Summer Vacation Follow-Up: Christmas on the Coast

by | Feb 2, 2022 | History, Outdoors, Travel | 176 comments

The Bosslady and I enjoyed our summer vacation on St. Simons Island so much, we decided to return to the area between Christmas and New Year’s Day.  For the first twenty years we were married, the holidays meant both sets of in-laws visiting with all the attendant stress and hassle.  Letting someone else do the cooking was a welcome change of pace.

Our first stop was a quick one-nighter on Amelia Island, in the far northeast corner of Florida.  This community has its own unique history, but that’s a tale for another time.  The weather and lighting cooperated for me to get one memorable shot in, however.

Continuing up the coast on Boxing Day, we arrived at the Sea Island resort again.  In our summer visit, we stayed at The Lodge.  This time, we decided on The Cloister.  Upon arrival, you’re immediately reminded that the resort hosted the G-8 summit back in 2004.

The Cloister is the original hotel of the Sea Island resort complex, and dates to 1928.

The rear of the hotel backs up to the salt marshes.  Chartered fishing and wildlife viewing boats call this mini-marina home.

The lobby was decked out for the season.

A short walk from the hotel is the Beach Club, whose own holiday decorations took a decidedly nautical theme.

One of the seasonal activities offered by Sea Island is an introduction to falconry.  While guests are welcome to go out and meet and handle some of the resident raptors, at times the birds are brought to the hotel.  It’s difficult to articulate the look of astonishment on guests’ faces as they ponder a falcon, hawk, or owl up close.  One of our encounters was with a screech owl.  As his handler put it, “He’s eight inches tall fully grown, and perpetually grumpy.”  I think that The Bosslady has found her spirit animal.

One of the traditions at The Cloister over the years is that when a past or present head of state visits, the hotel has him (with the notable exceptions of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands and Margaret Thatcher, it’s always been a him) plant a tree.  This live oak was planted by Calvin Coolidge at the tail end of his second term.  It is not known if Cal had any comments about his contribution.

One of our side trips on our sojourn was to Fort Frederica on the north end of St. Simons.  Back in the early 18th century, the area between British Carolina and Spanish Florida was known as “The Debatable Land.”  James Oglethorpe attempted to settle the debate when he founded the colony of Georgia in 1733, placing his main seaport in Savannah.  A fort was erected on St. Simons to defend the new colony and the nearby sea routes.  The one time that the Spanish were feeling saucy, their incursion was repulsed at the Battle of Bloody Marsh in 1742.  The Spaniards deciding to stick to their knitting in Florida and points south led to the garrison’s abandonment in 1749, and the village that had grown near the fort was mostly gone by 1755.

To my untrained eye, this is a field.  280 years ago, it was the center of town.

The line of oaks mark one of the main streets.  The structure at left in the distance was the garrison’s barracks.

The King’s Battery — once the largest and most expensive fortification in British North America. Only parts of two storerooms remain today.

The real standout of our trip was the weather.  Afternoon temperatures were low 70s in gone to the moon degrees, with evening lows in the high 50s.  An added bonus was that the camellias were in bloom, with the pollinators doing their thing.

The few times that we could spy a cloud in the sky, it just made for a pretty sunset (as seen from our room’s balcony).

 

As I wrote in my last post, this place is growing on us.  The Bosslady has set a retirement target date of May or June 2026, and there’s a definite possibility that we’ll land in the area, or at least somewhere between Fernandina Beach, Florida and Midway, Georgia.  I’ll leave you with the words of one of the few American poets to have a big-ass bridge named after him:

Ay, now, when my soul all day hath drunken the soul of the oak,
And my heart is at ease from men, and the wearisome sound of the stroke
  Of the scythe of time and the trowel of trade is low,
  And belief overmasters doubt, and I know that I know,
  And my spirit is grown to a lordly great compass within,
That the length and the breadth and the sweep of the marshes of Glynn

About The Author

Shpip

Shpip

Florida Man, amphibian enthusiast with a reptile dysfunction. Founder and CEO of Vlad Țepeș Tree Service.

176 Comments

  1. R.J.

    Florida is awesome. Retire in Florida. Great post.

  2. R.J.

    Am I in an alternate reality where I am the only commenter?

    • R.J.

      Does being the only commenter obligate me to write something about giving birth to a first?

      • Brochettaward

        The Great Firster would never choose you to birth anything.

    • kinnath

      I am here, sitting in front of a stack of bills. So, you need to keep me entertained all by yourself.

      • R.J.

        I very much enjoy the Panama City Beach area of Florida. That is where I may settle when I retire. Maybe sooner.

      • kinnath

        I was there as a youth on vacation. We lived in Chattanooga way back when.

        I will retire to the house I am sitting in right now.

      • R.J.

        I don’t think I can. TX property tax will be insane by the time I retire. My house values has more than doubled in fourteen years, and will be even higher in ten when I retire. That ongoing burden will be no bueno.

      • kinnath

        Iowa is nice a stable. Taxes are not great, but not terrible. Population coasts along at a mild growth rate. Not dying, but not getting crowded either.

      • trshmnstr the terrible

        Not dying, but not getting crowded either.

        What’s that like? I don’t think I’ve ever lived anywhere that wasn’t experiencing explosive growth at all times.

        I’d really like to find a place where growth is a few new houses each year, not a dozen subdivisions.

      • kinnath

        https://www.populationu.com/us/iowa-population

        Year / Population / Percent-Growth

        2010 / 3,050,767 / baseline
        2011 / 3,066,054 / 0.50
        2012 / 3,076,097 / 0.33
        2013 / 3,093,078 / 0.55
        2014 / 3,109,504 / 0.53
        2015 / 3,121,460 / 0.38
        2016 / 3,131,785 / 0.33
        2017 / 3,143,637 / 0.38
        2018 / 3,156,145 / 0.40
        2019 / 3,169,716 / 0.43
        2020 / 3,190,369 / ***
        2021* / 3,193,079 / 0.08
        2022* / 3,196,911 / 0.12

        *projected numbers for 2021 and 2022

        I’ve lived in Atlanta and Phoenix when both were growing like crazy. Yeah, there’s lots of cool stuff going on and constant new opportunities. But I fled back to Iowa from both places.

        Boring is under-rated.

        When you stay in one place for going on 30 years, quiet and stable can be very appealing qualities.

      • kinnath

        Come visit trashy. We’ll give you a tour of all the corn and soybean fields stretching as far as the eye can see.

      • Fourscore

        Iowans are nice folks, too. I worked in Des Moines

        I’ll vouch for the Kinnaths

      • Gustave Lytton

        Iowans are nice folks, too.

        From a Minniesodan? What is the world coming to?

    • JG43

      Taps screen, “Is this thing on?”

      • dbleagle

        Reason to Fuck Joe biden number 666: “There’s always a renewed national debate every time we nominate…any president nominates a justice, because the Constitution is always evolving slightly, in terms of additional rights or curtailing rights, etc,” Joe biden

        Nice travelogue. FL does sound nice in many ways.

      • Fourscore

        Ah, the evolving Constitution.

        Why, I never thought of it in that light, I’ve got some catching up to do.

      • Shpip

        I thought I might set a record for least-commented post of the year. Guess we’ll see.

      • kinnath

        Welcome to Zoom night.

      • R.J.

        Ah! That is what is happening. I don’t go much. Too much work, too much after work activities.

      • Count Potato

        I don’t do zoom. I think I’ll have another bacardi and watch Poltergeist.

        Tomorrow is The Selling?

      • R.J.

        Yes. The review sucks because work has been crushing. But the movie is good.

      • R.J.

        Thursday night movie posts during sports ball nights sympathize with your plight.

      • kinnath

        All the night posts have dropped off. We used to get hundreds of comments on an ordinary night.

        I think most of the glib population is suffering some fatigue.

      • Count Potato

        It’s not just at night. There are a bunch of commentators that don’t show up anymore.

      • R.J.

        I think they will come and go. A lot of people burned out right as I decided I’d become active and write posts. I have noticed I went from high 200’s to mid 100’s this past two months though.

      • kinnath

        yup

      • Gustave Lytton

        Yes 🙁

        On the other hand, the early morning eastcoasters and insomniacs have been racking up numbers on the late night post before the morning lynx.

      • Fourscore

        It’s because we are mesmerized by the beauty of your awe inspiring pictures. Beautiful, I was especially caught up in the flower with a honey bee. Made me wish for spring. Thanks, Shpip. The rest will have tp play catch up and they will.

    • UnCivilServant

      I have after-hours work because they’re (still) trying to fix a disk issue on a database server. For whatever reason, they are having dicciculty.

      • rhywun

        I have some work I could be doing only because it’s easier when developers aren’t doing stuff at this hour but I’m a couple vodka highballs in so meh.

      • Fourscore

        I remember those days, thinking that I would do some work after a drink and dinner. Some how I never seemed to get around to the work.

  3. Count Potato

    Sorry, I was reading about screech owls.

    • R.J.

      Owls are also awesome. I have one that lives around the house. I hear it. It is not the dove family, they sound differently.

      • Shpip

        Hardscrabble cracker author Harry Crews wrote a terrific little novel called The Hawk is Dying (that got turned into a thoroughly forgettable movie of the same name). He adored raptors, but disdained owls, saying that “an owl is a profoundly stupid bird.”

        That said, I rather like Shakespeare, who lives in my neighborhood. I call him that because he’s a barred owl.

      • Fourscore

        No owls in my house. Owls are a symbol of death for Viet people. We do, however, have a number of loon collectibles collected.

        Anecdotally, in years gone by, we had loons fly over nearly daily, calling for their mate or just calling. Now I rarely see one fly over and doesn’t seem to be so many on the lakes. Used to be nearly every lake had a pair.

        Hear the owls in the summer when we sleep with the windows open. Always pleasant.

      • rhywun

        My mom was nuts for owls. Not like crazy hoarder lady nuts – she was fastidiously clean (I wish I had inherited that) – but there were a few collectibles in the house.

      • dbleagle

        While deer hunting in AZ I nearly stepped on a Great Horned Owl and when it took flight almost underfoot it scared me silly for a second. Them suckers are b-i-g.

        While I was in grad school a big owl starting nesting near the doors of the university library. That started a fight between the indians who wanted it gone because of the association with death and the owl likers and enviros who wanted it to stay because, well frankly it is cool to look through a window into an owl nest. The special fun factor was when the media got involved because the University was being sued over a telescope they were building on Mt Graham which might negatively impact an endangered squirrel and endangered owl species.

        The owl and the young eventually left the nest, today the fight between the oppressions would be fun to watch.

      • Fourscore

        “Them suckers are b-i-g”

        The sounds of their wings when they are flying through the woods are not forgotten either. No other sound like it.

      • Plinker762

        All the loons moved to DC.

    • SandMan

      Owls have an often fatal habit of flying head-on into oncoming cars at night. One night I picked up a screech owl laying on the pavement in front of my house, it was knocked koo-koo but was not dead. I put him in a bid bird cage and nursed him back to health feeding him raw meat and liver using a toothpick. Unfortunately the story has a sad ending. One night a week later I put him on a perch on our mantle piece and was feeding him, he saw the outside darkness through a large picture window and tried to fly through it, it was fatal.

  4. rhywun

    Gorgeous.

    Heh I knew it would be Lanier. He was a major plot point in the best Piers Anthony novel that I’ve mentioned here a couple times.

  5. Yusef drives a Kia

    Good stuff Shpip, I liked the sunset and the owl,
    A pretty place indeed

  6. Shpip

    An hour in, and I’m a bit surprised that no one brought up the alt-text in all the photos.

    • rhywun

      I didn’t check.

      Very well done!

      • Shpip

        For any of you who were wondering, the alt-texts are all snippets of this.

      • Ozymandias

        By two minutes.
        I go to the box and feel much shame.

      • rhywun

        Yeah, I figured. It’s quoted in the book I mentioned. Though I’m not a poetry person so I didn’t recognize the exact quotes but the tone was familiar.

      • Ozymandias

        +1!
        For anyone too lazy to check, the poem is the “Marshes of Glynn”.
        Nicely done, shpip.

      • dbleagle

        Well done shpip.

    • kinnath

      Very nice.

      I was too caught up in my task to look closely enough at the photos.

    • Zwak, holding the spinal column of JFK wrapped in Marilyn Monroes neglegie

      I studied a lot of poetry in college, but US poets weren’t my bailiwick. Sadly, as that guy seems pretty good.

  7. Scruffy Nerfherder

    We used to take vacations to Amelia Island when I was a kid.

    Mostly so dad could golf.

    • UnCivilServant

      Twist is, they will be pictures of the room.

      • Chafed

        Lol

    • Fourscore

      I read Oxycontin and was getting ready to refute that statement. My experience with Oxycontin made me want to sleep.

    • Count Potato

      “ublingual or intranasal oxytocin”

      Can you buy that?

    • Chafed

      Which trade?

      • R.J.

        I marked that, will be listening later!

  8. Tundra

    I love these Shpip!

    We started traveling with the kids at Christmas/ New Years many years ago. Pissed the family off at first, but totally worth it. There is something magical about walking the surf on Christmas Eve!

    Also I think I need a screech owl.

    • Shpip

      I have at least one more coming. I promise it won’t be St. Simons (though it will be on the coast).

    • Fourscore

      If my ex was still alive I’d send you her phone number

      • Tundra

        LOL!

        No, just the little one!

  9. UnCivilServant

    Oooh. I ordered a new mattress topper to see if that will help me sleep better. It’s supposed to arrive tomorrow 🙂 . It’s also supposed to rain tomorrow 🙁 . I hope there’s waterproof packaging on that thing. I’d hate to have to wait for it to dry before I can use it.

    • kinnath

      Good luck

    • rhywun

      I’m waiting for a package and Amazon says it was “delivered”. To Ardmore, PA – three days ago. Nothing since.

      I don’t live in Ardmore, PA nor do I know where that is.

      • creech

        Mainline Philly. Used to get the train there to commute into college. Rich side and poor side of the tracks (where the Help lived).
        In Lower Merion School District, one of the top rated in the nation, thanks to lots of (((them))).

  10. Fourscore

    My Pillow guy, UCS?

    We just got some pillows from Mike Lindell, Mrs F really likes them, I haven’t tried sleeping on one yet.

    • UnCivilServant

      Yes.

      I don’t yet have an opinion due to the timing mentioned above.

    • Scruffy Nerfherder

      They’re ok, except they cause you to yell everything.

      • rhywun

        lol

        I have a couple MyPillow knockoffs and a mattress topper knockoff.

        I had some massive back pain last week that is almost entirely gone now so I’m not rushing to buy a new bed just yet like I might have thought might be necessary.

    • R.J.

      I have had mine for a year now. Main advantage, you can wash them with bleach and they dry quickly (Unlike most pillows that claim this, and then retain ten pounds of wash water). They are lumpy and go crazy flat and separate if you don’t regularly wash and dry them though. They shape well for side sleepers and otherwise seem indestructible.

      • Count Potato

        I’ve never washed mine and they still work great.

  11. Ownbestenemy

    So even though the FedGov mandate is on hold they are going to jab my nose every week I come in. The people who brought the lawsuit gave me advice. Fuck em. EEO complaint incoming.

  12. Chipping Pioneer

    If one was to go down to the trucker protest this weekend, what would yous be interested in learning?

    • kinnath

      I don’t know what I need to learn. But pass along my blessings.

    • Fourscore

      Are the truckers making any progress? Has the Big Spender in Ottawa been thinking/talking of any compromise?
      Who can outlast who?

      I think it will be telling us a lot if the military is called in and we see what they (the military) will do. It will be pretty much what we would expect when our revolution starts. Revolutions need the support of the people.

  13. Tulip

    Thanks Shpip! Now I want to change my vacation to these islands.

    • Shpip

      The Golden Isles are lovely. I’ve been trying to get The Bosslady to go here with me, but I fear that it’s a bit… rustic for her.

      One word of advice: don’t vacation here in late March through mid-April. At that time, the marshes erupt with swarms of bloodthirsty gnats that make going outside for any length of time rather unpleasant. The rest of the year is quite nice.

      • Fourscore

        That is really beautiful. Looks awesome

  14. KSuellington

    Good looking pics Shpip. That owl is cool. How’s the fishing in those parts?

    • Shpip

      Inshore you’ll find the typical fare of redfish, spotted seatrout, and flounder all year. In July & August, tarpon migrate through, and the area additionally gets an influx of blacktip and spinner sharks (nothing huge, 50-80 lb range) who come to spawn. That’s followed in Sept-Oct by honkin’ big bull redfish who also come to spawn. Georgia, like Florida, has a “slot size” limit on reds, so it’s pretty much all catch and release.

      A few miles out are some reefs and wrecks that hold black seabass, snapper, and grouper. You can also go way offshore, but if you’re targeting pelagics, your better bet would be southeast Florida and the Keys, since the run to the Gulf Stream is so much shorter.

    • dbleagle

      Good for him. Never stay in the kill zone.

    • Tundra

      Fuck yes.

    • Zwak, holding the spinal column of JFK wrapped in Marilyn Monroes neglegie

      Righteous.

  15. Brochettaward

    FLORIDA IS FULL. VACATION ELSEWHERE.

    • slumbrew

      Too bad, flight booked for next week.

      • Shpip

        Cool. Where ya headed?

      • slumbrew

        Naples – friends bought a place last year.

      • Shpip

        Nice. The Botanical Gardens there should be quite lovely this time of year.

      • grrizzly

        I was shocked to learn that there are wild bears in Florida. Some of them live around Naples.

    • rhywun

      ATTEMPT NO LANDING THERE?

    • Tundra

      So not first?

      • Plinker762

        Closer to last.

  16. UnCivilServant

    *grumble*

    Each update the estimated time to completion gets pushed back another 30-45 minutes.

    I’ve been sitting around since 7, doing nothing* but waiting.

    *okay, I’ve been poking around online, but I could have been doing productive things!

    • UnCivilServant

      *sigh*

      I’ve been on for almost a whole extra workday waiting for the work.

      But now there’s an interesting wrinkle. The pay period ended wednesday, am I now working on the next pay period since we ran past midnight, or is this part of the previous workday and thus pay period?

      • UnCivilServant

        And now they’ve gone and misplaced the DBA.

      • Gender Traitor

        …am I now working on the next pay period since we ran past midnight, or is this part of the previous workday and thus pay period?

        I say next pay period. Science!

      • UnCivilServant

        But then I can’t use the time to offset my vacation last week.

      • Gender Traitor

        Well, why didn’t you say so?

        Gimme a minute. I’ll come up with something. It may involve moving the International Date Line.

      • Gustave Lytton

        Previous pay period. Work began on that date. Otherwise it’s a mess for grave shift workers.

  17. Ownbestenemy

    Zoomies still on?

    • UnCivilServant

      I don’t know, but I’m still on this damn webex and they’ve again pushed the ETC back 30 minutes.

  18. Gender Traitor

    I kinda don’t want to go to bed. Local news has been hyping up this week’s storm of the century, and it’s hovering just to the west and north of us. I want to see if it’s going to amount to anything…and if I’m likely to get a “snow day” off work (mostly) tomorrow.

    • Tundra

      Stay up. Go out and play.

      Enjoy!

      • Gender Traitor

        Well, I would but ‘cept it’s been raining all day, it’s 34 degrees, and the freezing rain (eventually to be the dreaded “wintry mix,” followed by snow) is, according to the local TV news powerhouse station’s weather app, just a few blocks away.

    • UnCivilServant

      If you want, you can start up the applications when they finally finish working on the disk issue.

      I’d be happy to get some sleep. (I had very little last night so I’m starting to run out of steam)

  19. LCDR_Fish

    Very cool owl. Did you get to feed him anything?

    • Shpip

      Unfortunately, no. The resort has several master falconers on staff who do all the handling of the birds at the hotel. You can purchase an experience where you go into the surrounding fields and learn about the raptors, even having one fly to your gloved hand. I thought it would make a great X-mas card photo for The Bosslady and me, but alas, I lollygagged with booking and all the slots were filled.

    • Mojeaux

      I have heard owls are kinda dumb. See SandMan’s anecdote above about dumb owl.

      • UnCivilServant

        So, they’re bird-brained?

      • Shpip

        In his wonderful little book Florida Frenzy, the aforementioned Harry Crews writes, “Fortunately, most birds of prey — except owls, which are too dumb to do much with — react favorably to patience and calm persistence.”

        At Sea Island, true raptors, primarily Harris hawks and peregrine falcons, are used for hunting and the falconry experiences, while the owls (our little guy and a Great Horned Owl) are mostly display animals. Curiously enough, the birds of prey were first brought to the resort as a form of pest control. Flocks of boat-tail grackles had started living at the Beach Club, and had become so brazen that they were stealing french fries from little kids’ hands at lunch. The falcons and hawks moved in, and the grackles promptly moved out.

        Crews’ book is a neat little collection of essays and excerpts from some of his novels. If your library has it, or can get it, it’s worth a read.
        Harry himself was quite the character, too. For those of us who knew him, it’s hard to believe he’s been gone nearly ten years.

    • Shpip

      Awesome series Shpipp, makes me want to go to FL.

      Plenty of places in Florida to enjoy a cool vacation.

      The pics from this article (and last week’s) are on St. Simons Island, Georgia, about halfway between Jacksonville and Savannah.

  20. KSuellington

    Speaking of Florida, if you are a seven time Super Bowl winning QB who marries a rich supermodel you can get a pretty nice spread there. 17 million for a tear down, wow. It will be interesting to see what they build there. If I had that kind of money I would want to stay there for a week, but wouldn’t be interested in that property. Although of course they likely have a couple other homes in more rural locations when they want total privacy.

    https://nypost.com/2022/02/02/tom-brady-shuns-boston-return-will-retire-at-dream-miami-mansion/

    • Shpip

      Well, $17M was about six months’ earnings for Giselle back in the day. And retiring to Florida is nothing new — a better quarterback than him did it as well.

      • KSuellington

        He married up for sure, lucky chap. I’m not much into the golf thing, although I can see why people love it, and can also see why the ultra rich want to live in their enclaves. I would definitely go for a more modernist architecture on that kind of property.

        Do you go out to target the pelagics much? I have a work acquaintance that is a lovely guy, a Samoan fellow that is as wide as he is tall and always with a smile on his face that was raised in south Florida. He loves to fish and has shown me lots of pics of his fam getting plenty of dorado down there. I’ve never caught a big dorado or a wahoo, those are on the list, tasty creatures they are.

      • Shpip

        I don’t get out as often as I’d like, since Big College Town is sixty miles from either coast. But back in my college daze, my roommate’s uncle had a place on Lower Matecumbe (Islamorada) and we chased the fish every Spring Break, Summer Break, etc. Dolphin, dorado, mahi-mahi, whatever you want to call them, are thick as ticks from the Keys up the coast. Find some weedlines or a floating pallet, chances are there’s a school of dolphin under it. The secret to loading the boat is that when you hook one, keep him in the water until someone else hooks up. The school will stick around, trying to steal the free meal that the hooked one has in his mouth.

        Now the big dolphin usually only travel in twos and threes. That’s a different ballgame.

        Getting out over the reefs in a couple hundred feet of water usually means king mackerel and your smallish tuna (blackfin, bigeye, bonito). Deeper still are where the wahoo lurk. Problem is, you don’t know what’s going to be biting most of the time, so tackle that’s appropriate for a 50-lb ‘hoo or a sailfish is way too heavy to be sporting for a 6 pound dolphin.

        Now, for a complete boot in the arse, give swordfishing a try. Best season is fall (as long as there’s no hurricane lurking off the coast), and it’s two completely different types of fishing, depending on whether you go in the daytime or at night. One thing’s for certain, once the hooked-up sword sees the boat, something in his brain tells him that he doesn’t want to be there, and then, baby, it’s on! At the end, you’ll be tired and sore, but hopefully have a bucket list fish.

        And for the realllly adventurous, there’s fishing for giant yellowfin tuna and marlin on the east side of the Gulf Stream, bunking overnight in the Bahamas. 3-4 days is the usual jaunt. Not cheap, but getting to the giants tends to be that way.

  21. Tres Cool

    suh’ fam
    whats goody

    • Gender Traitor

      I don’t have school work today! ?

      Except I still have to take notes for a Zoom meeting. ? But that’s not until 3:30. Plenty of time for the power – or at least the cable & internet – to go out by then.

      Did you have to work last night & drive home in the evilness out there??

      • UnCivilServant

        I have work. I’m not awake, and feel like I’m going to just pass out, but I have work. Worse it’s the first day of the phased transfer of responsibility as my supervisor moves towards retirement. So, I gotta manage the team. And I forget what else because I’m not awake.

      • Gender Traitor

        Oh, no! No reprieve at all after having to be up working so late?? ?

      • Gender Traitor

        Does this “phased transfer of responsibility” at least bode well for the gig for which you interviewed? Or does it just mean more work?

      • UnCivilServant

        Officially it has nothing to do with it, since it’s part of my supervisor’s retirement.

        Also officially, the appointment is awaiting approval from one or two upper managers.

  22. Sean

    Nice pics.

    I have an open invite to FL, cuz mom has a place down there. I don’t go. *shrug*

    Mornin Glibs.

    • Tres Cool

      Tres Sr. is currently ensconced on the gulf coast, as is his annual migration. I never get an invite.

      Is your mom hot- my driveway is becoming a skating rink from the ice and FLO-rida sounds nice.

      • Sean

        Many years ago, her photo on an exercise bike was prominently displayed in a NJ mall.

        She old now. And her cat died yesterday. ?

      • Gender Traitor

        ??

    • Tres Cool

      The side-rail on my bed split one night when I brought home ‘2-Ton Tanya’ but I didnt let that stop me.
      Its still held together with wood screws and GO-rilla glue.

    • rhywun

      “Many Kiwis have simply turned a blind eye because it doesn’t affect them, or worse, have decided the best response is to lash out on social media against their fellow Kiwis,” said Alexandra Birt.

      Charming.

  23. robodruid

    Good Morning:
    Well i can still see my tractor, so I don’t know how we got 10.5 inches that my phone says we got?
    I hope everyone is well this cold day.

    Only bad thing about working from home? I get to work while base shuts down.

    • Gender Traitor

      Good morning, ‘bodru! We’re getting the dreaded “wintry mix” for longer than originally expected. Won’t turn to snow until this afternoon…if it does so at all,

      • robodruid

        Its going to stay solid for a while.
        Thinking about leaving the birds in the coops. But they need food and water…

        Sheep went into the barn on their own.

      • Tres Cool

        Ill take a foot or two of snow over 1/4″ of ice. At least you can work with snow and its manageable.

      • Ghostpatzer

        Gah! Looks like a good day to call in “sick”.

      • Gender Traitor

        Oh, I got the robocall that we were closed right after my alarm went off this morning. But I stayed up ’cause I couldn’t bear to miss my morning crew. ?

      • UnCivilServant

        We appreciate the company.

      • Ghostpatzer

        Aww…

      • Gender Traitor

        (I do reserve the right to take a nap later if the coffee isn’t sufficient to keep me awake.)

    • Gender Traitor

      On that show? I suspect that would be against network policy. I swear they keep trying to reach Peak Ridiculous in their programming.

      • robodruid

        TBH I would never connect Rudi and the masked singer ever.

      • Ghostpatzer

        He must be trying to upstage his ex, who starred in “The Vagina Monologues” among other things.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Fire their unprofessional asses.

    • Ghostpatzer

      “Rudy Giuliani was revealed as one of the first contestants to depart in the upcoming Season 7 premiere – prompting two of the show’s judges, Ken Jeong and Robin Thicke, to storm off the stage in protest,”

      50/50 according to the article. Petulant child is the correct description for someone who walks off the job because he is “offended”.

      • R C Dean

        Did they protest because he got booted, or because he was there at all?

      • rhywun

        Good one.

      • Ghostpatzer

        LOL. I might have to watch this one, just to hear Rudy “sing”.

  24. Ghostpatzer

    Mornin’, all. Stay home if you are in one of the icy realms. Or don’t, I am not your boss. On the two occasions I had to drive on ice I felt fortunate to arrive intact. Ice sucks.

    • UnCivilServant

      They’ve revised down the amount of snow expected to hit us.

      • Ghostpatzer

        That’s good. They’ve toned down the ice predictions here as well, but any ice is bad. And I am having a Washing Machine delivered Saturday, so will be having fun clearing a safe path for the workers.

  25. UnCivilServant

    I must really be tired, I was about to shake up a bottle of carbonated beverage as if it were flavored water.

    • Gender Traitor

      Opening that would sure wake you up in a hurry.

      • UnCivilServant

        Fortunately, I caught myself and avoided a catastrophe.

  26. Ghostpatzer

    WTF are American forces doing in Syria?

    https://nypost.com/2022/02/03/us-launched-raid-in-northwest-syria-kills-nine-people/

    U.S. special forces carried out what the Pentagon said was a successful, large-scale counterterrorism raid in northwestern Syria early Thursday. First responders at the scene reported 13 people had been killed, including six children and four women.

    Another successful operation. Even if those numbers turn out to be bullshit, this is not good.

    • Gender Traitor

      WTF are American forces doing in Syria?

      Messing around in (the?) Ukraine hasn’t provoked Putin enough?

      • rhywun

        Countering terrorism, duh.