I got home from Lake Placid, Florida last night and wanted to post photos of Florida Scrub Jays I had acquired earlier in the day. But, Lunarpages, my web hosting company, had decided to move my server from LA to San Diego. Don’t real companies have back-up servers for this task? Apparently they grabbed the server which several of my blogs and web pages are hosted on and stuffed it in the back seat of a 1972 Nova and had some guy drive it to San Diego! So, for most of the night, more than six hours, all of my sites were dark. Deader than a doornail.

Today my site seems to be up, but I think they installed my server into an Atari 800, as everything is moving at 1985 speeds. Even the spell check on wordpress is slowing than dirt.  My site loads in about 20 seconds, sometimes longer.

God knows how long it will take me to upload my photos, but I am so pleased with them that I’m going to give it a try anyway.

This is my favorite one. It took me about 50 shots to capture this one. I was on the ground, shooting straight at the Florida Scrub jays after putting peanuts out on the road. They try to stuff as many as four peanuts in their beaks! Click on the photo to see a larger image.

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This is the same guy, as you can tell from the bands on his legs.

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The Florida Scrub Jay is slightly different than other Scrub Jays. They are a threaten species, and can only be found in the central part of Florida, where the disease of concrete hasn’t yet wiped out their habitats.

These photos were taken near the Placid Lakes air strip.

If Lunarpages ever decides to finish their “upgrade” I’ll post more photos.

SCG

My ancestors were late to the 1621 Thanksgiving dinner. We didn’t arrive in the New World until about 1635 I think. We couldn’t find our left shoe, and the cat had chewed our shoe laces up.  By the time we got there the turkey was pretty dried up and all the dark meat was gone. No pumpkin pie left either. Bummer.

So, don’t be late to whatever Thanksgiving Dinner you are headed to today! And for Pete’s sake, be thankful for a change, eh? (No I don’t know who Pete is, I think he brought the cranberries though. )

There are probably about a hundred things we can all think of to be thankful for. A thousand if we really tried.

So, enjoy the day, be at peace, and try not to argue with Uncle Joe this year, OK?

SCG

I couldn’t leave this alone. I read in the Sun-Sentinel this quote from some ass weasel at the Florida Department of Transportation.

“We are about to begin operating a facility that will give real choices for a faster, safer ride to those who travel on I-95 and it should greatly improve the flow of traffic on that heavily traveled highway,” said Gus Pego, who heads the Florida Department of Transportation‘s Miami office.

I’m wondering if such bureaucrats make these things up themselves, or if they have professional liars to do this for them? This is a well crafted fantasy, that is for sure. After millions of dollars being spent to screw up I-95 in Miami-Dade county, you would want to hear this kind of bullshit, right?

The I-95 ExpressNOT project closes about half of I-95 to thousands of drivers every day. Unless you enter the ExpressNOT lanes in Miami and travel the eight mile gauntlet to NW 151st of course. But then, those drivers are trapped too, as they are not suppose to exit that corridor. Of course, they do, every single day. Everyone has discovered that those plastic travel sticks that separate the lanes can be easily driven over with no damage to your vehicle. About 30% of them are down every day.

Let’s break down that lie that was quoted in the news.

“Real choice”.  No. Anyone entering I-95 in North Miami-Dade going north cannot enter the ExpressNOT lanes. That is not providing choice, that is eliminating choice. Those that do enter it in Miami don’t have a choice of exiting until 151st, where of course, all lanes merge and all traffic come to a solid stop.

“Faster and safer drive”  Say what? I have the misfortune of driving I-95 every evening. My commute has increased by at least 10 minutes, sometimes as much as 20. Oh, I guess they mean those cars in the ExpressNOT lanes travel faster and safer? Well, they travel faster than I do now, but slower than before the retarded ExpressNOT lanes opened. Safer? There are accidents nearly every day as people attempt to be people and exercise their choice of lanes.

“Greatly improve traffic flow”.  I wonder if this guy even knows where I-95 is? Obviously, he is clueless about reality.

Here my friends, is exactly what is going to happen. Eventually, they will start charging as much as $6.20 to drive in the ExpressNOT lanes. That should cut traffic flow down significantly. They are also going to start using on-ramp stoplights to hold traffic on the ramps and back them into the local neighborhoods along I-95 for the length of this eight mile corridor. While this will delay everyone’s commute, and create pollution issues as cars sit idling in back streets waiting to get onto the public interstate, it should reduce traffic  on I-95.

See, if you charge outrageous prices to some, block most people from having access to the ExpressNOT lanes, and then block access to the rest of I-95, eventually you will wind up with about 12 cars actually on I-95, and they will travel smoothly and quickly down the empty highway. And the sicko government bureaucrats will declare the project a stunning success!

This proves the old adage is true:

To err is human.

To really F*&&% things up, waste millions of tax dollars, and restrict personal freedom you need government bureaucrats.

The bigger government gets, the worst our lives will become. Government is not the solution. Government is the problem.

Just my 2 cents for the day.

Be at peace my friends!

SCG

I read a lot, and love books and history. Thus, one of my favorite stories of all times is this two volume historical novel that recreates in your mind the challenges, dangers and successes of the Pilgrims whom we celebrate this Thanksgiving Day.

This was researched and written in 1915. It is two volumes. The first volume is 341 pages, and the second volume is 346 pages, including the bibliography.

What the author did was to research the Pilgrims first, and then create a fictional character and insert him into the story of the Pilgrims. Everything related to this fictional character is fiction, of course, but everything else in the book is historical fact. At least, based on research available in 1915. (And minus the absurd political correctness of our day.)

It is a very good romance, a very good adventure story, and really provides some of the nitty gritty details of daily living back then. It is inspiring.

You can find original 1915 editions at ABEbooks and other book sites, as well as Amazon. Google books has both volumes in digital format and you can download them for free.

If you want to know what it was like for people to leave Europe and travel in little ships across the Atlantic to a new world where they would have to start from scratch, this is the story for you.

Happy Thanksgiving Week my friends!

SCG