Sunday, March 31, 2013

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Launch Day


At work today, we had another ship launch, the Bravante V. It is the first of a series of vessels for a Brazilian company.



All set to slide off the ways

Afloat

Video of the launch:


Saturday, March 16, 2013

Spring Break

Sigh
One of the drawbacks of living in Panama City Beach is in March when it becomes overrun by college kids on spring break. The locals have been warning us for months, "just you wait till March..." Well it is mid March now and we are in the middle of the season and it hasn't been too bad actually so far. Sure, there are a lot of inebriated fools in town, but we have learned their hot spots and just avoid those areas of beach strip in the afternoon and evening. (Stay away from the beach Wal-Mart! It's a war-zone.) The aerial banners fly all day long along the coastline, advertising anything from condoms to auto insurance to all you can eat buffets. Zachary and I both work across the bay in Panama City, so we miss out on a lot of the commotion too.

Today I got my bike back from the bike shop for repairs and took it for a tour of St Andrews State Park. I hadn't gone since last fall before I got really busy at work over this winter. My laziness paid off sort of for once 2 weeks ago. I have been meaning to get our bikes to the bike shop for maintenance.  We live on the second floor of a duplex with a small deck by our entrance. We keep a few things on the deck, like our bikes, grill, plants, lawn mower. We get home from work one afternoon, 2 weeks ago, and Zachary's bike was gone, and my bike had most of its accessories striped off of it. My bike remained, but we figured mine was spared because the front tire was flat. No, we didn't have a bike lock on them, we figured things were "safe" being on a second story deck. Our neighbors noticed a few things swiped from their deck too. Grrr... So shortly thereafter I took my bike to the shop and it lives inside the house now. It would have really stung if we paid for maintenance on both of them and then lost both of them to theft. Nonetheless, it is aggravating  but we should have known better leaving them unsecured too. We'll have to go bike shopping for Z soon.

Anyway, back to today. I went a bike tour this afternoon of St. Andrews State Park, to reconcile with my bike and to avoid the masses in the wonderful weather.


Shadow portrait

Divers
A group getting diving lessons in the shallows where the bay meets the Gulf.


Heron
Scorched Palms
The park did some controlled burns over the winter and the scrub palms are springing back to life.

Another Heron

Sunday, March 3, 2013

Naval Aviation Musuem

 When our friends Kate and Jim were in town, we spent the day at the Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola.
My very first airplane ride was in a similar craft like this in Oshkosh in high school
This crossed the Atlantic too!

Marine One, same craft Nixon left the White House in.
Nixon!
Moon lander replica.
 It is crazy to think that something that basically looks like a child's science project actually brought man to the moon and back.
Home of the Blue Angels


It is a massive place, with multiple buildings and more outside

Nina and Pinta

Replicas of the Nina and the Pinta were in Panama City recently. Hurray for tall ships! They were suprisingly smaller than I had imagined, and more sparse/plain too. But the Nina was built to actual size and specs of the ship that crossed the Atlantic with Columbus. There isn't much for inside quarters, as most of the crew worked, ate, and slept on the deck. The group that tours with them said they don't have a Santa Maria replica, as it would have too deep of a draft for many of the places they travel. Check out their website for details and tour stops.

Imagine crossing the Atlantic in this!




Water Pixels

The water lust continues.
After playing this game for nearly four years, Queequeg finally discovered the shaman's water orb. And insisted on trying to catch it.