2019-06-16: Pirates & Mermaids invade South Haven Shores.
Because the water was a bit rough the mermaids could not gather on the piers this year but a goodly number did come ashore on the South Haven beach to spend a little time with landlubbers. See you there next year maybe?
2019-0612: I saw this a long time ago and still think there is some validity in it. I may have changed a few words here and there. 😊
Letting Guys Over 60 Enlist
Try a new direction for the war on terrorists by sending in service vets over 60 years old. Now I am over 60(+) and the Armed Forces thinks I’m too old to track down terrorists. You can’t be older than 42 to join the military.
But the military has got this whole thing ass backwards. Instead of sending +18-year old off to fight, they ought to take us old guys. You shouldn’t be able to join a military unit until you’re at least 35. Why? For starters, researchers say 18-year-olds think about sex every 10 seconds. Old guys only think about sex a couple of times a day, leaving us more than 28,000 additional seconds per day to concentrate on the enemy.
Young guys haven’t lived long enough to be cranky, and a cranky soldier is a dangerous soldier. ‘My back hurts! I can’t sleep, I’m tired and hungry.’ We are impatient and maybe letting us kill some idiot that desperately deserves it will make us feel better and shut us up for a while.
A 18-year-old doesn’t even like to get up before 10 a.m. Old guys always get up early to pee so what the hell. Besides, like I said, ‘I’m tired and can’t sleep and since I’m already up, I may as well be up killing some fanatical son-of-a-b____.
If captured, we couldn’t spill the beans because we’d forget where we put them. In fact, name, rank, and serial number would be a real brainteaser. Boot camp would be easier for old guys. We’re used to getting screamed and yelled at, and we’re used to soft food. We’ve also developed an appreciation for guns. We’ve been using them for years as an excuse to get out of the house, away from the screaming and yelling.
They could lighten up on the obstacle course, however. I’ve been in combat and didn’t see a single 20-foot wall with rope hanging over the side, nor did I ever do any push ups after completing basic training. I can hear the Drill Sgt. in the ‘New army’ now, ‘Get down and give me … ER … one.’
The running part is kind of a waste of energy, too. I’ve never seen anyone outrun a bullet. Besides, an 18-year-old has the whole world ahead of him. He’s still learning to shave properly, to start up a conversation with a pretty girl. He still hasn’t figured out that a baseball cap has a brim to shade his eyes, not the back of his head.
These are all great reasons to keep our kids at home to learn a little more about life before sending them off into harm’s way. Let us old guys track down those dirty rotten coward terrorists.
The last thing an enemy would want to see right now is a couple of million pissed-off old farts with ‘attitude’ and automatic weapons who know that their best years are already behind them. If nothing else, put us on border patrol … we will have it secured the in a week or so.
If you want to, share this with your senior friends. It’s purposely in big type so they can read it.
2019-06-06: Today was a short notice pickup dive to see who would show up. We had it at big Paw Paw Lake on the Watervliet side at Forrest Beach. Its a nice place to get checked out in if its been awhile since you have gotten wet or want to try new gear. The site has ample parking and in the summer it has a porta-john which is always a nice addition. It seems you only even REALLY need one when there is none around. And, besides, if you need to, you can change into your suit inside.
The beach has a pier which makes staging gear nice and keeps you and the gear out of the sand (and bugs). The area around the pier is firm hard pack sand and stays shallow (less than 6 feet) until you get out maybe 100 feet or so from the shore.
Today we found the weeds thriving and in some places clustered in a very dense pattern, the visibility was maybe 10 feet at best due to the cloudy skies (and light rain) and to the divers in front stirring up the bottom silt with their flippers.
The drop off is gradual and the first slope goes down gradually to about 15 feet deep. The zebra mussels (fresh water invasive species) that have enveloped the great lakes has spread to many of the inland lakes also. It will be interesting to see if the quagga mussels over take the zebra like they have done in the Great Lakes. Todays surface water temperature was in the mid 60’s and only 52 ̊F at 35 feet. Almost did not need gloves if you stayed on the drop off.
If your ever in the area come on out and dive with us, somebody is diving every weekend!
Looking back toward the parking area.It was a very nice day for a walk about so I headed out to see what was happening at our local parks. I began by going to the Lincoln Township Beach and was discouraged by the loss of the boardwalk and gazebos along with the extreme loss of beach area.
From there I went to the North Lake Park (1 of the 3 Grand Mere lakes) I took a few pictures of people fishing and kayaking and spent a hour or so doing a little metal detecting but only found a few pennies and a good bit of trash metal.
From there it was to the Grand Mere Natural Landmark area, specifically the beach access point and what I found is “NO” Beach area at all. Just a path to the water where rocks/ boulders have been deposited to hopefully inhibit further cliff erosion. The pictures tell it all here.
From there to the Grand Mere State Park where I took the left path from the parking lot thru the low lands but the tick warning signs deterred me from staying long on theses’ paths and I went back to the starting point and selected the right side path toward lake Michigan.
It was a bit of a trek and I should have taken a bottle of water and a walking stick. Next time I will be sure to notify my next of kin where I am trekking. Sometimes one forgets that what the mind says you can do isn’t necessarily what the body can follow up on. At least the return hike from the high sandy dunes was down hill. Yep, I was about out of gas by the time I got back to the parking area.
In spite of that, after downing a cold bottle of water and cooling off in the airconditioned car, I did go to one more place and that was down Livingston road, parallel to the D.C. Cook plant property.
I wanted to see how much beach was there and checked out the barriers used to inhibit traffic on the lake side of the nuclear plant. I did wave bye at the security cameras when I left. As a side note, there response time to people on that road “near” their property line is very fast so I would not lotter in that area.
As usual, the pictures tell it all.
1st – Lincoln Township Park
2nd – North Lake Park – Off John Beers Road
3nd. Grand Mere National Natural Landmark
4th Grand Mere State Park
Short cut to the top of the dune – hope to see water soon!
Eureka- made it to the top. Now if I can only make it back!
#5 – Not Dr. Livingstone I presume, just the end of Livingston Road (Bridgman)
Beach Scene at end of Livingston road, Bridgman, MI
2019-06-06: FREE—–just don’t take the buckets!
I have had a 5 gallon pail and several smaller buckets FULL of golf balls in various condition that I needed to get out of the garage. When ever the Muddies dive, its not considered a completed venture unless some one comes back with a golf ball. As the bucket indicates we are seldom disappointed! I also had a bucket with #65 pounds of various sized fishing weights by the other buckets. In less than 24 hours every thing was cleaned out and they did leave me the empty buckets as requested.
2019-06-06: It’s that time of year again!
2019-06-01: Fly day to MGC (Michigan City Airport) yesterday and took a few pictures of the jumping at “Skydive windy City”. These young people really seemed to enjoy their tandem jumps.
