Post Christmas Post

HAPPY BOXING DAY if you are Canadian! I do not exactly know what "Boxing Day" is or what happens - but I know it exists. In the USA it means the day we box up things we do not want or need to return to the store for some reason. I am sure that in Canada it has a more meaningful significance.

My haul was fairly light. I had already got my main gift - the waterproof Olympus digital camera. See I needed it before Christmas. For the boat parade. And the night fishing trip. The photo of the Christmas Shark did not come out very good at all. I should have had the guy snap more than one picture but I wanted to get the Christmas Shark back into the water as soon as possible. Sharks are happier in the water than out of it. So as it is, this is the only known photo of said shark. This photo is not cropped at all.
Other than that, I got some E-Gifts!

From Daisy - a cat stroller. Manly men do not push cats in strollers. Plus my cats would freak out and poop in my shoes later for revenge.

From Yippieskip - a bike. Cool. Maybe I can modify it into a recumbent bike?

Emma sent me an AR-15 fully decked out.

"Amazon Woman" sent a dune buggy. This is funny because I am going to get a jet ski soon. A jet ski is the on the water equivalent of a dune buggy.

Lisa sent a car. Pretty sweet. I wonder if I can get a hitch for it and use it to pull the jet ski?

Seriously got me a fruit cake, which I sent to Emma

Doozie sent some perfume. I need to shower more often.

Krok sent a Christmas Sweater. But I can not wear it till next year because Christmas is over.

IdiotDrivers sent me a Road Rage video game. So now I can play at home AND out on the road! Emma's gift of the AR-15 will come in handy after all!

Dusty - the left wing nut job - sent an ELEPHANT chia pet. Elephant?

Ed Abbey sent...another fruit cake! I hereby give it to Dusty :)

"Bobby Bowden" gave me virginity. Not sure what is up with that.

CM sent an Ipod for the Iguana Music. This is good because the Iguana Music list is almost full.

"gfjgj" sent some sort of Victoria's Secret type thing. I suspect this is a gift that "gfjgj" wanted for himself but was too embarrassed / ashamed to buy because he is in denial. So it was sent here in hopes I give it back - that way he can keep it himself. I suggest that in the future, come up with a better fake name and do not be ashamed of who you are.

"Malcom X" who I suspect of being someone from Tampa / North Carolina sent more perfume.

The Dentist sent dentures. At least with these there will be no more cavities.

Pyzam.com sent cash. Still waiting to get that Pyzam.com!!

And finally "Santa" whom I suspect is a reddish witch sent me...AN ENTIRE BREWERY! WOO HOO! Always wanted one of those. Now I can fulfill my wish to be a brewmaster - whose task it is to roam the brewery every day and drink small samples from the various tanks. Ill hire a manager and CEO and crap to do all the boring "run the business" things.

Today I take my various gift card (I only got one) to Best Buy to get the external CD/DVD burner with Light Scribe. See the laptop CD drive has decided to not work. So I need to replace it. Finding the same internal CD drive for a laptop will be difficult, and probably cost more than the external. So....external it is!

I also ordered some books from Amazon. I wanted some knot tying books, and I did not get any. So I bought some. I want books that concentrate more on fancy rope work, as opposed to practical knots. I already know enough practical knots for a power boater. When I take the sailing class I will need to learn more knots as sailboats are very rope intensive. The books will cover all the sailing knots I need to know - and then some.

The fancy rope work will include me making my very own rope mat, rope fenders, decorative knots, and splices. It will be cool to learn all this stuff. Fancy rope work is becoming a lost art.

Nobody got me the stainless steel anchor. I am not surprised. They are expensive and I do not really need one. It is just that they are so shiny, and on the current boat the anchor is always out in the open where it can be seen. But a stainless steel anchor creates all sorts of problems. I would also need some stainless steel BBB windlass chain. Can't have a shiny anchor with dull chain!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas Day. Even if "Christmas Day" was just December 25th to you - I still hope the day was good.

Christmas

I hope everyone has a great Christmas Day!

I was going to send out cards and e-cards and stuff, but I got lazy and kept putting it off and all. Sooooo......

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

Watch out for falling Christmas Coconuts.

Twas The Day Before Christmas

And I caught a shark.

No really, I caught a shark! A real actual shark. And because I am so cool, I did it with very lightweight tackle.

OK so the shark was only 2 feet long. If that. But still - A SHARK!!!! Holy crap.

See there was a plan to go night fishing. So what the heck! So I go out and buy some bait and stuff, hook the boat up to the truck, and so on.

The mission was almost scrubbed, but at the last moment it pulled together. So around 10:00 PM I was in the water and underway.

The first fish landed was the shark. I caught it. I have a photo of it, but the photo was really bad. It was not framed well at all. Oh well. I am a little let down by that, but there will be other sharks.

I also caught a blue runner. But it was small. After that - nothing. The other people that went caught nothing too. Well there was one small barracuda landed - but everything was thrown back. Nothing was worth keeping.

But there will be other fishing trips! And more stuff to catch. And better photos.

The Christmas Shark is still out there. Lurking in the deep sea. Plotting. Planning. I really do not want to ever encounter that same shark again.

Full Of Christmas Cheer

Yes I am full of Christmas cheer. Hell I am so full of Christmas Cheer that I am overflowing with it. It is leaking out of every pore in my body.

Of course by "Christmas cheer" I really mean "Christmas snot" and by "every pore on my body " I mean "my nose".

Yes, I have contracted some mystery Christmas funk. I do not know how this happened. I have pretty much secluded myself from the general public. But I did go to Barnes and Noble the other day to look for a book I could read before signing up for the sailing class. And then I went to Best Buy to look for a XD card reader. Then I went to the supermarket to buy food and beer and shit. So I could have picked up the Christmas Funk from any of these places.

In other news, you may notice my Iguana Links to the left. One of those links is Bock Imagery. If you can, link to it on your site. A good friend of mine is attempting to start some photography business. So the more links the site gets, the faster Google will index it.

Anyway, I found some books at Barnes and Noble - but did not buy any. I found the XD card reader at Best Buy. The retards employees pointed me to the external readers that require a USB cable. I explained that I have a laptop, and if I am going to connect anything to the computer with a cable it will be the camera. They told me that was all they had, and then I found a PCMCIA 6 in 1 reader that fits into the card slot on my laptop and reads XD cards, memory stick, and SD cards. Perfect.

I should have known something funky was going on in the Publix. See I usually use the express lane. Normally I buy 10 items or less. This is why I like to by my emergency food (boxed macaroni and cheese) in 6 packs. The 6 packages are wrapped together counting as one item.

Anyway there were no 6 packs. So I bought 4 boxes. And then I bought some cans of food. And some of those "instant noodles" things. And some organic "happy cow" whole milk. And some organic "happy cow" half-and-half. And of course, beer. So I had way more than 10 items.

But I get in the express line anyway. I do not realize I have more than 10 items till it is too late. so now I look like an idiot in front of the Publix checkout chick. Great. At that point I knew something was going on.

This morning the funk was in force. I spent the day moping around, feeling mostly bad. I also managed to lock myself out of the bathroom. I tried to open the door using a wire hanger - but that did not work. Now there is another shitter here so I could just use that. But all my shower stuff was in the locked bathroom. So I removed the door knob. Had I been noticing things, I would have seen that what I needed to open the door was a simple flat head screwdriver. But did I notice that? Hell no. So I had to destroy the door knob to get the door open. Now it is held shut by a screwdriver jammed in where the knob used to be. Darn Christmas Funk!

Now for some photos! A post about Christmas Funk is just not right. So here we go! Photos from my great Broward ICW adventure on December 15th!

This is not from my adventure. This is the "always on tap" beer menu from Titanic Brewery. I was playing with some camera settings. If you are into beer you may want to click the image to see it in full size so you can read it.

This is my boat, at the docks of the Southport Raw Bar located at 15th street and Cordova. It is a pretty good place.

This is another view of the boat at the docks of the Southport Raw Bar. I had the fish and chips, and 3 or 4 Guinness "pub draft" bottles.

This is a photo of a cruise ship at Port Everglades - the Holland America "Zuiderdam". It must be a high end ship, because it sails from Florida to Europe, 6 - 16 day Caribbean cruises, and Panama Canal cruises.

This is a view of Port Everglades while passing under the 17th street bridge. Click it and you can see several cruise ships.

And this is a small mega yacht. In fact, this may be the tender from a larger yacht that was too big to make it into the ICW.

That about does it!

T Minus 1 Day

So by now you should pretty much be done with Christmas. And by "done" I mean have nothing else to do. All your gift shopping should be done. The Christmas turkey should be thawing. If you are traveling, you should either be where you want to be OR still stuck in the airport at Chicago or Denver.

But if in the off chance you have some frantic very last minute shopping left to do - remain calm. Resist the urge to buy crappy gifts like this.

Seriously, do people really buy McDonalds gift cards? Who would think this is a good idea? Wow! You got me......obesity and heart disease! Just what I wanted this year!

Call me insane if you must, a gift card to AMC or whatever other movie theater you like is a better idea than a gift card for salty nasty death food. I also have some more suggestions for last minute gifts.

1. Inexpensive table wine. If you ask me, the best wine is whatever wine you like. Price does not factor into the equation here. Some of the best wines I have bought were under $10.

2. The "home made" Christmas cookie scam. Here is how it works. You go to a supermarket that has a bakery and buy some cookies. Look for cookies that are not covered in chocolate or something. When you get them home it is time to add that "I really baked these myself" look. So preheat the oven to around 300 degrees and put some of the cookies in for a few minutes. The idea is to just ever so slightly over bake them. You can do this to the whole batch, or just a portion of the batch - depending on what you think seems to be more "real". Place your "home made" cookies on a festive holiday platter and Saran Wrap em up. If you feel too guilty about this, then you can always melt a few chocolate bars and spruce the cookies up a bit. WARNING - do not get the chocolate too hot or else it may not harden when cool.

Whatever you do, the important thing is that you have a great holiday. Or if you have already celebrated your holiday, that you enjoyed it to the fullest.

My Tree

So, you may be wondering what I am going to use this year as my Christmas tree. Or as it is commonly known as in Miami, mi árbol de Navidad. Whatever floats your boat.

So, pretty cool huh? This Christmas Palm Tree is real and still alive. It is planted in a large pot. It used to be in the front yard. Now it is inside. After Christmas, it will go back outside.

I think it needs more lights. This is possibly the best idea ever in the history of the universe.

The black boxes are just me playing with photo cropping and some features in "Paint". Just as I predicted, it did make the file smaller.

Christmas In South Florida

THIS IS A PHOTO POST! If you do not want to read the bullshit, then skip it.

No, it is not a winter wonderland here. It is a "how the hell do people here get a drivers license" wonderland. Seriously, I wonder this all the time. But I know the answer. Us locals know where the phony drivers license vending machine is, and we know which DMV employee accepts the $100 bribe. I can't tell you this information, unless you move here. I will need to see proof of Miami-Dade County residency before I can let you in on the secret. A signed copy of a lease, a current electric or water bill, a phone bill, or a $100 bribe for me will all be accepted. Epically the bribe part. In fact, my bribe should be paper clipped to your proof of residency.

But I digress. We may not have a winter wonderland with fire places and snowmen and ponds to ice skate on and stuff, but we DO have ways of making things more Christmas-sy here. And if you DO have the White Christmas thing going - TAKE NOTES HERE! With the climate change and all your wintery snowy days will come to an end. Then what will you do?? Huh?? What then!?!! Can't build a snowman with no snow! And what will you do with all those mittens and scarves and stuff?!?!

Now without further delay, here are just some ways us sub-tropical zone living people remind ourselves that it is in fact "winter". You know, other than the fact that there are no hurricanes.

There is the annual Christmas Parade! But not just any parade! Oh no, we have the Winterfest BOAT Parade! People decorate boats large and small with lights and costumes and holiday music and whatnot. Anything goes EXCEPT nudity and booze. That is for AFTER the parade.

And we love to wrap lights all over the palm trees! It does not matter if the palm trees are real,

Or fake. Yes we have fake palm trees!

Buildings in Downtown Miami change colors

While the Miami Riot Police guard Santa's Village from heathens, undesirables, and assorted FTAA protesters.

Even the alligators get into the Christmas spirit!

And on Christmas Morning, the sun rises over the Atlantic Ocean. It looks something like this*.

* Not an actual South Florida Christmas Sunrise. But this is an actual South Florida sunrise from some time of the year.