Oodles of Doodles XVII

Our new doodle comes from Henri Rene And His Orchestra-Compulsion To Swing (RCA Victor LPM-1947, 1959). This is the second doodle we've featured by the talented Lou Myers. The first was from an LP by the Three Suns. We'll have to do some more searching to see if we can bring you any more info about this talented gentleman.

Ernie & Ernie & Ernie & Ernie

For years, people have been surprised to find out that I am Ernie IV. Well, here's the proof. In this unique photograph from October 1974, you get to see four generations of my family, all with the same name. I'm the little tyke in the powder blue shirt, lower right. Ernie III is in the stylish maroon jacket at upper left. Ernie Jr is in the plaid jacket upper right. And the original Ernie is seated at center. This picture is from a trip to North Carolina that I barely remember. It's badly faded and rather spotty if you look closely, but it's still a classic. It occurs to me that I am now almost 10 years older than my father was when this picture was taken. He's also the only other Ernie left.

Get Otter Here!

I mentioned below a trip to the Clearwater Marine Aquarium, and here's a shot from that trip. The curious fellow above is a river otter. These guys are a rare sight in the wild, but they do exist. I've seen them on the Rainbow River before. But to be able to observe them in their habitat at the aquarium was fascinating. They swam back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, but they were swimming one way on their bellies, then they'd go back the other way on their backs. You could tell they were having more fun than animals in captivity ought to be having. And they seemed to get a kick out of people watching. They'd watch as tourists would walk by, not in a nervous way, but in a way that made them seem about as curious about us as we were about them.

Mote In My Eyes

This past weekend was very disappointing picture-wise, so here's a little Classic Ernie. The shot above is a tank full of jellyfish at Mote Marine in Sarasota. I can't say I was overly impressed with Mote, but maybe it was because I visited there while overdosing on local marine life. The previous day I had been at Clearwater Marine Aquarium, and the previous weekend I had observed the rescue of a loggerhead turtle at Ft. Desoto.

May 2005

The monthly calender for May features a close-up of a whelk in the waters along Ft. Desoto south of St. Pete. This fellow was alive when I found him, so I took some pictures and let him crawl away as soon as I was done. The color is pretty much as it looked then. The shell was about that color orange, and it was very close to sunset which accentuated the orange tone.

The First Week Of May

The photo we start May with is a spectacular sunset as seen from the bedroom window of my old apartment. I used to live on the third floor, and I had an unobstructed view of the western sky. This resulted in a lot of sunset shots much like this one, since it was a whole lot easier to shoot from my bedroom than driving out to the beach. You'll probably recognize that tree on the right in two or three more sunset shots this year.