Sorry ‘bout not posting for going on 3 weeks…but life sorta intervened. We had a pretty busy couple of weeks as Connie got ready for her Ladies of Elks Conference up in Daytona and Neil did a lot of assisting her with getting ready and making sure she had things done. Add on to that with the actual conference last weekend…and well, ya know how it goes I reckon.

Now that we’re back…she’s working (well, actually she’s done) on DLETC duties for another couple of upcoming trips for Saint-Saëns Symphony 3 Organ concerts along with a visit to the human kids and to see a friend from her old working days at ACP. 

And then there’s good old Hurricane Helene to worry about…she formed this morning down off the coast of Yucatan and is headed northwest into the gulf. She’ll pass here tomorrow afternoon well offshore…but she’s about 600 or 700 miles wide and despite being just off the point of Yucatan as Ima typing the outer rain bands are already over us. We’re expecting 6 or so inches over the next 36 hours or so and forecast winds here at Casa de Laubenthal are in the high 20s with gusts to the 40s. Neil cleared of all the light stuff from the lanai but we’re holding off on storm shutters for now. If it changes course or the wind forecast changes radically he’ll just have to go out and shutter in the rain in the AM. It only takes him a couple of hours now that he knows exactly what to do…and we’re seriously considering upgrading to the accordion style shutters like our neighbors got as they get deployed in maybe 10 minutes and no lifting/carrying/mounting (and then undoing it all) is required with that style. The electrical ones have just way too many things that can go wrong so we’ll stay well away from those although if we upgrade we’ll get the rolling type for the lanai door and front door…probably.

And a Happy Birthday to DIL Jen…she’s a peach and we’re glad to have her in the family. She’s something or other years old today…she’s a year or two older than Bryan so it’s probably the 2nd or 3rd anniversary of her 40th…but then one never really asks a woman how old she is…how dumb do ya think I am??

Ok, on more images from Costa Rica.

Chestnut Mandibled Toucan…although to be honest there’s not really much difference with the Yellow Throated. This one is eating some palm fruit.

Howler Monkey

Capuchin Monkey at sunset (or maybe Spider…couldn’t see enough detail to be sure.

Connie and her fishing captain.

Scarlet Macaws. They mate for life and a pair are rarely very far from one another. These were taken from the bluff at the resort as they flew by…yo can see how they remain pretty close together even in flight.

Guianan Puffbird

White Hawk…Dennis identified it as a Golden Eagle but…nah…not even close.

Red Ruped Agouti

Crested Caracara

Great Curassow…it’s in the pheasant/turkey family (or maybe genus or whatever the right group name is)

Collared Peccary

Sloth

It was getting pretty late in the day by this time so the group skedaddled back to the resort before it got dark…or actually it was pretty much dark by the time they returned.

Interesting things found on the net.

Turns out that the cell phone was invented…at least the concept of both it and the smartphone…back in 1926 by Nichola Tesla…here’s a quote from him in an article in Collier magazine.

This one will make sense for anybody our age to perhaps 20 or so years younger.

Ever wonder how big Australia really is? Look at all the countries you could fit inside it. It’s actually about 80% of the size of the USA.

Ever wonder how credit card numbers are derived? They come from something known as the Luhn Algorithm named after Hans Peter Luhn of IBM…it is a simple method of determining whether a number was mistyped or is otherwise invalid.

I might have used this one before…India is not only the only country that has both lions and tigers but it is the only country that has all of the animals in this image.

Cyas.