Icewind's Ramblings

Life Observation # 200      Who would have known? I never thought I would get this far with my Observations. Have a wonderful weekend everyone! Ice

Drafting Men over Sixty It is raining here this morning so as usual my mind wanders a bit early in the morning.  Luckily I do not get “live” television here so I do not have to sit through all the bad news going on in the world every day.  If I want news I can get reruns “On Demand” which is another way of saying its old news by now.  I have seen news that my old stomping grounds in Kodiak, Alaska had another large earthquake around 8.0 which I’m sure shook things up.  I remember the last big one I experienced there was about a 7.6 which was close to Kenai which happened around one in the morning.  Had just gotten into bed and the shaking started and continued for almost a minute letting you know it was a major one close by and shallow too.  It was pretty wild. Anyway, I have seen some of the new lately and the war on terrorism continues which got my mind to thinking about this situation and I came up with this after a few Bailey’s coffees this mor...

Life Observation # 199 Sometimes I smile, because I don’t know what the hell is going on! Ice

It’s raining today so I am not getting too much done outside.  It gives one a chance to sit inside, watching nature or sitting still and allowing the “void” to come into focus. There is a void that exists in all of us, the void can be filled with many things: Facebook for some, text messaging, emails, scheduling things, gaming, doing paperwork; some like parties, television, shopping, and a drink now and then. Or you can make the conscious decision not to fill the void at all and just let it be a void. This is by far the most difficult path to take. But as creative people, this is possibly the most important choice, this idle space allows our brain to do its work, time spent idly walking through nature, sitting alone in a room, or driving along lonely roads. Time left empty, like blank pages in a notebook does not remain empty, because our mind moves to fill these voids, to paint them, like virgin canvases, filling these moments with color, poetry, or music wh...

Observations sitting in Airports – Have you ever noticed? This one has been sitting on the back burner for a while now so I thought I would post it now.  When I traveled extensively I noticed while sitting in airports for my next flight how people move about the airport. Those people going to the gate for departure move fairly slowly unless they are late and are trying to run to the gate to make their flight. If you sit and watch people arriving from a flight it appears no matter from which gate they arrive but every single person whose flights had just arrived I’m not sure if you’ve noticed this but those people walk super-fast when they get off an airplane.  It’s as if the momentum from flying through the air at 500 miles per hour continues once passengers are allowed out of their seats at the gate.  I’ve watched over and over again over the years as several airplanes pull up to their gates and every single time, a few minutes later, 200 passengers burst ou...

It snowed yesterday It snowed yesterday, not like the Alaskan snowfalls I had become so used to living there for almost twenty years.  This was not the 8 to 12 inch snowfall that the local news media would call “flurries”.  Small amount by most Northern standards as it was little more than a light dusting.  One of the few measurable snowfalls found in the South.  There was about an inch on the ground, a little more on elevated surfaces but mainly it was white and pretty.  It covered the brown leaves all over the ground left from last fall’s blowing and falling cycles.    It began during the night, coming softly with nary a whisper of wind blowing like the previous day.   I woke up during the night, not from any noise, but because it was suddenly quiet and I sensed there was snow coming down.   Lying there I knew it was snowing as I could see the deck starting to turn white from the small drifting flakes.   In the morning I saw...

Rainy Day Musing It started raining yesterday afternoon just before nightfall set in.  Soft drizzly rain began falling at first, as I was putting out the corn for the eight deer that arrive each day around sunset.  I finished putting the corn kernels out in the four or five spots where they gather to eat, play, and listen for anything that might harm them.  I go back into the house for birdseed for the four feeders scattered around the yard as the rain droplets fall in bigger size.  My hair is now wet and the sweatshirt is damp before I can finish my chores for the day. The water droplets fall like they simply cannot think of anything better to do. There is a laziness about them, as if they can barely be bothered to conform to the will of gravity.  When I hold my bare arms out, the water droplets splatter on my outstretched arms and fingers, glistening them moist instead of being dry like while reading a book in front of the fireplace.  They grow l...

Sniffing, sneezing, coughing, aching, and overall yucky feeling Since Christmas I have been feeling under the weather so other than a few trips to the store and the RV show in Atlanta last weekend I have stayed around the house resting and trying to get rid of a nasty bout of sneezing, wheezing, and coughing.  They call it the nighttime sniffling, sneezing, coughing, aching, stuffy head, fever, so you can rest medicine and oddly it’s true.  I’ve felt like crap, take some Nyquil and hopefully feel better.  It may have taken a few days but at least it seems to work.  This cold & flu has lasted over two weeks but finally I’m starting to feel better.  I also burnt my left hand pouring hot coffee but it has finally blistered and started healing so I’m ready to get back into the swing of things. During this down time I haven’t felt like working on a couple of projects I have going on right now but I did get in a few hours here and there.  I do feed t...

Adventures not realized . . . Life got in the Way In high school and beyond there were many more adventures planned and others that I wanted to write about but did not have a chance to put them down.  One was motorcycles, as we both loved them in our youth and with another friend David rode them together many times over the several years before I left for the Army.  There was the weekend getaway to Panama City Beach, Florida which turned into a several month odyssey trip all the way to the west coast.  Conversations went like this; “We have never been to Mobile and there is the USS Alabama battleship in port, let’s go see it.”  Then the next day it was . . . “Never been to New Orleans what do you think?”  It went on and on till that trip ended.  I remember getting to California that first time and seeing the sky turn brownish in color and looking like it was going to rain.  After a couple days and as we approached Los Angeles we stopped for ga...

Triple H Skydiving Club Locust Grove, Georgia Also Greene County Skydiving Club McDonough, Georgia – I-75 After my discharge from the U.S. Army I returned home and Johnny and I resumed our adventures.  While I was in the service Johnny had married my first cousin Debbie after she graduated school and moved to Atlanta to work for GMAC.  They reconnected and as they say the “rest of the story” is their history together. Johnny was skydiving with Triple H skydiving club in Locust Grove, Georgia and invited me to go along.  I went through the ground school training that morning and made my first static line jump.  After all the static line jumps (5) were made Johnny, Debbie and I spent almost every weekend the weather was good at the drop zone. There was another drop zone close by just off Interstate 75 in McDonough called Greene County but that drop zone was within the Terminal Control Area (TCA) of Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport so many of the ju...

Aunt Betty Gone on Ahead My Aunt Betty, who Johnny and I visited many times in our adventures passed away yesterday in north Florida.  It was a cold but beautiful morning that she never realized was happening around her.  For the last ten years Alzheimer’s had stolen the beautiful woman that I knew in my youth.  It took from her the spirit and funny person that our family knew.  It stripped her of her pride and I’m sure her vanity over these last years, AZ is such a terrible disease. In passing she is survived by brothers and a sister (mama), sons and daughters, grandkids, nieces and nephews (me).  The shell she became is gone but I will remember Betty as the fun loving and funny aunt that I took the Southern Crescent train to Florida each summer to spend time camping on Pensacola Beach, exploring Perido Key and having fun with my cousins. Ice  

Cocoa Beach, Florida Somewhere on A1A Johnny and I made our way up to the Kennedy Space Center and spent the day doing tours and looking at the exhibits on the grounds.  The tour bus excursion included going out to the launch complex 39A & B where the Apollo moonshots would lift off.  The complex of roads leading the rocket crawler from the Vehicle Assembly Building to the launch pad was massive.  The last section on each pad was a ramp to the pad tower.  It took over 24 hours to move a rocket the 3 miles to ready it for launch.   The tour took us to the old Mercury/Gemini control room where one building housed all the computers for the lift-off.  Today’s computer or iPad could probably handle all the work of the many computers during those launches.  In another building was the control room where men sat giving commands and communicating with the spacecraft during its flight.  It was amazing seeing the consoles we had only seen...

Hollywood Beach, Florida US A1A “There’s somethin’ about this Sunday It’s a most peculiar gray Strollin’ down the avenue That’s known as A1A.” — from Jimmy Buffett’s Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season  There is the old Florida, that of Highway A1A, where the sunrises and sunsets are spectacular and there is no such thing as “in a hurry.”  It is best enjoyed slowly.  On our trip coming from Key West, Johnny and I were heading up the east coast to visit Cape Kennedy and the Kennedy Space Center.  From my car window somewhere along Highway A1A, between the towns of Miami and Fort Lauderdale Beach, the Atlantic Ocean and its sugar-soft dunes glide by in a dizzying landscape of colors and textures.  There is the beach, its sand polished to copper and ginger by billions of fragments of coquina shells, and beyond that the Atlantic Ocean, luscious in pastels of green and blue, and beyond that only the curvature of the earth. Johnny and I mean...

Key West, Florida US Highway 1 - Mile Marker 0 After making our dives in Key Largo we wanted to really get to know the area. Johnny and I had never been down to Key West.  So, we decided to drive down and spend a couple of days walking all over town.   Along the sidewalks were artists displaying their artwork; one guy was showing his paintings of old time sailing ships, sailboats and speedboats in the Keys.  This was the old Key West with Hemingway's house and Sloppy Joe’s bar.  I am glad we got to see Key West and the Keys before it became more populated and modern.  I guess after 1990 the tourism in the Keys really increased and the population grew.  Key West became a real tourist town.  Margaritaville was established and Duvall Street became known for the coolest place to hang out in the Keys. There seemed to be people gathering at “The Southernmost Point in the Southernmost City – Key West” each afternoon in Mallory Square to...

Life Observation # 197       New Year’s Resolution - Learn how to pour coffee          Coffee is a very important first thing to start off the day properly but you have to pour it in the cup and not spill very hot coffee on your hand like I did yesterday.   Start the New Year off right, drink more coffee and do not make silly mistakes get the best of you! Ice

Seven Mile Bridge Pigeon Key, Florida US 1 - Mile markers 40 to 47 Johnny and I drove along US 1 across the original Seven Mile Bridge several times on our trips and it was usually a scary but beautiful ride.  Other cars or makeshift campers coming at you on the narrow roadway were difficult to navigate.  Each one seemed to pass inches from the side of our car.  People tended to drive in the middle until getting ready to go past the approaching car then would swerve into their lane to pass you. Completed in 1912, the old structure, initially a railroad bridge, was known as the “Eighth Wonder of the World’’ because even attempting to build something so ambitious over miles of open water and a soft bottom in a harsh tropical climate seemed a bit nutty. This amazing ribbon of steel and concrete forever changed the history of the Florida Keys and linked the mainland of Florida to Key West. The original bridge crossing was less friendly, narrow and harro...

Swimming with Flipper Grassy Key US 1 - MP 59 Florida Keys Johnny and I also swam with Mitzi the bottle-nosed dolphin (from the television series Flipper) on Grassy Key, a subtropical island in the heart of the Florida Keys at the training facility on Highway 1.  It was called Santini's Porpoise School back then but is now known as the Dolphin Research Center.  It was run by Milton Santini, a pioneer in dolphin husbandry and training.  Mitzi, who was Santini's first pupil, was picked to star as Flipper in the original movie. At mile marker 59, on the Gulf side, stands a 30-foot concrete statue of a mother and baby dolphin. This marks the entrance to the Dolphin Research Center, a serious-minded facility devoted to education and public awareness.  It is also the final resting place of the most famous dolphin ever - Mitzi, better known to the world by her stage name, Flipper.   There were multiple “pens” that housed several dolphins a...

Christ of the Abyss John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park Key Largo, Florida Off US Highway 1 – Mile Marker 100 John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park was America’s first underwater preserve, where ocean life abounds with brilliant tropical fish as far as the eye can see.  One of the highlights besides the beautiful reefs, ship wrecks and colorful fish is a 4,000-pound bronze statue that stands just beneath the ocean’s surface off the island of Key Largo at the head of the Florida Keys.    In shallow water within the John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park, “Christ of the Abyss” rests at a depth of approximately 25 feet at a site called the Key Largo Dry Rocks in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. Donated to the Underwater Society of America in 1961 by Italian scuba entrepreneur Egidi Cressi, the statue is the third bronze casting of sculptor Guido Galletti’s “Il Cristo Degli Abissi,” translated in English to Christ of the Abyss and also called Chr...