Busy Day

Today is a busy day. I have dentist at 9, a meeting at the bank at 10, then I start an inventory with an accountant at 12.
Last night was too short. I was aware of the time passing too quickly while I was asleep, and the alarm was extra loud.

gekkos

How do you get rid of gekkos? Our house is full of them. Behind every picture on the wall, behind every piece of furniture, there are gekkos.
In Hawaii, having a gekko in your house is good luck. At first it was ok having a gekko in the house. Now there's just tooo many.
We tried mothballs, till the house smelled like an old folks home. We called exterminators, to get rid of the bugs that were supposedly the gekkos food.
But nothing works.
Next I'm going to try the sticky mousetraps, even though they're inuhmane.
How do you get rid of gekkos?

A clear Monday . . .

. . . After a cloudy rainy weekend.
I didn't leave the house all weekend, I don't think. The Wife went and got a micro chip put in our Dawg, Sheba, and she went and got some Cokes. I think that's it for her too.
Now it's back to work.
Friday I got my Cayman Islands passport, overshadowed by the fact that Friday was also my job interview for my job. It went OK, it just seems kind of degrading somehow.

Here's a pic I took last weekend, and just got off my camera this morning. It's a spider that had a web inside a bucket at the dive shop.

Laurel and Hardy Dance To The Gap Band

A little humor for your Friday!

Today is the day I get interviewed for my own job!

Caribbean Weather

Yesterday it was nice and sunny, I went to the beach for lunch. 10 minutes after I got there, it got cloudy, 15 minutes after that, it started to rain. By the time I got back on my scooter, it was pouring and I was soaked. By the time I got back to work, it was sunny again.
Typical
There is some weather forming, so today may or may not be a beach lunch day!

Sex Maniac?

Minor Bank Problems

I wire money to myself in the US every month, so I can pay my US mortgage by check, because my primitive mortgage company doesn't have online banking. The only check I write each month.
So, I mailed the check, transferred $1000 to my US account, and then did a wire transfer from my US account here to the US bank.
Then a couple of later, I get a call from the bank. I transferred the money, but not enough for the fee to wire it to the US. So they didn't do it.

So then I had to do the wire transfer over.

The check got to the bank at 8:30 AM, (they don't even open till 9). The wiire transfer got there at 10. So my check bounced, $30 fee. So now I'm $30 short for my mortgage payment, for which the check bounced, but I can't call them and tell them to try again, because there's only 970 for a $1000 check.
I sent up $500 yesterday to have a buffer. I'll see how long that will take to get there, should be instantaneous, but the banks like to hold the money for a while so they can use it. Also, the bank tends to nibble away at any buffer funds you put up there.
(I keep my $$$ in my CI Savings, and transfer to my US Savings to wire to the US. The US Savings here and the US account pretty much always have the minimum in them.)

Weekend Visitor

The other day, I was brushing Sheba, and I turned around and there was a bird on the railing I could have reached out and touched. She was so close and calm. I went and got my camera and took these pics.Happy First Day of Summer! The 2010 Summer Solstice is, to be official, started 21 June at 6:28 a.m. Cayman Time.

Today it's back to work, I don't wanna go! I need more weekend!

Cool Video

Pause the beginning to read the description! Really cool!

Spacecraft re-entering atmosphere.

Dog Swallows Cats!

From Faded Tribune

A dog almost died and needed an emergency operation after she wolfed down a family of toy cats.

Snowy the West Highland Terrier had to be operated on by vets after she swallowed five ceramic ornaments.
X-rays clearly showed the little cats inside the dog’s stomach.
Stunned owner Samantha Reed said: “I was shocked when the vets phoned to say Snowy had swallowed a few cats. I thought they meant real ones!”

See-Saw

I finished my online course, Computer Networking For Broadcast Engineers. It didn't take as long as I thought it would.
Now it's back to the Spanish!
Tomorrow is my Swearing-In as a citizen in the British Overseas Territories. It's like I'm becoming a Brit, but remaining a foreigner in the Cayman Islands.
My contract for work expires at the end of June, not the end of July, as I had thought. There are, apparently, half a dozen qualified Caymanian applicants. The law requires the interviewer to hire the qualified Caymanian. It's a good law, it sucks for me, but it's a good law. In the US they fire the American to give the job to the immigrant! Everyone tells me not to worry, I will keep my job, but you never know! The fine line for the decision maker is in deciding how qualified the qualified applicant is. Sometimes I'm confident and sometimes I'm scared to death!
It would be ironic for the Cayman Islands Government to give me a CI passport with one hand and take my job of 13 years with the other!

I Think Sheba Can FLY!

At first glance, it may appear that I have posted the same picture twice, but look closely! One is a C5 Galaxy Aircraft, and the other is my Dawg, Sheba. Look how her ears are precisely the same as the airplanes wings. I think Sheba could fly, if she knew she could! What do you think?

What to post today?

I woke up early this morning. I haven't made coffee, 'cause when I got up, I planned on going back to bed. Now the dawgs are bugging me for a walk, which means I probably am not going to make it back to bed.
Today is a Holiday here, Queens Birthday.
My contract is up for renewal at work, and I hear there are a lot of applicants. I'd worry, but it wouldn't do me any good.
Sometimes I worry anyway.


Woke up at 1AM to go see Comet McNaught, but it was in a streetlight. Woke up at 5AM and the sky was too bright.
Lately it has been nice ion the mornings and T-Storms in the afternoon. Gotta get out early today!

Picture post

Tiny Flowers, smaller than the end of an unsharpened pencil.
The temp on our back porch yesterday

By the way, today is Bruce Day. I never forget.

Extremely Localized Storm

This has been going on for two days.

It is sunny and cloudless in town, got to West Bay and see this storm off in the water. The cloud towers way up high, and it spreads out and expands and contracts.
Weird weather.

American Sports

I've always had two football teams, the Washington Redskins, and the New Orleans Saints.
I've always had two baseball teams, the Baltimore Orioles, and the St. Louis Cardinals.
The Redskins have been doing poorly the past several years, and this morning the Orioles were in the news for loosing again.
Guess that's why I haven't been paying much attention.

Can't think of a post

My mind is a perfect blank. I can't think of anything to post.
I signed up for an online course, Computer Networking For Broadcast Engineers. It is going well, but interfering with my Spanish studies.

In the news today, there's articles saying children raised in lesbian households were psychologically well-adjusted and had fewer behavioral problems than their peers.
I think that is really cool. I am sure I would be more psychologically well-adjusted and have fewer behavioral problems if I was raised by lesbians too, especially if they were really good looking! And neither one was my Mom.

But none of that is why I have no brain function this morning. Probably, (I just realized) because I have had zero coffee so far.

Over and out.

Yesterday

Sucked.
It was my first day back at work, and it was really hard to get in the groove. In fact, I don't think I got in the groove till I got back home after work.

Yesterday, I found out I had to fill out an application form for my job. In Cayman, when your job contract is up, or your work permit expires, the employer is required to advertise the position. My position has been advertised every year or two for the 13 years I've been here. But I never had to re-apply before.
So yesterday, I received an email dated May 20th, saying I had to re-apply. I was on vacation since the 13th. The application was due May 31st...
My boss said was because of the new Personnel Law from 2005, revised in 2006.
Wonder why I didn't have to fill out an application in 2008 when my contract expired?

Anyway, I got it all filled out, and am turning it in today. It's a pretty comprehensive job application.

BTW

By The Way, or, Back To Work.
I have been off work for:
17 vacation days
3 weekends
2 public holidays
That's almost a month.
This morning I am running around trying to get ready for work. It amazes me how much junk I need to carry around.
I can't find my cell phone case.

Misc pics

These pics are from my long long walk the other day. There's a lot more.

A shipwreck, you can probably find it in earlier posts of my blog.
A true waterbed. At The Ritz.

This is painted on the beachside door of a wrecked house on Boggy Sand Road. The house got underwashed by hurricane Ivan.See?
I never saw this before my walk, even though it is just up the beach a few meters from where I have always been going to the beach. I think it's an old turtle holding pond, full of sand. There is a trench from the sea and a hole that lets the water in.See?

Everyone on TV reads the same newspaper

Yeah, it's a stolen post! I stole it from HERE. It was fast 'n easy for a Saturday!

I've never noticed same the newspaper, but I see many times on TV that everybody seems to have the same Apple laptop!

Cory Doctorow at 2:06 AM Saturday, Jun 5, 2010

Everybody on TV and in movies reads the same newspaper, it seems. And they've been reading that standard newspaper prop for decades. At a guess: paranoid studio lawyers don't want to use real newspapers because they think that they might get a copyright complaint from the paper (despite this incidental use being clearly fair use), so they insist that set-dressers all use the same prop that's fully rights-cleared.

Last Vacation Day

Today is my last vacation day. I took 17 days vacation time, which is over three weeks. Monday I go back to work, glad I still have the weekend!

Wild Horse Escape!

Looked out the back window yesterday and saw this girl in our backyard!She had gotten loose, I put her back where she was supposed to be!

The long walk

Yesterday I had to take my scooter (The Iron Horse) in for some repairs. I took the repair places courtesy bus back into town, where I had a cuppa coffee with my wife at her work. Then I walked to the grocery store, where I wanted an egg sandwich, but they didn't have any, so I got a power bar. Then I walked to the Wharf Restaurant where I hit the beach. I walked on the beach all the way past West Bay Public Beach, till I couldn't walk any more. Then I got on the road and came home.
This morning my ribs are sore on my back under my shoulders, I'da thunk my legs would be sore, but just my upper outer back.
I hope someday I do that walk again!

Police Helicopter

The Police here have a new helicopter. It seems all they do is hover as still as possible over my house. This pic is from last week, they were there again today. Very annoying.