Over the recent holiday weekend, the kiddo and I traveled up to the Suwannee to spend the post-Thanksgiving weekend with our old grandma / great-grandma and assorted aunts, uncles and cousins. We saw this lovely swamp:
In addition to that, we saw copious wildlife that was too fleet of foot to be photographed. I quit counting after a dozen white-tailed deer.
We played Scrabble with Grandma, who cleverly attempted to leverage her advanced age to cheat by passing off not-words as words. At first, we let her. Then we started calling bullshit, and she miraculously regained her clarity about what constitutes an actual word.
Right now, I’m drinking black coffee and waiting for the first faint fingers of dawn to tickle the horizon so I can walk my doggies. Please feel free to discuss whatever.
Schlemazel
Been awake since 11:30 last night. Read for an hour and a half then tried to go back to bed. laid in bed an hour, gave up got up to read some more. Tried to go to sleep, wasted another hour said screw & am going to work early because why not? Today should be a complete joy
Jay C
Nice to know someone else is up nice and early! I got up to go to the loo at 4:20, and realized I was suddenly wide awake, and now probably will be all day, now. But is IS nice to know (no snark) that the Internet is open 24/7 –
Betty Cracker
@Schlemazel: Oy, that sucks. I was able to go to sleep at a reasonable hour last night, but staying asleep, not so much.
eric nny
I hate that waking up early biz. Makes me cranky all day not that I need help in that area.
Poopyman
Fun fact: Did you know roosters crow all night long? Especially if there’s a neighbor roost to crow to.
Oh well, time to go to work anyways. Dawn will come late today, through the heavy rain. The commute will be a joy.
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemazel: I did sleep last night, 6-7 hrs in 1-2 hr chunks. Best I’ve done in over a week, so I’m feelin’ pretty good right about now. Hope you survive the day.
Schlemazel
@Betty Cracker:
I am reading “The Girl That Played with Fire” and have noticed a theme in his books. Could have knocked me over with a feather when I found out he worked with exploited and abused women. His main character certainly avenges a lot of the anger he must have built up on the job. I don’t find the second book as compelling as “Tattoo” but its not bad, a bit disturbing.
raven
Back from the beach, the drive is only 6.5 hrs but we were wiped out. One last sunrise pic.
tybee
@raven:
catch anything note worthy? i mean fish-wise.
Betty Cracker
@Poopyman: I didn’t know that. I have all hens, and they snooze quietly from dusk til dawn.
@Schlemazel: “Tattoo” was the best of the lot, IMO, but I got so attached to Lisbeth that I kept reading just to find out what became of her. I did not know the author worked with abused women.
@raven: That’s a beautiful picture. The dunes are so pretty on that part of the coast. So different from the rest of the FL coastline.
raven
@tybee:Not really, I could only get out on a 5hr and all we could keep were mingo, vermillion and white snapper. The trip was fun and the Cap’n put us on a ton of trigger that were fun to catch but they went back too. I changed to snelled hooks and had a hit in the surf that was a reel burner. I never saw it but when I got it close it snapped one hook line and there was nothing at all on the other. My buddy thought it was probably a mackerel. My last day I fished from 9am till sunset and got ZERO hits. A guy next to me caught a pomp and that was is. All in all the fishing was ok, I kept saying I wasn’t going to thrown my 12 pole and that I wasn’t going to keep going out chest-high to the second sandbar, but I did.
raven
@Betty Cracker: I learned that the white sand is from granite that washed down from the Georgia mountains!
raven
White beaches,
divF
It’s 3:20 am on the left coast, and between a bad cold and my chronic sleep disorders it’s been kinda sucky. We’re getting another night of blessed rain though.
Betty Cracker
@raven: Huh! I’ve always wondered why the sand was so different in the Redneck Riviera. Now I know!
BillinGlendaleCA
@raven: Got some pics of those beaches. One of the local outdoor malls is having “snow”. I’m not sure what it’s made of, but looked realistic.
Mustang Bobby
Woke up at 2:15 a.m., posted the regular morning post at BBWW, tried to go back to sleep before the alarm went off, and couldn’t do it. So it was up and at ’em if “at ’em” means a glass of grapefruit juice, a cup of coffee, and scanning Newsblur to see what the rest of the blogosphere considers to be important. Now I’m doing monthly projections. Oh joy oh rapture.
@Poopyman: I work in downtown Miami, but it’s not unusual at all for me to hear roosters crowing from the nearby neighborhoods that comprise a portion of Little Haiti when I come into work before dawn.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: I was just reading in my chicken book that when there are no roosters, some hens will take over the roll and crow. Here’s hoping one of yours doesn’t decide to become the cock of the walk.
@raven: All sand comes from granite. So does all clay. All of my Ozark sand must be down in the Gulf cause all I got left is the clay. (and chert nodes, but that is a different geological process)
JPL
Raven and Betty your pictures are beautiful. It’s nice to know that with age comes the ability to win by cheating.
Twenty seven percent think it’s okay all the time.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
There’s also feldspar sand and limestone sand.
For example, the Caribbean isn’t particularly known for its granite deposits. That sand mostly is created from the corals and shells in surrounding reefs.
And here in Hawaii, there are (besides white coral sands) also red sand and black sand derived from eroded lava.
Deecarda
Caught up on sleep after spending 14 hours on the parking lot that was I 81 Sunday, should have been a 10 hour ride back to NC. Had a great holiday home in NE PA – family, friends, food & fun.
greennotGreen
I’m with my friend in Atlanta to volunteer for a day working in the back greenhouses of Atlanta Botanical Garden, one of the best botanical gardens in the U.S., IMHO. We do this about three or four times a year. Amazing how working on one’s own plant collection can sometimes feel onerous, but working in another one (all day!) can be fun.
Baud
I hope this means he’s giving up on his show.
Baud
Grandma: “Dungeree” IS a word. We used it in the 50s. Stupid young whippersnappers.
danielx
Starting a new contract today, which made a perfect excuse to go out and buy tools and things last evening. ( I did need a spiffy new 20 volt cordless drill/driver. Really!) Any excuse to buy tools.
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax:
Feldspar is one of the roots of granitic rocks (changing to “granitic” because I am including all intrusive and extrusive igneous rocks, messy I know but it simplifies) and limestone, being a sedimentary rock, gets what sand is within it from earlier eroded igneous rock formations. So does sandstone as it also is sedimentary***. Corals and shells are not “true” sand as their main mineral is calcium carbonate (and are the main ingredients in limestone), where true sand is silica.
Once upon a time nearly all the glass in America came from the St Peters sandstone formation here in eastern Missouri. I very much doubt that is still true but quite a bit is still mined here for glass due to it’s purity in this location.
***metamorphic rocks such as marble are also sedimentary in origin.
NotMax
@Deecarda
Some beautiful areas in that neck of the woods. At one time lived so far out in the boonies there that had to dial 1 to make a local call, 1-1 to call long distance. Also too, party line (our ring was three shorts).
raven
@greennotGreen: Right next to the Piedmont Driving Club!
Mustang Bobby
@Baud: I would pay money to watch Joe Scarborough take on the St. Louis Rams players. Just tell me where to send the get-well card.
raven
@Baud: HIs bullshit about the people on the house floor was worse. His whole schtick is predicated on the idea that the grand jury PROVED something.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: I need to clarify that not all metamorphic rocks have sedimentary origins. Marble starts out as limestone that is metamorphosed by heating, marble is “cooked limestone”.
Baud
@Mustang Bobby:
Put Joe in a Raiders uniform!
@raven:
The grand jury process proved something to me about the state of the legal system in Missouri. But I guess that’s not what Joe meant.
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: That is the prevailing sentiment on the right and sometimes the ignorant conclusion of some on the left. I am getting tired of explaining the grand jury process to people.
NotMax
Silly bit of fluff, yet not an entirely far-fetched scenario about a political machine which backs an idiot (“so dumb that every time he opens his mouth he subtracts from the sum total of human knowledge”) candidate, The Dark Horse,” coming up at 10:15 a.m. Eastern on TCM.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud:
The grand jury process is pretty much the same all over the country and just as open to abuse and manipulation anywhere else.
Iowa Old Lady
@OzarkHillbilly: Your “chicken book”? Does it show them in roasting pans?
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly:
Right. There was nothing unfair about the rules. It was the people involved that corrupted it.
PurpleGirl
@raven: You do take good pictures. You have a good sense for composition. Please keep showing them to us.
greennotGreen
@raven: Is that golf or cars? Anyway, yes it is located within Piedmont Park.
On a completely different note, (but related to a previous thread on street harrassment,) have any northerners who’ve moved to the south been surprised by being greeted on the street by strangers? Since I’ve lived all but two years of my life in the south, I don’t think about it, but I wonder if it strikes others as remarkable.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: The rules, such as they are, are written for that express purpose. The older I get, the more I learn, the angrier I get. There are days when I have to completely unplug from all the insanity.
greennotGreen
@Baud: I think there is perhaps a problem with the relevant law being too vague. But the main problem is that too many people think that all black men are threatening, and therefore deadly force used against them is always justified. This makes me both sad and exceedingly pissed off.
bemused
@Betty Cracker:
I don’t have a problem falling asleep initially. I will sleep maybe 5 hours, wake up and then the struggle to get back to sleep starts. This began when I simultaneously was under a great deal of stress and beginning menopause night sweats which eventually went away but the sleep issue didn’t. It’s really annoying to see how easily my husband can take a 15-20 minute catnap in his chair, wake up, head to bed and sleep like a baby the rest of the night. I used to be a champion sleeper, sigh.
debbie
@Schlemazel:
I hate those kind of nights, but at least you’ll sleep really well tonight.
gvg
Caribbean sand comes from coral and shells that have been eaten by parrot fish and pooped clean. When you snorkle around them you can hear them chewing in the water all the time. Busy parrotfish! The parrotfish are one of the species that change sex for reproductive reasons and are one of the species I think of when ever religious fundamentalists go on about what isn’t natural. They really don’t know how many different odd arrangements are “natural”. Frankly humans can’t imitate nature because we aren’t that flexible. It’s just something that enables me to keep my sense of humor.
raven
@greennotGreen:
raven
@PurpleGirl: Thanks, it’s pretty easy down at the beach. I have some great pics of my bride but she throws a fit when I put them on FB, if I put one here she’d really be mad!
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: But then you get to make up… nudge nudge… wink wink… know what I mean know what I mean?
raven
@OzarkHillbilly: bye bye
Josie
@bemused: You are describing my sleep habits exactly. I wake up after 5 or 6 hours and then doze on and off until time to get up. I have the television on to something boring, like news or sports or the ID channel. I know you are not supposed to do that, but it is the only way I can drift off again.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@bemused: I heard a show on our local NPR station a week or so ago (the hosts are from Virginia Tech, I think) on the history electric lighting. (People used to be able to see the Milky Way on Manhattan!) One of the segments talked about “first sleep” and “second sleep”. Before electric lighting, supposedly it was common for people to sleep 4 hours, wake up around midnight, mess around, talk to the neighbors, party, etc., for an hour or two, then go back to bed for another 4 hours or so. Electric lighting and shift work ended that according to the guest.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep
Maybe 8 hours of sleep is “unnatural” for us. Something to think about, maybe…
Good luck.
Cheers,
Scott.
Punchy
The wife and I argue every time we play Scrabble (and we play a lot) about what’s a word and what’s not. She’ll allow Span-glish words when it suits her tiles, but bounce my Lat-glish when I’m about to smoke a triple word score. A more hyper-competitive event we could not compete in. Family members other than my mom refuse to play with us.
bemused
@Josie:
I do the tv thing more often than I should with sound low even though I know it’s not recommended. I realized that even with the sound low, it would be better to find a channel a lot more boring than the news for background noise when I have woken up from an unsettling dream that was incorporating disturbing news reports on the tv.
If I get 7 hours sleep in a row, I’m ecstatic.
debbie
Another reason to hate Michigan:
https://time.com/3611812/pontiac-police-michigan-stop-man-hands-pockets-cold/
NotMax
@Baud
Dungarees are what we used to call jeans. It may be an accepted variant, but have never seen it spelled with that e in place of the a.
bemused
@I’mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet:
I read that too and it made sense to me!
This 4-5 hour sleep cycle seems to be a lot more common among women of a certain age, cough. Female friends my age and I joke that we should be texting or emailing each other around 2 or 3 am when so many of us are wide awake.
Iowa Old Lady
@Baud: The nerve of those blah football players. Don’t they know they’re there for Joe’s amusement only?
Betty Cracker
@gvg: I had no idea parrotfish played such an important role in beach creation! Your description of their gender switcheroo reminds me of a similar story I heard from a guide at the Florida Aquarium when my mom, daughter and I visited there years ago. I think the guide was talking about groupers. But anyway, when he told us they could change sex, my mom said, “Mrs. RuPaul’s fish sticks!” and cracked everyone up.
D58826
Huffington has a bit on the guy that shot up Austin last week
Just another Murkin exercising his 2nd amendment rights
gene108
@raven:
White sand is from the quartz in the granite. Sand is basically what happens to quartz, when you smash it to little itty bitty pieces.
The black sands usually come from biotite in igneous rocks.
Places like Hawaii that have mostly basalt rocks, which have a higher biotitie content than granites, end up having black sand beaches.
Betsy
How does one become an early riser?
Steeplejack
@NotMax:
It’s got my favorite pre-Code horn dog in it, Warren William.
And, oh, where is Mnemosyne? At 11:45 TCM is showing Under Eighteen, which is William at his horn-doggiest. And lots of good pre-Code subtext. I think it’s my favorite Warren William movie.
Steeplejack
@greennotGreen:
I experienced the opposite. When I moved from Atlanta to NoVA I was nonplussed to find that when I was out jogging or walking and said hi to someone I passed they would studiously ignore me. Now I keep quiet, but it feels weird. Just a regional thing, I guess.
Mike E
@Betsy: Work an early shift job! Especially one that varies how early you’re due to arrive according to planned events, like security at a conference center. I’ve been scheduled more than a few times at 4a…4:30, 5, 5:30 are even more common :-(
You eventually get used to it.
JB
There’s a place on the Suwanee river called Ichetucknee Springs, a state park with a short walk to a thing called Blue Hole, a pool in the midst of a cypress swamp with a huge spring coming up in the center, so the water is a couple feet higher than the sides & bubbling up. You should go there & take a swim. I thought, holy sh*t, this must be that fountain of yoot them cats was looking for.
Betty Cracker
@JB: I know it well. And yeah, it probably is the Fountain of Yoot!
JB
@Betty Cracker: I gotta get back there soon. I need a booster shot bad.
http://www.acurioushead.com/
Robert/Nick: Many thanksfeedback. I would be interested to know of any kind of rewards to your WEB OPTIMIZATION advertisments as soon as this can be put in place.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@acurioushead.com: You wouldn’t be spamming us, would you?
:-/
Cheers,
Scott.
Betsy
@JB: ah, Itchetucknee. Long may it flow.