jack's latest picage

my buddy Javier, who was hanging most of the drywall, and is now leading his crew hanging all of the rest of the drywall



Redsox training ground. Red flowers. Red socks. Get it? Debra, Leo, you see that?



There's all these ducks hanging out in this one gas station. They're beautiful, and no water in sight. I can't explain exactly what they're doing there. I guess ducks in gas stations is just one of nature's miracles.



The women in Fort Myers are quite stunning, as you can see...



I managed to take a flying dive while switching on the camera and snapping this picture when I saw this massive frog flying toward me.

our fancy ass bed. Looks a lot like a lot of our other beds, in the camper, in New orleans. Air mattresses and 2x4. All you need, man.



pic of a frog on our window



appliances in gettin comfy

first things first in the new condro



purty flars


condo before



Our handsome son





best hat ever. camoflage. Hizzle Dizzle. Word up.

runnin nice


finished transom




rebuildin the transom to raise the engine. The engine was too big for this boat, and hung too low (know how that is?)I reinforced the hell out of this thing... Good stuff.


Did this mess out in the field by the campground, using the generator and a sawzall and drill. Fun stuff. And the engine, she no evena falla down!



Patient and ideal beasts

"crab cakes are phenomenal" - taken from Ruth's Trooths

Being in Florida is great. The weather just couldn't be better. It's been sunny, breezy, the air smells fresh, the sky is blue, the world is bright, the sunsets are beautiful and the nights are cool. On a daily basis we see hawks, ospreys, blue herons, egrets, pelicans, and - almost every time we're out on the water - bottle-nosed dolphins!
We have spent the last two weeks in a very nice 10' x 20' tent. Jack pitched this monster all by himself a couple days after I stepped on that gol' darn nail! He did an unbelievably awesome job. On Wednesday we moved to a cabin, approximately 12' x 15' and will stay here until Saturday. It seems we usually live in small spaces, but our trick is that we make the world our home.
We've spent the last two weeks at the Pine Island KOA doing the following: working on closing the two condos, sorting out our taxes, working out issues with our tenants, kayaking, working on the boat, working out at the campground fitness room, making music on our computers, sitting outside in our lawn chairs at night with the tiki torches, watching movies, sitting in the hot tub and swimming in the heated pool, taking the dogs to the beach or to the field at the campground, and most recently taking the boat out on the water!
Jack has put a lot of labor into getting the boat ready. He picked it up from Delray, he mounted and dismounted the old engine, he drove to Miami to buy the new engine, hooked up the new engine, built a higher transom and reset the engine - twice, and made seats for the inside. Due to my being on crutches for the past three weeks, I found things to do that didn't involve any physical labor - I found a storage space for it and painted the seats. I spent a lot of the past few weeks doing administrative work on the computer & phone, reading, making music, and busting out my mouth piece now and a again for a good buzz.
Once on the kayaks and once with the boat we visited a waterfront restaurant called Woody's and both times I ordered the crab cake sandwich. As always, and like everywhere, it was phenomenal.
There is this local ice cream place like eight miles away that makes their own 'cream. Their cookies n' cream IS THE BEST I'VE EVER HAD. Jack kept taking me there to get it - I swear it sped up my recovery!
Today Jack and I were sitting together on the porch swing of our lil' cabin. We were excited to take the boat out on the water to see how it runs with the engine higher than it was before. As usual, this led us to counting our blessings, and we joked that this is just an ongoing honeymoon. It definitely feels that way.
OH AND GUESS WHAT?! This is the second day in three whole weeks that I am able to walk on my foot! I am very happy to be crutchless again! I am limping just a little bit. Gettin' better all the time!
ALSO, we are expected to close on one of the condos TOMORROW!! Which means we can move into it and begin working as soon as Saturday! Just in time in my case!
Exciting days ahead.

Our Ongoing Honeymoon...by Ruth

We've been to so many places, met so many wonderful people, and have experienced so many new and exciting things for the first time together. We have sailed, flew, drove, ran, swam, took trains, and rode in the back of pickups together. We have made it through some pretty stressful situations and adapted to unfamiliar ones. We have lived in paradise. We've lived in a camper and made that our paradise! We have tasted unique foods and have heard and danced to a variety of new and different music. We have swam with sharks and dolphins. We have taken on ten foot waves. We have played beautiful music together.

This ongoing honeymoon ROCKS!!!!!

it's shuffling me photos from me captions

back home to bushville



the pine island hillbiliies


sunset we saw on our return from a-boating

cruising the swamps

they dyed the whole state green for st. patty's day

what's up ladies?
(or alternate caption: "stop looking at my crotch.")
Don't blame me anyway. Ruth took it.



the boat effortlessly doing half of its job: floating

some hottie i picked up


boat still floating. Yay!


where we expect to go later to clean up our act

Some of those captions below are a couple photos off of the pictures they go with. Can you guess which captions go with which pictures? You could win...

nothing.

quit eyeballin' me, girl

the wiring diagram for our motor. they make it look so easy...

but I got it wired right. Now we're living the high life, just like in that commercial. For detergent you wash your hat with.

ready

go

bonito is spanish for "kickass"


some dude we were chilling with on st. patty's day

local leprechaun


your tax dollars at work. Not even kidding, I thought it was a flare at first. Seriously though, I got a joke:

Q: why don't they send schoolteachers into space anymore?
A: BECAUSE THEY BLOW UP!


Some of the wiring menace we inherited

bird of paradise



christmas century plant hookups


dem birdses



straight up anemia



now that'sa magica trailera!

You guys are such followers.

Glass Jackwards here. Pine Island, KOA Kampsite.

First, congratulations to Orla and Brian, for being the first "followers" of our blog. I know some people read it, but i guess they never quite made it official. I don't know what being a follower means, but my mother told me not to be one. Then later she got kinda mad at me for being too different and asked me to fit in. Then I tried to throw it back at her, and she clarified I was not to be a "fowler," (one who goes a-birding), nor a "fouler" (one who soils theyself).

Anyway, where was I? Oh lost? Digressing? Not bloody me, matey!

Okay, here's the deal. Most of you know of our digression by this condo business, but you have to understand, they're just too good to be true. Seriously, buy for 40-50 for something that will sell for 150. Amazing. Had to do it. Got involved. Bought a condo. Waiting for it to close, and camping in the meantime. It's gutted, and as I'm sure I've mentioned, we'll be redoing the inside, right after we do my mom and Burt's condo, which is in the next building. In the the meantime, we wait to close, which could be any day now. Supposedly. The good people of KOA have a 2 week limit on tent dwellers, a department of Health regulation, which is a pretty clear discrimination against homeless people. It's basically an attempt to keep people from setting up Hoovervilles in Florida and driving the property values down. Or as they shall henceforth be known: bushvilles.

So we had planned on buying a boat for the Bahamas to run around on. maybe a junker to throw our 25 on that we borrowed from the sailboat, and we found the one we talked about, a Bonito 17 footer, vee-hull, roomy clunker. And we had them take off the engine that was on it, because we only thought we could afford the boat, which with the trailer was 400. The trailer was worth more, hot damn. But then we looked at our anemic looking little 25 on that boat, and started pricing the rigging needed to adapt it, and realized we should buy a used engine for it, and since we trusted ol' Yunior, we thought we might go through him. So after he cut all the wires on the boat to get the engine off, I drove to Miami to pick it up again, and we put the new one on. Then came the huge project of trying to figure out all of the wiring again (see photo). I thought it would be simple, but not really. I got most of it right, and had a mechanic hip me to the last one I couldn't figure out. Then I had to reinstall the linkage (sounds technical, don't it? Yeah, I know, I hardly know what that is either, but I did it, by Jove), and while I was chatting with the mechanic, he told me that the engine was a 30 inch engine, which is too big for that boat.

He told me that it would make two big roostertails on either side (see photo), and that it could be a problem. Well, we took it out today, a good way, burned a TON of gas, made the big roostertails out back, and while there, figured out why he had taken a road sign and made a splash guard in the back. Bottom line is this: tomorrow I'm going to build a frame to sit the engine on, lift it on there, rebuild the transom up higher by like 5 inches, and then put the engine back. I'll let you know how it'll go, but I'll give you a hint: piece of cake.

Hanging out on Pine Island

Glass Jack here.

(my friend Kevin O'Neill gave me that nickname after I got punched out at our bachelor/ette party. Glass Jaw/Glass Jack get it? I thought it was pretty funny...)

And yes, you are welcome to call me that. And anything else you find amusing... as long as I can give you one back...

Kicking it in Fort Meyers. Or Pine Island, actually. We're at a KOA campground, surrounded by usually cheerful retirees, waiting for the closings on the condos. I'm outside getting bit by mosquiters while I type this. Cash and Mickey have been to the beach twice in two days, running in the surf, chasing dreams.

Dreams of wet, bloody meat.

Actually, Mickey is more into chasing the birds, while Cash likes to catch coconuts. He's always the slow, helpless one. But we love him. He's been enjoying having a coconut thrown in the water, which he chases and tackles, and they go under and he bobs for them. If he's fortunate enough to be victorious, he then dismantles his prize on the beach after throwing it around a good bit. Clever man.

Ruth made chicken legs tonight, probably inspired by watching my chicken legs working out today. We went to the KOA gym, and actually had a pretty decent lil' workout, and had a swim in the pool and even soaked in their "hot tub." I think I know why it's called that. It was actually pretty hot and all.

What else? Mickey got loose while we were at the gym, and terrorized the place. He chewed through his rope he was tied with. Now he has a steel cable. It's about an inch in diameter. We'll see if he can break off of that one.

Talked to Javier today, and made a plan that he'd help me with the work on the condos. We have a plan, and I know he'll be great to work with. Good guy, hard worker and good eye for detail and good craftsmanship. This plan is really coming together. Hopefully Donna the Real Estate Agent will let us know of a closing in about a week, and then we'll bang that sucker out. I'm expecting 2 months, 2 weeks to finish both condos. It'll probably go faster, but don't rush me. We're going to be near the pool there, and with Javier there, I'm sure I'll find my way to some beer and maybe even taste whisky for the first time. I hear it's great. Then off to the Bahamas, or up to Michigan to finish the pumphouse and fix the bank and THEN off to the Bahamas. In the meantime, we're getting a plan together, learning what codes are, etc. I'm sure we'll learn a lot more once there that we can't till we get there. I'm incredibly excited though.

On the "social and political issues of the day" department, I was listening to the radio today while Ruth limped into the bathroom at the clubhouse, and these idiots were trying to get their listeners to believe that Obama was THE ANTICHRIST. Yeah, true story. I've always said that even though I don't believe in gods, I think there's a lot of good things that can and do come from religion. I'm glad I don't need to believe in them to see merit in those things (treating people decently, etc.), but if that helps people behave better or feel secure "God Bless 'Em," to borrow a phrase. I do think there's a MASSIVE amount of negative stuff that happens in the name of religion, maybe even most negative stuff. The rape of the earth was first. Now this. I wish I could meet the speaker so I could puke on him. Uggh.

I don't have much more news at the moment. We're going to go watch a movie on Netflix. Hopefully something heathenish. If you're a prayin' sort, pray for Ruth's paw to heal up. She's having a hard time being three-legged.

Hope you're all well, and love you much.

Jack

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Glass Jack here:

...And someone else has a birthday today... she's 24... she's smart as a whip and cute as a button and smells better than strawberry stew...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEETIE!!

Change in plans

Jack here.

First things first: wish Becky Cooper and Mary Lee a happy birthday. We love these two like crazy.

Speaking of crazy: okay, we're crazy people. While we were down here hanging with Phyllis and Burt, we helped my Mom look for a condo to buy- something to buy to hold onto after she sold some land up north. While we were at it, we found her a steal. While we were working on that, we found a steal for ourselves. We're buying one and she's buying one that her and Burt will share. They're both gutted three bedroomers. We're going to finish those out (both) before going to the Bahamas, which might take a few months. No point in having them sitting there vacant, unused by her, and unable to be rented or put to other good use.

We have to hang the cabinets, put in carpet, sheetrock, lights, paint, trim, etc.

Man, they were giving these things away for like 30 cents on the dollar, or maybe 20, depending on what you count as their full value. We think they'll be worth way more when finished, so we might end up buying fixing and flipping ours. We'll see if we have enough cash if/when we sell the Nola house (the sale of which is funding this condo purchase).

If we keep the condo, you guys are all welcome to use and share that too. It has a pool and such, tennis courts, and is near the beach, but you'd have to drive. It should be done in a few months.

Stay tuned, and welcome to it once it's done. We expect to start work around March 9, right after the Bad Brains and Pogues shows that we're gonna catch. Mom and Burt leave March 2, and we'll be in New Orleans from then till March 5. A couple of days to repair the roof, which had a few shingles blown off last fall.

XOX yall.

Jack

Update, nothin' much

Yoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyoyo

YO

Fat Jack here. Just giving you all an update, to tell you what's new, what's not, etc. Talking with the neighborhood ass'n. to find out exactly what can be built on the lot, and what hoops we need to jump through. Already, we find ourselves at cross purposes with the government, (the association really), who have a "no tents" and "no trailers" rule. Hmmmm... What's next, no dogs? Problematic for us gypsy folk. Found this out AFTER buying the thing, which by the way

IS COMPLETE AND FINAL. It'll take 6 months or so for all records to process and be mailed, but really, IT'S A DONE DEAL. You have a crib-er, a SPOT there now for sure.

So anyway, talking about rules, etc. Also trying to navigate with the shipping people, the customs officers to get the stuff over, and storage of these things in the meantime, and our latest thing to worry about storing:

A BOAT. Yup! We bought a 1985 fiberglass Bonito 17' speedboat. Pretty beat up, needs a gear box, some cables, and what not. We have the engine already, we brought the Mercury 25 outboard 2 stroke from this blog's patron saint Fiberglass Vengeance. Just our speed. $500 bucks for the boat and the trailer. We had it negotiated for $560, but the guy selling it was so cool- his name's Yunior, that he just told me to just give him the $500 when I was handing him the money. And he left the battery, and then gave us a tow chain. Really nice guy. I love hispanic people, man. We were there at their home, and they're clearly not rich, but he hooked us up. Everybody at his home was super nice and polite, and there were three brothers working together fixing up these boats to sell 'em. Imagine that. And I use their bathroom, and their place is immaculate. They didn't have much, but they took care of what they had. Totally clean yard out front, etc. They had a bottle of Andre champagne in this display case, if that gives an indication of monetary status, yet this guy was generous. Like the Bahamians. Give you the shirt off their back, man. For real. Funny thing about his name: he's named after his father, he said. So his dad called him Yunior, like Junior, in Spanish with the J pronounced like a Y. And it actually says Yunior on his license, not Junior. I thought that was pretty good.

The boat has a water shield on the transom made out of a highway sign that he ran over. My kinda boat. If only we could find a way to work some Liquid Nails in there, it'll be complete. I'll include some pictures for ya soon. But this way, now you'll have a way to get to Alan's Cay to see the lizards, or a way to shoot over to snorkel some wrecks when you come. Or something to fish with. And we bought tackle for fishing, and pretty much tried to stock up on everything since it's all cheaper here (like 1/2 the price). I got a bunch of big hooks to catch a shark with, and some heavy wire and all that. Believe I'm gonna stick some pictures of that shark up there when I get it. And then ya know what? It's gonna be like a Spinal Tap record:

Shark Sandwich.

We're driving over to visit Milt and Carol with my pore ol' mudder and Burt, and then we'll go to New Orleans to fix the roof, and then back to ship the stuff over and split. I'm so excited, man I could explode. We'll be going over around March 3 or so, after my Mom and Burt split.

That's it for now.
Jack out.

Crab Dish Delish

Swoon, swoon, you're a balloon

the streets of delray

love birdies, coooo coooo

Sunday, Feb 15th - A word from Rutherton

Sunday, Feb 15th


Was it a grueling trip down here? Yes. Was it insanely draining, hypnotically exhausting and at times anxiety-ridden? Yes. Were my sleep deprived nerves wracked with hallucinatory wreckage? Yes. Was it worth it? Uhhhh...does Mrs. Butterworth pack a gooey, syrupy, messy, yet oh so tasty, punch?

(um, that's an obvious "yes ma'am, Mrs. Butterworth")




So okay then. Let's talk about the facts.

Chapter 1:

It took us three days to drive down here. We spent one night in Atlanta at Pat & Claire's (and their cuties Liberty and Cyress). We arrived at 8 in the morning on Thursday after being on the road for 16 hours, caught breakfast with Phyllis and Burt and subsequently spent the day at the beach! We've already begun planning our many 'next steps' in this Bahamas house-building process. We spent the entire day Saturday repacking the trailer so that we could make room for a refrigerator, grill, wheel barrow, hot tub, and other such oldies but goodies. We slept in the bed of our truck last night. Now we are in the hotel for almost a week! Cash and Mickey are not only allowed to stay in our hotel room, but to roam around the hotel, ride in the shuttle to the beach club, hang out at the club's pool, and roam around the beach! The hotel staff, guests, and neighborhood peeps love them, as is expected.


Chapter 2:

We have a phone in our hotel bathroom. We've spent the majority of our time with Burt and Phyllis. Every day but Saturday we've gone to the beach with them after breakfast. Everyday we have breakfast together at 9AM. It's the hotel's buffet breakfast, which is super substantial. Everyday we've had lunch at the hotel beach club. Twice we've gotten takeout for dinner - once from Rotelli's pasta and once from Bru's Room sports bar. On Valentine's day we ate at a different outdoor sports bar and got ice cream at Foxy's around the corner from the hotel. Thursday through Saturday the hotel provided musical acts on the porch where all the guests drink and socialize. Today we played Dominos at the beach. Tonight we ate at an English pub called The Anchor. We are having a grand of a grand old time! It's been four days so far and it feels like we have been here for AT LEASt two weeks!


Chapter 3:

Today I rolled out of the truck and went straight for a run. Get this: I started out on Atlantic Blvd and ran the majority of the jog on Ocean Blvd where I tripped over the most fitting road-kill - a flattened fish! I passed Nassau St. (the capitol of the Bahamas), the address 1107 (where I grew up), and Brooks St (my mom's maiden name). I ran all the way to the beach club and back: a healthy four miles! Man, that felt sooo good...It's been about a month since I've ran anywhere. Yippee ki yay, right?

The ocean breeze gives me such a thrill! The beautiful weather gives me SO much energy! I put 193,000% more effort into repacking the big ol' trailer the other day than I would have done in the cold. The plants, the trees, the sun, the water, the friendly peeps - mmm mmm good is all I'm talkin' about!

This afternoon at the beach I went snorkeling by my lonesome and it was incredible! The ocean was flat as a pancake and clear as a trophy case (haha what?) ... I swam and free dove for about 20 minutes. On my way back in I suddenly noticed a fluorescent pink jelly blob right next to me on the right! It didn't have tentacles but it was definitely a jelly blob, just bobbing along under water, but close to the surface. I was NOT about to get any nearer! It was very fascinating though - it appeared to be made of rings that got smaller and smaller, just like a fingerprint. I mean, imagine a pink fluorescent fingerprint about the size of a miniature cereal box floating through the water! So just as I was trying to avoid it I looked nervously ahead and to my left there was another one!! I swam a straight line IN BETWEEN the two glowing fingerprint jelly blobs! I was concerned there may be more so I looked all around me but I did not see anything. I continued making my way to shore, a bit faster than before...

I attempted a google and wikipedia search for what I had seen in the water today, but I did not come up with anything quite like I had seen. The closest match I could find are a type called Jelly Combs. I will post a drawing I made of what I had seen in the water as well as some google images that are the closest I could find to what I had seen...


This week holds many errands, planning, preparing, and hanging out in between!
True love is in the air!
Peace outie for nowie,
Ruth

P.S. Today I met a girl my age named Ruth...Bringin' it back baby! Bringin' it back!