I've just seen a face...

As proven with this morning's post, you never know what you'll find in the Tropics of the United States (thanks Tay for that new nickname). 

I was walking out to check the mail since we didn't check it yesterday and I happen to look to my left. As the condos have banks of mailboxes rather than a single box at the end of your driveway, everyone has to walk a bit further to see if they got a letter from someone. So as I'm midway to the box, as I said, I looked left. One of the neighbors had something trying to get into their garage. 

From a distance, it looked like a rock was set in front of the garage. Me with my thick glasses wasn't paying much attention, but I had my phone with me this time, so I meandered up to the thing to see what it was. 

It wasn't a rock. Or a coconut (says my mom). It's a turtle. A good sized one to boot. With bryophytes basicladia chelonum growing on its shell.

A rolling stone gathers no moss, but a roaming turtle does (grow algae)? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Off I went, snapping photos of what I think is a snapping turtle (word on the social networks is that a snapper is cruising the block), being careful not to anger it and get clapped at. I showed the photos to my mom and told her who's unit this is, and she said that she doesn't think the owners are here this week (oh, to take a vacation from the heat! Must be nice). If they are out and about somewhere else, this guy can keep on moving to the next unit and not worry that he'll get run over. 

Eventually he'll make it to one of the lakes in the community. Just might be a while. In the 5 minutes I was out, he didn't seem to want to move. It is 96° with humidity after all. Fingers crossed he makes it to water before he becomes partially cooked and someone finishes the job by making soup and jerky. Least he travels with his own baking materials? 

Yea, I'm dumb. I know that. Tasteless joke at the reptile's expense. But someone has to make the comments. At least I left him alone and didn't try to do anything to him.

Unlike what Edward and Tubbs could have done.

Ok, off I go before I make another remark... 

Cheers;

See also:

* The Beatles "I've Just Seen A Face" off their Help! album (track 12). 

* The Edward and Tubbs reference belongs to a BBC show called League of Gentlemen. 

Come on knock on my window...

Try to get the Three's Company theme out of your head, now that I rearranged it to suit my need (for the moment). 

This morning I was making my smoothie for breakfast and went into the pantry cabinet to get my vitamins. It is the same cabinet that's next to a window in our kitchen area, where I took pictures of the frog from the hurricane and also any shenanigans from across the street (the roofers, birds on street lamps). 

When I looked out at the AC unit, there was quite the large gecko, just taking in the sun. My mother joked that its father must have been an iguana and its mother a gecko, purely based on size and bumps along its back. There must be from frog genetics in it too, as the back legs were a little more on the amphibian swimmer side than what we're used to seeing with any baby dinosaur. 

To capture the photos, WYSIWYG. I did sharpen them and edited two down to scale a bit. Added my name. All shot with a Canon EOS Rebel T7i and edited in Photoshop. The video was edited in Pinnacle Studio, with the audio part of the Pinnacle package (it's "Ambient / High Energy / Over the Edge"). No edits to the video, except adding my name and music. 

I know some of the photos look similar, but I just thought it was so interesting that this guy made it a point to climb up the AC Unit, get enough warm to do some dancing and throat calling, and then stare right at me towards the end. He even left a present after he left. 

Thanks?

After all this, I guess it proves there's no escaping nature in Florida, as things grow a little wild down here. Some of the geckos are teeny tiny while others seem to be gigantic. Which is not to be confused with the real iguanas that hang out in the trees and fall during cold spells (Google it, you'll see what I'm talking about). Or, the one that scared the tar out of me and a co-worker one day and we ended up talking to it with a tire of our golf cart (long story). How about the tree frogs that seemingly come out during hurricanes and hang out on our storm shutters? 

Too many things to point out and talk about. It definitely makes for interesting photos but I certainly can't capture all of them. So for now, I'll leave the 34 plus video here, and keep updating with more animals when I can. 

So for now, enjoy the view, stay hydrated and hope all my New England friends are okay from yesterday's deluge!

Cheers;

A hard rain's gonna fall

 Or Faul, if you're listening closely to what I've got on in the background of the video. 

Every day this past week, it's been threatening rain. The skies have been dark, the thunder has been rolling, but rain has not so even dripped at my house.. it's been more of a threat on the other side of the city. We get a blip of a wet at work, but it's over before I leave for the day and my mom says I'm crazy for saying "it's raining" when all she gets is thunder. I tell her "it's coming", but it turns around and goes somewhere else. 

All Florida friends keep wondering when the storms from the Caloosahatchee are going to move closer to us, as it's getting a wee bit dry in our neighborhood. As much as we don't want the flood, we do need the rain to cool everything down. It's for the better of the area. 

Yes, it's July. We are two months in to hurricane season. If you believe the natives, we're actually 3 months in because some people believe that May 1 is the official start. August and September are the real times of the season when things get rough - more threats for bad things to happen during this time than it does any other time of the summer. School starting is the hype mode for hurricanes. It's at the point now when I know when school starts if we get a constant stream of "we're watching X Storm" on the news. Gone are the days when you can set your clock to MTV's music award show in September to know we're back learning our ABCs. 

With the Gulf and Atlantic still super warm (95°+ in the water for a week straight), everyone is worried about what could strengthen and come to us if we're not paying attention. It's been over 110° with humidity in some places, so all the more reason we'd like some rain for a minute. 

Well, a barrage came yesterday. At full force. Coincidently on my way home from work.

I had to be careful because it was coming down so hard and fast, that my wipers couldn't keep up with it and all the big cars around me (trucks, vans, etc. I drive a Hyundai Accent. Welcome to the south, y'all) were creating waves and splash zone splashes on me. 

This in turn hindered my driving in some low lying spots. There was one point where a truck passed me on the left (I was in the middle lane) and he hit a puddle. It hit me so hard with so much water, the water blanketed my car and it was worse than going through a car wash. I could not see at all; it was as if I drove right into the ocean. 

I'm lucky it didn't cause an accident because there were cars in back of me and to the right of me. From what I could tell, some Jeep Wrangler literally stayed in my trunk for part of the ride. Once he merged to his area exit, a minivan took his place. 

So trying to make videos to send to my friends, probably wasn't the smartest thing to do. At least I wasn't holding the phone it was in a holder suctioned to my window and out of a spot where it would be a distraction. 

Therefore, I've strung the videos together using Pinnacle Studio but I recorded on an iPhone 11 since the phone is my main phone. 

Always something different. I started my day soaking wet. Long story short, a hose at work was causing a flood outside and when I went to tell HR and help them find a shutoff valve, the pressure of it being shut off, caused the hose to stop spraying the ground and stick straight up. It hit the building overhang above me, and came down with gusto. I ended up having to go home, shower, change, and get stuck behind an accident coming out of my community. Get to work, do my thing, get stuck in the rain coming home. So I ended my day wet. 

Never fails. At least today it's back to the normal heat and humidity. 

Until I can sort out a better situation of things and not try to get stuck in crazy weather, take care of yourself. 

Cheers;

See Also:

* Title comes from Bob Dylan's A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall off The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan album (track 6)

* Paul or Faul. Take your pick because I'm on chapter 52 or close to it, on the The Memoirs of Billy Shears: The Nine After 9-09 Edition audiobook. Close to being done in the first round of listening! 

* The phone holder I use in my car is the iOttie Easy One Touch 5 Dashboard & Windshield Universal Car Mount. It's suctioned on the glass, and I use it for maps on my phone. Every once in a while, a video. I don't make it a habit. I need it more for telling me how to get places. Problem in Florida heat, is that my phone starts getting overheated if I've got it in the holder. 95° beaming down on a phone is not so smart. 

* The software used to edit the videos -  Pinnacle Studio 26 Ultimate

* iPhone 11 is what I recorded on because it is my main phone. 

One of the differences between the Pauls is evident in...

 ... listening to the 1 album. 

More importantly, listen to Eleanor Rigby and Penny Lane, as they are both back to back. The former is the last song James Paul wrote and the latter is the first song the New Paul wrote. It doesn't help that Eleanor is track 16 and Penny is track 17. 

What's the difference? When Old Paul sings, he's more nasal and throaty. Billy sings more naturally. And he's not a native Liverpudlian, so he pronounces things better, due to being more educated. 

Okay, I'm circling the PID wagon, but I'm currently 36 or 37 (maybe 38? the notes are in my car) chapters in to The Memoirs of Billy Shears: The Nine After 9-09 Edition audiobook. All crazy aside, I'm actually learning some interesting "facts" about the Beatles recordings. Why some songs were made and what other bands were doing parallel to the Fab Four. 

My page of questions for Tay is getting longer, but I'll be damned if I can remember it as I'm not writing it all down. Which is why I need to finish the 15 hours as is and then pay more attention with pen and paper. 

Which brings me to why I'm writing. 

What would my mother do if I wasn't home???

She'd deal with shitty Hotwire and not watch TV. That's what she would do. 

Or pay the $50 for a tech to come out and do what I did in half an hour. 

This morning, I'm trying to get my smoothie made so I can drink it, check my email, take a shower and get to work. I've got everything in the blender Ninja ready to start mixing mode, and she's trying to get the television to work. 

The Vizio is working, but the TiVo is not. 

My hands are sticky from the frozen fruit and she's kicking up a storm because none of the buttons on the remote are going her way.

I wash my hands, dry them, and go into the next room. Leave everything in the kitchen as is. It's 6:35am at this point. 

She gives me the remote. There are some messages on the screen. I can't back out of them without a message running into another. Things are circling. 

I manually reboot the box and that doesn't do much. 

One of the things I can do... is delete all the prerecorded shows we had filling up the internal memory of the recorder. 

Over 15 minutes later, we go from 70% to 0% full. 

But the screen tells us there's a problem connecting to the Hotwire streaming stuff.

Which boggles me. If we can get in to the device settings and delete recorded shows, why can't this thing connect to live TV? 

I went back into settings and decided to try disconnecting the Internet. Hey, it works on the phones, right?

Especially since the next message was talking about needing to be connected to the home network (which we were) to stream (live) shows. 

By the way, Hotwire is such a con job, that 833 number doesn't directly list as Hotwire when you try to Google it. If you type it with no dashes, the first hit on the page is from a Dallas article, where the FBI is warning about phone scams. With dashes, it goes to a Hotwire Community called Seabreeze. 

I'm not in Seabreeze. I'm in Fort Myers. 

So I get in to the networks setting page and tell the TiVo to forget my network. I give it a second and it tells me I'm not connected to the internet. I let the page refresh and my frozen stuff is already soup at this point. It's 7am.

Once loaded, I scroll to the home network, log in with the password, press okay.

Et voilà; the news is on! Go have your breakfast at the table, ma, and listen to what the local shenanigans are happening today.  

I need to finish making my room temperature drink and do what I wanted to, 45 minutes ago. 

You're welcome. 

And to think, she didn't have the talking screen on for much longer after I fixed it for her... she wanted to get ready to go to the pool.... 

Much like I want to get ready for bed. Have a good night, kids! 

Cheers;