How to fill time in retirement

 Do You Want To Know a Secret? The new Bunky's in Suntree is open for lunch. Although according to bartender Lexi, it is not officially opening until December 1. I had gone to the Zoo and decided to see if they were open. They have been open only for lunch on weekends, but since I was in the area, I decided to give it a try. They were open... I took a picture of the front. The building use to be the Charlie & Jakes Brewery at Suntree. That closed last year and nothing had been in the spot. When Ensco was located in Suntree, many od us were regulars at the restaurant and bar. The inside is completely different. All the internal walls and rooms are gone and it is now one large area. My bartender was Lexi, with help from Marissa, and I basically had the bar to myself. No one knows there are open. Here is Lexi behind the new bar. Marissa explained to me that the jar of pineapples is for a martini using their own created flavored vodka. Yup, that is vodka that the pineapple is soaki...

 Although I started my Book List as a retirement Bucket List item, I find that reading allows me to enter other worlds  with different views than my own. It is an escape from the drudgery of getting older and not having the ambition to do a lot. It allows me to vacation at exotic places and futures with out leaving home (or maybe reading at the beach).Most books I am choosing to read, I do for myself, and For No One else. But note, I am always looking for suggestions. Here are the latest five books I have read, getting my yearly total to 30. My goal was 40 and I am currently two books behind schedule. May have to read some Dr. Seuss! Big Sky (#26) Written by Kate Atkinson; published in 2019; 352 pages; BJ Score 2.5 (Good to Great) This was a buy at B&N on the for sale table. I like this author and have read five books by her. I did not own this book, but found that I had read it from the library back in 2019 when it came out. I decided to read it again, and amazingly, I d...

Gathering photos for the fourth cycle of my life, the folder was getting too big for a single post, so I decided to split the last 17 year cycle into smaller parts, lets call each a pop-cycle. The first pop-cycle contains the first six years, and at the end of it I retired from ENSCO. So the last eleven years will be in a separate post (or two). A funny thing is that I spent 34 years at ENSCO, two full cycles. In the fall of year one of the fourth cycle, I traveled to Vermont for a vacation. Besides seeing lots of relatives and friends, I did take in a Middlebury College Soccer game against Williams. It was November 2008. I love the tree. Just off to the right is Porter Hospital where I began all these cycles and pop-cycles. My cat Pumpkin is enjoying her new scratching post she got for Christmas 2008. In May of 2009, I travelled to Vermont for another visit. This two-humped camel hung out at a farm on SR 7. I guess she thought she was one of the sheep. My oldest sister got very sick i...

 There was a SpaceX launch during the day and it was a sunny so I headed on a visit to Port Canaveral. Good Day Sunshine! Here are a few of the photographs I took on that day, Sunday, September 14, 2025. Even though I have a pass for Jetty Park at Port Canaveral, I usually get there early for a launch because parking can fill up. Arriving about two hours before launch, I had some time to waste. I spend it by taking a lot of pictures. One great subject I like are the cruise ships departing. I think they were leaving a little earlier than usual because of the 6:11 launch time. The ship leaving as I entered the park was the Disney Magic. It is bigger than a school bus. There was a dredging barge in the port channel. It was taking a break as the large ships passed by. I like to walk out to the fishing pier along the Jetty. There were more than just fishermen because of the launch. And it was a beautiful day. That is when I saw that a ship had already left. It looked like a Carnival shi...