorite politician of all time lives. Yes Jesse the Body Ventura….think Ill have him keep an eye out for Xr……can’t just let anyone in U know…
Popular historian Joseph Wheelan recounts James Polk’s strategy of last resort for prying California away from Mexico. He had tried to buy it; he had instructed his agents to encourage a settlers’ revolt. When these measures failed, the impatient president, while cynically condemning Mexico’s anger over America’s annexation of Texas, sent General Zachary Taylor’s army to the Rio Grande River, into territory that Mexico claimed as hers. By provocatively sending Taylor there, the president got his war — and, as bitter corollaries, the scathing criticism of congressional leaders on moral grounds, and Mexico’s lasting distrust of its powerful northern neighbor.
The Mexican War was America’s first truly modern war. Steamships ferried troops, daguerreotypes captured the spectacle of infantry and cavalry marching off to battle, newspapermen reported from the front lines for the first time, and telegraphs helped speed news of victories to eager readers back home. For the first time, large numbers of the regular Army’s field-grade officers were West Point-trained. Weapons technology advances such as the mobile field artillery, the Colt six-shooter and the Sharp’s Rifle gave the U.S. Army daunting firepower. These advantages ensured victory even when Mexican troops outnumbered Americans by as much as 4-to-1.
Solar, thanks for the lead on Joseph Whalen. Hardback only from Amazon. Your review and insights are most welcome to my continuing study of the 1846-1848 war and period in American history. Nice to see you again.
…probably not a good idea to have those two in the same room.
flatus, thank you. all is well with my cyber world now that ie10 is installed. i now have gracious host’s beautiful face back before me in its entirety, all the comment gadgets, and no little “normal” words floating about the “howdy”.
life is good!
is there anything i should be on guard for? monsters in the closet ready to gobble up unsuspecting, naïve little me?
(one thing I have noticed already is the automatic grammar nun rapping my knuckles and changing my self-deprecating low cap “i” to the royal hubris much to my chagrin.)
“can’t just let anyone in U know…”
That’s why we have -30F winters, to keep out the riff-raff. The weather is probably why james ‘jesse the blowhard ventura’ janos will do anything to get a job in Hollywood during the winter. presently janos’ popularity in MN ranks just below mildew and just above diarrhea. In other words, he is still over-rated.
I sold my uninsulated, woodstove-heated, lakeside manse 26 years ago. Presently I live in a micro-mansion with a small yard situated mostly in gloom beneath a canopy of mature hackberrys, ancient maples, and three story tall virginia creepers, 2 miles west of downtown St. Paul. The neighborhood is referred to as Summit University for the south and north boundary streets respectively. Ours is the 4th largest house on a street with 20 homes and one church.
Speaking of hugh heffner, he is reputed to have a portrait of himself hidden in the attic. Despite that, Mrs Bates looks better than heff. In fact, only Keith Richards looks worse.
I like it champ. But do you mean the women wear beards or overalls? or both?
Alerting Flatus, Sturgeon: I’ll be 28k feet above you in about an hour. Put some clothes on!
I gotta go stimulate the economy now. ‘Bye.
Craig,
Watch out for migrating swans.
Yes,…..still have it.!
Xrep at 239, 243, and 244. Nice to see I can still make that boy go nuts. Once told him….we were in a hot argument about something or other. That doesn’t matter now, what does matter is that I remember how much fun it is to argue with him.
Told him that he could tell his lies the way that he wanted to, and that I would tell my lies the way that I wanted to, (we were both a little pissed)….but that my lies, unlike his would have some facts to them.
He wrote back that,” YOU don’t own a fact to youre name” and some other stuff that made my pee in my pants for three whole days…I know it was three days b/c i waited to stop laughing my ass of before changing my Hanes…they don’t say hanes until i say change my hanes…..
He is the best kinda guy that U want to go and hang out with U at Ninos….the best pizza, and the not watered down Budweiser for hrs of back and forth fun……not like Tony The Baloney, or Jace the Ace……always so nice and likable……
Not like Flatus…who you just respect all of the time…Sturg that you makes you want to listen to and learn from…same goes for all of the other men…oh about Jack the Whisky….who wants to argue with a guy that can pound you down into little bits of taco stuff…….but over all glad to be back….no i did not forget the boss…he is always great to listen to….
Ps…. Tony,just remembered that you keep two windows open to make your comments……I lost two of mine today, and just noticed that there has been some changes here at the trail…..you kudda told me….maybe you want some nice chicago il winter stuff your way????
Of all the animals, man is the only one that lies.
-Mark the Twain
If you’re going to put up all these walls to my creativity, I’ll just do a show with Jake Tapper about buying abandoned storage lockers. It’s going to be my 9th Symphony, my “Waterlillies”…
Anyone know how to get a hold of Jake Tapper?
Oh, and i did not forget about how much i learn from every one here at the trail….Champ, great stuff.
PURPLE..your financial information is right up there with Jacks….specially the last cpl of them….even if no one talked about them b/c it involved some dems in not too good a light….keep em coming
Last one for a while….finished scanning some threads….about that new tall skinny kid on the block….the one that comes from the same place that Mel the Gibson comes from…..watch your self mister…..Im not liking the way that U talk to my gal from Tejas…………. U don’t want to have to tell your “in-doors”, that we are taking it out-doors………..watching U.!
33k above Columbus SC. Hide your weapons!
Ignex — Jake T just got a cot next to Wolf in CNN barracks. They pass the time watching Gloria Borger talk to herself.
Craig,
Glad that you kept the edit button ( which I should us- huh?) and the delete button…….but who are all of those people that are making fun of me at the bottom? not going to even look at them…..later
Ah man, he doesn’t say a thing for 6 months and now he can’t shut up, must be that Chicago weather. (grin duck and run)
Jack
Maybe he can get one of those girls to dance
Damn, I thought that aeroplane looked strange!
Don’t dis Gloria Borger. She’s the cream of cnn. She’s head and shoulders, VO5, and Prell, above worf blister.
Borger was the first interviewer on tv to ask wrong pol about his racist newsletters. For that she deserves a little credit.
I just spent SEVEN HOURS with iolo tech support as the technician repaired corrupted drivers and files, charged me an arm and a leg, and “tuned-up” this computer. As Sweet Brown says, “AIN”T NOBODY GOT TIME FOR THAT!”
Solar
Ha ha, change has happened! I agree Purple does provide much info that ruffles partisan feather’s, WONDERFUL.. Please no more cold breezes. I can’t wait for 95 degrees…..
Top Story — Queer Talk: Bill Clinton Calls for Overturn of DOMA
by Joyce Arnold
Freedom Rider: Obama’s Torture of Bradley Manning
Margaret Kimberley
I feel more of a kindred spirit with the black water birds in the last pic. They are coots and my grand kids call me an old coot.
“A Heffner like Mansion in Minn……Im in. Im assuming of course that all the same immenties are included….Ha I don’t even know how to spell that”
Solar,
I think you spell those particular amenities you’re talking about…. : let’s see, what’s the most tactful way to put it?: Centerfold stars?
They’re mostly teenagers and women in their 20s, but Hugh has always has liked his women (girl’s) young. Don’t think he’s interested in conversation…. and I don’t think those ‘amenities’ would be hanging around if he didn’t have mucho money.
But, ‘course…. most guys only buy the mag. for the articles, so what do I know.
Tony, I’m with you. Waiting for 95 degree’s. Love the warm weather and it can’t arrive too early for me.
Can’t say I’d call what we had this year winter though.
Thanks for helping lure back our buddy, Solar to TM. He’s a hoot as always.
Good to have you here, Solar. I know everyone’s missed you, including me.
Sometimes I think you’re the only one who understands me, although I haven’t sensed your presence here, as you suggested. You know, like the song: “Your best friend always sticking up for you….. Even when I know you’re wrong”
But as CBob said: paraphrasing: ‘… life can gobble us up.’ He certainly is right. Prioritizing can become such a burden, at least for me.
Bill,
Miss seeing your comments here the last few days (I’ve become accustomed to your presence)
. You always give us so much to think about.
Hoping you and your family are doing well, and that your son and his family are comfortably settled in. Also looking forward to some more of your little videos if you have the time to share any.
I’m a sucker for your Australian accents. Like I said before, your little grandson is adorable (as well as the few others I’ve seen of your family on the videos).
Jace,
You haven’t said much the last few days, but when you do it’s so positive (as usual). I appreciate reading your stuff.
Nice having you back too, Jack. I like that you’re so unpredictable. I consider that an excellent trait.
I’m tired. Emma woke me up at 2:30 last night (for some reason), and I never could go back to sleep.
Going to try to do some catching up on sleep.
Oh c’mon xrepub, for mainstream media street cred taking on Ron Paul hardly takes guts
Hi Chloe
I agree, we really haven’t had winter this year but in a 4 or 5 weeks, well 95 here we come.. I’m with you too, nice to have Solarman back around.. What a great group we have here, amazing..
We saw the late, great Rex Harrison do this play when we lived in S. Ca. years ago (although I enjoyed the movie more, probably because I was so young and romantic when I first saw it).
Good, I get to say goodnight to you, Tony.
You too, Craig.
See you tomorrow.
And while we’re on the subject of the Pauls, what is really wrong with Rand using 13 hours on Senate floor to call attention to the fact that our government is open to using drones domestically? Worth debating, seems to me.
Hear, hear!
Yep, Craig, i agree, worth debating for sure..
Good night Chloe..