Greeter at Roma's Italian Restaurant

We are taking a break from HITS today by posting a photo of a greeter who stands just outside the front door of Roma's Italian restaurant. It's a good restaurant, with excellent food and modest prices.

HITS (Horses in the Sun) 2018 - Assorted Scenes

HITS (Horses In The Sun) is back in town!

HITS is a massive spectacle of jumping horses and beautiful riders engaged in numerous contests over a period of 10 weeks with $4 million dollars at stake.  The winner of the final competition on March 25 will receive $1 million dollars.

People come from all over the United States and other countries to bring their horses and hopes and dreams to HITS.  

HITS is held at the Post Time Farm, a 450-acre spread some 10-15 miles northwest of Ocala.  Post Time Farm offers contestants 100 permanent padlocks, and 30 permanent barns.

We spent a day watching the training, the exercises and the competitions.  We go to HITS each year because it is such great fun.  You haven't lived until you feel the earth move under your feet as a beautiful horse thunders by to leap over a barrier I would need a bridge to cross!

We will be showing more of the HITS experience in the days ahead.  What you see in this post is part of an actual competition.  The young lady and her steed were amazing!

If you wish to know more about HITS, click HERE.

Abandoned Shopping Center

It was a warm and foggy morning.  My nerves were jangled and I needed something to calm them down.  Change bothers me.  Change upsets me.  Why would I ever be in this old, abandoned shopping center?

The answer is that we do what we have to do for City Daily Photo!  

This was at one time a thriving shopping center, anchored by one of our most elite supermarkets, located on what is now a very busy road, Highway 27.  Then, for reasons not readily apparent, the powers that be, using all the intellect allotted to them, went across a small road and built another almost identical shopping center, leaving this one to rot.  

I've tried to make sense of it, but can't.  The two shopping centers aren't more than 200 yards apart.  The new shopping center has a number of vacant spaces.  

This had to be a costly move.  Do you think that customers are paying for it in higher prices in all the stores located in the new shopping center?

I thought about it a long time, and then went home to take a nap.

Tie A Pinkish Ribbon On the Old Oak Tree...

With apologies to Tony Orlando who wrote the lyrics for the vastly popular song, "Tie A Yellow Ribbon On The Old Oak Tree."

Sean Nichols - New Car Sales Manager - Jenkins Acura

Sean Nichols is a warm, wonderful, honest sales representative and manager and I have bought cars from him previously.  On this occasion, however, I was merely having my car serviced.  I could not afford the RLX in any case!

The new car showroom and offices

A new Acura RLX - the top of the Acura line

The RLX Cockpit

A beautiful building

The mostly new car sales lot

The sales lot done in B&W

Mobile Pet Groomer

One of our neighbors has two cute little dogs and every so often she hires a mobile pet groomer to trim their fur and bathe them.  We did the same thing when we had our golden retriever and I remember that trailer was filled with all sorts of gadgets as well as a large bathtub. 

Am I cute, or what?

The couple that reads together (at the mall) stays together...

Who give a hoot?

An owl, silly!

Cat Crossing

This is not my house, but I like the sign and am wondering if I should get a sign just like that. Nah, our kitties never go outside.

Hungry Bear Drive-In

The Hungry Bear Drive-In, located in the downtown area, has been in operation as long as I can remember. We've never eaten there, and this photo was taken on a Sunday when the place was closed, but it does a good business during the week so I'm guessing it has many satisfied customers.

A Tired Old Boat

We've lived in Ocala for 13 years.  Soon after arriving here, we visited Lake Sumter Landing in The Villages, a few miles south of Ocala, and that's where we first saw this old fishing boat which has been around since the creation of Lake Sumter Landing.  It's located in Lake Sumter just off shore from the Waterfront Inn.

Not long ago, the thing began to sink.  When the water reached the deck the "powers-that-be" took action to bring it back to "life."  So now, again, it sits proudly on top of the water, rusting away.

The City Daily Photo theme for February 1 is "Tired."  You can view other interpretations of the theme HERE.

P.S.  The "snow" in yesterday's post was faux.  It was made possible via Photoshop.

Winter along the Silver River trail... ?

Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition

The Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, located in downtown Ocala, has been in existence as long as I can remember and I've been in Ocala for 13 years.  The name itself gives rise to questions rather than answers, but the institute is all about finding answers.  

Inside this building, "a group of scientific researchers assembled from around the world collaborate on projects ranging from predicting cyber attacks to helping patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) communicate with the world around them.

"The complicated nature of their research requires exceptional minds from almost every scientific field ... [who] have come together under one roof to help solve some of the most pressing problems facing mankind today."

Here are just two examples of the people working at IHMC:  Dr. Bonnie Dorr, the IHMC Associate Director, earned her Ph.D. in computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-founded the Computational Linguistics and Information Processing Laboratory at the University of Maryland.

Dr. Yorick Wilks, a Senior Research Scientist from London, attended Cambridge University and earned his Ph.D. in philosophy.

Other scientists working at IHMC have similar credentials and we are fortunate to have this institute here in Ocala. 

[Note:  Thanks to Ocala Style magazine for much of this information.]