Just the run down this time around. My trip to Florida took me out of the writing
routine and by the time I got that all sorted out, I’ve got four pages worth of
stuff. No room for anything more really.
SATURDAY (Feb 28)…
--- Working alone this block. Fairly quiet Saturday to start. A good return after my twelve days away.
SUNDAY (March 1)…
--- Much like yesterday.
Fairly relaxing.
MONDAY (March 2)…
--- Busy night alone.
Dayshift was also alone and the system was done for them for part of the
day, so I’m playing catch up. Lots of
DNA work. Lots of shoes to search. At it steady into the late night.
TUESDAY (March 3)…
--- One of the worst nights I’ve had at work. Systems are down part of the day again. Lots of DNA work again. A regular amount of shoes to search but due
to maintenance power outage, I can’t log back in to the main computer that is
used for the shoes. Two of the five
floors in the office are out (computers and phones down) so the computer guys
are all over the place, one of whom is working with me until midnight because
he’s got nowhere else to go. Just an
overall annoying night.
WEDNESDAY (March 4)…
--- Spend two hours shovelling the driveway (as well as two
neighbour’s driveways). It’s nice and
mild and I’m able to chip away lots of the ice.
So a good time doing it… feels like Spring.
THURSDAY (March 5)…
--- Get some US money and some food for my last day or so in
town.
FRIDAY (March
6)…
--- Fly to
Florida in the evening. Sarah gives me a
ride to the airport, the flight is delayed for about an hour, but then we’re on
our way and arrive in Tampa close to 10:00 PM.
--- Hang out a
bit with mom and dad catching up.
SATURDAY (March
7)…
--- Quiet day
with mom and dad and Ruby and Lee. Cool
start to the day, to the point that I’m in jeans and a pull over, but it’s low
20s before too long. I do find it hard
on the body to basically go from winter to summer in a day. Any other time I’ve done it there’s been a
gradual changing of the seasons. This is
the first time I’ve ever hopped a plane to a new season and I found myself
feeling colder than I should in the morning and then hotter than I should in
the afternoon. By the night time I’m
back to normal though.
SUNDAY (March 8)…
--- The guys
are off to Dunedin for baseball. Mid 20s
and sunny and I get a sunburn over there.
Jays lose but it’s fun all the same.
Get pizza for supper on the way back.
MONDAY (March 9)…
--- Lee’s
brother and his wife come and now we’re 11 for big turkey supper. By bed time it appears my iPad is pretty much
toast. It’s been crashing for a few
weeks now, first every three or four days, then once every day or two over the
past week. The last time it crashed it
took a good fifteen minutes to break the Apple Logo Loop (where the logo would
come up like for a reboot only to go back to blank screen). Tonight the loop is continuous… until I’m
able to get it to a point where it says to plug in to a laptop and having it open
iTunes.
TUESDAY (March
10)…
--- Try logging
the iPad to mom’s laptop to simply get it to do a factory restore… see if that
can bring the device back to life. It
goes all the way through but, at the last step, gives an error message saying
it can’t restore. I guess I’ll have to
try when I get back to my own laptop in Ottawa and if that doesn’t work, it’s
going to be a trip to the Apple Store.
But I see a new iPad in the not so distant future. Two and a half years is a short life for such
a device… humph.
--- With iPad
set to one side mom, dad and I head to walk a nature trail. Lots of birds, turtles and gators. Lots of pictures taken and it’s a really good
time. Sun and low 30s today… full blown
summer weather.
--- Last two
days have seen lots of lizards around the house. Fun little fellows. Take some pictures and a slow motion video
with the phone.
WEDNESDAY
(March 11)…
--- Go for a
day out with the folks. Drive to Apollo
Beach and see the manatees. Lots of
other fish being active in the area while the manatees just sort of lounge
about. Not a lot to see of them… I’m
lucky to get a pretty good picture of one that looks out of the water while
taking a breath. But still it’s
impressive. They’re so unique and can
only be seen in a few places. So I’m
glad we did it.
--- From
manatees we go in to Tampa for a trip to the Florida Aquarium. That’s a good time as well. Lunch out on a patio and then see all kinds
of animals. Mostly fish, obviously, but
lots of birds and even an exhibit with lemurs in it. Not many people can claim to see manatees and
lemurs in the same day.
--- From there
we head home and have BBQ burgers.
Florida life ain’t too bad.
THURSDAY (March
12)…
---
Newfoundland picnic day. Not something I
planned to be around for but here it is.
We go with Ruby and Lee and meet up with a bunch of others not far
outside of Tampa. Good eating and nice
to be outside in a scenic area. Could
have passed on the Newfoundland meet and greet part of it and, to be honest, I
did very little of that.
FRIDAY (March
13)…
--- Golf in the
morning with Lee and his brother. Have a
fun round. I went in thinking if I can
break 120 for my first time picking up clubs this year, I’d take it. Got 109… including a lucky birdy by chipping
one in from five or six yards off the green.
So that was good.
--- Also really
glad that I brought along the camera for golf.
Got some great shots of a heron catching a snake on the course.
SATURDAY (March
14)…
--- Dad’s
birthday. We celebrate with a
ballgame. Catching a Tigers game in
Lakeland with Lee. It’s quite hot in the
stadium but a good time. Spring Training
baseball is a nice way to ease into the summer months.
--- Shower up
after the game and head out to supper with nine of us there. Cake at home after finishes the day.
SUNDAY (March
15)…
--- Got to
leave the house by 12:30 or so because the owner, who’s renting to the parents,
is trying to sell it. We go to the
swimming pool for a bit and then go with Ruby and Lee into Tampa. Drive around there some. See the hockey arena and a very nice
neighbourhood where you’d expect to see the hockey and baseball players
live.
--- After a bit
of a drive around, thanks to a wonky GPS not guiding us properly for a
restaurant, we make our way to the airport and eat there tonight. Tampa airport is quite nice actually.
--- While
saying our goodbyes, I see a well known Canadian sports writing coming along to
meet some arrivals. Stephen Brunt looks
just the same in real life as on TV.
Left him alone though.
--- Arrive in
Ottawa just before 1:00 AM. Shoot
through customs quickly and cab it home.
It’s odd to go from swimming at a pool on a hot summer day in the
morning to cabbing home among snow banks in the evening.
MONDAY (March
16)…
--- Was wired
last night and didn’t get to sleep until close to 4:00 am. So it’s a quiet day around the house and a
bit of a grocery run today.
TUESDAY (March
17)…
--- Back to
work. I’m tired. Not used to being functional at 5:30 in the
morning. Not a bad day to get back at it
though. Not run too hard.
--- After work
I go straight to the Apple Store. My
iPad is officially dead. I bite the
bullet and buy the newest version… so there’s several hundred dollars I wasn’t
expecting to spend a few weeks ago. But
when it crashed in Florida, I was prepared for this possibility. Spend several hours in the evening setting up
the new iPad.
WEDNESDAY
(March 18)…
--- Night one
is busy. Thank goodness we were both
there or it would have been too much for one to get through. Lots of DNA work.
THURSDAY (March
19)…
--- Night two
is quiet. Got the majority of the had to
do things done last night. And not a
whole lot of new stuff came in tonight.
FRIDAY (March
20)…
--- A grocery
run is had to top up the small amount I got on Monday. Fairly drained today and spend most of the
time catching up on PVR’d TV.
SATURDAY (March
21)…
--- Sort
through videos and pictures from my devices and load them on my computer… with
much of it making it to Facebook.
--- Something
of Facebook that irks me a bit. The
world of the Selfie. I’m so tired of the
idea that we need to keep taking pictures of ourselves. I saw it at the ball game in Dunedin. A couple in front of us constantly ignoring
the ball game they’re at in order to take pictures of themselves. Maybe you get a bit of the field in the
background but it’s hardly the focus.
And on the same day that I share pictures of lemurs and manatees and
herons with snakes dangling from their mouths… all going on pretty much without
notice… a friend shared a new picture of herself… and got over seventy “likes”
and dozens of people raving about how she looked. I don’t mean this as sour grapes. I don’t post pictures looking for cheers and
love and it was a very nice picture of her… but it is a sign of the society we
are living in. For all that social media
offers… the ability to share travels and wonders… the most popular use of it is
simply to show ourselves.
SUNDAY (March
22)…
--- Try for a
walk today. I nearly die out there. Gone about twenty minutes. By the time I was ten minutes in I had my
mind made up that I was going to cut things short. Florida softened me… and the winds today
chilled me.
MONDAY (March
23)…
--- Finally got
the TV watching under control. Still
lots on the PVR but knocked off quite a bit the last few days. Just been too cold to want to be outside. I know it’s improving… and not as cold as it
was a month ago… but it’s officially Spring now and I just can’t take the cold
anymore.
