Long Time No Blog

This blog has gone so stale. After such a strong run for two years it seems strange. I don't have any internet connection where I am living now and the cost of getting one is more than I want to get involved with at this point in my situation. I can check email at work and essential things like my bank account, but things like social networking sites are blocked so even after working hours I can't get into this blog or read anybody else's. There are a few places I can get myself to in order to get unfettered access, such as where I am sitting at the moment, but it's just not part of my daily routine. Also the new job has proven to require very long hours so I really haven't had the wherewithal to keep up with this as I have in the past.

Besides work, a few things have entered my life that I thought I'd throw out here. I am living in a house with a dock that is on a canal adjoining the Caloosahatchee River a few miles from where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico. It was supposed to be very temporary for just a few months but now it looks like I can probably stay for the next year or so. Being here without a boat to get out on the water seemed almost unconscionable. So I did something about it. I bought an old sailboat. Cheap. It has some significant problems that need fixing before it can be sailed safely. And many more things that need doing to make it anything approaching nice. I'm actually wondering if I have bit off more than I can chew but we'll see. I won't go into all the details here, but here are a few pictures.

It's a 1975 O'day 27 foot masthead sloop. It has six feet of standing headroom inside and is set up to sleep five people.

This weekend I went down to Marco Island, about an hour south of here, to visit my aunt Vivian and her husband Wendell at the condo they have rented for a month each winter for the last four years. My cousin Randy and his family were down for the weekend. Randy is just a few years younger than me but married late and now finds himself a greying middle aged guy with two toddlers. He hasn't had a full night's sleep since his two year old was born. In fact, it sounds like he hasn't had more than an hour at a stretch since then. Let's just say I am so thankful mine are in their twenties. The crying wail of a terrible two coupled with long-term sleep deprivation is a game for young parents. Randy had never been on an airboat and somehow rallied the energy to want to take a ride out in the everglades. I got to go along and the craziest thing about the ride were these pelicans that would land on the boat and get right in your face. They must be used to getting fed something but I'm not sure what.

My bike has been basically dead for the last year. I finally got a line on what was wrong with it and found some rare new-old stock parts from a place in Wisconsin. Once again the internet made possible an otherwise impossible resurrection. I got it going again just in time for a visit from friend and former student Keith Hammack and his father-in-law, Joe. They flew into Orlando last week, rented two Harleys, and have been riding all over the southern half of Florida including a few days in the Keys. Today we took a very nice ride together up and down the length of Sanibel and Captiva islands. Keith got some great shots with his big gun Nikon D200 - an amazing camera system. If you like these there's more from their trip here:

http://laurenandkeith.blogspot.com/2008/02/day-six.html

http://laurenandkeith.blogspot.com/2008/02/dans-place.html

A few shots I took of them with Keith's camera are here:

http://laurenandkeith.blogspot.com/2008/02/day-five.html

The rest of Keith's blog is pretty much all pictures of his baby girl. Lot's of 'em. And they are some of the most amazing baby pictures you'll ever see. Not just a few. You will be blown away by how many superlative images there are. Never seen anything like the collection. And it grows almost daily. With quality that just doesn't stop. Truly remarkable.

It's been a year and 22 days since the divorce was final. It's been a traumatic walk but life has settled a bit emotionally over the months. I still have some very difficult moments but overall I'm doing okay. The job keeps me very busy and when I'm working I'm okay. I have plenty of things to keep my free time busy as well. But I would like some kind of resolution to my life beyond what exists now. What I get from God is to just wait. For what I have no idea. But I wait and I trust and I hope.