Me Being Observant

Alrighty! I think I'm noticing a wee bit of a trend here... When I post some sort of pointless rambling, or attempt to write something witty, I get pretty much no comments! That's ok, I'm not a writer and I don't play one on tv so I wouldn't expect anyone to think I'm a funny writer.

However, back when I was posting funny stories from my youth where I'd hurt myself, I DID get comments! I get even more comments when I post pictures from Oz ('stralia, mate). I've also noticed that I get more comments from folks up in the cold north when I post summertime pics from Oz. Perhaps it's cus seeing pics from a warm place maybe helps you mentally thaw out in the frozen arctic?

Did I mention in my fizzix labs at UAF my lab partners referred to me as "master of the obvious"? I *think* they were being sarcastic cus the TA just always said "read the f*ck*ng manual, dave!"

But for whatever reason I have surmised y'all like funny stories of me hurting myself, and pics from Oz. Funny stories from my youth are many, the only thing is they take some time to write cus my wreck-o-lection ain't what it used to be.

So today you get some pics instead! But I'll put some funny captions on them for you to make up for the lack of storytime.

Here goes:


"Now remember: we are bound to hit him when he walks under the tree if we all crap at the same time!"



"Harriet, if he's trying to impress me, it's not working."
"Quiet Blanche, it's working for me!"



"I wonder what the view is like from way down there?"



"Why am I always the one on guard duty?"



"... and THEN the penguin says to the bartender, 'but I already HAD the fish and there's STILL no olives!' Ha, Ha!! Get it?"
"I don't get it Larry."
"Shmuck."




"I wonder if this looks as attractive to humans as it does to other cockatoos?"



"Not NOW, honey. That weirdo peeping tom with the camera is watching!"



"... swee-eeet home, Alabama!"


For those of you puzzled over the last caption, I'll tell you in 3 days why the bird was singing that song (at least that what it sounded like to me). In the meantime, how's about y'all try to guess? You've got three days...

Oh yeah: I thought of a LOT of funny ones (especially for #3), so put a caption for a pic number in the comments so everyone (or at least my wonderful visitors) can see how witty you are.

It's a rough life...

I know, now you all are gonna fly down here and beat the tar outta me...

A toofer

Hey, you get two today! I just remembered I'd forgotten to keep you posted about the Grate Tomato(e) Count, my pool temps, and various sundries.

So, we are up to 70 tomatoes off the 3 plants (two flower flushes from each so far), and it looks like we'll get at least one more batch of flowers from each plant. The tomatoes have been getting 
smaller as the drought gets worse, so it's not much use weighing them. But boy are they TASTY!!

I decided not to turn on the solar heater for the pool today, that way it won't get any warmer than the 92 F that it's at. It's going to feel really really really good jumping in that sucker in about an hour to cool off from the heat (105 F in the shade, over 125 F in the direct sun).

Ahhhhhhh....... I really do think of you all up in winter at times like this...

Woke up to something cool two days ago. I was walking around the pool (did I mention we have a pool?) early in the morning when the sun was just rising to see which group of cockatoos and parrots had shown up, and I almost walked into a web.

One of the garden spiders that hangs out under the balcony over the pool hadn't pulled her web in that morning! They usually pull the web in well before the sun is up; maybe she was still digesting? I don't mind the spiders as they take care of a boatload of insects.

I noticed that the sun was rising right behind her and shining through her making her look like she is glowing. I swear this photo is NOT doctored at all:


Hee, hee! Let me find someone to bite and transfer my radioactive spider powers to!

A (w)hole buncha stuff

I'm here! I'm hear! And there might be a few more visitors showing up
here as Ishmael has added me to his links. Does that mean that I'll
be going political? Not a chance! This here blog is a place for folks
to go and forget about their worries --Cheers, anyone?

This is going to be a very rambling, disjointed post; mainly cus that's
how my brain normally works when it does happen to work at all.

Oh, there might be a couple more visitors; family friend who was just
visiting us for two weeks, and The Old Fart (me poppa).

Our friend from Alaska (we'll call her Anna cus that's her name) was
down visiting. She's from Anchortown but has travelled all over AK for
her job.

When she left AK they were in the middle of a bit of a cold snap. Minus
15 F in Los Anchorage, minus 40 in Fairbanks; you get the idea: bloody
well COLD. She brought the cold temps with her!We were having beautiful
summer temps down here (like around 100 F in the shade), and the day she
arrived it dropped down to a right royal cold temp of 75 F in the shade.
Unfortunately, their was no rain with the freezing cold snap. But fear
not for us frost-bitten aussies; that only lasted a week and it's back
up to real summertime temps.

The pool actually had the temerity to cool down to 72 F! How, I ask HOW,
can anyone be expected to swim and frolic in such icy cold waters? It's
back up to 92 F water temp, but I tell ya: it was a rough week!

I had also gotten back on my mountain bike a few weeks before she arrived.
I think last post I alluded to a wee bit of a crash... Cracked rib, bruised
knee, sore shoulder. But really, nothing serious. Just enough to keep my
lazy ass off a bike for a bit. I'll be going out tomorrow morning for a
ride for the first time since; it'll be on the road bike so I'm sure I'll
have some great road rash to tell you about soon.

Got some great bird pics and also some good koala shots to show you, but
that'll have to wait till I get a chance to sort them. In the meantime, how's
about a couple of emu pics? An emu is a large, flightless bird native to
the Antipodes (that's a fancy word for New Holland)!






As you can see, they are rather large.

Oh, I got some more injuries: a jammed wrist and a skinned knee. I was
showing Anna how to bowl and bat in the nets at the local playground. The
game is cricket and it's way too complex to tell you about. She did pretty
good with the bowling, and the batting wasn't too bad either. One time I
decided to really let one rip (which she said she didn't even see as it
zoomed past her ankle and into the stumps). My follow through wasn't quite
as good as Brett Lee's... In fact, it sucked! Hence the jammed wrist and
skinned knee as I went cart-wheeling down the concrete pitch.

Did the above paragraph confuse all you folks up north? Well, it was kinda
the idea :)

I got a new set of chess pieces while she was down here: a set of winged
fairy figurines. Now I have the dragons playing against the fairies! They
are on my own chess table that I made, so I guess I'll have to take pics
of it and write a post about how awesomely handy I am. Although I didn't
use duct tape, it still came out pretty darned good so tune in soon for
handyman's corner.

Let's all give Jill a cheer in her upcoming race: winter mtb through 350
miles of Alaskan wilderness. Jill: I'll think of you every time I jump in
the pool.

Gotta run, naps to take and laps to swim.