It's been pretty toasty here the past few days, and by all indications we're just about done with spring and heading full-bore into summer. Yay, I guess? As the photo indicates, we went to the beach yesterday. Not swimming per se, just playing in the surf. Fun, though! And then when we got home, the girls went in the pool, even though the water is just now getting up to 70F. That's too damn cold for me, but they sure don't seem to mind.

The beach we went to was Ponce Inlet, which is just south of Daytona Beach. It's home to an awesome lighthouse (the tallest in Florida!), but we didn't do that this time. We did the Marine Science Center there again, that's always fun. Nice little place. And then we parked for a little playtime at the beach, which was also fun. Kind of a boring stretch of beach in terms of unique features or wildlife, but nice and broad with hard-packed sand and a nice long littoral zone. Mostly we saw coquina clams (Dorax variabilis), the tiny little ones I grew up calling periwinkles. I always like to look and dig for sand fleas (actually little crustaceans also called mole crabs, in the genus Ermerita), and I did spot a little one swimming but never saw one after that. Anyway, it was fun!

My allergies still suck because the pollen is still everywhere, but my eyes are much improved. Yesterday at the beach was a good choice--between the lack of oak trees and the steady sea breeze, there was probably not much pollen to speak of. But after we got home I made the mistake of spending some time outside, and my eyes got all itchy again. I'm going to try to stay in as much as I can this week! I really hope we're past the peak of it by now.

And I'll get a break from the pollen later this week, when I head up to Canada! Forecast says it's going to be nice and chilly up there. I need to start packing, I guess. I also looked into some tips on cold-weather photography, and avoiding condensation and all that. Hopefully I won't have any problems. And it remains to be seen how much time to explore I'll actually get anyway.

Did I mention the squatters? There's a house across the street from us, the previous owners were foreclosed and moved out maybe 3-4 months ago, and it had been vacant. Suddenly a couple weeks ago, we spotted a couple guys over there cleaning, and we're thinking okay, maybe the bank hired some guys to come clean it up in preparation for going on the market. But they were back the next day with a trailer of furniture (looked like a bed and not much else, really) moving it in. And these are fairly young guys, definitely not the type who seem likely to buy a house. It seemed very odd to us because there had been no activity over there, certainly no For Sale sign or anything. I'm on the HOA board so I asked around if anyone had heard about a sale, and was told no. One of the other neighbors called the bank to ask, and of course they couldn't give out any information, but apparently did eventually confirm that they did not sell the house. But there's not much we can do aside from that--it's the bank's property, so it's up to them to investigate and try to get the people out. And they apparently said they'd be sending someone to inspect the property and ensure it's vacant, so we'll see what happens there. It's not like they're being loud or obnoxious or even doing anything to call attention to themselves. But it's so squicky, and sad that people need to resort to that sort of strategy. Not that it's difficult around here, I think we're still foreclosure capital of the US, or at least in the top 5.

Last week we got an e-mail from the owner of the company that owns the company I work for, downplaying an unspecified rumor that our company is being sold off. It was the first I'd heard of it, so I dug around and found that sure enough, there were reports that a larger cable company had reached a tentative agreement with our owners to acquire us. It's all a rumor right now, and I think any decision will hinge on whether the FCC approves the merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable (though I suspect that will be approved, politics and payola being what they are these days). I kinda hope it doesn't happen, frankly. Currently we're owned by a privately-held company, which is nice because we aren't answerable to the whims of shareholders and all that. If we're acquired by a public company, that would all change and I imagine there would be a lot of downsizing and added corporate nonsense. Not to mention they would probably chop up our service areas and sell some off--namely the ones I primarily support, which would make me a bit redundant. A little scary to consider, anyway. But also still a ways off in the future, if anything happens at all. For now we just keep on truckin'.

Okay, that's all I can think of for now, and it's about time to call it a day and head home anyway. I hope everyone's week is off to a good start!

I see some of you posting pics full of some white stuff I am not familiar with. This is what we do in February in Florida!

Saturday we wanted to go to an event that sounded neat on the Stetson University campus in Deland--there's a geological museum there that we've long wanted to check out, and it's usually closed on the weekends. But about once a month they open it up on a Saturday in conjunction with some special presentation for the young'uns. This time it was a lady sculptor of Cherokee ancestry, showing some of her work and then running a little pottery workshop for the kids. Naturally the girls enjoyed that, since they've always loved working with Play-Doh (and more recently, oven-bake polymer clay).

( A Few More? )
And that's about it. I came (back) down with a cold or something Saturday and wasn't feeling good at all. Not a whole lot better Sunday either, but I was still game to head to Downtown Disney and the LEGO store. I got the new Detective's Office set, which is awesome. :) And we got to check out some of the work that's been completed on the conversion of DD to Disney Springs, including our first time parking in the new garage. Not bad, I like how it's coming along. Still a ways to go, though, and the traffic still crawls through there. And that was a Sunday morning in the off-season, it must have been a nightmare around the holidays.

Okay, I need to get a little more work done. I'm still feeling pretty crappy today, so I think after a 2pm conference call I'll head home and take a nap. Hope everyone's week is off to a good start!

It's a slow day at work, and I'm still a little sickly and not feeling much like working. So what the heck, here's some photos to catch up on the past few weeks!

( Clicky )
I feel another post coming momentarily. Thanks for looking!

As promised, some photos from the past couple weeks!


Weekend before last, I took Hallie to Disney's Hollywood Studios for the Indiana Jones stunt show. We'd gone to it once before, and they only did half of it because it was rainy. Plus there's a rumor that Disney is going to close the show soon to make room for an expanded Star Wars area, so we wanted to make sure we saw it before that happens. I like the show a lot, I think Hallie did too. Being such a fan, how could she not?

( Clicky! )
And that's it for now. Thanks for looking!

Well. The past 2 days have seen me working from our St. Petersburg office, which is where my boss and a number of colleagues work. Usually I only make that trek (about 110 miles each way) once every other week, so two days in a row is unusual! But the reimbursement for mileage will be nice, and I do like getting free lunches out of the deal. Plus I actually enjoy the drive, for the most part. I crank up the radio, belt along with the tunes, and treat myself to a Starbucks mocha frappuccino for the morning. Plus with the drive time thrown in, my actual work time for the day ends up being pretty abbreviated. Not a bad deal all around.

Speaking of work, my upcoming trips are coming together. Indianapolis (next week!) flights/hotel/car are all booked, and flights for Bakersfield at the end of the month and Birmingham early next month are booked as well. That just leaves Detroit, but that's over a month off so I'll wait until I get reimbursed for the rest of the airfare, at least. I'm going solo this time, so I'm making sure to give myself some time for exploration. I have a tentative plan for my free time in Indy already. Still contemplating for Bakersfield, and I may have a pretty decent amount of time there because the usual overnight flight I take from the BFL airport seems to have been eliminated. So instead I'm planning to add a second hotel night, which is actually good because I never get much/any sleep when I fly overnight anyway. So as it stands, I'll fly into LAX and have all afternoon and evening to do something and make my way to Bakersfield. Then the next day I spend at the office, and again I'll have all evening to fill and make my way towards LA for the flight home the next morning.

Anyway, what else is going on.. My Project 365 is still going, and I haven't missed a day yet! Okay, I've had to cheat once or twice, throwing in an extra shot from the previous day. But I don't feel too bad about it, since it's all supposed to be for fun anyway, right?

Ugh, I'm all stuffy and runny today. I don't think it's a cold, my eyes have been itchy lately so I suspect allergies. No fun either way.

Hm, I never updated about last weekend, did I? Let's have some photos!
( Clicky! )

Okay, enough for now. Friday is nearly upon us, people!

Sunday morning we had no plans, so I thought it might be a good opportunity to load up my kayak and hit the water. After that nice paddle along the Wekiva River a few weeks back, I'd wanted to go there again. So I tossed the boat in the van and off I went!

( More! )

Well, here we are almost to the next weekend, but I thought I shouldn't disappoint my audience by failing to post a recap of last weekend!

( Shall we? )

We did a fair amount of paddling this weekend! My sister-in-law came over for a visit, so Saturday evening we loaded up the kayaks and headed out to Secret Lake Park in Casselberry. It's a nice park with a playground and a short hike and boardwalk, but it also has a launch onto North Triplet Lake, which is connected via little canals to (as the name might imply) two other lakes, Middle Triplet and South Triplet. There are actually some other lakes it connects to as well, but North Triplet and Middle Triplet lakes have been fine to get started with. We thought it would make a nice first excursion with the new kids' kayak (though we did try it in the neighborhood lake first, as I mentioned before).

( Clicky for more! )

Mmm, static.

I know, the massive photo updates have been coming fast and furious in these parts lately. But I'm done traveling for a while, so this should be the last of its sort for a while, aside from the usual weekend travels around central Florida. We're planning a summer trip at the end of July, though, so all bets are off then!

( Clicky! )

The funeral--more of a memorial service, I guess--for my uncle Saturday wasn't too bad. I sorta hate it when the person doing most of the talking about the deceased is someone who never met them--just a preacher tossing out vague homilies and tossing out characteristics that we probably all want applied to us in life and in death. He was a great guy, he had a great sense of humor, he was there for his kids, etc. But anyway, after she was done his children, my cousins, got up and spoke about him, and my grandmother shared some details about his life that we may not have known, and a couple of his coworkers spoke about him. That part was very nice. Afterwards, we went to his house for some family time, and that was pretty good. Not too maudlin, thankfully. It was very strange to have both my Mom and my Dad there--they split up when I was pretty young, and really haven't been in the same place for that long in probably 25 years, at least. My Mom's other brother and his wife were there as well, having flown in from Texas. We visited them there on our Texas trip a couple years ago, and now they're planning to move back to Florida, which will be nice. My aunt and my wife get along famously, since they're both big into sewing. They're still looking around for a place and haven't even settled on which part of the state they want to move to, but hopefully it won't be too far.

Before the service we went to Morningside Nature Center, which is a nice Gainesville city park that includes an old-style Florida farm, with some farm animals to pet. They had a pair of lambs that weren't even 24 hours old, so that was an unexpected treat! After that we went to the Florida Museum of Natural History on the UF campus, and we did the Butterfly Rainforest before I had to head over to the funeral home. We figured the girls wouldn't particularly enjoy or understand the service, so I left them and Heather at the museum to roam around while I went to the service. It all worked out pretty well, even though traffic around the campus was terrible thanks to the Orange & Blue Debut, which I gather is an intramural game the UF football team puts on after spring training. Go Gators, I guess. Apparently Hermione would like to go to college there (currently she wants to study geology and paleontology, and I do believe it's a good school for that), so maybe I'll become more of a fan later on. :)

Sunday we stayed pretty close to home--the girls have wanted to go to a particular park for a while, so we went there before lunch. I spent some time working on the pool and we ran the heater for a bit, so after we got back from lunch and relaxed for a bit the girls took their first dip for the year. It only got up to about 76F so it was still rather chilly for me and Heather, but the girls didn't seem to mind. We'll run the heater again next weekend, probably, and hopefully that will get it to a good temperature for everybody. I think we're pretty much past any cold snaps--we have a cold front moving in this week, but this time of year that really just means a little rain and not much of a temperature change.

After dinner Heather took the older girls ice skating, and I came along with Amy. Heather was disappointed that I'll be out of town for their next 3 lessons, which is the rest of the session--she'd been wanting me to go get some photos of her and Hallie skating. So this made up for that, and I think even better because I got Hermione too, and she's not doing the lessons.

And that was the weekend! So have some photos: ( Clicky! )