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Post by doctorz on Jun 1, 2009 11:33:26 GMT -5
June 1 - You know I forgot all about this blog! Well nothing much has happened until the month of May then my life kicked into overdrive. I have been going here and there on a trip to Sanibel Island and doing reenactments in town most weekends (Spanish Night Watch and Change of Flags). June won't be much different. This past weekend I was down in Sarasota, FL helping a friend initiate his new artists loft/playhouse. The playhouse part included me to bartend for a small party of friends who had gathered to officially kick off the "Mira Mar League of Extraordinary Gentlemen." I was making my signature Rum drinks and gin and tonics while we idled away the evening smoking cigars and watching selected episodes of "Trailer Park Boys." We got pretty blotto, but not overly so. It was a fun time. We all got our official badges which are an embroidered patch that has an eye in the pyramid with crossed lit cigars and a Latin motto that echo's the Las Vegas maxim that "what happens here, stays here." We are all pretty old so it won't be much! This coming weekend I plan on getting gussied up and participating in the annual reenactment of Sir Francis Drake's 1588 raid on St.Augustine. It's really fun and dangerous. We shoot off blank rounds in matchlock muskets in town and run around scaring the tourists. It ain't Pirates of the Caribbean but it's close.
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Post by Bix Dugan on Jul 18, 2009 23:28:33 GMT -5
I read your first entry only, so far.
So good!
I love MST and R/C planes too.
I once attached a "disc camera" (remember those?) to a home-mede glider and took photos of myself!
Lost them, since. Oh well. I need to get to Florida sometime soon. It's only 2 states away!
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Post by doctorz on Sept 15, 2009 10:51:53 GMT -5
September 15 - I forgot about this again! Maybe I'm not a blogger at heart. Summer Recap - What a massive celebrity die off we've had this summer! Maybe it's El Nino or something. Yesterday Patrick Swayze died and if you don't know who that is you need to watch more MST3K and get with the program. What a bummer. We'll never hear "Have A Patrick Swayze Christmas" the same way ever again. Sad. Very, very sad. My summer was fine. Lots of short hops to see friends in Sarasota and attended the Hukilau in Ft.Lauderdale in June which was a blast. Also this summer saw the end of my experiment with a new hobby: flying RC airplanes. It turned out badly for me. Most RC books you read tell you to accept the fact that you are going to crash your model and to shrug it off. Well, I did that three times and each time cost me over $300! You figure the bare bones model cost you about $175, then you have to get a motor at about $150, then the radio, servos and receiver which can be over $200. Then you have the sweat equity in building the darn thing and getting it tuned to fly. Now take it out and in 30 seconds because of some malfunction it gets smashed to bits. See how you feel about being the stoic accepter of fate! The last bits were sold off on EBay and I have never been so happy to be rid of anything in my recent life! I am now bowling. Yes friends and readers of this blog, you now have the horrible hidden truth about DoctorZ. I am a bowler. See you next time
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Post by callipygias on Sept 15, 2009 12:44:35 GMT -5
It seems like those planes would be almost impossible to land safely, like every other time or so there'd be at least some damage. And bowling is cool again, Doc. As long as you don't take it too far.
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Post by doctorz on Sept 16, 2009 9:09:11 GMT -5
Well, I'm not drawing an automatic pistol at the Bowling Alley or stealing any rugs there so I guess I'll be OK!
What's new? It's now 3 weeks and counting until my Australian Trip. The Missus and I are returning to Australia for 3 weeks in October to see some things we missed the first time around. We will be visiting Sydney, Cairns, Darwin and Melbourne this time around. First will be a lovely 22 hour plane trip from Florida to New South Wales. Everyone should experience this in coach. As Friedrich Nietzsche says,"That which does not destroy us makes us stronger." Nevertheless I've managed to get a script for Valium so I hope to be unconscious for most of it. You haven't lived until you have experienced the heavy treading up and down the isle all 14 hours of the trans-Pacific night of track suit wearing senior citizens terrified of blood clots in the legs. I even sprung for a very expensive set of Bose noise canceling headsets. I mean to do all in my power to minimize the hell of this flight. Actually going over isn't all that bad. You can sleep for most of it. The return trip is the nasty one. It's an hour longer, all in daylight and you experience a day that lasts 48 hours! (you lose and entire day going the other way) All the hell of getting there and back is worth it though. OZ is a beautiful country and the people couldn't be nicer. It's really hard to leave when your vacation is up. If I had a choice to live anywhere else in the world it would be Australia. More later.
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Post by doctorz on Sept 23, 2009 8:32:13 GMT -5
September 23, 2009 - It's Fall! Yay! The awful hot broil of a Florida August is over, we're on the down slide of Hurricane Season and in less than two weeks I'm off to Australia for a three week vacation. Life is good...or is it? <cue dramatic orchestrational strike.>
I never thought that bowling could be dangerous. Last week I was at the lanes practicing. Halfway through my second game I fell badly on my knee and sprained the heck out of it. Man it hurts, but it's getting better. Seems that some bozo left his gum on the floor and lucky me, I stepped in it with my bowling shoes. For those of you who don't know when you throw the ball you slide on the sole of the shoe opposite from the arm you're throwing the bowling ball with (This is 10 pin bowling like in the Big Lebowski). Guess which sole I picked up the gum on? I fell heavily on my left knee and slid about 3 feet down the lane which was oiled. Not only was the fall spectacular but I couldn't get back up and had to crawl back to the foul line. Some nice people in the lane next to me helped me up. There was a foot long skid mark where the gum had stuck. The attendant had to get a razor knife to get it up. We found the parent wad of gum under my seat where I had set up the lane for automatic scoring. Evidently some kid had stuck his wad of gum underneath the seat and when I sat down it fell on the floor. It never happened before but from now on I am going to inspect my lane to make sure there are no food items missed by the cleaning crew.
After this entry I hope to post my vacation progress and adventures in Australia. My wife has a laptop with Wi-Fi so I hope to post entries and pictures of me stepping on poisonous snakes, falling from cliffs, swatting mosquitoes and getting munched by Salt Water Crocodiles. Stay tuned.
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Post by doctorz on Sept 24, 2009 8:37:31 GMT -5
Tonight I spoke with the wife about Wi Fi conncetions in the hotels we are staying in Australia. Seems that they charge extra for connecting up to the internet to the tune of a hefty $25 per day. If that is the case I'll have to post my trip and pictures after I get home.
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Post by doctorz on Oct 28, 2009 12:35:09 GMT -5
Hello all, I am back. I had a great vacation. Right now I'm struggling with jet lag and unpacking so it will be a while before I can give a report w/pictures. I'm thinking the best way to handle it is to go to the Virtual Tourist Site and do the pictures and write ups there then attach a link here for anyone interested. The problem with the vacation was that it went so smoothly that there is nothing really funny to report. We traveled, saw stuff and came home. I mean if I'd got injured or something that would have been funny, If someone had gotten killed then it would have been..hilarious! but nothing, not one damn thing went wrong. I've already forgotten the whole trip. Where did I go again? Oh yeah, OZ. I do have one funny picture of me in a wet suit about to snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef. I think I'll post that tonight.
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Post by Truck Farmer on Oct 28, 2009 21:05:16 GMT -5
I do have one funny picture of me in a wet suit about to snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef. I think I'll post that tonight. Just in time for Halloween. Oh, and welcome back Doc.
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Post by doctorz on Nov 6, 2009 10:03:06 GMT -5
Ok, I promise, this weekend I have a lot of free time so I'm going to consolidate my Australian holiday pictures and do the write ups and post. Stay tuned. I've got some of the write ups and pictures posted on Virtual Tourist but it's only about half finished as of today 11/16/09. I can manage about 2 tip write ups a day without driving myself mad. Anyway If you want to see what's there so far here is the link: members.virtualtourist.com/m/12c8cf/
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Post by doctorz on Nov 30, 2009 13:10:15 GMT -5
Well Thanksgiving is now past and this weekend starts the Holiday Whirl which doesn't stop for me until the last weekend in January. Luckily I have all my Christmas Shopping done. I have a couple of presents for my wife and one for my mother to buy and I'm all done. I've even got the cards I'll send out for the MST3K Christmas Card Exchange purchased. I think the family here will like them. Not a whole lot has been going on for personal improvement. I can't seem to get the knack of circular breathing which you need to do in order to play the digeridoo. I have a real nice didge that was made in Arnhem Land in Australia. I can make all the proper noises with it, but I've got to master the circular breathing part to get it right. I'm also trying to re-learn French. Next year I'm going to France for vacation and would like to be functional in the language. Unfortunately I have a lot of trouble memorizing and learning languages, but I'm committed to the task.
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Post by doctorz on Dec 8, 2009 14:28:42 GMT -5
Last weekend was the Grande Illumination, a Revolutionary War event I used to run back in the 90's for the city of St.Augustine, Florida. It was fun to attend again, but I noticed that on Sunday, the day after the event, I was extremely tired and spent most of the day in the lounger chair watching MST3K and some Christmas Specials I have on DVD. I didn't think about why until later that afternoon. When you get to be my age most everybody around you never has any good news and spends most of their time sharing their medical and personal traumas with you. It got so bad that by late Saturday afternoon I was actively avoiding people and hiding in rooms, bars and where ever else I could to avoid another half hour dialogue of personal woes. My friends know I'm a good listener and abuse the privilege to put it mildly. I can usually put up with it, but at an event like this where there are a lot of people I haven't seen in a while it can get real bad. I arrived in a cheerful mood then by 4 pm I was ready to slit my wrists. Thank God for beer!
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Dec 10, 2009 9:42:20 GMT -5
I had a similar experience once I hit 30. I noticed that everyone, myself included, only talked about their kids or lawn care or some other depressingly mundane domestic issue. Even people with interesting jobs seemed to only want to chat about the most boring poopie imaginable. I made a deal with my closer friends that we would have 15 minutes to get that crap out of the way, and then it was off limits unless it was awesome, like when my friend's son took the riding lawnmower for a ride and ran over a cat.
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Post by doctorz on Dec 11, 2009 9:34:13 GMT -5
I've thought about it and decided to just accept that people talk about what they know and since the news is mostly grim now days that's what is reflected in their lives. I try to take a different view.
I half-way remember that way back when I was a kid I was a voracious reader. One day I read a small article in Readers Digest magazine that had to do with the Nazi Concentration camps during WWII. The gist of the article was that in that most inhuman of all environments there were still people that tried to help, to lift people up and to give encouragement. I had an epiphany after reading this. I decided that that was the kind of person I wanted to be. Someone that didn't succumb to despair and moan about how bad it all was but someone who fought against gloom and doom and tried to help others to fight despair as well. Of course, being human, I couldn't and can't be like this all the time. I'm no saint. But the thought and the desire is there. I hope it makes me a better person.
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Post by mummifiedstalin on Dec 11, 2009 12:28:12 GMT -5
I guess what bugs me about most casual conversation among acquaintances is that it's about nothing. I honestly think I've been spoiled by graduate school where you can have a fascinating conversation with anyone just by asking them what they've been reading.
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