The beach, part 5

On Wednesday, we made our annual trip to the Snake and Alligator zoo --- it is a small, but really rather wonderful facility. They have a 40 minute presentation on snakes two or three times a day, which we've seen several times now, and every time it is different, and every time I learn something new: the woman who gives it is amazing: and she manages to convey the excitement of the serpents every time. Then we wander over to the Alligator area, where there is a feeding, this year accompanied by a script read by one of the least interesting voices I've ever heard. If I hadn't been trying to get video of the alligators, I'm sure I would have fallen asleep.
But boring alligator presentation aside, it is a wonderful facility, and a great time. We'll be back there again next summer:-)

I'd been trying to connect to the internet for a few days by this point: my machine showed a wireless signal, and claimed to connect to it, but then was unable to connect to any web sites. So I finally took the machine over to the bookstore, which claims an internet cafe (sans cafe). As I was encountering the same problem, I decided to reboot --- only to find that my computer would hang at the end of the boot process every time. And having no access to the net, no rescue disks, no way to try to fix it, I had no choice other than to accept it or get incredibly frustrated.

Of course, I chose incredibly frustrated. I tried, probably unsuccessfully, to not let it get in the way of everyone else enjoying the rest of the vacation, but...
One of the most frustrating aspects of it all was that I had cleaned out my bag to make it easier to trek it along to the beach, taking out rescue disks, live cd's, other computer, etc etc etc. Oh well. I finally managed to get the computer working again the Monday after we returned, and today it is close to being back to normal. A bunch of things to tweak again, but it is at least basically usable again.

Oh. Food, you ask? (Oh? You didn't? Well you should have!) Wednesday was also the day that we did our annual low country boil a la me: potatoes, corn, kielbasa, andouille, shrimp, beer, seasoning, all in a big pot, in another order, cooked until somebody says "Damn, that smells good, can we eat it yet?"
Oh, and served with the first batch of beach bread of the year. Good.


Yours, snaking from beach to bookstore to bread, broken down,
N.