Wingsuit Flying

My buddy Reto sent me a link to this video. It's amazing. I would consider getting into this is if didn't require so much dedication to get to this point.

Hangin' with the Lees

My friends - Jim, Kathy and Rachel Lee - whom you may remember reading about in my blog over the last year and a half, are on their way south again on their sailboat.  They've spent the last 2 days anchored in St. Augustine and are waiting on the cold front to pass so they can head down the coast toward Melbourne.When I found out they were in St. Augustine,  I looked for and excuse to make the hour drive north to go see them.  With good excuse in hand, I headed up there on saturday and  met them at the dingy dock at the marina.   We went shopping at the Sailor's Exchange and Target and then headed over to the Conch House for lunch.  Also, we were joined by Jay and Barbara from  'Jupiter's Smile' - an Island Packet that has been traveling in the same general route of 'Stardust' (off and on) since last winter.

After lunch as we were headed back to the dingy dock, I mentioned that my uncle Jerry's boat 'Poppie' was moored out in the anchorage and that I don't think he'd been on it for a year or more.  Jim offered to take me out to find it and after a little jockeying, the ladies took one dingy back to 'Stardust' and 'Jupiter's Smile' on the north side of the bridge of lions and Jay took Jim and I toward the south anchorage to look for Jerry's boat.

In short order, we found it just fine and it looked very much the way it looked a year and a half ago when I met Jerry there while he was down from Hickory NC.   

Jerry has not been able to spend time on the boat for a while and so it needs a bit of TLC to be back in spiffy shape.

Here's a photo of Jim and I on 'Poppie' as well as 2 more shots taken as we were leaving.

Below is a photo of Jerry and I back in March of 2006 on the dingy dock in St Augustine when I met him while he was on a trip down to check  on his boat.

Random Stuff

I've been spending a lot of my time at the marina lately working on the boat.  Since I work college football, there's a lull in my schedule, so it gives me some time to catch up on some neglected areas of the boat.

While  there,  just like anytime you spend some time around the water, you get to see some pretty as well as interesting things.   Below is a photo of a water fowl that was swimming close to the boat.  I noticed something on it's back and upon closer examination, it's a radio transmitter (I assume  it's  not a receiver - unless this is a  remote control bird).   I'm guessing that someone is tracking the habit's of  this type  of bird.   I wonder how they keep the transmitter attached.

I had to take a photo of the reflection of the sky in the perfectly calm water.  I was standing on my boat looking toward the north in the photo below.  That's the radar dome on my boat in the foreground.

Here's a photo from a couple of weeks ago.  ABC put us up in the Hyatt Riverfront on the St. Johns River in Jacksonville.   Since it was the ACC championships, someone splurged for some pretty spectacular fireworks.   I was already asleep when the show started at 10pm and it startled me like you can't believe!!  After I realized I wasn't waking up in  Bagdad, I enjoyed the show from my 16th floor balcony.

We've had banana trees since we lived on Harborview Dr in Kill Devil Hills, but this is the first time we've actually had bananas.  I just noticed them  a few weeks ago.  They aren't very big, but at least they're bananas.

Posting to the Blog

I haven't posted for a couple of weeks and my posts in general have gotten leaner.   There's a couple of reasons for this, but the most overwhelming reason has to do with something that's happening in my life that has me very troubled.

In short - I'm being sued in civil court - both Federal and State.   This has been going on since June, but at first I didn't even take it seriously, then I started taking  it more seriously by getting a local lawyer - THEN I had to take it really seriously by getting a federal case lawyer.  I can't go into details on the blog and in fact, I don't really like talking about it at all which is one of the reasons  that (up until right now) very few of my friends  have even known about it. Suffice it to say - that  I didn't do anything immoral  or evil - rather I just pissed off the wrong person and they are now using the courts to show me who's boss.

Likely, we will have to sell everything we own except the house (which is protected in FL from judgement) by the time this is over. We currently have no more liquid assets.  It has put me through a tremendous roller coaster of emotions like you can't believe.  I've spent more on lawyers in the last 6 months than you can fathom.  If  it wasn't for my wonderful wife reminding me that we've 'not had money before' and that it'll be okay, then I'd be crazy by now. I've lost many a nights sleep over this and gone days in a very depressed mode.   I'm just along for the ride at this point. 

So - there, I've put it out there for my friends to know.  If  you think you need more details, feel free to ask me on the phone.  It's a long, slow process that has very little update from one week to the next and I really prefer not being asked 'how it's going' in regard to this.  I can't talk about it without getting angry.

I won't bring it up again on the blog (except maybe when it's all over) and I'm going to try to get back to normal postings.   I just had to put this out there because I felt like I was omitting something very large in my life on the blog.