Gasparilla Numb Skulls 2011

Check out calls for service it is always enlightening.

The police once again were working overtime trying to babysit all the drunks despite having clearly informed everyone of the zones in which you could break the law and not be arrested. The fun thing about drinking copious amounts of alcohol is the point at which anyones judgment is so impaired they cease to act responsibly.

There should be no event sanctioned by the city that allow liquor laws to be temporarily suspended. It is irresponsible and negligent on the part of the authorities. Unfortunately gasparilla is one of those days when all the city leaders are stumbling down Bayshore immune to prosecution inside the parade route inebriated. Our public officials have shown us time after time that when there is money to be made the safety of the public comes second.

The criminal defense attorney, alcohol distributers and the courts will all be making a killing :)

The Stats

Drip, Drip, Drip, Grow

Let the dripping begin!

Steel Yard Farms

Yesterday I went with a friend to some family property where they were growing vegetables. I went with a bunch of buckets because these folks were graciously giving me some super composted soil! I am really excited for this years coming crop with this soil for the plants to grow in. Time will tell.

I sampled a few cherry tomatoes and some peas and they were full of deliciousness. Definitely much tastier than anything you will get at the supermarket!

Love Chases Away fear

In the beginning, at the very site of me, she would run to me and jump into my arms and for a few moments I would be full of joy and contentment. Now she rarely does and yet with equal joy I am made content in the knowledge she now has no fear of loosing my love.

He wants to make us in his own image, choosing the good, refusing the evil. How should he effect this if he were always moving us from within, as he does at divine intervals, towards the beauty of holiness? God gives us room to be; does not oppress us with his will; "stands away from us," that we may act from ourselves, that we may exercise the pure will for good. Do not, therefore, imagine me to mean that we can do anything of ourselves without God. If we choose the right at last, it is all God's doing, and only the more his that it is ours, only in a far more marvellous way his than if he had kept us filled with all holy impulses precluding the need of choice. For up to this very point, for this very point, he has been educating us, leading us, pushing us, driving us, enticing us, that we may choose him and his will, and so be tenfold more his children, of his own best making, in the freedom of the will found our own first in its loving sacrifice to him, for which in his grand fatherhood he has been thus working from the foundations of the earth, than we could be in the most ecstatic worship flowing from the divinest impulse, without this willing sacrifice.

George MacDonald  Unspoken Sermons

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.
(1Jn 4:18)

Comment Change

I am going to give intensedebate a try for my comments. This will give folks like you who read the blog the option to see who follows up on your input. It also adds interest to the commenting process aesthetically and statically. Go ahead and comment and we can see how this change will affect communications on Billy’s Captures.

I would also like to take this opportunity to sing the praises of windows live writer in concert with blogger. It has really made the posting process more pleasing and streamlined. Happy blogging!

If everyone who reads this post comments even if it is nonsense it will really give me some insight as to how the new comment system will work! Thanks for reading.

Great Little Post!

Click the pic and be heart warmed!

Garden Attempt 2011

Every year we get better at gardening let us see what this year will bring!

Hen Fights

Two of the girls are laying and the leghorn layer is fighting with all the others.This afternoon one of the other hens must have had enough and things got bloody.

A Simple Immutable Truth

• You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
• You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
• You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
• You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
• You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
• You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
• You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
• You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
• You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
• And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

William John Henry Boetcker (1873 – 1962)

Useless Talent

I have been blogging for way to many years now which is very strange considering I tend to be a very private person in the analog world. Any how I wanted to post something very weird so here it is for you entertainment.

Eggciting news

We have eggs!

Chicken Update!

Being and Small Sacrifices

Thousands that are capable of great sacrifices are yet not capable of the little ones which are all that are required of them. God seems to take pleasure in working by degrees; the progress of the truth is as the permeation of leaven, or the growth of a seed: a multitude of successive small sacrifices may work more good in the world than many a large one. What would even our Lord's death on the cross have been, except as the crown of a life in which he died daily, giving himself, soul, body and spirit, to his men and women? It is the Being that is the precious thing. Being is the mother to all little Doings as well as the grown-up Deeds and the mighty heroic Sacrifice; and these little Doings, like the good children of the house, make the bliss of it.

George Macdonald from WEIGHED AND WANTING

Tapioca Tutorial

Blogger Template Designer and AnswerTips

I have changed from my custom template to the blogger template and it was a relativly smooth transition. Blogger's Template Designer takes all the coding work out job customizing your blog's look and it really is a delight! I will be able to easily change the theme of my blog to go with the seasons or just on a whim!



I also just discovered answer.com's answertips for blogs. It turns every word in your posts into a link and the info available is actually relevant. To try it you just double click on any word and it brings up a small window containing the definition and links to it's history and wikipedia page! It is a great tool!

Attempt to stop predictive auto dialers.

I am using a disconnected phone line tone aka S.I.T. (Special Information Tones), at the beginning of my answering machine message.

The predictive dialer monitors the answers to the calls it places, detecting how the calls it makes are answered. It discards unanswered calls, busy numbers, disconnected lines, answers from fax machines, answering machines and similar automated services, and only connects calls answered by people to waiting sales representatives. Thus, it frees agents from the task of manually dialing telephone numbers and subsequently listening to ring tones, unanswered or unsuccessful calls.

We receive about 12 calls  a week which our answering machine picks up as nothing but white noise or on occasion some recorded message designed in some way to induce us to send money to the organization who is irritating us with said phone call.

Now if i need it I already have it or will get it without being told  by some slimy sales person I must have it. If something is worthy of my money which there is little of to begin with I do not need to hear a sales pitch to know I want or need it. Sales pitches are for items or services that are not valuable enough to sell themselves based on their own merits. In others word if someone is trying to see you on something that something is no good.

This is the first day of the test and I have received two calls as I write this post.

Uncharacteristically both calls were not followed by white noise but by two recorded messages. Also uncharacteristically both messages got stuck in a loop which I am going to surmise is a positive sign that the auto dialer might be cycling as a result of processing a disconnected number tone. I know this just might be wishful thinking but time will tell if the calls do indeed stop coming!

Ted Williams the Vagrant with the Voice

So I look at the top videos on youtube for today and see a vagrant in Ohio with over 4 million hits in 3 days. I press play and my heart is warmed! I sure hope this is another youtube success story and that it quiets the whole bed intruder mess.

He’s been offered a job and a home. Not bad for a couple days of job hunting! Mr. Williams, time to frame that cardboard sign and hang it in your new office!

God Bless!

Mike’s Clam Shed Cedar Key

I had the privilege of traveling to Cedar Key with Tyler and family, hopefully less out of pity and more out of proven good behavior. When you experience a place with the folks who call that place home it has a sweetness and relevance that you cannot pay any amount of money to gain. Mike Davis has a passion for where he calls home and for his chosen vocation. He farms Little Neck Clams from the gulf and is one of those individuals who excels at using what God provides to take care of his own! I had a great time once again in Cedar Key! Here is a video by someone showing the clams on the beds .

Here is a video Tyler captured of the process that takes place before the one seen in the video above.

Here are some still images captured on the adventure!

Grace = undeserved favor!

Thank you God for the Grace of your people!