Catartis

Update on the Shoe Saga

We are back in good old land locked Tennessee now. *sniff, sniff*

At least the weather is lovely, so that makes it less disgusting to return to life away from the sea. [Is there really such a thing? ;^]

I realized I never updated the tale of The Shoe. The day after I took that photo, the staff was madly cleaning for the anticipated weekend beach crowd. I checked the railing and The Shoe was GONE! My guess was the paid cleaners and straighteners had captured her and evicted her from her home with a view.

Ahhhh, but something drew my eye to the lush plants on the ground below the spot where she had been basking in the sun. Can you guess who was hiding safely behind a clump of dense foliage? Our little friend, The Shoe!

My guess is that she has learned to hide from the weekend *busy-ness* safely under the bushes and will return to her sunny spot when the crowds thin during the week. Sounds to me like there is a good dose of cat-ti-tude in that Shoe. And my conclusion now is that she is definitely a crafty escapee from a smelly footed mistress. Not a sad little abandoned persona at all.

I winked and smiled at her as I passed my last few days and kept her secret safe.

Parasailing... I did it!!!!!

Yippee! I just came in to grab sodas and my book and head back to a chair, but had to stop and say I finally tried the parasailing. WOW! I loved it. Purrrfect sport for the water ski hating woman like me. I wanna go again...longer, faster, higher...with dips!

My *insurance* was that Tony and I were in a double harness. He was is eeezzz swatting distance if I was terrified or hated it. [grin]

No, there are NOOO pictures. And Butzi, aka Ms. OSHA...you do it barefoot! lol

Back to daBeach!

Case of The Abandoned Shoe

Who abandoned this poor little shoe? It appears to be more than a little weathered, but it does not seem to be lonely. The plants have taken pity and begun to embrace it. I suppose its previous mistress could have picked a less pleasant place to leave it than on the edge of the sand & sea. But then again, purrrrhaps she had smelly feet and it simply ran away? So was it liberated or abandoned?? I will have to visit it again tomorrow with the hope that it will break its silence and share the story of how it came to live in such a wonderful spot.

LOL! I have been looking at this shoe for two days now. It reminded me of an *abandoned shoe* shot that I have from Center Hill Lake in Tennessee. I have decided now that I should travel the world in search of shoes abandoned by water to photograph.

As I was shooting this, Tony was standing behind me not paying too much attention as he is used to my odd tastes & ideas. A woman walked by. She was heard to say, "WHAT is she photographing?? A SHOE??!!" Can't you just hear the tone of that comment?

Ahhh, some people have no imagination. [smug smirk]

Farron
[live from Panama City Beach: Sept, 2003]

Too Addicted to Connectivity?

Greetings from the sunny Emerald Coast! I love being on a beach and will snag any excuse to head to one.

We arrived yesterday evening, still in the "at home" flutter and flurry. All the usual stirring and fussing occurred when first, Tony's cellphone would not pick up a signal, then I had problems getting a connection on my poor old *Runt* lappie. You would think we wouldn't give a flip about these things when at the beach, but oh no, we have *business* to tend...from the beach. There is something wrong with this picture. lol

All is well now. Tony is up and running...just not inside the hotel room. Has to step out on the balcony. As do many others from what I can see when spying on the other guests with cell to ear [or glaring at it] on other balconies. And I have a whopping 28.8k max connection...but it will do. As soon as I knew it was working properly this morning and not charging me outrageous hotel long distance rates to use it, I was such a happy camper, I shut the thing down and ignored it and the things I had needed to do. Went for a walk on the beach and a dip in the pool followed by flapping out with a junk book under the semi-shade of a palm tree on the pool deck. Ahhhh, that's more like it.

The first night we were here, we saw two types of critters I had never seen in the flesh before. Baby Manta Rays [these were only about 2 feet in "wing span" and may actually be a different variety, but they certainly look like mini-mantas] which seem to be migrating in mass through the area, and a hummingbird moth which I had never even heard of until recently when I was checking for information on real hummingbirds and ran across a comment about them A moth that looks much like a mini-hummer. Kewl! And the baby Mantas a so sleek and elegant in their manner of stealth swimming. [No, they are not the kind that sting....those are sting rays and we have seen a couple of those in the area in the past.]

I have now gotten so laid back that the camera has not even come out of it's case.

If you are interested, here is a link to some photos someone else has of full grown Manta Rays and a photo of a hummingbird moth. [Hope that monster link for the little moth works....]

I may try to catch one or both in a photo of my own, but since they are creatures of the evening, and I am [as some of you know] not at my best with night shots, the prospects are not great that there will be interesting results. But I am ever hopeful. [smile]

Ahhh, and you should see Mars & the full, golden Moon over the Gulf of Mexico. What a beautiful sight!!!

Sweet dreams,

Farron
[at the beach while THE Cat is trapped in vet boarding...oh dear, punishment is sure to follow]

Fussy, Fussy W3C!

Check out the latest Beta Validator at W3C.

Notes about it:
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-validator/2003Aug/0105.html

The validator:
http://validator.w3.org:8001

It has FUSSY mode! I love it.

Yippee!!

Farron and That _^..^_