rustypants speaks

every summer the Navy’s crack Flight Demonstration Squadron, aka the Blue Angels, put on an incredible show at Pensacola Beach. the performance is legendary, as are the crowds and the noise. we wanted to go, but the thought of having to be at the beach by 7am for a show that doesn’t start until 2pm… it was a bit much for us.

so when we heard that they do 2 full dress rehersals the two days prior to the actual show, we were totally game! we packed lunch, books, lots of water, and hit the beach late morning. at 2pm, the first plane came overhead, and a few short minutes later, the Blue Angels screamed across the beach from behind us. for the next 50 minutes, we were absolutely floored at their ability, speed, and execution. it was incredible!

each of the thumbnails below blows up to a bigger shot.

no matter how awesome of a tan i get

i will always be a pasty white-boy from ohio somewhere.

no nude beaches in the area. :-(

back in december of  ‘05, lise & i came to pensacola for a week of relaxing, vacation, shell hunting, and catching our collective breaths.

the average daytime temp in december is around 65° – water temp in the Gulf is pretty close to that, too.

now, when we pulled out of cincinnati, the temperature was 22° and snow was on the ground. we know cold, right? coming to pensacola was like driving into summer – incredible! 43° difference – we may as well have been on another planet!

shorts, sandals, t-shirts all around. sure, we packed pants and pullovers for evening, but during the day? psh!

half way through the week we’re in our swimtrunks, out in the water, hunting for shells, amazed that we’re the only ones on the beach a mile in either direction. we’re drenched and loving every minute of it. pure heaven!

a lone figure appeared, shuffling across the sand in our direction. we didn’t think anything of it until the figure came closer: it was an older woman, dressed in multiple pairs of pants, a pair of winter boots, and a long winter coat with a fur lined cap pulled tightly over her head. on her hands were a thick, warm pair of gloves. it was obvious that she was quite cold.

it’s like the Far Side cartoon with the dinosaur and the walnut-sized brain somehow able to walk through an open field and bonk its head against the only tree visible in any direction – she was heading right for us. to be polite, i got out of the water and lise and i were ready for whatever she might be asking.

she approached us, looked us up and down, and stated in no uncertain terms, “Y’all Yankees.”

well, what could we do? lise and i looked at each other and got the giggles – not the rude kind, but the oh-darn-we-been-caught kind.

she looked us over again, shook her head and said, “Ain’t nobody here in Pensacola that’d be caught in the water this time o’ year. Y’all Yankees.”

and i turned to the woman and said, “well, i reckon so.”

dolby had a rough day today. up early with an appointment at the vet for x-rays on his hips, sedation, grogginess, and general poking and prodding made for a dog of a day.

tonight we thought we’d take him for some fun on the beach.

black skimmers are out and tonight was no exception.

you can see that dolby thought it’d be fun to try and catch this big boy.

sadly, his reflexes were still a bit stunted and the skimmer got away. the look on his face in this picture: shame? guilt? disappointment?

guess we’ll have to try again tomorrow. better luck then, dolbs!

lots going on, lots coming up – time for another stream of consciousness, eh?

• finished reading two good books in a row -Â The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon;Â Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. the first is a story told from the viewpoint of a fifteen year old with autism – fascinating to me after working with profoundly autistic students for many years in DC and Maryland. the second won the Pulitzer for fiction back in 2000 – it’s a series of short stories and very enjoyable.
• i’m currently reading Michael Ondaatje’s Anil’s Ghost and Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake. both are good so far.
• my contract was renewed at PFHS for next year – this was FANTASTIC news, both because having a job = good, and because i have come to love working at this school! very excited for what next year will bring.
• as school finished up last week, i’ve been searching for things to keep me busy this summer. too much time off is dreadfully boring. have a meeting with a department at my district tomorrow to discuss my developing Moodle pages for this dept’s training sessions, and helping with other technology related things. couple days a week, couple hours a day, maybe.
• our beloved Canon S2 IS bit the dust a couple months ago. a stunning blow, as we rarely leave the house without a camera in tow. we knew we wanted to move up in the digital camera arena, but didn’t have the money to do so. after some scraping and a lot of research, we ended up getting a killer deal on a Canon SX10 IS and we’re having a blast with it. the pictures are crisp, the response time on the camera is quick, the 20x optical zoom is over the top, and the flexibility is great. we’re still learning the nuances of this camera, and i have difficulty in a couple areas that are probably lack of photography knowledge, but we’re working on that!
• i’m enjoying Twitter more as i’m finding professional uses for it (mostly networking and idea-sharing), but i have to admit: i’m getting very annoyed at folks who use twitter like text messaging and/or simply to show off. now, the beauty of twitter is: even though everyone and their mothers have a “how to use twitter” tutorial, the truth is, there are no rules. and my bitching about folks who use twitter one way or another – it comes down to this – i stop following them so i don’t have to partake in their pointless and excessive self-aggrandizing or all the silly personal chatter they produce. it’s been bothering me a bit – thanks for letting me blow off some steam about it (and no offense meant to anyone who has been un-followed or recognizes themselves in this description – i still love you, just not that much).
• and in the interest of full-disclosure: i don’t frequently have a lot of intelligent things to say on twitter – but i do keep the meaningless posts to a minimum.
• the juan sebastian elcano is docked at pensacola pier – we went down and took a stroll around – pretty impressive ship!

• the sunsets continue to blow our minds here in pensacola. the temperatures have been very pleasant (mid-80’s the last couple weeks). tonight we saw a black skimmer fly by just as we were about to leave – very pretty and graceful – this was the best i could get of this one as it flew by:

• recent new music discoveries include: Rosie Thomas; Booker T; and Danger Mouse and Sparklehorse’s Dark Night of the Soul.

be well and take me to task on some of this stuff, ya hear?

the view

as of june 3

Click the pic. Why?

Pensacola – Spring 2009

Some places, people, and things from spring 2009.

can anyone really come up with something better to do on a saturday morning than this?

woke up around 7:15, took care of the dog, grabbed some cereal, packed a couple books, the cooler, and took off.

skies were clear, water was gorgeous, shells were plentiful, and the temps were perfect.

saw a very cool solar halo while out. we’ve seen them before, but not this big or clear.

we stayed until noon and took off. it was the perfect way to spend a saturday morning.

we’re in the season for big clouds and sunsets even more spectacular than usual. tonight we took big dog out for a 3 hour stroll on pensacola beach.

the way the sky changes so quickly and gives so many colors, shapes, hues, and focal points – it never ceases to amaze us.

there was a large cloud front moving in from the north – watching the sunset BEHIND that – it was multiple layer sunset goodness!

while we were sloshing around in the water, lise made a killer shell find – a large 3″ alphabet cone!

this is only the 2nd one we’ve found even close to the 3″ range – quite a find, let me tell you!

after a particularly strange day at school, this was a good way to end it: together, everyone happy, relaxed, and ready to come home and crash.

speaking of which…

on my way home from school i called the pensacola surf advisory hotline & found out that the water was calm on the Gulf and the flag was green – this was great news! lise and i grabbed our stuff and headed out.

not long after we arrived, the wind picked up and some pretty chunky looking clouds appeared.

we got in the car to drive around and investigate.

in some spots, the sky was clear. in others it was pitch black. and still in others it was yellow / pink / purple-ish.

it came through like a snake. pitch black up the middle, clear or colorful on either side.

after we’d hung about for a bit longer, we started to head back to the house for some dinner and playtime with dolby. along the bay (the “scenic tour” way home), i saw a HUGE bird in a tree – too big for a hawk, wrong neck for a heron, and pelicans don’t roost in trees.

we pulled a u-turn and then another, got out the camera and shot what i thought might’ve been an eagle or falcon at first glance. it was an osprey! a big boy, too!

a spectacular sunset was brewing after we saw the falcon. we pulled off into a cemetary by the bay and snapped some pretty cool shots. also got some rainbow shots that i’m having difficulty manipulating in the newest WordPress release. if i’m able, will update with that later.

we love nights like tonight – the time together, the variety of weather, the awe of creation. it’s good to be reminded of the insignificance that our puny lives represent when cast against everything else. crummy days at school melt away in times like these.

we likey play with camera.

me wifey has bluey eyes

she coming after me

that explainey – full moony!

a couple weeks ago we were out on the beach early one sunday morning. it was warm and the water was nice. we had the dog with us and were walking up and down the gulf when we happened upon a section of beach with a LOT of shells in the water.

as we walked around, lise got into the water just a bit and was finding a lot of the same old stuff.

and then she yelled. LOUD.

she had found a Tortuga’s Banded Tulip, intact, and a little over 3″ long. an amazing find!

this is one of those “holy grail” shells for us. we’ve seen very small ones, and have been teased with hundreds of “pieces” of this shell. it’s very thin and delicate, so when they do actually make it to the shore, they’re typically beaten and crunched against the sand and other shells by waves, broken into pieces.

needless to say, this was a very neat find!

i don’t know what he would do

if he ever caught one

but it sure is funny watching

as he runs pell mell

and at least tries.

…but without the wall

 lise and i collect seashells. lots of them. compulsively collect them. for 2+ years now, we’ve collected shells and shell pieces and have hoarded them in boxes and drawers and bags. we give many of them away, but dang, we just have too many shells.

a month or so ago, lise said to me, “let’s go through all our shells and take most of them back.” “BACK?!?” i said incredulously. “yes. back,” was her reply. and in the ensuing weeks, we went through all our shells, held back the ones we enjoyed the most (there were a lot of those) and made plans for exactly how we were going to return the others.

a mural. a sculpture. a sand-painting with shells. this would be the best way to return them: make art!

so two weeks ago, we hauled 2 years worth (maybe just under 100 lbs?) of shells to pensacola beach and began creating.

we picked a deserted spot, chose the best location and we got to work.

we had sketched out a sun design on paper before we arrived…

and the trick was keeping it even. we didn’t want the aesthetic ruined by sections off-kilter or too many shells clumped together in one spot. we didn’t want it to be TOO symmetrical or normal looking, though. the sun was retreating fast, so we had to double-up our efforts. things worked out perfectly, and we finished in about 45 minutes.

what took two years to collect were planned and laid out in just under an hour to the backdrop of a gorgeous sunset. it was a triumphant moment when we stood back and looked at our finished art project.

i honestly thought i’d feel sad about letting all those shells go, but it was such a fun thing. we really enjoyed ourselves and spent a good amount of time talking about what folks would think as they came upon this creation later. speculation, creation, satisfaction, companionship – it was all there.

we hung out for a bit, watched the sunset fade to black, and headed home…

Â

and began planning our next big seashell art project!

the wind was blowing like crazy that morning. the beach was deserted. the surf flag was red which means DANGER and DO NOT SWIM IN THE GULF. the sand was whipping around and stung my legs and most of the beach had been washed away by the storm the previous night. storm clouds were brewing still. it’s a rare sight to see pensacola beach emptied in early august.

i drove down to the dead-end just to watch the swirling & crashing waves for a while. on the way there, i passed a single vehicle. an SUV with Kansas plates was parked on the side of the road and an umbrella was in the middle of the beach, propped on it’s side against the onslaught of wind. driving slowly past, i see two folks huddled under the meager protection from the elements, a cooler between them and looking like they were having the time of their lives.

i smiled once as i crawled past because i realized that lise and i would have done the same crazy kind of thing.

i smiled twice because i could hear them saying to themselves, “dagnabbit, we drove all the way from kansas to sit on the beach, and come hell or high water, that’s what we’re doing!!”

Download Great Blue Heron Burgers – It’s What’s for Dinner!

during a particularly good evening of cloud-watching, we saw this bunny.

and we promised to hug it, and squeeze it, and call it george.

but it got pulled into taffy. :-(

while out on the beach thursday afternoon a rather surprising fashion statement was being made perhaps 50 yards south of me.

now, i joke about going to the beach for the sights (babes?) but the reality is: i go to the very end of civilization on p-cola beach just to NOT have to endure the sights or the people or the noise. we are genuinely disappointed when there are other folks close by – not because we’re anti-social buttheads – we just enjoy an empty beach to ourselves.

so i’m sitting there sunning myself and reading a book and looking for the occasional seashell in the surf, basically minding my own business. out of the corner of my eye, i see some dude fishing. no big deal, right? but after he casts his reel, he’s making funny / big gestures with his arms – almost to draw attention to himself, it seems.

now on this particular day, i’d forgotten to put my contacts in, but it was a true double-take when i thought i saw what i thought i saw.

out comes the camera, zoom that sucker in for all it’s worth, and there it was.

the worst fashion statement i’ve ever seen on any beach anywhere.

and now my plea:

please, for the love of all things sacred, if you’re a fat middle aged man, with or without a huge butt-tattoo, DO NOT wear a man-thong to pensacola beach in the middle of the day.

now, in the interest of full-disclosure, i offer this: do i like to skinnydip in the gulf? yes, at times. at night. in the pitch black. far from civilization. away from anyone who might be subjected to the awful sight.

but never at noon on a beach where there are dozens and dozens of folks within view.

and finally: man-thongs? are you for real??

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…there’d be days like this.

after this school day ended with one of my students getting a 5 day suspension (apparently harper and i are f*cking fatasses and this needed to be shouted at top volume repeatedly while storming down the hallway), my whole class getting silent lunch (a very effective consequence – lunch is a huge part of the social life of my kids), my having tossed four students out of my room in the course of the day, my having to put my hands in my pockets to keep from doing this literally to one of them, my classes’ schedule getting changed daily, harper and i clinging to what little sanity remains, and my blood pressure reaching epic levels there was only one thing i could do to regain my head.

arriving at the beach, stripping in the car, changing, grabbing the bag and chair, i sat on the gulf and stewed. i lost count of the number of times i had to relax my jaw. and then i jumped in.

and it made all the difference. this is what i wrote when i got out 30 minutes later, thoroughly soaked, chilled, and relaxed:

about the only energy i have left in me is to get down to the beach, sit in the sun, swim in the waves, and repeatedly remind myself to unclench my jaw / stop grinding my teeth and try to remember why i got into teaching in the first place. honest to god, moving here was the right thing to do despite the financial ramifications and i’d do it again.

really. it feels that profound sometimes. i honestly can’t remember what i used to do to relax or come down from a bad day in the last couple years. it really seems to come down to needing the water / sand / waves to regain perspective that, for the longest time, was getting lost without a viable outlet.

teaching has many perks, not the least of which is having holidays off. good friday is on the school calendar and my plan was to spend most of it on the beach, reading, biking, etc. then thursday night, lise makes a few calls and finds that her office is going to be closed on friday! woo-woo!! a three day weekend TOGETHER!!

it started off on the right foot – we both slept in and caught up on the beauty rest. lise took the dog out for a good long walk, and we hung out with him until around noon.

then we were off.

we loaded our beach bag up, grabbed the cooler and hit the road. first stop: The Bead and Crystal House. lise has been working hard making earrings and other jewelry in the last few months and this place has a great selection of cool, unique beads to choose from. this does scott no good, of course, so while lise went shopping, scott went to joe patti’s seafood and loaded the cooler up with raw shrimp and some of their delicious spinach dip.

then it was off to captain joey patti’s seafood deli / restaurant. plastic spoons & forks, paper plates, bare bones surroundings, but some of the best and cheapest seafood in the area.

we ordered and devoured a bowl of their fantastic seafood gumbo…

and ate a basket of their catch-of-the-day, some hushpuppies, and baked beans. mmmm-mmm!

a side trip to wal-mart was needed as i had left all my sunscreen in my car. wal-mart is never a fun trip for me, but there was an ulterior motive involved:

hershey’s ice cream parlor is a block away from the one near perdido key. and i knew we needed some ice cream to get the lunch settled correctly. we’ve not been in months, but we’ve agreed for years that hershey’s makes the best freakin’ ice cream out there. we weren’t disappointed this time when we saw a new flavor: girl scout thin mint chocolate ice cream. oh. my. gosh. it was awesome. little chunks of real thin mint cookies all mixed up in there – it was heavenly.

next, we hit one of pensacola’s three tiny used bookstores. i had forgotten my book to take to the beach and had to have something to read! after much searching, snow falling on cedars was purchased, and we continued our trip to the beach!

it was a gorgeous day out – temps hit the low 70’s and the sun was out the entire day. the beach got chilly as the sun was going down an hour or so after we arrived, but that didn’t take away our enthusiasm for seeing the sunset.

being a relatively cloudless day, the sunset was not quite as spectacular as some, but it was still an awe-inspiring sight. we sat a bit after the sun disappeared, contemplated what a great day it had been so far, packed up our stuff and headed home to the big dog and some delicious shrimp just waiting to be cooked.

dinner was delicious. several years ago, my dad gave us a medium sized foreman grill – the old ones are a pain to clean as nothing detaches, but folks, when you want shrimp cooked right, the foreman is one good way of doing it. it was worth the cleaning job.

we ended our evening by catching up on Lost, season two. we’re late-comers to the whole Lost phenomenon and have been renting for the last couple weeks from netflix season one. that was finished on thursday. now we’re on season two and we’re hooked.

it was a good friday, indeed.

this past tuesday was quite cool.

my dad and his wife karen came into town for the afternoon. they and my brother and his wife were in biloxi for a couple days on vacation – lise and i took the afternoon off work and they drove the two hours into p-cola and we had a great, but too brief, time together.

we unloaded the truck of our chest of drawers and two bicycles and an added treat of several cans of skyline chili and several bottles of montgomery inn sauce – all welcome additions in our home. we hung out at the apartment for a bit and caught up (and caught our breath).
then we hit mcguire’s irish pub for a fantastic meal of corned beef sandwiches, reubens, and monster-sized burgers – add a couple bowls of their famous bean soup and two pitchers of homemade root beer and you’ve got a great couple hours of food, fun, and talk.

next to the beach where the wind was blowing hard enough to lean at a 45 degree angle without falling over. sadly, it was too windy and cold for karen and we didn’t get her picture this time around. :-( a quick picture and a visual for them both of where we spend most of our free time (and what brought us to pensacola in the first place) were had and we were off.

a drive to my school and lise’s place of work, then back to the apartment rounded out the afternoon. we had a great time and it sucked to say goodbye but it was great to see them both and catch up.

and i have to remember to bring karen a reuben from mcguire’s when i hit cincy at the end of march!

for several years now, i’ve noticed the strange colored soda.

weird names. weird pictures. bottles. long-neck bottles.

and i’ve known people who swear by the sweet nectar tucked into those weirdly named long-neck bottles of pop.

but it wasn’t until our local grocery store had a sale on 12-packs of the canned stuff (3 for $9.00!) that we actually tried it.

and wow. nice.

green apple. lemon drop. root beer. all made with pure cane sugar, not the fake crap pumped into the usual brands.

and the tastes! interesting! different to be certain!

have we seen the light? are we converted??

yes.

i’m afraid so.

jones soda. the choice of generation rust.

she did it.

she found the proverbial “big one” – The Shell.

after my finding of The Other Big One back in december, lise’s pitched a bit of a fit that she’s not had the same luck. but last week, we hit the beach and there it was.

we had walked a ways down the beach together until at some point i decided to go back to the chairs and sit, watch the sunset and listen to the waves. lise trudged on, deciding to get in the chilly water and wade around a bit.

and that’s where she saw it. the top half of a large lightning whelk sticking up from the sand maybe 4′ from the shore. as she recounted the story, she said, “i saw it and i thought to myself, ‘oh, please let it be a whole one, not a broken one!’ as she pulled it out of the sand she let out a loud “YES!!” and bounded out of the water to examine her find.

it’s a nice one, too. where mine is 12″ and quite faded (not from the sun but because when they get to that size, the color becomes more of a flat cream with less pronounced ridges), hers is 7″ and full of colors and textured ridges! it’s a real beauty and is now proudly displayed as one half of the two Big Ones.

will this end her quest for another big one as it did mine?

probably not. who says chicks don’t care about size?

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but could i sit on the beach at the end of january barefoot, wear shorts and a t-shirt, grade papers and listen to the waves crash, feel the warm sand between my toes, have the sun beat down on me, watch the pelicans take headlong dives for a scaly supper, and marvel at the wonder of it all?

naw, didn’t think so.

i’m sick. i’m frustrated. i can’t sleep. something fun must be shared.

for the last 2 years, lise and i have joked (?) about finding “The Big One” out on the beach. we go out frequently since we moved here in august ‘07 to enjoy sunsets, find shells, walk the dog, listen to the waves, eat shrimp, etc.

but “find shells” is high up on our list. i can’t psychobabble well enough to try and guess why we like our shells so much (growing up in the midwest is the best i can come up with) but doggoneit, we do. and sometimes we score with some pretty cool shells. most of the time we find more of the same old stuff.

but “The Big One” has long held a fascination for us. you know: you see these big seashells in stores down here or in seashell shops but what you find on the beach and in the water is typically smaller stuff with florida conch shells and cockle shells being the largest specimens. and don’t get me wrong – these are cool things! but being a typical boy, size seems to matter more than it ought to. lise and i have talked about how we’re gonna find The Big One at some point, and have made it a joke at the end of the evening when we DON’T find The Big One to curse Neptune loudly and vow to come back and raid & pillage his kingdom until he gives us what we desire.

the pillaging can now come to an end.

this past sunday, lise was out lunching with friends and helping with the church christmas show, leaving the dog and i to hang out together, head to school and do some work, then hit the beach for some exercise, frolicking, frisbee, and shell hunting. there had been some huge storms friday & saturday and high winds on sunday – all good conditions for finding unique shells, as these things churn up the sand and cause big waves that wash more stuff to the shore.

it was brisk out. the sand was cold. the water much warmer. the area was literally deserted on the navarre side of p-cola beach. we got out and walked a good clip to the east, finding a couple of neat shells and having a great time chasing each other around. dog got tired after a while and trotted back to the bag and sat, waiting for me to return. i decided i wanted to head up the western side a little ways just to savor the time out at the water (and who knows: maybe The Big One was lurking out there just waiting for me).

about 20 yards from where we had our stuff, there it was. a lightning whelk. one of my favorite shells. this sucker was huge. i mean, HUMONGOUS! the top was so big that it was actually sticking up out of the water!

the storms had moved the sand around and caused some areas of the shoreline to be quite shallow – maybe 4-5 inches with the tide coming in. and it was in one of these spots that The Big One sat, wide open and calling my name.

i honestly looked around to see if someone was watching with cameras or maybe there was a string tied to it (neptune?) and would yank it away before i could get it…

i walked out into the water, reaching down expecting to find that it was an incomplete shell – broken somewhere, cracked, maybe only the outer 3/4 of it intact and the inside busted up. but no! it was the whole kit and kaboodle.

i screamed. well, ok. i didn’t quite scream, but i did yell out and i looked all over to see if i could somehow share this moment with someone, but truth is, the person i wanted to share with the most was lise.

so the dog and i walked back, got a few pictures of this beast, and called my wife. at home, the ruler showed an almost 12″ long shell. i’m still surprised. doing a little homework on this shell shows an average size being around 6-8″ (and we’ve found a couple that were close to 6″).

i can now retire from the shell-hunting game. neptune has been bested and can kiss my rear.

“for what am i being punished?”

briefly:

• lise’s job = awesome. she loves it. (frickin’ YES!!!)
• things at school continue to get better – not just because my homeroom size is smaller but because certain realizations have taken place. these realizations exact a change in my thinking, causing me to change my teaching / attitude / discipline, all making things better for the students AND for me.
• lise, sadly, has to work M-T-W next week – my school is on fall break, so i’m leaving for cincinnati friday immediately after school gets out. looking forward to being with family and friends again – sad about being away from my sweetie for almost a week.
• this marks the first year in… 15? that we will not be with our friends barb and joe in maryland for thanksgiving. we’re sad, but looking forward to a possible trip there in december.
• am reading The Great Bridge by David McCullough. never ever would have thought something so seemingly boring could be so interesting.
• we’ve now rented and watched seasons one and two of Scrubs – holy crap, this is a freakin hilarious show!
• saw the blue angels last weekend on their homecoming show here in p-cola. pretty cool. got a few pictures but none of them turned out incredibly great – it’s hard catching super-sonic jets on film!
• a second leaf changed color yesterday.
• it’s still hitting the low 80’s here. am i ready to wear PANTS again during this visit to cincinnati? probably not, although weather.com tells me the high tomorrow will be 43 and the low as i pull into town will be 30. brisk, baby!
• the house = still not sold.
• scott = dead tired.
• goodnight.

the days continue to be sunny and warm, temps still hitting the low 80’s and upper 70’s, and the evenings are getting a bit chilly. to wrap myself in a toasty pullover (Xavier!) is becoming commonplace as the sun sinks below the horizon. the trees have still not begun to change colors here in pensacola but i imagine this will commence soon.

the red tide alert was lifted this past week and lise and i joyously returned to the beach friday night to celebrate clear waters, dead-fish-less shores, steamed shrimp, and…

lise’s new job(s).

it’s been a rollercoaster of a ride these past weeks as we’ve dealt with some crippling blows to our adventure in southern living – the financial crisis has sapped me of mental strength, the job crisis has sapped lise’s. she’s been a real trooper, though, and doubled up her efforts to find employment.

and between thursday and friday, she was offered four positions. one of them was easy to turn down. another was accepted on thursday, then turned down on friday upon receiving the other two offers. she is now the volunteer coordinator at Learn to Read of Northwest Florida, an adult literacy program here in pensacola. she’s quite excited, as the director was very complimentary, friendly, and encouraging as she applied, interviewed, was highly recommended, then offered the position. it’s not a high-paying job, but the hours are good (9-5, M-Th) and the organization seems solid.

she’ll also start subbing at escambia county schools on fridays off and on to get into the system (and get some extra $$).
are we excited? definitely. are we relieved? yes and no. we’re far from being out of the woods of our crisis, but this is such a wonderful first step – lise’s been working her butt off to get work and it’s been so depressing and frustrating – this removes much of that and the obvious feelings of rejection that are felt during fruitless searching, applying, calling, interviewing, etc.

the next big thing on our hope / prayer list is: getting the house sold. we’ve dropped the price again and now we begin to lose money on it. we’re very sad that it’s come to this but honestly, a key part of our being able to make it down here will be unloading that house that we love and miss so much. we’ll be working again to save money over the next few years for a down payment on a home in florida, but having that drain on our finances sold will make things much easier.

we’re hitting the beach again tonight to continue our celebration and relax before lise rejoins the rat-race. thanks for your thoughts, prayers, and encouragement over the past few weeks (and months)!

• many thanks to the folks calling, emailing, texting to make sure lise and i were ok after the tornado ripped it’s way through pensacola on thursday. it got within 8 blocks or so of my school and we lost power from 10:15am through the end of the school day, but there was no damage and no one was hurt. definitely made for an interesting day, though!
• funny thing about the tornado: lise and i had NO IDEA that a tornado was going through until my dad sent me a text message saying he saw on the news (in CINCINNATI!) about it and wanted to make sure we were ok. even at the school, we didn’t know.
• many folks are asking how we’re doing since the news we received last wednesday and the answer is: we’re as ok as we can be. we’ve decided to stay the course down here and see where it leads us, but it won’t be without pain and (obviously) sacrifices we weren’t thinking we’d need to make. we’re ok.
• i finished reading Roots by Alex Haley a couple weeks ago. i remember watching the miniseries on TV waaay back in the 70’s when i was a wee lad and it must’ve made an impression on me – as i read the book i very easily visualized scenes and remembered in some cases what was coming next. it was a very good book, despite the apparent “controversies” surrounding Haley and the writing. recommended reading.
• florida has a Sunshine State Young Reader’s Award that is voted on and given each year. our librarian walked each class through this years books and i was so impressed that i took some of our classroom money and bought a couple copies to read aloud and share with the students – two standouts from the list include The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane and A House of Tailors. both are excellent books with edward tulane being my favorite.
• we’ve kept with our decision to not watch any television and have been watching a lot of movies recently. we’ve also discovered Scrubs again for the first time. we’ve seen maybe one or two shows a season but always seemed to be busy the night it’s on – we rented season three and laughed our butts off. i love dr. cox.
• hollywood video is going out of business in several locations here in p-cola, and i stumbled on their liquidation sale at one store – all dvd’s were $1.99! now, there weren’t that many left, but i did end up with 12 movies, several of which are absolute favorites – the biggest of them being Cinema Paradiso. this movie won the best foreign film Oscar back in 1988 – lise and i saw it last year for the first time and we were totally floored with how incredible it was. what a sweet and touching movie! finding the director’s cut version for $1.99 made my week.
• red tide has hit the gulf coast in our area and it’s made it nearly impossible to go to the beach this week. we went last saturday and as we got out of the car, i said, “something doesn’t smell right” – dead fish floating all over and the water was a murky brackish green color. it’s spread up and down the coast and is still affecting the water. seafood friday is still on the schedule for tonight but i’m not sure how long we’ll be on the beach. :-(
• no bites on the house yet. may end up dropping the price yet again – at this point we’re losing more money than it’s worth, but dropping the price means we’ll lose even more. gosh, we just didn’t think it’d take this long!
• we’ve got a birkenstock store here in pensacola that’s bigger than any we’ve been in yet. it’s called comfort zone and one thing that makes it unique is that they have a LARGE “discount” section – we’ve NEVER seen this before from a birk dealer. i found a pair of waterproof birkenstock sandals, normally priced at around $180, for only $19.95. they’re fantastic! woo!! nothing like being flat broke and being able to say you bought a new pair of birkenstocks, yo.
• i’m heading out of school to hit maria’s seafood for some shrimp, then heading home to pick up the wife. be well and thanks for reading.

lise and i love the beach. duh.

one thing we learned early on is this: no matter how much you want it to, the face of the beach never stays the same. we’ll be at a particular spot one night and find tons of cool seashells, then go back the next night, same spot, and everything’s gone.

the waves come and churn everything up, move everything around, slide things up and down the shoreline, and change the face of the beach hour by hour. if you’ve ever stood and watched a particular shell get tossed up on the beach by a wave, try and rush to grab it, only to have it disappear as fast as you saw it, you know that the beach changes in a matter of seconds, too.

yesterday we received news that, at the time, seemed catastrophic to our hopes of staying here in pensacola. the world came to a screeching halt yesterday afternoon. we’ve both been crying and upset, trying to figure out why this is happening and why things that seemed to be going along ridiculously well at first, now are not. how are we going to manage to work this out with everything seemingly hinged to a few things that are falling apart?
so after we got the depression & self-pity out of our systems last night we spent the morning re-working our gameplan and trying to see where we can go from here.

and this afternoon, i went to the beach to decompress. and i watched tiny shells come and go. and i watched the waves moving everything around. and i watched the face of the beach get changed and rearranged. and i learned (again) that life has a habit of doing this same thing to us. we want things to be accessible and familiar and easy to swallow, but this rarely happens. life shifts, ebbs, and flows and things get moved. we reach for something we see moving around in life, but it gets moved out of our reach, buried in the sand. and then something else comes along and we reach and grasp it with success.

we’re going to continue on our path down here in pensacola and rearrange our hopes and expectations. will it all work out? or will more waves come and scramble the face of our lives again? dunno.

life will continue to be a beach sometimes, this much we can depend on.

dolby and i went to the beach together last week and hung out. he’s a good companion – i let him off his leash and he never goes more than 15 yards from me, responds well even with distractions, enjoys the water, the sand, and pieces of flotsam.

we sat together and watched the sun go down after a particularly silly crazy-dog session of running, fetching, rolling around in the sand (“making sand-angels,” we say), walking into the water and sitting down, chasing plovers, etc.

and on this night, he did something funny.

unless he’s laying down, dolby’s an active dog. he rarely just “sits still” in an upright position without moving. i had been taking pictures of the sunset and the water as i sat and i turned to see what he was up to – he was sitting completely motionless, watching the sky.

now for those photography buffs among you, you know that when the sun is gone and the sky is clear, long exposures are a must. for those non-photography folk, this means that any movement at all typically ruins the shot and the moving object is blurred. i took about 15 shots of dolby from various positions and angles with a 1/2 exposure and an f-stop of 2.7 – the shot to the left is one of the best and it’s a pretty cool picture, if you want to know what i think.

dolby’s done quite well transitioning from a city dog to a seadog, but i’ll admit:

when he sits like this and stares at the sky, i can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking.

“i miss my backyard. i miss having the whole house to run around in. where are the girls who used to come over and scritch and scratch me and spoil me? how long are we going to be in that tiny apartment? is it going to snow down here? will i get to chase snowballs again? where the hell are all the squirrels?”

and i cry a little because i know i’m homesick.

i miss my family. i miss my friends. i miss my house. why are things happening like this? how long are we going to be stuck in this tiny apartment? where’s my comforting familiarity?

what a see-saw.

since our earliest days as a married couple (17 years ago!!) we’ve been members of sam’s club. back in those days our typical purchases were cases of ramen noodles and tubs of peanut butter (just the staples we could afford to survive). in recent years it’s grown to include just about everything they sell – good deals, generally!

at times, however, sam’s makes us laugh.

their christmas stuff? it was put out a couple weeks ago.

they sell all kinds of ridiculous stuff throughout the year that i cannot fathom the purchasers of such things.

but i digress.

since knowing we were moving to pensacola back in january or february of 2007, we’ve been more conscious than usual of lise’s skin cancer and our need to protect against it even moreso down here than in cincinnati. it’s always sunny down here (well, except for when the heavens are dumping a torrential downpour upon us).

sam’s club to the rescue!

back in march or april while twirling around the store looking at all the goods, i spotted something more ridiculous than usual. here we are in land-locked ohio, no beaches as far as the eye can see (unless you count the scary little one at East Fork Lake) and here, at sam’s club: a beach umbrella.

we’d seen them in some of the stores and shops down here on our vacations but they were always overpriced and rickety looking. this baby at sam’s club: metal, dude! big spike on the bottom! multi-colored fabric! water and oil resistant!

and the price? under $20.

well, who am i to argue? i plunked down my money, put the sucker in the garage and waited for the move. and now, six months later, this is what our umbrella looks like spiked in the sand on the gulf of mexico on a gorgeous sunday night at the end of september.

now if only they sold industrial strength drums of sunscreen, we’d be set.

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it’s almost midnight here in pensacola. the moon was bright and beautiful over the beach tonight as lise and i chilled for almost four hours, finding a big cockle shell and other neat shells, seeing a large kite being flown a hundred yards down the beach, watching the gorgeous sunset, and talking about everything from our decision to move to florida, my job fears and excitements, her job concerns, cancer concerns, missing our families and friends, our relationship and its vast improvement over the last 8 months – it was just a great time together.

my clock is set for 5:45am – school starts tomorrow and kids arrive at 7:05am for breakfast.

am i nervous? yup, a bit. am i excited? yup, a lot! will i sleep tonight? with a slug of NyQuil, i can sleep through anything.

see you tomorrow.

today was another good one at school. a morning full of behavior management meetings and a quick bite to eat with lise, several other teachers and my principal (no – no more singing from him today, but we did discover that numerous videos exist of his singing and impersonating). then it was back to school to finally tackle the mess in the classroom.

about a month ago i posted a picture of the room as we saw it while construction was going on and installation of central air into the building. it was in slightly better shape when i got in there this week, but still pretty boogered up. some progress was made and frankly, now that it’s clean and i’ve got my desks where i want them, i can start envisioning where things will go and how the class dynamics will play out in relation to all the furniture. i just needed it to be a bit cleaner so the imagination could roam freely, unfettered by junk.

it being friday and all, i ran home, played with the pup for a while, made some cocktail sauce, threw on the swimsuit, gathered up the wife, and took off to maria’s seafood for our friday night seafood and sunset on the beach. we found a number of pretty cool seashells, cooled off in the Gulf, took some sweet pics of the sun going down (and the video below), and dove into some shrimp.

i can’t imagine ever getting bored with the sunsets down here. it really is stunning and such insane variations from one day to the next.

this video is about a minute long, documenting the final seconds of the sun before it disappeared on the horizon.

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there’s a joint about 10 minutes from our place here in pensacola called Maria’s Seafood Market – they’re not nearly as big as joe patti’s, our favorite seafood joint here in town, but they do something that joe patti’s does not: you order your shrimp or crabs or whatever, and they’ll steam it for free on the spot.

so we’re making a couple of routines here, one of which is becoming: make some of scott’s famous seafood sauce (the trick: Lea and Perrin’s Worcestershire Sauce), grab a couple waters, throw on the swim gear, grab the camera, go to Maria’s, get a pound of jumbo shrimp ($5.99 a pound, dude!!), have them steam it, spice it, and package it, then:

hit the beach, look for seashells, enjoy the waves, watch the sun go down…

and. eat. shrimp.

MMMmmmmmm… SHRIIIMMMMP.

so tonight, this is exactly what we did.

gentlemen, let me strongly suggest that should you try this with your sweetie: do NOT eat the last shrimp without offering it to her, first.

she packs a mean right hook.

lise and i pulled into pensacola tonight around 9pm to a gorgeous and outrageous lightning storm. decided to put off checking into the hotel and instead drove straight to the beach – the storm was coming in from three sides with the moon still visible in the southwest sky and stars abounding to the south / southwest. the rest of the sky was pitch black, thick, billowing clouds moving through with a nice wind blowing from the northwest.

we parked our butts and gaped. it was gorgeous.

and then i thought, “hey! long exposure shots will capture this lightning! quick! get the tripod!” and what was documented doesn’t do justice to the real show, but wow – what a night. definitely in the top 5 greatest electrical storms of all time.

i’ve got 16 pictures up for your viewing! bring on the elctrical storm!

but that didn’t stop us.

wednesday was lise’s birthday and we were down in pensacola. now, normally, sitting on the beach as the sun goes down gives you a spectacular sunset, a salty taste of the gulf on your tongue and some sand in your sandals.

not so this time.

the initial sight was clear sun and balmy heat. we looked around for some seashells and hung out together.

and then the sun was blotted out by some cool cloud formation. we still had no idea what was coming so we settled in to see the sunset.

before long, the sky to the northwest has gotten pretty dark and scary looking. the clouds envelop us overhead and lise and i start making some mental contingencies for a quick run to the car, should the heavens open and dump their load on us.

we weren’t worried when the beach east and west cleared out. we weren’t worried when the lightening started from the north. we weren’t worried when it was obvious that it was raining just across the bay on the mainland.

we got worried when the sight became what you see here on the left. THAT, my friend, and the sudden 10 degree drop in temperature, made me look at lise and go, “i think we need to get the hell out of here, pronto.”

so we snapped this last shot on the right of the two of us on the beach just before 50,000 volts of electricity were scheduled to be unleashed on our fool heads. and we ran like crazy to the car, careful not to have our metal chairs up too high. why encourage it with lightening rods?

this last picture is the sight of the beach taken from the relative safety of our car just before the rain came down hardcore. couldn’t see 10 feet ahead of us. wind went nuts and we looked at each other and went:

“um. ha. ha. we’re fricking nuts!“

it was a beautiful storm and worth every minute.