Italian Fest and Travel Days

Italian Festival
Abacoa, Florida
November 5, 2022

Happy, hopefully, last morning that we will Fall Back! Beginning this time next year, the United States will be permanently on Daylight Saving Time (DST) if the House of Representatives passes the bill adopting permanent DST! We do, however, Spring Forward again on March 12, 2023. While I have been touting that this was the last time we would have to Fall Back, it came to my attention that the House of Representatives has not ratified the bill and it is not yet law.  

We enjoyed a trip to the Italian Festival in Abacoa, Florida, yesterday. It was a good change of pace. We enjoyed some of the festivities and of course the food. Italian Sausage and peppers! MMMM. And of course I had to have a cannoli! The festival was held right near Roger Dean Stadium where I hope to see some Spring Training games next year as both the Cardinals and Marlins use the facility.

Today is a busy day as Chris and I head to Port Everglades to board Holland America's Nieuw Amsterdam and head off into the storm filled Caribbean for a week of enjoyment. Thus begins the fast-paced travel-filled holiday season. I expect to continue publishing my blog during the voyage, but the regularity may be somewhat questionable as we do have some early morning departures for excursions.

Bon Voyage!

Finally, congrats to the Astros for winning the World Series! They did it fairly this time.

-- Bob Doan, Tequesta, FL

Changing it up

Egret at the Golf Course
Jupiter Dunes, Jupiter, FL
November 4, 2022

 Friday was the day that Chris and I decided to change things up a bit.

That meant we skipped riding bikes and played golf! We actually grabbed our clubs and push carts and headed off to the local golf course to whack at the little ball. And we had fun! I actually did really well on 8 of the 16 holes recording 6 pars and 2 birdies. The other 8 holes, well, let's not discuss them. But, I made my goal of being a bogie golfer ending up exactly 16 shots over par! That kind of tells the story about how poorly the other 8 holes were played. 

Food Trucks Lined-up
Tequesta, FL
October 4, 2022

For the evening we went to Trucks 'n Tunes with a new friend and enjoyed some music and food truck food. It was a beautiful evening to be outside enjoying the music and the atmosphere. I especially enjoyed watching the kids run and play. 

Today we are planning on heading out to the Italian Festival in Abacoa. It should be a great fun time. And after that we will need to buckle down and finish packing for the cruise. 

In the middle of printing the baggage tags for the cruise yesterday, my 10-15 year old Canon printer decided that it no longer liked its print head. Ugh. I did some trouble shooting and finally took the advice of the YouTube repairer and tossed the printer into the trash. Fortunately, I had procrastinated in getting rid of the $15 thrift store acquired Canon printer we had bought for our home here in Florida when we were using it as a vacation home. I was able to press that printer back into service and finish printing the baggage tags! I will look into getting a new printer sometime after Christmas. The broken printer had served us well. As I recall I bought that one on some weird deal where Best Buy gave me more store credit to buy it that the cost of the printer. 

And that was Friday!

Don't forget--Daylight Saving Time ends tonight! 

I would not want you to be early for your first event tomorrow, lol.

-- Bob Doan, Tequesta, FL

Life Race

 There is an old country song "The Race is On" which was originally sung by George Jones during 1965. It has recently been redone by Sawyer Brown.

While the song is about losing at the game of love, the title seems appropriate for what Chris and I are experiencing in life right now. I cannot believe how busy we are right now. I know there were concerns that I would retire and not move, but without our daily exercise routine approaching two hours, I can assure everyone that we are busy and moving. I have already logged just short of 50 miles on my bike during the first three days of the month!

And travel time is upon us. 

Sunday, we sail out on a cruise for a week. Then we return home for a week before heading north for Thanksgiving. It remains unclear whether we will remain in Maryland through Christmas or return to Florida. We are considering a side trips to Ithaca and Houston. Talk about an aggressive holiday travel schedule.

The race is on.

Did I mention we are booked on an early-January cruise? 

And I thought retired life would be quiet.

The race is definitely on. 

-- Bob Doan, Tequesta, FL

Florida State Sound

I have a nomination for the State sound of Florida.

There is one sound that is so prevalent that it is everywhere and all of the time from early in the morning until the late evening.

Of course, the sound is most annoying. Living in a tropical environment there is always yard work and trimming happening. But it seems that I can never escape the noise of the gas-powered leaf blower. 

That is my nomination for Florida State Sound!

And it is obnoxious. 

I used to have one and I used it to clear the pool deck at our home in Maryland. I never liked the noise, but it was very limited in duration. But here, the din is constant.

I guess there are some things we just need to learn to accept.

I wish they could be made quieter, more like the sound of a broom.

-- Bob Doan, Tequesta, FL

Day of the Turkey

 

Turkey's on Display
Tequesta, FL
November 1, 2022

It is coming. 

The day of the turkey is almost at hand. 

With the arrival of November, the Halloween decorations are returned to their storage containers and the short season of the turkey arrives. 

Yesterday, we transitioned the decorations in our home from Halloween to Thanksgiving. Some of the pumpkins, which were not jack-o-lanterns, remained and were augmented with more harvest season oriented features. 

This is my favorite season of the year, but it is short. This year it is just 24 days. 

Thanksgiving is coming! Beware the Turkey!

Stay out of the way Santa!

-- Bob Doan, Tequesta, FL

Halloween Bust!

 We were prepared for the hordes of children that used to visit on Halloween in Maryland.

None came.

It was sad. 

We decided to watch Ghostbusters to enjoy the holiday more.

We know there are children in the neighborhood because we see them at the pool and the school bus stops. But none came by. 

We have a lot of candy left over with no prospects for getting rid of it other than eating it ourselves. That should be fun.

We were so disappointed in our neighborhood that we dressed Finnegan in his costume and took him out Trick or Treating to our friend's house. While there we at least got some smiles and enjoyed a large crowd of costumed kids enjoying the evening. 

We will plan something different for next year.

-- Bob Doan, Tequesta, FL

Monday Musings - October 31, 2022

 

1. Happy Halloween! It is the final Monday of October. Tomorrow November begins and there are just 8 Mondays remaining in the year. Where did the time go?

2. Family NFL Monday Morning Report. It was another good week for the family teams which went 3-1.

  Ravens (5-3) defeated Buccaneers (3-5), 27-22

  Cowboys (6-2) slammed Bears (3-5), 49-29

  Commanders (4-4) defeated Colts (3-4-1), 17-16

  Steelers (2-6) pummeled by Eagles (7-0), 35-13

Waves Crashing on Jupiter Island Beach
Jupiter, FL
October 30, 2022

3. Afternoons on the beach watching the sun set are just fantastic. I like the Atlantic because the sun is not in our eyes and the colors radiating from the west are almost as brilliant as the reds and pinks reflect off the clouds. Yesterday was more of the same, but the waves were crashing on the shore violently. 

4. I met a personal biking goal for October even though there remain one day in the month. With the 21.95 miles I biked yesterday, I am at 318.72 miles for October. I more than doubled September's 154.35 miles while beating my personal goal of biking 300 miles during the month. With the holidays and cruises upcoming during the next three months, it will likely be February before I can approach this kind of mileage again. It has been fun to get out and ride and I have enjoyed building my endurance.

5. Wanna buy a boat? That is a question that Chris and I ask each other when we see a boat for sale. We no longer have a pool to throw money into and so a boat might be a natural place to waste dollars. That written, there is NO BOAT in our immediate future.

6. Today in History. On October 31, 1517, legend has it that the priest and scholar Martin Lutherapproaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation.

In his theses, Luther condemned the excesses and corruption of the Roman Catholic Church, especially the papal practice of asking payment—called “indulgences”—for the forgiveness of sins. At the time, a Dominican priest named Johann Tetzel, commissioned by the Archbishop of Mainz and Pope Leo X, was in the midst of a major fundraising campaign in Germany to finance the renovation of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Though Prince Frederick III the Wise had banned the sale of indulgences in Wittenberg, many church members traveled to purchase them. When they returned, they showed the pardons they had bought to Luther, claiming they no longer had to repent for their sins.

Higher Interest Rates Fuel Losses at the Federal Reserve - The Wall Street Journal

Eurozone Inflation Rate Rises to 10.7% as Recession Looms - The Wall Street Journal

Over 130 People Dead in Bridge Collapse in India’s Gujarat State - The Wall Street Journal

DeSantis-Trump rift bursts into public view - CNN

Russia attacks critical infrastructure in Kyiv and other key Ukrainian cities - CNN

Seoul crowd disaster leaves South Korea reeling, as death toll rises to 154 - CNN

Grain ships sail despite Moscow's pullout from deal; missiles rain on Ukraine - Reuters

Oil falls on China COVID curbs and weak factory data - Reuters

Fearing COVID, workers flee from Foxconn's vast Chinese iPhone plant - Reuters

Democrats attack GOP over entitlements, with abortion leaving some unmoved - The Washington Post

-- Bob Doan, Tequesta, FL

Nine Days

 

Sunday has arrived. 

There are just nine days until Election Day and then, hopefully, the madness will abate for at least a while. 

The string of lies and untruths in candidates' commercials are appalling. Finding truth in our country right now seems to be like looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. 

Everyone has a spin. A twist. Or a downright untruth. 

I have seen ads that take truth out of context which makes it a lie. 

Soon, perhaps too soon, we will have a new Congress and then we will have to deal with a new set of problems and axe grinding issues. 

Well, at least the end (or is it the beginning?) is in sight.

-- Bob Doan, Tequesta, FL

Too Many Whites

 

Look at the Corner
Tequesta, FL
October 29, 2022

There are just too many different shades of white!

We finished painting the wall with the color that we thought matched the existing walls and once it was all done--wrong shade! I had even painted some of the color we were putting up onto the other wall, but for some reason, apparently, the difference in the shade cannot be recognized until and entire wall has been painted. 

So we get to do it all over again! Now was the shade Simply White or Distant Gray? I get so confused.

Ugh!  Oh wait, at $75/gallon!

Roiling Ocean of my Painting Woes
Jupiter, FL
October 28, 2022

After all of that I decided that I just needed to stand in the ocean and have it wash all of my cares away. 

It was off to Happy Hour on the beach for some relaxation. Well, mostly, there was a wedding happening on the beach and even though we were not directly in front of the ceremony, we were in offset line of vision of some of the people attending, they asked us to move. Mind you, they were at least a 100 yards behind us. It is a public beach, after all. We moved. 

And another idyllic (really, I chose that word?) day ends. I did manage a 21.25 mile bike ride in the morning! I am closing in on 300 miles for the month. 

-- Bob Doan, Tequesta, FL

Rolling out the Barrel

 

The weather this week continues to be enjoyable and Chris and I took advantage of yesterday from sunrise to sunset.

Chris on her Bike
Tequesta, FL
October 25, 2022

We began the day with an easy 14.5 mile bike ride. It was Chris's first ride on her new bike. I took it easy on her and by the end of the ride she had completely bonded with the bike. She took Wednesday off from riding due to a sore knee and so yesterday was the first real ride on the new bike.

The Wall in Progress
Tequesta, FL
October 27, 2022

As the day continued, it was finally time, after delaying it as long as possible, to break out the painting supplies and begin painting the wall in the dining room. Ugh! I hate painting. It turns out that I do not enjoy home repair/improvement projects that begin with "P". Plumbing and painting specifically. Posthole digging is right up there as well. The first coat of paint is on the wall and the second will be applied today. The newly whitened wall adds additional light to the room and the entire area. 

And then the evening. 

What to do for the evening?

Yes, Oktoberfest! The Town of Juno Beach held an Oktoberfest celebration complete with pretzels, bratwurst, beans, sauerkraut, and beer/wine. All included in the admission!

We rolled out the barrel and had a great time! We enjoyed the live accordion music (and Chris danced) until after dark. It was a great way to put an exclamation point on the day. 

-- Bob Doan, Tequesta, FL