We launched off of the Lake Dora shore at the Lakeside Inn in Mount Dora Thursday along with members of the nature based tourism divison of the state tourism group. We cut across the lake at a pretty good speed through freezing temperatures. Along the way, Captain Reg and his crew gave us an overview of the lake and it’s area. Soon we slowed down and drifted into a tributary of the lake. We drifted through some fantastic natural areas. With a very low water level, the cypress knees were nearly spooky as the matrix of roots entertwined and reached out from the water.

As we continued through we found mobile home parks intermingled with the cypress swamp. An otter travelled with us for awhile, zipping through the water, over and under fallen tree limbs.

 

We also were fortunate to be able to view quite a large number of birds. The best of this was the giant pine where a giant eagle’s nest was nestled in it’s arms high above us. In the nest is a collection of eggs. At the edge of the nest standing watch was mama eagle. A little further from the nest on a lower limb sat the valiant daddy eagle. Above all of them was a vulture hovering. He wisely kept his distance.

After a looooonnnngggg day of hiking and looking and taking pictures and hiking and looking, etc…we headed to Alachua and had dinner at Conestoga’s Restaurant. Has a great steak there!

This sketch is of ornamentation over one of the doorways.

This week’s word is sprout. Took a bit of thinking to fit it in. As it turns out it fits well with the idea of body snatchers and the pods from the story.

I first became aware of Jerry Lewis when local station Channel 9 would play Lewis and Martin’s films when I was about 8 in the early ’70s. I got to see more when CBS would play more Martin and Lewis films at 11:30pm. It made me tired at school, but what an education I got! I learned about humor, slapstick, singing and great morals and values that I worked on then and still do today to emulate.

Went to a talk and book signing of Tim Dorsey’s at ‘The Muse’ bookstore in DeLand . Dorsey’s new Serge Storms book is ‘Hurricane Punch’ which follows the hilarious serial killer as he attempts to duke it out with a storm.

If all of this sounds odd – Here’s Dorsey’s website:

http://timdorsey.com/home.html

I was out in Mt. Dora earlier and then headed over to DeLand fora book signing- More about that in the next post. This is a sketch of a wonderful looking house tucked behind the main commercial structures through the main thoroughfare of downtown DeLand.

My brother, Jeff, treated his mother, her husband, Sandra, myself, friend Ann Sabo and my father to dinner at the Rattle Fish Raw Bar and Grill. Good fish food. The place has  a problem with noise. My bad ears were useless. I couldn’t hear anybody speaking and I was afraid to start talking for fear I’d be asking a lot of “What!?”‘s. They desparately need lots and lots of light fixtures. My good eyes fought to read the menu, especially with the small type. To be honest I really wasn’t sure what I ordered.

 

The drawing is looking out and up toward the restaurant’s deck leading out to Tampa Bay.

The restaurant was odd in that it apparently is about to be incorporated with a condo project. They won’t let you forget about it. There are giant signs, smaller signs and banners outside the restaurant. Another sign as you walk in the door with an architects conceptual drawing. There are placecards on all of the tables and still another add on the menu. The restaurant is on Tampa Bay and there is a concrete post in the water with a giant sign attached for those boating by. Some P.R. person needs to be fired. I’m going to a restaurant, not a sales presentation.

My brother, Jeff, retired from the Air Force today at MacDill AirForce Base in Tampa. It was some ceremony. Family and friends (Military and otherwise) there. Jeff had a pretty hefty stack of proclamations and comendations to haul away from the event.

This is a drawing of one of the fellows who spoke at the event.

This week’s celebrity involves an internet group I joined back in May 2006 while serching for a theme song from the program. The first season of the series ‘Simon and Simon’ was playing on the ‘Sleuth’ cable television station. I knew the standard theme for the series but not the first season’s. Finding this ‘Yahoo’ group I noticed they had a caption contest, which is something I had been looking for as a casually challenging game. So I joined and started getting a lot more practice writing captions. Along the way it was asked, noticing my being a caricaturist, why I hadn’t drawn the Simon brothers (Jameson Parker and Gerald McRaney). So I added their names to the current celebrity cup six months ago. The first came up last week and here is the drawing.

I’m not real nuts about the final result. I really struggle with the so-called “beautiful people”. He must be one of them. Simple features arranged in an almost non-defined way. My struggle is not to overly define them. Which I did here. However, I was running out of time, so I wrapped this as it is.

Florida connections: I’ve since learned that the Simon & Simon series was originally to be based in Florida somewhere between Florida City and Key Largo. The original pilot was partially shot in and around Everglades City. While we were doing other research down there, I found a few of the locations. Apparently cost relocated the series to San Diego. Watching the first season, the storylines seemed to be retooled from Florida to fit in California.

Also, Gerald McRaney is now married to Orlando native Delta Burke.

Next week: Back to the humor cup and, finally, one of my very favorites, Groucho Marx.

After the Suncoast Inkslingers meeting at the Belleview Biltmore, took a ride on U.S. 19 and stopped in Homassas Springs at the Sugarmill Restaurant. They still had Christams decorations up, including this tree by the cash register. That’s a plant hanging from the seiling obscuring a bit of the Christmas tree. Surroundng the cash register are lots of various containers that hold various kinds of business cards. 

We celebrated Ann E. Sabo’s big 4-0 Bday by throwing her a surprise party at the Blue Moon Inn in Dunedin. Included in the festivites was also a happy 39th to Tracy and a surprise to my soon-to-be-40 next week brother, Jeff. Further fun was Tracy presenting a secret gift game, where each person gets a gift and can trade with another. Adding to that was Ann’s sister June wanting muffin tins and settling, happily, for a how-to-make-cocktails book.

There two sheet cakes. Ice cream, too. Despite that, we went with Tracy and her husband Greg to a TERRIFIC bar-b-q restaurant west of Alternate-19 in historic Ozona. The Ozona Pig is in an old house and includes homey decorations as with the Elvis tribute on a shelf.

The restaurant had terrific bar-b-q ribs, fries, baked beans, smoked ham, etc. They also have something called the “Bar-B-Q Cocktail” that is a cup of pulled pork, baked beans, claw and a pickle. Quite a place! We will return!