I'd only read about them...

I came across this in the front yard of a house near my work.

This pole/chains/basket contraption is a disc golf disc catcher, which I had only seen online, never in the flesh. It looks very 70's to me - maybe it's all the chains?

It seems there is at least one course in Gainesville - we'll have to check it out!

Damn, Yo!

Bat-house?

Hello Internet!

Any idea what this is? Looks like a bat-house to me. It's kind of cute, but it has to be difficult to enjoy the bat activity the way you would watching birds come and go.

Or is it a trap of some sort? Hmm.

"You run like a girl!"

(Since girls are more flexible and graceful than guys, should I take that as a compliment?)

I’m doing the 5K run Saturday morning in Gainesville. At this moment, weather.com tells me the temperature at 8am will be 35 degrees. I usually run in my shorts and sleeveless shirt, but I don’t think I’ll be doing that on Saturday. Or maybe I will. I have some snazzy jogging pants, but I really hate being encumbered – I’m sure I’d warm up quickly, right? We’ll see…

My ‘running’ speed makes it clear that what I’m actually doing is a fast walk masquerading as a run – it takes me 11 minutes to run one mile.

When I started training for the 5K last month, I imagined that 5K would just be a start, and that I would work my way up to 10K and 15K. Now that I’ve been running 5K three times a week and walking 5K three times a week, I think that 5K is long enough, thank you very much. I’m open to the possibility of running four miles at a time (5K is 3.1 miles) but six or nine miles at a time seems like overkill. Time will tell.

A Moss Zombie

This tree has no leaves on it, if you can believe it.

Friends of the Library

At a recent 'Friends of the Library' sale in Gainesville, these two notices caught my eye. I have to admit, it never occurred to me to wait a few years and reuse a calendar.

A Real Tree

This looks like a Halloween decoration, but it's a real tree.

Truncated Driveways

There's a neighborhood in Gainesville that has odd driveways and walkways leading from the houses toward the street.

The driveways and walkways end about fifteen feet from the street, coming to a stop with grass in the wide gap remaining.

If this was only a house or two, or this was new construction, I'd expect that the city had plans to come along and add sidewalks and finish the driveways - but these houses have been here at least twenty years, still waiting to be finished.

Do any of you smart folks have any idea what's going on here? I'm curious.

It's a trap!!

You might think this garbage can lid is an anti-critter device, but judging by the number of one-armed aluminum-can-collecting vagrants in Gainesville (Hi George!) I believe this device has a more sinister purpose: Limb Harvesting!

Limb Harvesting isn't as sexy, doesn't get the press that Kidney Harvesting does, but don't be fooled.

Hat or Cup Handling is Acceptable?

Finally!

I never manage to notice when my car is about to pass a milestone mileage - I always notice a few miles later, when the wow factor is long gone.

I've had the car two years, and put all these miles on driving 80 miles a day to Gainesville and back. Wheee.

More green is not always good

There's been road construction on my way to work over the past few months - there were some small sinkholes (Florida = swamp) that were filled in, which promptly collapsed again and were clumsily patched, then the entire road surface, curb and sidewalk were replaced along a 100 foot long stretch of road.

Great!

What's not great is for some reason, the builders saw fit to put a 1-foot-wide strip of grass between the curb and the sidewalk, which does nothing but look shabby and require constant maintenance. (Requires, not 'receives')


I'm not expecting marble tile or anything, but would another 12 inches of sidewalk been so difficult to accomplish? Hell you can even paint the cement green if you like. Astroturf, anything - but why add another 100 feet that need mowing or edging?

A sign near my work