The Plus Side of Rain

While The Fuzz and His Sweetie have been happy with the weather during their stay on the island, it might have been a little disappointing to folks who only had the weekends available.

That was when most of the rain occurred.

The streets were pretty much deserted.

But once the rain had passed The Fuzz was back out for his morning stroll.

And rain does have it's plus side.

There were some remnants of the rain in puddles on the ground.

The Fuzz hasn't given up on his quest to photograph the Moon yet.

Here he found a reflection of it in this rain water.

In fact those puddles were a great photo opportunity.

And here's a look at this Topsail Beach Icon.

 

Tomorrow is the end of the month, and the end of this stay at the beach.

The "off season" certainly has it's good points.

Maybe The Fuzz will be back again next year.

That would be nice.

Not Finished Yet

The Fuzz did make it home again.

His Brother, while not in good shape, is more or less stable for now.

While in his brother's neighborhood, The Fuzz did get out for a short break on his bike.

Here's what he found.

Back home, they're growing a lot of corn, wheat and soybeans these days.  But it used to be cotton.

Here there seems to still be a bit of this growing.

The Fuzz wonders how much longer.

Christmas 2013

Well once again it's been a while since we heard from that Slacker Fuzz.

There as been a bit more work done on that roof.  But it is not finished yet.  Part of that has been due to the weather, and part to just general busyness.  And of course, the Holidays!

The Fuzz, His Sweetie and the Not-So-Young-Anymore Daughter were off to visit family for Christmas.

Christmas Eve was our traditional Eggnog and Cookie event.  We know this seems to be a major Fire Hazard, but we assure you, everyone was quite safe.  The eggnog was excellent, especially with a bit of rum, just for flavor of course!

Christmas Day was presents and Skyping and phone calls with some of those unable to make it personally.  This was followed by dinner.

The Fuzz and his made it home safely that night.  Then it was time to hit the sack, and hopefully get some rest before he had to leave early the next morning.

It's just a busy time of year.

Elvis?

It finally happened.  Who would have thunk or thought it?  The Fuzz and Elvis?

Every year Sandy's Country Christmas kicks off the season with Elvis.

This year That Adventurous Fuzz got a wild hair and accompanied His Sweetie and the Young Daughter to the event.

No, we're afraid it's not the real Elvis.  But he seems as popular as ever with the ladies.

This is His special Blue Christmas hat.  

(Maybe Elvis is a Duke fan)

Tom Waxter, as Elvis.

A BIg Event

With The Fuzz's normal schedule, he does not work on Fridays. But it is necessary that there be at least a skeleton crew on the job. So this duty is rotated. This past Friday, The Fuzz's number came up.
One of his duties was to assist in preparation for the Big Event. He and a coworker, hauled these barricades uptown. In the dead of night, (while Our Fuzz was safely tucked into bed) they would be used to block off the streets for the Big Event.
On the morning of the Big Event, The Fuzz and His Sweetie were in town, and made a brief stop at the Big Event*. The morning started out a bit on the cool side, but by the time they got there, there was a pretty good crowd. They didn't hang around for long though. After conducting a bit of business with a couple of the vendors, they moved on to other things.







*About Livermush

Tequila

You like it ?

Check it out !
And Vote !
(if you can)

You can drink some later.

Marching Band Competition

Here they come, marching in.The Fuzz's Sweetie really gets off on the annual band competition.But,it seems like every year, something would come up, and we couldn't make it over there for it.But, this year, we finally made it.
Here's some pix of some of the bands.

Well, there seems to be some sort of situation here on Blogger. The fuzz is unable to load up the couple more pix he had for this post. But rather than postponing it all, he decided to go with what we have here.
Happy Wednesday!

Granny Clampett Was Right

It seems that over in the UK they have discovered that Granny was on the right track with her "Rumitiz Medicine"

"Drinking alcohol can not only ease the symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis it appears to reduce disease severity too..."

and,

"...patients who had drunk alcohol most frequently experienced less joint pain and swelling..."

and,

"We found that patients who had drunk alcohol most frequently had symptoms that were less severe than those who had never drunk alcohol or only drunk it infrequently."

I wonder if we could get this covered under this new Heath Care Legislation.

Then The Rain Came

The Fuzz hopes everyone enjoyed all those wonderful Snow Pix. But it must be noted that he was running a bit behind on these posts. All that snow actually came a few days before Christmas. Hence the title "White Pre-Christmas". Although there was still a bit of snow still around, Christmas Eve was rainy, very rainy.
You may remember this snow covered foot bridge (actually a couple of logs) from that snow post. Well, here is another look* at it Christmas morning.There is quite a difference. Amazingly, the logs are still there after all this.
The Fuzz would like to wish every one a Happy New Year. This year, we actually stayed up for it. We had a few White Russians, and got out the Pride and Prejudice tapes. The Fuzz even got the old muzzle loader out at midnight for the traditional salute.
And now, here it is, the year 2010. It has been a big year for us here. We moved from the old home place out here to the woods. There's still a whole lot of work to do, but we are pretty much settled in now.



*As usual, click on pix for a closer look!

Christmas Tree '09

We do insist on having a "real" Christmas Tree. We haven't quite sunk to the plastic level yet. But we did economize a little and got one from the Food Lion instead of the high-dollar Christmas-Tree-Guys. We had left it at the old house, in some water, until it was time to put it up.
The Fuzz used to be old school about this, and insist on waiting 'till Christmas Eve. But they finally wore him down, and it goes up a few days early.
The Fuzz and His Sweetie were headed out to the new place in the woods with it stuffed in the trunk, when the blizzard hit. Here you can see it waiting out in the snow while the higher priority firewood was being brought inside. It finally got it's turn, and then we went though the straightening up process as the ice melted off onto The Fuzz and the floor.
All the decorating would have to wait 'till the next day though.
The next day, after running around in the snow for a bit, The fuzz got around to stringing some lights on it. And then everyone got in on the job and hung the ornaments. We did downsize a bit this year, moving a smaller tree into a smaller place. And so we also did a bit of culling out the various decorations, for the tree and the rest of it too. But there is still plenty of stuff left.
And here's a look* at this year's Christmas Tree.




*As usual "click" on any pix for a better look!

Fiery Finale

Well, we ended it with the Fiery Finale.

The Fuzz broke into the last of his stash of Pyrotechnics.

Over the years he had been gathering up the leftovers of former 4ths.

But alas, all that was left were a couple packs of Fire Crackers, some Sparkelers, two "Butterflies" and some of those "Hen Laying Egg" things.

Those "Hen Laying" things are nothing but sparks and a brief whistle. But the "Butterflies" can get interesting. A couple years ago, one chased The Fuzz's Sweetie around the yard. Now she refuses to be involved in this sort of thing.

So it was up to Young Daughter and The Fuzz, himself to carry on the Tradition.

We went to the Renaissance Fair

It is that time of year again. The Fuzz, Sweetie and Young Daughter made their annual pilgrimage to the Renaissance Festival. They all enjoy this as it gives them an excuse to wear Funny Clothes and hang out with other folks who like Funny Clothes too. Of course, there is more to it than Funny Clothes. There is also the opportunity to spend mucho dinero. But one can enjoy oneself without impoverishing oneself. Of course, if one wishes to spend one's life savings, there is ample opportunity. I think we don't realize just how advanced the Renaissance Culture was, especially their Banking System. Here you can see that they even had the convenience of ATMs.
But the above Street Scene is one of the reasons The Fuzz and His return each year.
Now, one does not have to wear Funny Clothes to enjoy their visit, but it is more fun that way. There are establishments that rent Funny Clothes to those unfortunates who don't have their own. (Or might be too embarrassed to be seen driving around in them.)
The crowd is not too thick in the morning, but picks up as the day progresses. There are a number of Acts going on in various places throughout the day, but The Fuzzy Group was mostly content to merely wander around, stopping when something caught their attention. There will probably be more cool stuff from this visit in future posts. So, so long, for now.

It's Da' Bomb

Once again it was Burrito Night. The beans were mashed, the tortillas ready, all the little bits prepared. The table was set out on the porch for outdoor dining. Yet when I reached for the Tabasco, it was gone. This was not good. How can one eat a burrito without something hot to tickle the taste buds ? Somehow we had run out of Tabasco. Burritos without Tabasco are still nutritious, but lack that certain something, you might say they're not so hot.
But then I remembered, there, covered with dust was "Da' Bomb". Oldest Daughter is a world traveler. She visited The Big Easy long ago before Katrina worked the place over and brought me this little bottle of "Da' Bomb". I suppose, since I consider "Texas Pete" to be little more than Fortified Ketchup, she decided to fix my wagon, as they say. I was told to carefully take a speck of this stuff on the tip of a toothpick, and touch it to my tongue. Fortunately, I resisted my macho impulses and followed her direction. It was a good thing. This stuff makes Pepper Spray seem harmless. I once used some in a bowl of Pintos, and foolishly used almost a whole drop.
But this was an emergency, so I blew the dust off, and took a chance. The secret is to use very little, just a touch stirred in with a toothpick is plenty. And it worked. My Burrito was muy sabroso.
And this morning I was reminded again of that wonderful meal, several times.

Polynesian Cultural Stuff

Here is this cool canoe we saw at the Polynesian Cultural Place. Air Force Daughter got us all tickets to see this place, eat the Luau, and watch the Extravaganza later. This place was kinda like a theme park, but still interesting in it's way. We saw the Maori exhibit, and having watched and enjoyed "Whale Rider" it was nice to see the exhibit. There were "villages" from various island cultures.
We avoided the "canoe" ride on the little pond though. Then it was time for the Luau. This was held in a big pavilion, and served cafeteria style. I don't know if that is traditional or not, but the food was OK, and not what we would eat at home, especially the purple bread. They also put on a show there that was supposed to show what was traditionally done at this sort of thing. This is some of the dancing.
After the feast, we stoped in at the IMAX movie. This may have been an unwise thing, since sitting close to that gigantical screen, with a full tummy, was somewhat more exciting than I would have prefered at the time. But we all survived the aerial photography and learned a bunch of stuff about coral reefs. We finished the evening with the Big Extravaganza. It was actually pretty good with all the dancing and playing with fire and all. Playing with fire is always cool. I'll just say that those dancers got quite a work out there.
We don't often go in for these kind of things, but every now and then it's good for a change. We even went to Stone Mt. by Atlanta once to see the light show. We got to see some really different country in crossing the island though the mountains. This area is a lot different than by Honolulu.

Burrito Nite

Wendsday is Burrito Nite at our house. The Burritos are a family tradition. These are simple Bean Burritos, but with our own little special touch. It is necessary to use home made Tortillas of course. This is a shot of the Tortillas in progress. As is evident we substitute the old fashioned rolling pin for a high tech Tortilla press. Crude, but effective. My Sweetie rolls the
Tortillas, whilst I mash the beans. We've experimented a little, but pintos are traditional. The beer is optional but does make a nice complement to the operation as well as the meal. Of course there are other elements besides the beans and Tortillas.There's the onions, and olives. Today, some mashed up avocado. Some home grown cilantro, and of course the cheese. The sour cream makes them "deluxe" and all that. But there is still that one thing, that special touch that makes our Burritos unique, the slaw. I like to add a bit of tabasco for a bit of zing.
I suppose these are not really "authentic" and all, but they are our own family tradition, and have quite a following here. And of course, they are loaded with vitamin "F".

They're still calling for frost here this weekend. But for Honolulu- Thursday: Mostly sunny, with a high near 77. Calm wind becoming southwest between 4 and 7 mph. Sounds good.