Bill
Schell's "BeachWeb" for December 2011 
WELL, WELL, Well, - whatever happens -
happens - it is what it is... ???
We (Ms. May and myself) decided that
(FINALLY) we would 'cycle' around the Lake (Okeechobee that is) - it's
'about' 120 miles. The weather forecast 'appeared' favourable (it
was NOT!), the MAIN thing we look at in the forecast is Wind Direction and
Strength and though we RELY on the forecast - it was WRONG and so - well -
whatever.
There are two 'rules' when riding the lake:
Rule 1: - no matter what direction you
choose to ride in (including return-rides), the wind is ALWAYS in your
face
Rule 2: - regardless of how much or
how little you THINK you'll ride today - you almost always do MORE or
LESS than your goal(s)
(and ALLLL the way AROUND (admittedly
in two days) - means roughly 1/2 of that 120 miles is on 'busy' roads like
US-441, US-27 and less busy roads like State Road 78.
On the other hand - this is something we've
been talking about for YEARS and so to finally DO IT was a real
accomplishment for us both. We spent Thursday night at the "Holiday
Inn Express" in Clewiston (after 72.5 miles of cycling (about 3 miles of
which was to get to the Holiday Inn) - because it's NOT near-by the
'dike'.
We LIKE to ride the Lake Okeechobee dike
(Sometimes called the L.O.S.T. (Lake Okeechobee Scenic Trail)) because it
is SAFEer than "car & BIG-TRUCK-passing-you-at-high-speed-streets",
AND because the paved surface on the top of the dike is VERY NICE for
those of us that like nice-smooth-surfaces...!!!
ANYWAY - some pictures:
Mr. "Peek At You" - at the start - about 08:15 a.m. on Thursday morning,
29th, at "Lock Seven" - Lake Okeechobee.
Mr. Bill poses for a picture nearby to 'Paul Rardin Park' - just a few
minutes after getting back onto the dike on Thursday afternoon, this is
about 20 miles from our 'finish', and after about 25 miles of
nerve-wracking high-traffic, heavy-trucks roads, we were VERY HAPPY to be
back on the dike.
AND - as (almost always) Ms. May has done a
very good job with a 'Blog-Entry' and her blog-site can be reached by clicking
on this link.
and - last but not least a HUGE (like 20") image of the track-log(s) for
these two days (orange = Thursday (29th); red = Friday (30th)), overlain
on a Google Earth background... - TrackLog(s)_image
Days before Christmas (Friday to be exact)
we decided that we would 'do something new' with the Kayaking thing... -
So we drove down to Jupiter Inlet, to this Brandy-New parking area / park
(by Jupiter Inlet) and put-in our kayaks for a little 6 mile paddle.
Mr. Bill by the mini-van; getting ready...
Mr. Bill in his kayak - kind of a special picture with a lot of color... -
Notice the orange life-jacket I found floating
around in the river (luckily it did NOT have a 'dead body' associated with
it.....
Ms. May getting ready - by the mini-van...
Ms. May showing off her fine-form in the kayak...
a "small" image of our route (courtesy of the (OLD) Garmin unit), and the
surrounding area
(courtesy of "Google Earth"...
a Quick note to those of the more esoteric and technical realms: - I
am now using BOTH an HTML-5 model as well as Google Analytics (newerestest
version) and NEITHER SHOULD bother the 'user' but if anything un-towards
happens, it might be a result of those things - so please let me know
at: bill@vikingasia.org...
thank YOU!
some pictures from today's ride: (Friday, 16th)...
I have, at Ms. May's suggestion, been taking some peanuts to feed the
squirrels along my ride.
I 'THINK" that squirrels are MUCH HAPPIER in Oak Trees (than the bulk
of the other
"native species" that we have around here in South
Florida...) We don't have many Oaks,
so I have to pedal to "Heritage Ridge" and/or "Seabranch" to find oaks
to be assured of a
reasonable 'turn-out' for my feeding-fest(s)...(but of course I don't
speak
'squirreleze and they don't speak
English so what do I know?)
ANYWAY - when I can 'coax' one down the
tree to take my peanut - this is what I am rewarded with...
I was, also, today, blessed with the presence of Ms. Road Cat (as I've
named her)
for significant cat-pets and some tiny meows... and she 'Blessed' my
TriceQ with
her 'scent' so other cats will now, know, that the TriceQ belongs to HER!
(yes - this image is 'clickable'.
and - just for reference - YES the 'reward' for the 5,000 mile
"Monkey Prize" (for the third year in a row) was Nabisco
Pinwheel Cookies AND some "Whoopie
Pies" from our new local Fresh
Market... We decided, - obviously after much 'taste-testing' that
the Whoopie Pies (pictured above) are better than the Pinwheel Cookies...
BUT Further taste-testing might be necessary to 'refine' our
test-results... Further information about the (3rd year in a row)
"Monkey Prize" is available from Ms. May's blog-site at this
link: Ms.
May's Blog entry for the "Monkey Prize".
AND - here's (from a week or so ago) just ONE of "Ms. May's Multiple
Mini-Monsters" (sometimes known as MMMMM)... - you can, OF COURSE find out
more by visiting her blog at
this link.
a few more pictures, just at random, on Wednesday, 14th...
these are raspberries, now, but when they 'get bigger' I suspect
we'll eat them
and/or make jams, jellies, or preserves, or whatever other ways we might
find to consume them.... (you can click on this picture for a
larger one)
this cyclist was carved out of a watermelon - from a friend down south
A little 'Christmas Cheer' from
Tuesday, 06 December morning's trike-ride
(I now have achieved my 'goal' of
5,000 miles (on the TriceQ - recumbent tricycle) this calendar year. (as
of end-of-ride on Saturday, 10 December!))
small picture of TriceQ and the
'reward' Ms. May got for me... (yes I've consumed "SOME" of them at this
point)...
Today (Thursday, 1 December (It HAD to happen on the First of the Month))
"Normally BULLET-PROOF" xDSL connection we have with AT & T (formerly
BellSouth.Net) went 'south' (that is it DID NOT WORK) for about 2 hours,
and it took me about an hour to convince the 'help-desk' at AT & T
that they had a 'serious' problem.
Now, believe it or not - it WORKS, NOW (but might not for the next several
hours) AND the AT & T help-desk-guy telephoned me back to say that the
'outage' that affected me - affects about 25 other 'households' and that -
well - they're working on it...
IT IS AMAZING to me - how much I rely on this xDSL connection and how much I
need it to 'do my daily thing'...
On the other hand - we've had xDSL in one form or another for 'about'12
years (ever since we've been here in the USA (it originated with an ISDN
line that Motorola paid for) and I've got to say they have been pretty
darned reliable for 12 years, and if they are down for an hour or two every
2-3-4 years - that's not bad service by anyone's guess....
AND - YES - Mr. Panda-Bear's web-site needs to be updated, also.
However, I guess I'm waiting for him to do something "Noteworthy" or waiting
on a "Kodak Moment" so that i can capture him and publish it to his
web-site...
found this 'AMAZING' post-box-holder-upper yesterday on my cycling adventure
(of 72.9 miles (never done that many before, around here)) but the light
wasn't great to take a picture. Today the light was NOT much better,
but I took the picture anyway...
Apparently these are a variation on the 'Morning Glory' family of flowers.
They have a root / tuber that can
be eaten, some say. These were fairly obviously 'wild' - in that there
were no others nearby... - My good friend
Ms. Ruth (also a fellow amateur radio operator) helped me with the name
"Morning Glory" and after studying
that for some time - I'm fairly convinced she's correct...
These purple flowers (found somewhere on Jupiter Island) ALMOST look like
there is some sort of light deep inside them.
HOWEVER, please note that this is an iPhone picture and NOTHING STRANGE was
done to the flowers, nor the picture
Here's Mr. Panda Bear and Mr. Pooh Bear after watching the movie called "A
Bear Named Winnie".
For the movie 'A Bear Named Winne" there are two 'popular' Web-URL links:
the link to the IMDB page
for this movie
the link to the Wikipedia
page for this (very adorable) bear
IF you're pretty smart you can guess the rest, but if not you can check-out
Mr. PB & Mr. PB on Mr.
PB's web-site...
IF
you want access to last-month's web-page, then you have to 'click-here'
for the October 2011 web-site. AND / OR you can 'click-here'
for the November 2011 web-site.
Archived
BeachWeb monthly (and other) site(s):
Click here for a
list of the archived months
updated(version Dec11d.html):
09:30 a.m. (USA-EDT) on Saturday, 31 December, 2011; by: Mr._Bill on
the Apple Macintosh 'Mac Mini' - revID: 1j
