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bigbonton.org

This old blog has provided so much in the past few years.
Diversions, a creative outlet,
a raisin et cetera, um, I mean a raison d'etre,
and so now, on St Pattys day 2006 we ported over these postings
onto it's own Movable Type template and we announce:
bigbonton.org
Go!

Forsythe Fountain is now green

It's a big week in Savannah G-A.
St Pattys is on Friday and they're kicking off the celebration with green dye in one of their fountains. It's a high noon meet and greet, fun for Grandpa O'Kelly to pontificate for the kids. Groups of school kids in school uniforms punched out their songs. They were clearly well drilled on their performance.
We stopped by, said hi, grabbed a sandwich and chips and enjoyed warm March weather.

A truck, an ax and thou

This photo has all the elements of a good 48 hours along the shore of the Gulf of Mexico: fire, food, and a blue tarp.

All hail the ubiquitous blue tarp!
The post-hurricane source of keeping dry, getting by, making due.
We were smoking 60 lbs of ribs, 30 fish steaks, zucchini, squash, onions, and anything not nailed down.

Horses on the island

These horses are wild. Their great-great Grandparent-horses were in the Carnegie and/or Rockefeller stable on Cumberland Island, Georgia. Which explains why they're the fittest looking wild horse I've seen. That's compared to those in the Black Rock Desert, Nevada and Ocracoke, North Carolina.

The annual February warm spell is on us, days in the 60s or even 70s.
A week ago we had some freezing - seriously, it froze for an hour or so before dawn.
Of course it thawed an hour or so after sunrise.

No more tidbits to write for now, it's a nice afternoon to sit by the fountain and read in the warm sun.
"Best Essays of 2005"
"Elmer Gantry" by Sinclair Lewis
and the eternal "CCNA Certification",
then ZZzzz . . .

We're out here having fun in the warm Carolina sun.
Fine, & You?

Happy Valentines Day Sweetheart

click image to enlarge in new window

A beautiful rose for you my darling Valentine.

I found an island in your arms,
a country in your eyes.
- The Doors -

One Love, One Heart
let's get together and feel alright
- Bob Marley -

There is only one happiness in life,
to love and be loved.
- George Sand -

If you would be loved, love and be lovable.
- Benjamin Franklin -

Love, like a river, will cut a new path
whenever it meets an obstacle.
- Crystal Middlemas -

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach ...
[see complete version in comments]
- Elizabeth Barrett Browning -

pre-Valentine coaching

If today you are lucky enough to be with someone to have and to hold
make sure they’re well had and well held.
There are people sleeping alone tonight with cold feet!

It takes a lot of good luck and hard work to find and/or become a good catch.
All of that goes to waste if a good catch is not caught and kept.

1/ Keep yourself relevant as a sweetheart in the courtship marketplace.
2/ As for your S.O. (significant other), once you catch ‘em they require food, water, and recreation. Forget about training them, just recall how perfect they once were before you got to know them.
3/ Love is a verb, now go to it with a little Pep!

Looney Bulbs

There’s more to flowers than just roses, carnations, daisies, etc.
and this looney wild child bulb (below) proves that bulbs produce more than just tulips.


click on image to enlarge in new window

Overheard from a girl on a cell phone conversation:
Shut up just shut up . . .
(sarcastically) You’re right you’re always right . . .
quit it just quit it . . .
[and then]
I love you, goodbye.
Oh wait, what are we doing on Valentines Day?
. . .
Love is Looney!

Valentines ultra-Sarah-Announce-Protocol (u-Sap)

just out of Beta:
Valentines ultra-Sarah-Announce-Protocol (u-Sap)

Incorporating the OSI Model Level 1 and Level 2 of the incumbent Telco in Mayberry, North Carolina, the browser becomes "Sarah" the telephone operator while you choose your role as either Deputy Barney Fife or his sweetheart Thelma Lou. Enjoy some telephone sweet talking!

Prepare to connect to your sweetie
by first closing your eyes for 12 seconds. See the future, be the future -
with Valentines ultra-Sarah-Announce-Protocol
(Valentines u-Sap)!

Begin.
Deep breath, inhale deep. Then exhale in puffs.
Relax, let Cupid channel Thelma Lou and Barney, connect using Valentines u-Sap!

Steps toward the experience:
1/ currently be on the online interweb, netweb, or an onsite-webline.
2/ turn on the speakers on your computer.
3/ click the link above.
4/ "Sarah" the browser will pick up and say
"Hello u-Sap, Coo your Valentine, please".
NOTE: Ignore any modem noise, you are hearing "Sarah". Her English voice is in development.
5/ your response will be either
"I am Thelma Lou and I love Barney Fife"
or
"I am Barney Fife and I love Thelma Lou".

Repeat as a mantra for the network link duration.
Your response may be spoken into a microphone or typed into the comments section but it must contain repetition of the above mantra in order to reach u-Sap Critical Mass .

6/ you have just over 90 seconds in u-Sap mode before you'll need to refresh the connection by clicking again - like putting a coin in a pay phone!

Comments on the Valentines ultra-Sarah-Announce-Protocol
(Valentines u-Sap)?

pre-Valentine Aloalo lahilahi

Start now finding and flowering a potential date
or you'll be singing "Hello Walls" on Valentines Day 2006.

Above is a fine speciman of the
Chinese Habiscus
Hibiscus Rosa-Sinensis
Aloalo lahilahi

A red hibiscus, it's the official flower of Hawaii.
Common enough to be used as hedges.
Lush enough to form 20 foot tall walls of flowers.
Dat's some nice hedges, bro!

No kidding, get ready for 2-14-06
or you'll be hurtin'-4-certain in less than 2 weeks.

Armadillo

These guys are migrating up from Texas and Mexico, rooting their way into everyones yard, taking over. This guy was on a barrier island, rooting, doing his thing without regard for his locale. He'd be doing the same thing anywhere.

They carry their own armor and appear cleaner than their greasy predecessors: meet the new possum, Opossum 2.0. The old joke is "possum on the half shell".

Was hard to resist touching this one, wanted to feel the armor and see what he was all about. The ears especially, like little flowers.
They're practically blind, he walked right up to the toe of my boot, but when he realized I wasn't a tree stump he hopped away in a bunny / antelope escape trot. This is the only photo that was not blurry, they never stop moving their heads, always rooting and sniffing.
Odd that he didn't know my boot from a tree stump, didn't he notice my all-day boot smell? Maybe I was camouflaged by a combo of low tide, salt, and horse biscuits.
Get used to them, they're making themselves right at home.

Myers BBQ

"Looks like home, Tastes like home"

note the long shadows of a January afternoon

The 1st stop in the 3rd year of the Bonton Barbeque Tour of America!
That's right, 3rd year - 2004, 2005, 2006.
Q: . . . and what have You done with your life in the past 3 years?
A: Well, I went to as many BBQ places as I could and photoblogged them for the betterment of mankind. And for posterity, uh, for my legacy, you know . . . 9 states and 2 coasts so far".

We knew this place was good when we pulled into the parking lot behind a powerline truck, one of those big rigs with a bucket. They got to park anywhere they wanted.

There was a split wood pile on the side of the house so we inspected the premises before going inside. A smoke house is in the back with a big pile of wood waiting to be split after school by the son. This place really is a former residential dwelling, thus the slogan "looks like home, etc". Any Q joint you see with a tin roofed smoke house in back, well, just go in and hand over your money for a buffet.
Myers specializes in hickory and oak pit cooked BBQ & country cooking. My stomach is growling with fond memories.

The clientele was lunchtime landscaping crew, lineman, a table of "who knows what they do during the day", and one guy with his female better half. They were making plans, I think it was a honey-do list from her to him. He was going along with anything she said. Maybe she let him have some Q so she could get her way with him. Thank goodness for at least one female in the place, she classed up the joint with her ambition and all that.

Across the street is a large corporate building with a security gate. Whatever they do in there, I'm sure the cubicle dwellers daydream about opening a BBQ place like this one, right off the highway.
They have an all you can eat deal but not an actual buffet, you return to the front for a refill and they lay it on you with a smile. The Q was so good that I forgot about getting some Smoked Chicken! That's Smoked chicken, not BBQ chicken. Smoked chicken - imagine how tender and tasty that must be. Smoked Turkey is so good, wish I'd had some smoked chicken. . Right now, missing the smoked chicken feels like a greater loss than it did at the time, when I was full-up on 2 plates of Q. My stomach is growling (again).

When I realized I was too full to have the smoked chicken I began a sit down strike. The plan was to digest enough to try a sample of the smoked chicken. Just a mere morsel, a wafer thin slice. We hung out.
Their bulletin board includes many local celebrities, like some blues musicians that look like they've had a fairly easy life. After the lunch rush I was the only person in the place. The radio played Elvis singing "Kentucky Rain". Poor Elvis, he sings:
"I don't know why you've gone,
what you're running to, or from,
all I know is I want to take you home".
He rhymes "gone", "home", and "from" using an "uh" sound.
Everybody now give me an Elvis Uh-uh-Huh!
Uh-uh-Huh!

There wasn't much to talk about with the lady that was sweeping up and I think I made her self-conscious when I took a flash photo. She likes Elvis but didn't want to talk about The King just now, she was sweeping. When I mentioned that today, January 8th, is the Birthday of Elvis she seemed to have had enough, as if it weren't true.
Well it is true each and every year on January 8th!
So I got a gallon of tea ($4) to-go and left.

God as my witness, I shall return soon and I'll put a hurting on that smoked chicken, we're even planning on calling ahead to make sure they put a few yard birds on just for me.

Myers BBQ Restaurant and Catering
Gerald & Carolyn Myers, Owners
10324 Wilson Blvd. at I-77 & Hwy 21 N (Exit 24)
Blythewood, SC 29016
Hours Mon - Sat 11 - 9pm

Port-o-Desk

And so begins another year on the road.
we gots da wi-fi notebook, a digicam, old school yellow pages, dead tree folio, and an MP3 enabled jambox with which to spread some joyous grooves -
all on a standup desk-like platform
with a 4 wheel drive and we actually lock the hubs!
logon, logoff!
bonton roulement en 2006

January 1st Polar Bear Swim

Sullivans Island, SC. 1/1/06
A pleasant day, about 55 degrees, sunny with little wind.
People pay a small amount to a charity to swim together in the Atlantic on New Years day. There was a large turn out due to the nice weather.

The scene changed post-swim, the sun went behind clouds and it got chilly.
It is a polar bear swim but there was no ice involved except in some coolers on the beach. The Wisconsin or Alaska Polar bears would look down their cold noses but hey, we don't control the weather, snowbirds.

Saw something new to me: some sort of flying Dutchman contraption.
Take an inflatable boat, strap on an ultralite hang-glider-airplane with a two stroke engine and large fan blade for a propeller and risk your life 200 feet above the land and sea. Seats one or two, depending on weight and amount of sense. I imagine you must keep seated and hang on!
There were several buzzing around in the air, really added to the feeling of being in a fun scene.
Reminded me of Black Rock Desert during Burning Man, where you say to yourself "This sure is fun. I might die. Let's do it again!"