The Girraffes

The Girraffes this year were fun. Last year there were three Ostriches in this space. I like the different colors of the girraffes.

some topiaries have changed

Epcot has changed some of the topiaries this year from last year. It was interesting to see what they changed around this year.

me by a waterfall near Canada

In the Epcot world showcase, one of the cool places is at the Canada area, near a waterfall. It looks pretty neat.

fountains help happiness

Something probably could be said that water fountains promote happiness. I'm not too sure about Disney's claim about it being the happiest place on earth, but it is nice when one can visit Disney. I like the music that they frequently play when the fountain is going. I like watching people, and most people who are at Disney are happy.

I got to thinking, yes Vegas has the Bellagio, but Epcot has it's own water fountain.

On the road again

On the road again, like a band of gypsies rolling down the highway, making music with my friends, I just can't wait to get on the road again. I like that we are relatively unemcumbered. When we want to go (usually, that's when I want to go) we can go. This time, we were off to Epcot. Part of the happiest place on earth.

A bigger ficus

A little ficus

here is a second crepe mytle in our front yard

Here is a second crepe myrtle in our front yard. I like the fact that it comes back.

new growth on the crepe mytles

I'm really quite fond of the way that the crepe myrtyles come back year after year, once we cut back the trees.

by Marty S.

FOOD!!! very darn good meatloaf.
April 17, 2010 09:55 PM EDTviews: 0

FOOD!!! Today we went down to Bradenton for my wife's Aunt's 90th birthday, or something like that, maybe Wife's Mother's Cousin or something close. Anyway, it was held at a church. The birthday lady was surprised. She is in remarkable good health, and remains surprisingly active for her age. On our way back up to North Tampa, I decided I'd like to try getting an order of Wild Mushroom Meatloaf from GrillSmith to go (at the Brandon location). I placed the order at the bar and waited for the food to arrive. It took about 15 or so minutes, and then we still had to drive home a few more miles, but the GrillSmith meatloaf is wonderful. Previously I've been a big fan of the meatloaf from a similar restaurant in the chain (a different location). Since having had the lap band surgery, our stomachs have a smaller pouch, which fills up faster, and sends the signal to our brains to stop eating. It is amazing. I cut up the meatloaf into much smaller peices, and I intended to eat about half of the meatloaf with about half of the creamed cauliflower, and about half of the mashed yukon gold potatoes, but after eating the smaller amounts of the vegetables, and starting in on the meatloaf in earnest, I got the signal that I was satisfied, and I could stop eating. So I stopped.
There were times in my past where stopping wasn't really optional. I am happy that I now have a choice. Much of it was probably societal. Starving kids in China. Throwing away food.
The meatloaf is wonderful. We have a refrigerator to help keep foods from spoiling over a short enough time period, and a microwave oven to assist in reheating foods.
I plan on getting through the meatloaf before we are too far into next week, but it is very cool to recognize that one can put the food away for awhile, and probably return later to it.
We also like the meatloaf from Big River at Epcot's Resort area of restaurants, but that gets a bit difficult to just put the uneaten portion in the refrigerator, unless there is a refrigerator nearby. GrillSmith is much more convenient to get the food to go, and bring it home and proceed to divvy up the portions.

I'm really quite impressed by the bird in the ring picture that I managed to take with my Panasonic DMC-TZ3 camera. It is a good camera.

The Peanut ring was a wild birds unlimited purchase that we made. The peanuts we've gotten from some stores, sometimes raw, sometimes roasted. It depends on if we can find the raw peanuts or not.

room with paint and views

This is a picture of the view out my back window. I guess it's pretty darn impressive, I like it. I used my Panasonic DMC-TZ3 with a zoom of 10 times to get the shot, but I think it is very neat.

The other pictures are of our room once it has been painted. The contractor guy came by today and he got a few other small things to do before he can pick up the final check for the project.

In other news of some humor, I've been called by a lady at our bank, who was watching our large balance in the checking account. She wanted to get us into another type of account that would earn slightly better interest rates. I explained to her that the money will be going out of the account soon, and normally, we don't have a large balance in our checking account.

I like the new room that will be the office soon. But perhaps even more exciting is the fact that our master bedroom has been expanded, and a larger walk-in closet was created.

We got some organizing hardware for the closet, it should be interesting. I guess my wife has been wanting a better organization method for our closets for some time now.

These pictures are of our new room which hasn't yet had the paint added to the walls, other than the orange peel texture of the drywall/joint compound.

It will look better as we progress.

Now that the ceiling fans/light assemblies are up, and plugs are in the wall, it is better.

The floor is a kind of semi rough rectified tile. The grout lines are barely noticable.

Computer Mediated Communication

My passion has been computer mediated communication (CMC). As a traumatic brain injury survivor, I recognize that it has been essential to my recovery process. As a master's level educated librarian, I enjoy seeing the "Ah-Ha!" moment of enlightenment. As an IT specialist, working at a hospital, I see that there are probably many who could benefit from further use of CMC. Yet there are systems and processes established for making proposals to enhance the quality of care that we provide.

I thought "how cool is that?" when I saw the movie Avatar, recently. It touched on the idea of using computer mediated communication. Granted, it was a fictional construct, but many elements could be used and expanded.

Back to my idea of CMC used as part of the rehabilitative process, one of the doctors at the hospital would like for me to think about how to use this as more of a way to get the patients ready to return to a work like environment. I'm thinking that communication is certainly part of the return to work strategy. It is so much more than just an element of the return to work paradigm, but if that gets attention, then yes.

The world of work involves much more than just communication. Perhaps as society evolves, the notion of work will also expand to encompass some of these ideas.

back yard birds

Pork

We fixed a one pound pork, two packs of instant mashed potatoes, and a frozen broccoli snow peas and carrots. We added a jar of pork gravy, and a can of chicken broth, with water when slow cooking the pork. The ten or so 10 ounce tubbies should last awhile.
We just had 2 servings for lunch. It was very good. We will be freezing about four of the tubbies. My wife cut the pork up into smaller pieces, The gravy with the chicken broth gave it very good flavor.

Art in Downtown Tampa, it looks pretty neat I think.

Some nice grasses we saw when we were out riding around town.

Sign proclaiming Lady Liberty.

This is me in front of the Lady Liberty tree, named that because this tree was near in proximity to the Senator tree. It is pretty darn impressive by itself. The walkway (wooden decking) is very nice.

1923 hurricane

The hurricane was in 1925, it reduced the hieght of the tree from 165 feet tall to it's present 118 feet tall. The late 1800s this tree was a big tree and attracted visitors even though the land was mostly swamp. The WPA built a path to the tree. In 1927, Senator Overstreet donated the land around the Senator tree to Seminole County, in Florida.

big tree

Fran and I were riding along in Sanford and we saw signs on the road directing us to the Senator. We decided to follow the signs, and we came to the park for big tree. This is the biggest cypress tree in Florida, possibly the US, maybe the world. I think it might be some 11 feet in diameter. I think the sign said that a hurricane caused the top of the tree to break off, but it's still impressive.

Welcome to the future

I listen to some country music. I like lyrics that have impact and provide food for thought.

===

A man with a dream

Wake up Martin Luther

Welcome to the future

Glory glory hallelujah

Welcome to the future

===

The song also talks about a football guy who had a cross burned in his front yard because he asked out the home coming queen. It also mentioned the pac man video game, and how it used to be that you would go down to the arcade, now it is on the cell phones. World War Two, fighting with the Japanese, and getting off a video chat this morning with a company in Tokyo.

The notion of the KKK using intimidation to try to influence behaviors seems relatively uiet, though I suppose there still are adherents to several flavors of Islam who still try to follow scriptures, and try to uphold instructions on war fighting as a life after which one should pattern future behavior.

There could be other belief systems.

Is the world headed toward more peace and love, or will there probably be an armed conflict killing scores of thousands of people, or various natural disasters which could make earth difficult to prosper on. (perhaps another Ice Age, or at least very cold temperatures.