Midnight in Mobile

What to do in Mobile Alabama with 24 hours to kill? Well, in my case start off with some night pics of downtown and the U.S.S. Alabama. Tomorrow I’m going exploring at the Battleship park and taking lots of pics along the way. This is a cool place to spend a few hours, not only is the Battleship here, there is the U.S.S. Drum, a WW2 submarine you can go into and a plithera of aircraft to check out. And then there is the Alabama coastal birding trail to check out as well as armored vehicles and a bunch of other stuff. So, I’ll keep busy today and be totally bushed by noon, just in time to hit the rack and get up and drive to Houston for Sunday evening. Another thing I get to do is find just the right pic for the Sunday Challenge…YIPPEE!
Hava great day…Ed

The next 15 years…

Well on to my next series, the late 70’s and through the early 90’s. I admit in the 80’s I had a massive crush on Joan Jett and Cindy Lauper, I have no idea why. The 80’s were my favorite time, I graduated from high school and joined the Army after being turned down by the Navy for a history of asthma. The Army recruiter told me to move to another state, wait a year and try the Army but don’t mention the asthma. So, off I went to Texas and waited, and on my 21st Birthday I was sworn into the Army and that is another adventure that could take a week of posts to describe. After the Army in 93′ I got a job in home health care and enjoyed that until I lost that job and went to Arizona for a year and worked for the Arizona department of corrections, and then back to Texas ( pappa was a rolling stone…) Then after finding out I could’nt start working for the Texas department of corrections for 6 months and watching Smokey and the bandit for the 50th time I decided to give truck driving a try and what do ya know, I LOVE IT! and have been doing this for the last 13 years.
This kinda sounds like a job resume, but I just like to write and after a 10 hour driving shift I get a bit loopy. Well enjoy the gallery, and I’ll make the trip around the blog block and see what everyone’s up to.
Later…Ed

Little Eddie

I came kicking and screaming into this world on April 18, 1965 which happened to be Easter Sunday. As I remember it was a rough trip into this world, I did’nt want to come out. My mom was in labor for 3 days and I guess I kept grabbing her pelvis trying not to ride the water slide of life. Eventualy I decided to check out this bright light and WHOOSH, out I popped, slid, whatever and some idiot smacked me around abit and tossed me to my mom and thus began my 43 year journey on this planet. In the above gallery you will see some of the highlights I choose to display for your amusement including my poor mom just after I made her life a lot more interesting, my facination with boxes and beer bottles, my attempt at joining the gymnastics team with the help of dad, the day I was attacked by ducks and the famous leaderhosen I lived in for a week thanks to some family friends. I had alot more pics but these were the most amusing. I even tossed in a pic of me on the farm helping out with the corn. We did’nt farm but rented from the farmer.
Well I hope you enjoy these and feel free to comment, I know my mom will leave a lengthy comment and add to this tale of my life so far…
Later..Ed
p.s. I left some extra comments on each pic, just click on them to see.

Wordless Wednesday

Streets of Laredo

I’ll have to make this short today, I’m in Laredo Texas and even though its the 4th largest city in Texas, it seems that Sprint believes they don’t need high band wireless here. To put it mildly the wireless here is slower than a sloth after a thanksgiving meal. There isn’t much to do here anyway, its basically a truck border crossing with hundreds of brokers and forwarders moving trailers south into Mexico and vice versa.
So with that said I hope everyone has a great day.
Later….Ed

Mucho Machismo

Saturday night or more like Sunday morning I made the mistake of trying to work on my laptop and have breakfast at IHOP. Well I got there around 1:30am and claimed my turf and set up my laptop, got the obligatory urn of coffee and settled in to work on my Sunday Stills post. As I sat there I realized it was Saturday night and very soon the restaraunt would be full of some very interesting people. I told the server I would be gone pretty quick and she talked me into hanging around since she did’nt want the booth occupied by an obnoxious drunk that she seemed sure was going to show up. I replied that it could’nt be that bad and she just rolled her eyes and smiled, so I decided to hang around for the show, and I was glad I did.
One of my hobbies is watching people and studying human nature and believe me this evening was going to be funner than going to the zoo. As the various bars closed the IHOP began to fill up with all sorts of people filling the spectrum of racial backgrounds, and the IHOP manager was very good at mixing it up. One thing I have learned is you don’t put a tiger and a lion in the same cage, they will fight for dominance and apparantly this was happening verbally, so far with the different groups of young bargoers this evening. The predominate groups were the Latinos, and hip hoppers doused with alot of cheap cologne and the smell of beer and whisky, and more testosterone that you can shake a stick at. But if this is a fire the gasoline were the females! I’ve seen some well dressed party goers but these were not the ones. Being in texas there was alot of wanna be country folk in the arena, lots of sparkly shirts, skintight jeans and HEELS! I swear on girl had skintight jeans and 6 inch heels, but more about the leaning tower of pisa later. The other group of ladies chose the spandex and stripper glitter road and heels and both groups could be heard judging each other at a level of voice anyone could hear. Comments like ” look at that tramp followed by giggles” the Latinos chose their native tongue which I know a little of and held my laughter.
Well the guys started eyeballing each other just looking for a little disrespect and puffing up like roosters till the catalist of the evening showed up. I’ll try to be nice but I admit I have no tact, so here it goes.
She entered the restaraunt unstable to begin with with skintight jeans and shirt and on 6 inch heels, the problem was lets say her center of gravity was drawing others to her, including her skinny little boyfriend who walked in looking like a cross between gunfighter from the 1800’s and an extra from the movie Scarface. Well after demanding a window seat and making a loud and obnoxious entrance and chastising her boyfriend for something that happened earlier she took 3 steps and in slow motion wobbled and went face first into the carpet!!! The restarant exploded in laughter and her boyfriend lost it and started yelling at the amused patrons to stop disrespecting him! HIM! He never tried to help her up. His stupid machismo mind had him disrespected and he wanted to fight (thank you alcohol). Well I bit my lip trying not to laugh too but the laughter died down and the little strutting peacock and his friends decided not to hang around and left with drunk girlfriend in tow asking what happened…Well I made a comment to the server about the excitement of the evening and she just smiled and said “typical Saturday night at the IHOP”
Not wanting to push my luck I decided to pack up and vacate my booth and headed back out to the truck.
I think I prefer the zoo, at least the animals are behind moats and walls there..:-)
Later…Ed

Sunday Stills Challenge

I present to you the King of the Beasts in all his regal splendor.

I’m not too political

I don’t get to watch too much news on the road and I try not to mix in politics but a recent “executive order” by president O’bama has me worried. Why close the most secure prison we have for detaining terrorists???? What are they going to do with these scumbags? Put them in our prisons here on the mainland, put them in Levenworth? If you put them in regular federal prisons they will become leaders of the radical muslims in these populations, If you put them in Levenworth it will become a target as will be the regular prisons. Gitmo is heavily defendable on an island 90 miles from the mainland, here on the mainland it is easy to get here and trust me federal prisons are not that secure from the outside in. I worked for the Arizona departmant of corrections for a year, and while getting out is difficult, getting in, well…..
I assume they are closing Gitmo because of waterboarding, well just stop waterboarding and keep them there, where it is secure. Quit procrastinating and give these people a trial, if they are guilty give them the just punishment and if not guilty turn them loose in their home country. I respect the presidents decisions and I wish him well, but I think this is a big mistake.. If anybody has any thoughts on this I’d like to hear them.
See ya’ll tomorrow for some Sunday Stills fun.
Later…Ed

One more Day at the Zoo

Well, I just could’nt resist one more day to wander. It was quiet for about an hour, the the school groups started to arrive and the screaming hoards decended upon the peaceful quiet sanctuary. As I moved quickly, trying to stay ahead of the screaming mobs I realize I can hear is another group advancing in my direction from the opposite side of the zoo. Trying to keep ahead is futile and I resign myself to a fate worse than watching the movie Appaloosa. So I find a nice park benck and wait. After awhile the groups move on and I get to go into the Natural Encounters exhibit (tropical rainforests) in hopes of capturing a pic of a Golden Lion Tamarind and my worse fears were realized.. The little snotdragons had mucked up the glass by putting their dirty,slimy little didgets all over the glass. Shooting in low light is bad enough but through glass, dirty glass? Well as I stood there defeated a group of zoo staff came out with windex and paper towels and got the glass cleaned up for the next group. That must be an all day job, but one greatly appreciated by yours truley. The rest of the morning was as expected, beautiful, sunny and warm. Tomorrow I’m back on the road in search of more miles and more pics…
Later…Ed

Birthplace of Texas

Well, my 3rd day off took me to San Jacinto, the birthplace of Texas where on April 21st 1836 general Sam Houston with 700 men soundly defeated general Santa Anna and 1200 of his best troops. In 18 minutes the battle was over and the next day Santa Anna was captured and given the choice of being executed or signing over all land to the republic of Texas, guess which option he took? Anyway it is a great place to visit and the monument is astounding. I took the elevator to the top for some photos and the view was amazing, 489 feet to the top.
After that I went across the road to see the Battleship Texas and the area Sam Houston used as a camp before the battle. Pretty interesting if I may say.
Then it was a ferry ride across the channel to one of my favorite spots to photograph Brown Pelicans. I used this time to practice taking pics of them in flight, not to bad if I may say so.
The pics in the gallery are some of my favorites form yesterday including pics of the monument at night and sunrise, the U.S.S Texas, a few from the top of the monument ( you can see my truck way down there), and of course my Pelicans…I just love those guys….
Today I’m back for one more day at the zoo before going back to work on friday.
I have a bunch of zoo pics up at Flicker to the right of the page.
Hava great day…Ed