You MUST go see this.

This little animated photo will crack you up.

I'm quite sure of this because it cracked me up.

And we all know, that I know, funny.

Breakin'! Obama pic taken after leaving the convention.

Picture Post, Sunday August 24, 2008

Well, we got plenty of rain this past week.

Tropical Storm Fay made it's way across Florida from the Gulf of Mexico and the center stayed over Brevard County for two full days.

That meant that the southern part of the storm below the eye was right over where we live and work.

The company I work for ended up staying closed for three days, T,W, and Thu. Of course they're making us work weekend days in September to make up for them, but on the whole, I'm glad I didn't have to get out in the storm.

Lovely wife's company is based in Connecticut or somewhere up there and they were open every day, but they kept letting everyone go early, and finally so much of the county was flooded, that they gave up trying to make people come in.

It was a bad storm for three full days, but still wasn't as scary as the hurricanes we've sat through, so although the power kept going off, it would soon come back on, so that we really weren't roughing it. We had air conditioning and cable, and no damage, so we really made out fine.

I believe we ended up getting 15-20 inches of rain at our house, while about ten miles north of us, some got 20-25 inches. Lost of homes got flooded, but thankfully ours wasn't one of them.

---

A few weeks ago, we went to a part in Titusville, Florida, on the mainland directly across from Kennedy Space Center and visited Space View Park and the U. S. Space Walk of Fame there.

They have monuments to the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo missions and the astronauts and the people who worked on the space program that ended up putting Americans on the moon.

Here are a few pics from the different areas of the park. (I had already posted some photos of the Mercury monument last November.)

This first photo turned out better than it looked in the viewfinder. It's looking through Space View Park and across the Indian River Lagoon to NASA's Vehicle Assembly Building where the Apollo rockets and the shuttles were and are built, housed, and repaired until being driven out onto one of the launch pads. The VAB is the fourth largest building in the world.


Here, we're about to enter the Apollo memorial part of the park. You can see the "A" shape of part of the memorial in the right side of this next photo.


Here's a closer shot of the Apollo Symbol, that's the moon on the left side of the bar crossing the "A" and the earth on the right side of the cross bar.


Here's Neil Armstrong's hand prints and photograph. The first man on the moon and one of my childhood heroes and a total class act. A great and humble man. They had most of the other Apollo astronaut's hand print with the exception of those like Gus Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Ed White who were killed in Apollo 1 training, and also missing others who had died before the monuments and hand prints were made.


This is the memorial to the Gemini program which was just before the Apollo program. You can see the VAB in the background of this photo too.


Have a great Sunday folks!

(I posted a couple of photos of a neat customized Chrysler PT Cruiser on my photography blog today. If you don't get over there much, go check it out. The PT Cruiser is owned by, and in front of, Ron Jon Surf Shop in Cocoa Beach, Florida.)

Snow Tropical Storm Day

We don't get snow days in Florida, but sometimes we get storm days.

I was working late last night and a company email showed up in my inbox and said the company will be closed Tuesday because Tropical Storm Fay was supposed to whiz by to the west of us Tuesday evening.

That's cool. Although they'll have us make it up later by working a Saturday or something, I sure look forward to sleeping late before the storm gets bad.

I just hope we don't lose power for nine days again in this heat and humidity.

Hiatus

Sorry folks.

Lots going on at work. Life is eat, sleep, work right now.

Be back when I can.

Picture Post, Sunday August 3, 2008

On Saturday, Lovely Wife, Number Two Daughter and I took our niece to the Orlando airport for her to go home to Utah.

She'd stayed with us for two weeks, and gee whiz, that was a fast two weeks. We were bummed to see her go.

I took my camera (of course) and on the way home we stopped a couple of places and I took a bunch of photos, something I haven't done in a while.

This first photo is of a Disney Store in the Orlando airport. Orlando and all of it's attractions are designed by experts to separate you from as much cash as possible. Turns out that the Orlando airport is like a shopping mall, with the intent of separating you from the last few dollars you may have after an Orlando vacation.

This one isn't special, but I liked this small view of part of the Orlando Airport. It was a beautiful day, though really hot.

It had been a couple of years (at least) since I had been to Ron Jon Surf Shop in Cocoa Beach, so we stopped by there on the way home. It wasn't too big of a detour out of our way. I love going to the place because it is truly a store that is a tourist destination in it's own right. We didn't spend but a few dollars there, but it's always worth walking around and looking at this amazing store and it's STUFF.

This is a view of the outside of Ron Jon Surf Shop in Cocoa Beach.


And this is a view on the inside of Ron Jon's, and this photo only takes in about on third of the store. I like this place and I've never even tried to surf before, and probably never will.

Here's another shot inside the Ron Jon store.


Have a great Sunday folks!

Obama Plays The Race Card Early

Wednesday, The Barack of Obama threw down the race card in the US presidential contest.

He's told America that he was a different kind of politician, but it looks like he's just more of the same Democratic tradition.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) - Democrat Barack Obama, the first black candidate with a shot at winning the White House, says John McCain and his Republican allies will try to scare them by saying Obama "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

Stumping in an economically challenged battleground state, Obama argued Wednesday that President Bush and McCain will resort to scare tactics to maintain their hold on the White House because they have little else to offer voters.

"Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said. "You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

Do you notice there what Obama is saying?

Notice the "will try to say...", and "they're going to do...", McCain "will resort to..."?

No facts at all, just conjecture.

He doesn't have one instance of ANY Republican saying that Obama doesn't look like the Presidents on dollar bills. Not one instance.

Instead, Mr. Different Kind of Politician is trying to create non-existent Republican racism by making racist statements himself. He has NO examples of racism said about him other than the racism shown toward him my his fellow Democrats from the heatied primaries with Mrs. Clinton, so Obama puts racist words into the mouths of non-existent racist opponents.

The Barack of Obama tries to make enemies of fictional racist Republicans, but the only thing he's succeeded in is showing that he WANTS a racist enemy on order to gain more sympathy for himself.

Sorry Barack, it ain't working. I grew up in Louisiana public schools, but even I'm not dumb enough to fall for your lying about what you think Republicans "might" say some day in the future.

Obama is trying to create a racist "problem" where there is none.

Obviously, Obama is playing the race card himself in the absence of any real racism, and by doing this shows that he himself is guilty of racism.

I once heard a co-worker say that black people could not be racist. That only white people could be racist. Mr. Obama proves today the falsehood of this former co-worder of mine's claim.

I sure have disagreed with the policies Barack Obama has built his campaign on, and I disagree with many of the lame generic pronouncements in his speeches, but I've tried to carefully consider him ONLY on his policy stances.

But he sure has proved today that he isn't beyond a lame attempt himself to create racist scandals where there are none.

He's living proof that having a Harvard law degree doesn't mean you're smart.

Please go read the article and pay close attention to Obama's quotes. You'll notice that he has no actual examples of the racism he's talking about, he is, time after time, putting words into mythical racist Republican's mouths, with no actual quotes other than his own falsehoods.

The Democrats have proven so far that they are the party filled with racists:

Democratic Senator Joe Biden on Barack Obama - "I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy," Biden said. "I mean, that's a storybook, man."

David Ehrenstein in the Los Angeles Times - 'But it's clear that Obama also is running for an equally important unelected office, in the province of the popular imagination — the "Magic Negro."'

Harry Belafonte - "In the days of slavery, there were those slaves who lived on the plantation and [there] were those slaves that lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master ... exactly the way the master intended to have you serve him. Colin Powell's committed to come into the house of the master. When Colin Powell dares to suggest something other than what the master wants to hear, he will be turned back out to pasture."

I'm not stupid enough to believe that there are no racist Republicans, but I do absolutely believe that there is at least one racist Democrat for every racist Republican.

Mr. Obama strikes a low blow here today by projecting on Republicans the racist things he thinks they might say about him in the future.

To quote the great philosopher Gomer Pyle, "For shame, for shame, for shame," Mr. Obama.

Sorry to bring up politics again, but this just got under my skin.

The Atlanic Ocean Last Night (Mon. July 28)

We went out to eat last night after I got off of work, and then went over to the ocean to take in the view.

It was almost dark, but the Atlantic was as green and as calm I have ever seen it.

The wind was very light but it sure was pretty.



Here's the western view toward the sunset over the Lagoon.