I walked out of my building yesterday on my way to my car to go home and saw this:
Plant Hall and the University of Tampa in November
I walk past this almost everyday, but rarely notice it. The sun setting on Plant Hall struck me as very beautiful. Oh, and it was 85 degrees yesterday. Sucks to be me, right?!? ;)
I saw this sign on my way in to work the other day:
I hope it’s a joke, but it is Florida. And that means… Well, anything goes.
Our neighborhood has seen a little activity of late. Unfortunately, the father of one of our good friends/neighbors, Mike Leon, passed away last week. Mike had lived with them for most of the past year and a half or so, so we knew him. It was sudden, even though Mike was 85. We attended the funeral Friday.
And then there was the DEA raid on a different neighbor’s house on Wednesday. That neighbor, while seemingly a nice guy, was one of the people involved in the pill mill that was raided by the DEA several months back. A month or so before the first raid, he bought the house across the street from us. Since he bought it, it has been a hub of activity. I haven’t seen anything illegal and haven’t reported anything, but Wednesday morning the neighbor whose dad passed away called and told me to look out my front window. Sitting in front of our house were four DEA agents. There were half a dozen vehicles parked up and down the street. They waited in front of our neighbor’s house all day (I’m assume waiting on the warrant). They finally went in around 6:30pm. I’m not sure if they found anything or not, but by the time they went in, there were probably 20 vehicles parked around the neighbor’s house and about 30 agents swarming the property. I later found out that our neighbor was arrested and charged with various things earlier in the day. We haven’t seen him since, though I believe he posted bail. Like I said, he seems like a nice enough guy. I was really hoping that he’d clean up his act after the first raid. Maybe not.
In early October we attended the wedding of one of my colleagues. It was on the beach in St. Petersburg.
Toren + beach = playing in the sand
Toren also got to run around during the reception, but he wasn’t particularly disruptive, despite running all over the hotel.
We spent the night in the hotel that night so we could stay fairly late at the reception. It was loads of fun.
I was chatting with my Mom over IM the other day when she told me a story about my brother Mark (well, sort of). A little background is required. After the funeral and the internment ceremony, there was a reception at my parents church (which is right next to the cemetery). At the reception there were blue, helium-filled balloons. Those who went to the reception were asked to write a message to Mark on a 3×5 card and staple it to the strings attached to the balloons. At the end of the reception they were going to let them go. We actually missed this part of the reception as Toren came down with a fever during the reception, so we left early and took him to a clinic in Ogden. Anyway, the balloon release took place as planned, leading up to this story:
Eugenie: You know how we let the balloons go?
Ryan: Yeah.
Eugenie: Well, the next Sunday after church – that was 4 days later - Kristen (one of Mark’s sisters-in-law) looked up on the hill where his grave is. There was one blue balloon hovering over his grave.
The nice thing about this story is that a it’s a touching story regardless of your worldview.