What I did on my Florida vacation:


I took photos of parasailers. I went in '99 and thought of going again last week, even though I didn't have much fun the first time. But no one wanted to go with me. Part of the reason I didn't enjoy it much last time was that I did it alone and had no one to be scared with. :)


Marshall, Brandon, Carlos, and I went snorkeling--or snarkeling, as Debbie kept calling it. Even though it wasn't exactly what I expected (no coral reefs and brightly-colored fish), I really enjoyed it. The water was beautiful in both color and temperature.


We swam with big (about a foot diameter) jelly fish, which I assured everyone wouldn't sting. Silly me. ;)


I saw several small groups of dolphins while on the snorkeling boat. They were so fast that it was impossible to get a good photo of them.


I bought ice cream from the aquatic ice cream man.



I crashed a wedding. And how sad is it that I got teary-eyed at strangers getting married?




I took photos of the wedding party, including the little flower girls who I felt sorry for when I got home and looked at the photos and noticed you could see through their dresses. How many family photo albums will have photos of these girls with their underwear showing?






I took a lot of photos of my friends. Debbie was a great model and would have posed for me forever. Marshall and Carlos were also great but were over it after about 15 minutes.

Now it's catch up time. Catch up on work. Catch up on house cleaning. Catch up on email, blogs, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, online Scrabble with Ophira...

My friend's granddaughters, aged 8 and 11, asked me to take photos of them the other day. Gee, I don't know. You know how I hate to take photos. :D

It was a lot of fun having willing models who enjoyed having their photos taken. They'd have posed much longer if I'd let them.

The one below is my favorite.

I joined a photography Meet Up group a couple months ago and finally got around to going to one of the events. We met at the zoo on Sunday morning. I actually knew one of the members, a woman from our dog walking group. And I met a few others whose company I enjoyed.

We walked in the hot summer sun for four and a half hours. I had a heat headache and sunburn (even with sunscreen) by the time I got home. But I had a really good time, and I’m glad that I forced myself to get out and do something new.

Here are a few photos from the zoo:

My grandfather went into the hospital last month because of a colon blockage. He spent several weeks there after they removed a piece of his colon and a piece of his liver. He's been home for a couple weeks now, in pretty good spirits, but he's not had an appetite and is losing weight quickly.

My father took him to his general physician today, and while there, my father brought up getting a hearing aid for my grandfather. The doctor questioned why he'd bother spending $5,000. A little further probing, and I guess the doctor figured out that my father was clueless as to what the doctor was saying.

The doctor took my father into his office and dropped a bomb on him. My grandfather is dying of cancer. The doctor gave him six months to live. NO ONE in the hospital ever even mentioned the word cancer, so we foolishly assumed that he was on the road to recovery.

My father had to tell my grandfather tonight, which wasn't easy, I'm sure. We're just going to play it by ear. He's happy living on his own in his little garage apartment with me across the street, my father down the road, and a life alert button around his neck. So as long as he's able, we'll let him stay there with several daily visits from my father.

Once he starts going downhill, he'll have to move in with my father and get the help of hospice. I'm kind of in shock still.

If there's a heaven, it looks like this:



I found this photo on Flickr and made it my wallpaper. Every time I look at it, I imagine myself lying in the hammock, accompanied by a couple of dogs asleep on the porch, listening to the waves, and feeling the gentle breeze.

I have a lot of dreams. Most of them won't come true. But I can see this one happening if I play my cards right. Maybe--okay, most likely--I'll never be able to afford to actually LIVE in a house like that. But just to have a house close enough to the beach to maybe walk there would be great. And I could visit my rich friends who live in this house. ;)

My goal is to pay off my house in no more than fifteen years (instead of the actual 29 I have left). By that time, in my fantasy, house prices around here will have gone up a lot, and I'll make some money off this house instead of losing money, which I would if I sold it now. And I'll have enough for a good-sized down payment on a house in California.

I figure if I stay disciplined and pay extra each month on my mortgage, I can get the house paid up in half the time. And I'll still be young enough to enjoy my walks on the beach--and fixing up the dilapidated house since that's all I'll be able to afford in a California beach town.

Ah well, whatever keeps me going each day...

Multi-tasking. Good or bad?

I guess it depends. If you're at work, typing up a quick email to the boss while you're waiting for something to download, I guess it's a good thing. Time is money in the workplace. But enough already! Does your entire life need to be multitasked?

A friend asked me to come over and watch a show with her last night. I figured we'd watch and enjoy the show together and then talk during commercials. But the whole time, she was on her laptop, clicking away, talking to herself (and sometimes to me), and distracting me from enjoying the show.

She was filling out a job application online, telling me stories of jobs she used to have, and occasionally watching the television show. How much of her attention was really going toward this important job application? One third, at best.

Which leads me to this--how do you develop a real relationship with someone when they're "too busy" to give you their complete attention? When's the last time you sat with a friend, maybe outside with no tv or radio, neither of you doing anything other than talking (and listening) to each other? REALLY talking and listening? Does that only happen in the movies? Because it sure doesn't happen in my life. People have to have noise. They have to have distractions. They have to be DOING something--like having a nice conversation isn't doing something.

I have an acquaintance who I see several times a week. I've been trying to get to know her, but it's difficult to carry on a conversation with her. If I say something that takes longer than ten seconds to get out, she starts smiling and nodding her head like she fully understands the point of what I'm saying, and all I've said was, "I was just at the store..." She seems too busy and too distracted to really hear me.

And then there's the whole memory thing. We're all guilty of not remembering a conversation we've had with someone. But I know people who never seem to be able to remember much of anything that we've ever talked about. You can tell these people the same story over and over, and each time it's completely new to them. I think that goes hand-in-hand with the whole multi-tasking thing. Of course you won't remember much of a conversation if you were doing something else at the time you were having it. And chances are whatever else you were doing at the time wasn't being given much attention either.

If you're in the habit of multi-tasking while talking to your friends, do me a favor. Stop what you're doing and LISTEN. You may actually enjoy your time with them. :)

Seen at my neighbor's bird feeder this evening: