Ok, we’re back at it. 

On the home front…the weather has been pretty nice the past few days and we’ve been able to turn off the A/C and open the windows and doors until mid afternoon…then when it gets hot or when Neil starts to cook dinner we closeup. In another few weeks we’ll be able to stay open most of the time which is our favorite time of the year.

Connie finished up her final radiation treatment today…she took in some home made (well, store bought refrigerator but we did bake them) cookies for the staff and they were really appreciative. She’s got pretty bad…it’s radiation caused but is basically like a sunburn…red spots and some small blisters on her upper chest but they gave her some cream to put on them and she’s using Benadryl cream as well for the itching. She’ll probably have that another couple of weeks but is glad to be done. She’s got a final checkout with the radiation doctor on 11/20 which is their anniversary so Neil will take her out for a nice dinner afterwards.

Our coffee pot…an espresso maker…pretty much died. It doesn’t make hot coffee anymore and the heating elements are worn out so Connie has to spend going on 30 minutes every morning making coffee. We bought a new Casabrews home espresso maker but the first one the pressure gauge failed after a week or so…they shipped us a new one which Neil did the initial setup of today so she’s a happy camper. She needs to revise her morning routine a bit since this one makes 2 cups in just about 10 minutes but she’s happy to do that (or so she tells us). Tonight she’s off to Fort Myers Mastersingers rehearsal again after doing the Psalmist thing at Mass yesterday./ 

Let’s see…that’s about it for the home front so let’s get to something actually interesting. I’ll skip posting much more about the actual lodge they were staying in…it was pretty decent but (as it turned out) not nearly as nice as either the bush camp or the houseboat which I’ll talk about later. The food was excellent but the overall experience was better at the latter two locations as I’ll talk about later on.

African Jacana…this is a young one. They have really, really big feet so they can basically walk on the top of the grass or Lilly pads without sinking

Hippo ‘yawning’. They’re not really yawning but showing off their tusks and this helps settle the social order without any fights…very similar to the rumbling that gators do for the same reason. Nice teeth there. This one is…Neil thinks…in the same group as the one with the alternating pop up ears from last time.

Squacco Heron. This is a pretty rare species and he thinks he’s got some more of them later but Ima putting this one in just in case. They’re fairly short necked like Night Herons are.

Green Heron…the same species and name as we have here in the US.

Giraffe sampling some high leaves…you can see the purple tongue they have which helps prevent sunburn on it as they spend a lot of time with their tongue out of their mouth.

African Spoonbill.

And catching some breakfast.

Another Squacco Heron…apparently they were in a prime location for seeing them despite the relative rarity.

Black Winged Stilt.

Brown Headed Kingfisher…this one is smaller than the Pied we saw before and just a tad bigger than the Belted Kingfishers we have here in the US. This is actually the same bird in both pictures…but it was just sitting there and Neil and the crew could move about in the boat which was stopped up against a stump to get different angles. It’s got some food in the first one which makes for an interesting shot but really the second one is a better image overall since he got the dark green background behind it.

Female kudu coming down for a drink.

And a young bull kudu…the horns start out like this and reach the full 30 or so inch double curved at about 2 years old.

And here’s what the adult bull horns end up at.

Poppa baboon and baby.

An older male…Neil cloned over the bright pink dangly bits that you can see in the one above.

Carefully coming down for a drink…they scrutinize the water very carefully for the presence of crocodiles before drinking.

And a sunset shot as they headed back to the dock.

Here a couple shots from the Pangolin Lodge…Neil was especially impressed by the pipes running outside of the concrete block walls and the non standard taps…not to mention the fact that like in the UK they have no idea how to properly design a shower so that water doesn’t run out and go pretty much everywhere. It’s a pretty upscale hotel for the area and he was amazed that fit and finish seemed to be an afterthought.

Interesting things found on the net.

This is the smallest ship in the US Navy…it’s a little tug used up in the Puget Sound area as well as other Navy ports to assist with submarine things like moving port security barriers. It’s named the Boomin’ Beaver and is just 19 feet long and is basically immune to capsizing.

Neil happened across a column today by Dave Ramsey who is one of the financial gurus that does a talk show. The main purpose of the article was a woman who wondered if her daughter…who had passed the 3 initial interview stages…could ask for $1,000 compensation for hotel, Uber rides, meals, and lost wages for attending the final interview. The panel on the call unanimously agreed that this was a Bad Idea and would guarantee that she didn’t get the job. But the most interesting part was an add on to the main article. According to it…a recent survey of Gen Z people at resumetemplates.com reported the following:

77% of Gen Zers said they brought a parent to a job interview, and 53% had a parent speak directly with hiring managers. Additionally, 45% said their parents regularly talk to their current boss, and 73% get help from their parents with work assignments.

We’re raising a generation of completely incompetent workers by helicopter parents. Neil and Connie both agree that if any of that had happened the interview process would have been over and the person would not get the job. We wonder just what in the heck those parents and offspring are thinking.

I might have used this one before…but most people are probably familiar with the constellation Orion in which there are 3 stars that form the belt. Here’s a picture of the overall constellation. I’ve cropped in and marked for you the 3 stars that form the belt as seen by the naked eye.

But actually…the three stars that form the belt look like this when you view them from either the Hubble or James Webb telescopes. The three stars are named Alnitak, Alnilam, and Mintaka and this is a close up of them with the sun added to the image at the same scale…wow.

And finally…as posted by the VA Department of Transportation via their account on the service formerly known as Twitter…

Cyas.