Category: Bugs

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The Major’s Walk-A-Thon: Special On-Location Edition – Everglades National Park

TODAY I visited Everglades National Park for the first time in modern history.

Here are my takeaways in 15 words or less:

– My ‘2009 Economic Stimulus Tour’ (of tourist attractions) continues.
– I kicked it off with an 8:40 AM visit to the Starbucks in Florida City.
– The first sign I saw at the park – ‘EXTREME FIRE DANGER‘.
– I was hoping that I wouldn’t see any out-of-control wildfires.
– The National Park Service doesn’t spend a lot of money on road maintenance.
– The top layer of the main road is peeling off exposing the concrete below.
– It was a nice day at the park – sort of cloudy with a refreshing wind.
– There weren’t a lot of people at the park today.
– I was part of the very few that wore shorts.
– Dude it’s not mosquito season yet.
– The’re still hibernating / incubating.
– The skeeters need the water, and there wasn’t much of it out there.
– The ground was so dry that it was cracking like scorched earth.
– It was the dryest winter season ever recorded since mankind’s been tracking it.
– If there’s no water in the solution holes then we must be in a drought.
– That’s because those holes reach the water table.
– I spent the first 45 minutes of my visit at the Ernest F. Coe Visitor Center.
– That’s a nice place, as I could have spent twice as long there.
– One sound you don’t hear inside the park – lawnmowers !
– It may not be mosquito season, but it certainly is bee season.
– They were buzzing (scaring) all around me in certain areas on the trails.
– None stung me, so that’s a good thing.
– I probably wouldn’t be here writing this if I had sustained a bee sting.
– If there’s a lot of people gathered then there must be a HUGE gator there.
– The gators were just chillin’ in the shallow end of the water.
– Some were tanning themselves on the shore with their mouths wide open.
– Gators are just like you and me !
– The Gumbo Limbo Trail reminded me of a place I played at as a kid.
– It was in the mid-1970s, and it was in the woods alongside my old ‘hood.
– Chuck and Keegan were two childhood friends of mine back then.
– They ran a territory on one side of the creek known as ‘Wolf Pack State’.
– I ran the territory on the other side of the creek.
– The Gumbo Limbo tree has peeling reddish bark.
– The Gumbo Limbo tree is just like you and me – a tourist with a sunburn !
– Everglades National Park formed out of Royal Palm State Park.
– It’s a vast wilderness – just like the U.S.A. once was.
– It smelled really good on the Mahogany Hammock Trail.
– The Everglades overall smelled really nice.
– It’s nature’s air freshener.
– Even the residue skunk smell was quite alright.
– You don’t know what nature sounds like until you visit the Everglades.
– All you need to do is sit down, keep quiet, and just listen.
– Noise pollution is not invited out there.
– Trees still provide abundant life to plants long after their death.
– Trees learned that from their Creator – Jesus – who does the same.
– It’s 60 miles on the dot from my home to Flamingo.
– I walked every half-mile trail from the park entrance to Florida Bay.
– This was the longest officially-sanctioned ‘Walk-A-Thon’ in history.
– I used no insect repellent at all.
– It wasn’t until the final trail in which I started to get bitten by bugs.
– It was also one of my favourite trails that I walked on.
– The bugs were alive and biting on the West Lake Boardwalk.
– I even saw a rare mosquito come close to my arm.
– A few ENORMOUS flies bit me.
– Now I feel like I really visited the Everglades !
– The bugs were there because the boardwalk went through a mangrove swamp.
– The ground was actually moist too.
– After that final trail I headed back to civilization / America’s Riviera.
– I made a pit stop at Mamma Mia.
– That’s right I ate there for the 2ND time in 7 days.
– It’s my new favourite sit-down restaurant in Homestead.
– I feel right at home there.
– I ate the mother of all MASSIVE meals big and small there this afternoon.
– That’s how I roll on a Saturday afternoon in late-April.
– My 111-mile round-trip excursion ended 7 hours after it started.
– I didn’t realize that I got a suntan / slight sunburn today.
– I realized it when I shaved after I got home.
– It stung a bit.
– It also didn’t help that I shaved directly over a few small insect bites.
– This day trip was so worth it.
– I’m visiting again next December or January.
– You can count on it !

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The Great Ant Invasion Of 2009

TODAY I actually bit into (and had a small piece in my mouth) of an ant-infested chocolate donut !

Yesterday morning at Publix (where shopping is a pleasure) I bought two boxes of Entenmann’s donuts (on sale for $3 per box). I ate 3 out of the total 16 donuts yesterday, and I was about to eat 3 more this afternoon when I realized what I was actually biting into. Long story short the remaining 13 donuts went into the garbage and then ultimately into the dumpster outside.

I don’t typically have a problem with ants (or any other bugs in my home for that matter), as Orkin treats my home once a month for pests. I guess the 13 chocolate donuts sitting on my kitchen counter some 33 days after the last regularly-scheduled Orkin treatment was simply a recipe for disaster !

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Thursday Night Mini Thoughts

– I enjoy doing these ‘Mini Thoughts’ in 15 words or less.
– It’s because I don’t have to form complete sentences.
– These are known as ‘quickies’.
– That’s because each ‘Mini Thought’ takes 3 seconds or less to read.
– And then you move on to the next one.
– These are spontaneous in nature.
– I have no idea what I’m gonna write until I do so.
– The Stock Market has been surging for the past half a month.
– My retirement savings plan is reaping the benefits of the surge.
– The recession has probably ended already.
– We won’t know for sure that it’s already ended for another 6 months or so.
– Checkers now has wings.
– I haven’t picked-up Checkers food in about a dozen years.
– Nah it hasn’t been that long – but it’s been many years.
– Once upon a time it was part of my weekly Lunch schedule.
– And then I boycotted the place due to bad service.
– I’ll give them another chance – if only to check out their wings.
– I might see “I Love You, Man” this weekend at the box office.
– If I do then I’m hangin’ at Buffalo Wild Wings beforehand.
– The outside of my screened front porch is a magnet for millions of gnats.
– I sprayed Hot Shot Flying Insect Killer on them this afternoon.
– That should do the trick.
– Ruth is one of my favourite rock bands on this journey.
– The’re from Washington State.
– The’re named after their lead singer’s last name.
– ‘RUTH’ is also an acronym for ‘Return Us To Him’.
– They love and follow Jesus.
– In 2007 they brought it with “Cross The Line”.
– In 2008 they rocked my theme song with “Who I Was And Who I Am”.
– In 2009 they hit all the right notes with “Back To The Five”.
– I absolutely adore this song.
– It’s an instant out-of-the-box radio smash !
– Check it out:

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Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

Are you ready ?  Here’s what I’m talkin’ about !

1.  It’s a cool, dark, and stormy Tuesday afternoon in Homestead. We’re still in a drought if you can believe that. We need a lot more rain than this to get ourselves out of this fine mess !

2.  My brother and his lovely wife got me addicted to the TV show TMZ while I was at their house in Texas. I watch it almost every night now. I never saw a single episode of it before my recent trip to Texas.

3.  I never realized how much I actually like iced coffee … before I started drinking iced coffee !  I’ve made the new Homestead Starbucks a Monday afternoon tradition (right before the weekly Life Pointe Church staff meeting).

4.  Irony ? – A coworker of mine standing barefoot on an old chair on top of a hard floor while updating our building’s safety bulletin board !

5.  Yesterday I picked-up the new premium fish fillet sandwich from Wendy’s, and I brought it back to work. I microwaved it (to get it a little warmer than it was), and it emitted a wonderful smell that attracted a small portion of my coworkers. They adored that smell. It probably smelled better than it tasted. It was a fine sandwich, but I wouldn’t consider it to be ‘premium’. If anything it was perhaps a bit overpriced.

6.  Watch this cool Life Pointe Church promotional video from this past Sunday morning. I’m not in this one. I told Jesse that I wanna be a lovable babyface in his videos rather than a miserable heel. Travis alleges that I have a loyal cult following at the church. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a not so good thing.

7.  Every Sunday morning at Life Pointe Church I manage to get myself in to a whole bunch of pictures, yet they never see the light of day. I challenge you to put those pictures online, or send them to me and I’ll put them on the blog here.

8.  Here’s my brother in a recent text message to me describing what he had to deal with regarding his beloved dog Buddy – ‘… on Saturday he ate grass outside then ate insect killer that I sprayed, then vommitted BRIGHT YELLOW PUKE in A CIRCLE in the living room’.

9.  My 2002 HP Pavilion laptop is dying a slow death. I can see myself buying a brand new one sooner than I thought – like before the Summer is over. I may even donate this old laptop to the church once I buy the new one.

10.  Got ‘Rock Band‘ ?  I’ll be the lead vocalist. I’m good like that !