Red Hats & stormy skies

During a recent Saturday at the Riverside Arts Market, there were many ladies belonging to the Red Hat Society wandering as well. Here is a collage of the ones I managed to get photos of. They all looked to be having such a good time!

I decided to skip out on the market this weekend, and instead listed a few unneeded items on Ebay and Swap A CD.

Maybe tomorrow I will head down to St. Augustine for the morning. It's usually pretty quiet there on Sunday mornings, but with enough people out for some good people watching, and photographing.

I couldn't resist getting a shot of this last week. If you look closely you can see downtown jacksonville. Obviously, I was driving, so wasn't going to attempt making sure it was composed. The sunlight is what I was after.

RIP, Mr Kennedy..

Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy passed away last night. Despite the fact that he has been quite ill as of late, it was still a shock to hear the news this morning.

Work was good. We have slowed down yet again, so several people are taking a vacation day tomorrow. We did manage to get quite a bit of work done on our current Kaizen project, so at least it was a productive day.

I can't wait for my vacation, 3 weeks to go. So much to do and see in just 10 short days. Boston and the Big E have been occupying my every thought lately and that's just 2 of the 10 days. lol! So much food, so little time! I'm starting to check the Boston sights a little more now to see what we can find that's a little more out of the ordinary. We came up with quite a list, too! It will definitely require leaving very early in the morning, and employing lots of logistics. Not to mention camera batteries, memory cards, and really good walking shoes! :) Let the insanity begin!

Seriously, we've been there so many times and have yet to see all the little nooks and crannies that make up Boston. Then there are those places we visit over and over, and never tire of the sight..

Yesterday was Tuesday, (and Scrap Your Day #5) so that meant a trip to Barnes & Noble to catch up on some of my favorite magazines, and a Green Tea frap.

This morning I *had* to go to Dunkin' Donuts to try the new "Toffee for your Coffee" donut, created by a customer in a contest this summer. It was a little too sweet, but still very good. It consists of a sour cream donut with a little glaze on top, and then crushed Heath Bar candy on that. Did I mention it was sweet? LOL

Northeast FL weather update..

Lovely storm tonight: high winds, heavy rain. I didn't see any hail here, and the power didn't go out surprisingly. Once it stopped, as I did the other evening, i took the cat out onto the balcony with his cute little leash and halter on. Probably the only good thing about storms (besides much needed rain) is the fact that it usually cools off a little bit. And that's a good thing, since it was still 90 degrees last night when i went to bed at 10pm. **sigh**

Here is Mr. Scout admiring a bug flying around, I'm sure. or a shadow moving. certainly NOT the camera.

I couldn't resist a fisheye shot of the sky with this sweet cloud once the storm had mostly passed. Hence the funny orange color of the cat.

Happy day!

The heat is on...**warning: ranting ahead!**

I had a great time at my cousin's this weekend, even though we didn't end up having the time to go to my aunt's to swim. I came home early evening yesterday to a 92 degree F apartment. Yay, the AC picked a great time to crash. I went online and got the "emergency" maintenance beeper number and called it. 6 times within an hour. No answer, no callback, nothing.
This morning, I locked the cat and his neccesseties in the bedroom with the ceiling fan on, and called the office at my 10 am break. I called at my 2:30 break and they still hadn't gotten to it yet. I got home at 6pm, and they were just starting to look into it. Turns out the fan wasn't turning. So he told me if it happens again to just tap the fan with a screwdriver, until it can be fixed properly...WTF???? **sigh**
I also mentioned that the windows needed better weatherproofing, along with the space under my door...the whole place needs updating, badly. I should just get this stuff fixed myself and take it off the rent.

/rant

Skywatch Friday

This week, I thought I'd post a couple older photos, and a couple newer ones. This one if from the long drive from Ft Worth TX to my current home in Jacksonville Florida. We did the drive in 2 days, stopping over in Hattiesburg, Mississippi for a night. Thanksgiving night no less. We had dinner at the Cracker Barrel, so I did have turkey dinner and all the trimmings. Only thing missing was my family and friends!

This model Blue Angel was at the Florida Welcome Center, somewhere in the panhandle, after we crossed the state line.







The next photo was taken as we were driving. honestly not sure where this was, but I loved the view! My supervisor is in front of me, I can tell by the kayak on his roof. This means that Pam & Jim (co-worker and her husband) were in their pickup behind me. The 3 of us have moved from Mass to TX to FL with the company we work for.


This photo was taken sitting in traffic, at lunch time today. loved the serenity of it..
After work was another story. We had severe thunderstorm warning and a couple nearby counties had tornado warnings.

As always, go here to find links to many more participants of Skywatch Friday.

Skywatch time once again..

A few days ago, monday I think, we had a wicked sun shower...it was amazing. I was running from front door to back door seeing where the good pictures were. This one shows the darker clouds, but on the other side, was blue as could be..and the drops were huge, the sun was glinting off of the raindrops as I'd never seen! It was pretty sweet.


Tonight we had a pretty sever t-storm, i live about 5 miles from my work and it had passed home already. There was plenty of debris on the roads as evidence. I headed to my favorite spot to see what I could see, and this is what I got. I used the sunset setting to accentuate the pink in the sky just a little..











That's looking to the southeast, I saw an egret and several gulls hanging about, enjoying the weather after the storm.
Even someone jet skiing, lol