Key Largo, Montego, Baby why don't we go?

To Jamaica or the Florida Keys???


We had a fantastic trip. These pics are from Bahia Honda State Park on Big Pine Key.

This is mom-mom, Luca, Jer, and James. The sand was so soft and white. The water was a perfect temperature and so clean!

This is sunset in Key Largo. It looked like Jer was having a tranquil moment till James came up and dumped a hand full of sand on his shorts.

We went to a butterfly conservatory. It was incredible. Thousands of them were flying all around us. This picture is actually a moth. It was much easier to photograph because it was sleeping. Moths are nocturnal.

Here is a pic of some of our recently moved away friends. We miss you guys!

Graduation!

No, Luca did not graduate. He just snagged Em's cap. The Miceli twins made it through! I can't imagine what Mom-mom and Pap-pap will occupy themselves with when the kids leave for college.
Pap-pap will probably go the gym for a few more hours a week till he looks like Mr. Incredible. Maybe he will run another marathon. Who knows.
Mom-mom will have several more hours a day to tackle all kinds of projects. Maybe she will discover her own new mathmatical theory, maybe she'll teach so many SAT classes that the average score of cumberland county will increase by so much that they'll have to start testing the water. Or maybe she'll just figure out what happened to the mates of all those orphaned socks hanging on the line. Oh! The great mysteries of Life!

James slept through the formal family photo time. You always let sleeping babies lie. Too bad if when we look back in 10 years we can't remember if he was born yet.

Here are the five originals!

The men.

The Foundations of Temples

But if a solid foundation is not found, and the site is loose earth right down, or marshy, then it is to be excavated and cleared and remade with piles of alder or of olive or charred oak, and the piles are to be driven close together by machinery, and the intervals between are to be filled with charcoal.Then the foundations are to be filled with very solid structures. The foundations being built to a level, the stylobates are to be laid.

-Vitruvius Ten Books on Architecture, Book Three Chapter Four "On the Foundations of Temples"

This is Vitruvius' description of the scene taking place 2000 years later in the images below. Because the soil is "loose earth right down" they drill hundreds of three foot diameter holes down 50-100 feet deep. They fill them with reinforced concrete, then cast the concrete footings and foundations on top. (Unfortunately, the structural engineer could not be convinced to use alder, olive or charred oak as vitruvius advises.) In most situations, the soft earth acts more like water than solid rock so the two options are to "float" the building on a wide footing, or to put down piles or caissons (as is happening below). In this case, you can imagine that the building is like an oil rig supported in a sea of soft soil on hundreds of long legs. What was that about the wise man and his choice of building sites?