How to fill time in retirement

 I feel lucky that I have many places locally to go to photograph animals and plants and whatever else I fancy. Two of my favorite places are the Viera Wetlands (officially called the Ritch Grissom Memorial Wetlands) and Brevard Zoo. The cool thing is they are only about 10 minutes apart, unless you do not know how to get around a traffic circle, then they are an hour apart. Although it was windy and a little chilly (about 70F), I went for a walk around the Wetlands, hoping to find many birds visiting for the winter. Sadly, there were not as many as I normally see and I personally think it is because man has encroached too close in new housing developments to the wetlands and birds are stopping further away. But there is still plenty to find and photograph. Like this alligator eying me from behind the weeds. At first I did not see it but I had that strange feeling I was being watched, An anhinga was keeping his eye on another alligator. And that gator was keeping his eye on the anh...

 There are 165 restaurants in my spreadsheet. places I have not been and want to go. Because of the pandemic, I visited only six in 2020, five in 2021, and seven in 2022. At this rate, I should get through my list in about 28 years, I will be 103 when I finish and that assumes I do not add any more places. I added 59 in 2022 and one so far in 2023. I need to make changes in my bucket list goals. Even the pre-pandemic goal of 26 is not enough so I made one new every ten days which gave me 36 for the year. The year started up well and I visited three in the first eleven days. So I settled for one every 9 days which comes out to 40 for the year. I figure I will adapt as I go. Being a mathematician, I found that if I go every D days, I can hit P places. Choices are (DxP): 9x40, 10x36, 8x45, 12x30, 6x60, 15x24, 5x72, 18x20, 4x90, 3x120, 2x180 Here are my reviews of the first three of 2023. Cheers on the Beach - Melbourne Beach Just let me be up front about this new place, in the same si...

I have read seven books in the last Quarter of the year 2022. Three of the books were from my Bucket List. The other books I have been reading are either books I already own and have never read, books I see at the library not on list but I check out anyway, and books that I buy that are on the shelves at Barnes & Noble by authors I like. My goal for 2022 was 30 books and I read 38. I am very happy with that. Here are my latest reads... Atonement This book was #50 on my original 100 books that should be read. I actually read it as the 51st book from the list. It was written by Ian McEwan and published in 2001. Wonderful story about an English family and how lives can be messed up by the wrong interpretation of what people see. It deals with class within English society, war, death, and of course A tonement . There were more than a few surprises in this novel. I give this book a score of 4.0 (Excellent). Even though I have saved the movie on DVR, I am not ready to watch it yet. It...