Category: Animals

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Animals Driving Food Holidays Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

‘Twas the night before Christmas Eve, and all through my mind – were these thoughts that I’d like to share with you – if I could be so kind.

1.  The entire state of Florida from Pensacola to Jacksonville to Daytona Beach to Orlando to Tampa to Fort Myers to Miami to Key West will be basking in the 70s and even some 80s over the next 4 days from Wednesday through Saturday. It’s a continuation of a December that has been as warm as November was chilly.

2.  I’m driving over 350 miles tomorrow, so that means that I should encounter at least 525 crazy drivers on my way from here to there. Wish me luck that I don’t get involved in a firey car crash.

3.  TODAY I enjoyed a MASSIVE Lunch at Shiver’s BBQ (in Naranja Lakes), and it was my first visit there in several years. I used to eat there on a near-weekly basis. I need to go back there more frequently. I delighted in a stack of meat, sweet potato fries, and juicy collard greens. That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout Willis !

4.  Homestead Air Reserve Base is hosting a MASSIVE air show in less than 11 months over a two-day weekend, and you can read all about it at wingsoverhomestead.com. It’ll be our first air show since 1992 !

5.  Exactly 25 years ago this morning on the 23RD of December in 1983 me and my little brother discovered a cat wandering around our backyard deck. We took her in, gave her some milk, named her Fluffy, and the rest is history. Read what I wrote about this momentous event one year ago here on this blog.

Elderly Fluffy
Elderly Fluffy
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Animals Astronomy God Health Weather

The Major’s Walk-A-Thon

Sky: Sunny & Clear
Temperature: 54°F
Dewpoint: 43°F
Relative Humidity: 65%
Winds: N 10 MPH
Barometric Pressure: 30.16 Rising

1. When I walked outside this morning at 7:04 AM I exclaimed, “Ooh – Nice and refreshing !’  That was before I hit the 10 MPH winds (with higher gusts). I live within feet of a somewhat elevated Florida’s Turnpike. I didn’t realize that it was such a wind shelter. Once I walked away from it the winds shattered my teeth and pierced my ears.

2.  Homestead was shivering, and so was I. I quickly decided that this was not going to be the long 2.0-mile-plus walk that I envisioned. It turned out to be a simple 1.3-mile walk completely around the perimeter of my neighbourhood. I did it in exactly 24 minutes. That’s an average of 3.25 MPH.

3.  The Moon was at its closest distance to Earth overnight in nearly 16 years (since March 1993). It was large and bright. I saw it last night as it was climbing the eastern sky, and I saw it again during this morning’s walk as it was dropping towards the western horizon. Last night’s Full Moon was known as the ‘Long Night Moon’ (for obvious reasons). It was up for 14½-hours.

4.  I saw no cats outside this morning. They were all keeping warm inside or underneath vehicles. There were a lot of ducks out and about. They too were shivering. They should have gone in the lake. The water was at least 20° warmer than the air. I was looking for ‘lake-effect’ snows as that cold northerly wind blew across the warmer big lake that I walked around.

5.  This morning’s walk was certainly uncomfortable, but you can’t make any progress in Life if you’re always comfortable. On God’s fantastic journey you should never get into a groove or think that you’re ‘there’. You’re never there, and there’s always something bigger and better just around the corner. The status quo produces nothing relevant. Sitting in neutral is not living. It’s dying. You’ve got to continue to move forward on this journey – always asking and looking for more. The journey doesn’t end until you’ve been reunited with your Maker. That’s when you know that you’ve finally made it to the Promised Land.

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Animals Computers Driving History Life Music Radio

Saturday Night Retro

1997. It’s the year that I turned 30-years-old and celebrated my 10TH anniversary of living and working here in Homestead Florida. I ditched my longtime 1989 Geo Spectrum (bought brand new) after over 96,700 miles, and I joined the Saturn family by buying my first of three fine cars from the company. I lost my original 486-SX desktop computer system due to a catastrophic hard drive failure, and when that happened ‘MANx CAT BBS’ died after four years. That original classic bulletin board system spun-off ‘MANx ON THE NET’ which evolved into ‘MASSIVESMASH.COM‘ which inspired my MySpace blog of 2007 which morphed into this WordPress blog that you know and love right here.

Boots was my feline buddy and roommate, and I was a loyal and devoted Y-100 TOP 40 radio listener at home, at work, and in the car. Last Saturday night on the ‘Retro’ I presented Reunion’s “Life Is A Rock (But The Radio Rolled Me)” from 34 years ago. Tonight for your ‘Retro’ review I present to you one of the biggest smash hits on the radio from 1997, and it’s kind of like a modern update to Reunion’s classic track from 1974. It’s “I Want You” – the debut smash from the multi-Platinum-selling Australian duo known as Savage Garden.

Check it out:

Categories
Animals Health Travel Weather

The Major’s Walk-A-Thon

Sky: Mostly Sunny
Temperature: 66°F
Dewpoint: 37°F
Relative Humidity: 34%
Winds: Calm
Barometric Pressure: 30.02 Falling

1.  This was my first classic ‘walk-around-the-neighbourhood’ outside of my own neighbourhood.

2.  It wasn’t the coldest, but it was certainly the dryest ‘Walk-A-Thon’ ever with a desert-like relative humidity and a dewpoint just a few degrees above the freezing mark. That rarely occurs in South Florida. The air was crisp, and it just felt so great to be out in it walking the beat.

3.  My brother and his wife and their dog live in a real nice (and large) modern neighbourhood of hundreds and hundreds of houses that are perhaps less than a decade old in the heart of Allen Texas – itself a northern bedroom community of Dallas. Allen is one of the TOP 10 safest cities in the entire country as reported in a recent annual survey.

4.  It was a 33-minute and 33-second walk at a slightly faster pace than I’m used to. My brother and his dog Buddy joined me for this nearly two-mile excursion. We could have walked around this place for miles and miles. Buddy was the one that was holding us back. I’m 41. My brother is 33. Buddy is in his late-40s. Buddy was totally exhausted towards the end of the two miles. Buddy is sleeping now.

5.  Me and my brother worked up MASSIVE appetites for Thanksgiving Dinner – coming up within the next couple of hours. We’re so truly looking forward to the ‘Dinner Of The Year’ !