I'm never at ease about my choices about what I wear. I get up in the morning and chose from a fairly narrow selection of "work clothes", pausing a bit to consider if who I might be meeting with that day and what the weather will like. Most of the time I'm only working with co-workers and most of the time it's warm or hot here, so the choice is usually khakis, a short sleeve shirt, and dress shoes. I downgrade to a golf shirt, jeans, and sneakers on "Casual Fridays", though to me wearing anything isn't casual enough.
Only very rarely if I'm meeting with a customer's upper management will I wear a tie and jacket or a full business suit. God I hate that clown outfit! It's literally a middle ages business uniform that looks absolutely ridiculous. Ties? What the heck! They're hideously uncomfortable around one's neck and what's with the vertical stripe of color down a light colored shirt, deep V'ed in by a thin and otherwise useless jacket? How uncool is that? All this so everyone knows what to look like in front of each other, even if everyone looks pretty silly.
The lab I work in makes everyone wear the same blue smocks to protect against electrostatic discharges. Worn over anything, everyone looks just about the same wearing them, creating an inadvertent "work uniform". In a way, it's a relief. Police officers, nurses, and many other professionals and blue collar workers wear uniforms to people identify them with their profession. At least they don't have to think much or care what we're wearing to work, and I don't have to care much if I'm going to be in the lab all day.
Then there's the trap of what to wear when going out with friends or to social events. How dress up is it? What are other people wearing? My wife's fashion sense is even worse then mine. Not that she doesn't dress well herself, but she often underestimates how dressed up I should be.
I shouldn't care, but I'm still very conditioned to care. And maybe that's a big reason I like being naked whenever I can be. It's the uniform God issued us. That's what people look like. That's me. I'm more than happy for other people to look like themselves instead of being weirdly decorated. It's a tremendous relief not to have to care anymore when I and others are nude.
Saturday, May 7, 2016
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
The New Fence and Maintaining a Reasonable Expectation of Privacy
We've had our back yard fenced ever since we moved there. More accurately, our land backs up to the deep woods of a sanctuary so we've left that side open so we can enjoy the view of the woods and the critters who come and go from there. Either way, we enjoy complete privacy in our back yard and unless a neighbor was working on their roof, up in a tree, or peeking through the narrow slats, they couldn't see whether we're naked or not in our pool, our hot tub, or just laying out or working in the yard. In legal terms, we had a reasonable expectation of privacy and are perfectly within our rights to be nude there.
But the privacy wasn't perfect. We had back to back hurricanes several years ago and the fence was down for months. We hated it, but out of respect for our neighbors, we didn't go nude back there during the day until the fence was back up. I'd go in or put something on if a neighbor was working on his roof, on a ladder trimming their trees, or their kids were playing along the fence on their side, since it was easy for them to see us through narrow slats accidentally, if they were that close to the fence.
But the fence was beginning to look pretty tired. The slats were shrinking and warping, and it was getting easy for the neighbors to see onto our property from certain angles if we were in certain areas of our back yard, so it was time for it to be replaced.
The new fence is vinyl with continuous panels with no cracks in between. Heaven. Once again we can be anywhere in our yard and they can be anywhere in their yard, including right up against the fence, and they'll never see us. It's not that they don't know we're nude there. We're on good enough terms that we've mentioned it. Even so, good fences make good neighbors. Having enough privacy is well worth the work and expense of maintaining it.
Strip Clubs
I haven't been in a strip club in decades, but I doubt they've changed much. When I was young, that's where a lot of guys went for a night out on the town. I avoided them like the plague except at bachelor parties, when going was obligatory. I went to more bachelor parties at such places in my early 20's than I care to remember. I worked with one guy who was a regular for decades, and one of my other engineer co-workers actually owned and ran a club of his own on the side. Yeah, welcome to the south. Except the club owning engineer was when I was working in the Mid West.
At the time, I was already going to nude beaches and resorts on my own without any of my friends knowing and I couldn't help but find strip clubs to be sad, perverted, side effects of how badly we've been conditioned to be averse to our own form, and how badly we treat and feel about our own sexuality. I don't know if I felt sorrier for the girls or for my stupid friends. Why on Earth would you go to see such a distorted representation of what half the human race looks like, showing off for you in ways to get you aroused, when you can't (or at least really shouldn't) be doing anything about it? Especially around other guys?
I'm glad my peers out grew that. I can't help but think if they were as used to seeing women as I did, as people, clothed or unclothed, that strip clubs wouldn't exist. Perhaps someday, they won't exist. I won't miss them.
At the time, I was already going to nude beaches and resorts on my own without any of my friends knowing and I couldn't help but find strip clubs to be sad, perverted, side effects of how badly we've been conditioned to be averse to our own form, and how badly we treat and feel about our own sexuality. I don't know if I felt sorrier for the girls or for my stupid friends. Why on Earth would you go to see such a distorted representation of what half the human race looks like, showing off for you in ways to get you aroused, when you can't (or at least really shouldn't) be doing anything about it? Especially around other guys?
I'm glad my peers out grew that. I can't help but think if they were as used to seeing women as I did, as people, clothed or unclothed, that strip clubs wouldn't exist. Perhaps someday, they won't exist. I won't miss them.
Sunday, December 27, 2015
Tweaking the Blog
Bare with me as I tweak the look and feel of this blog a bit. The avatar I've been using since my Geocities days (you can still find the old posts if you Google "rick407") was too low res in the way it's presented in G+ and here. I was attached to it because it reminds me of myself when I got started with naturism. Thin, fit, brown hair, stubble, just hanging out at the beach. Today, I have less hair and aren't as young, but I'm still sporting a closely cropped beard that I haven't shaved since before I visited my first nude beach in my early 20's.
The new profile photo is that of the warning sign at Haulover Beach, near Miami. That may change. If you haven't guessed, the last name isn't mine, but rather the name of a person who a nearby town is named after. And for trivia's sake, 407 is the area code there. Yeah, not very original. The "b" at the end of my yahoo username came from somehow locking myself out from the original rick407 account about the time Geocities collapsed. So much for history.
I intended this blog to be not about my thoughts in general, but just about my thoughts about nudism, naturism, nudity, or whatever you prefer calling what humans look like. I'm likewise juggling around another blog that isn't linked with this username. That one is purely technical and is likely completely lost in the noise. I have personal Facebook and Google accounts, but those I just use between family and personal friends. Really boring stuff which you'd have no interest in.
I keep them separate because they have different audiences, not because I'd be all that devastated if people put two and two together and they linked them to me. There aren't that many people who don't know the opinions I express under any of those usernames.
Drones
As an active pilot, I have my own opinion on those noisy privacy robbing little hazards to navigation. Except while landing or taking off, manned aircraft have to stay at least 500 feet away from any person, vehicle, or structure. And unless the area is sparsely populated, we have to stay at above 1000 feet.
I'm often vectored over Haulover Beach (clothing optional beach northeast of Miami) at 1000 to 1500 feet. Trust me, unless you're a passenger who knows what you're looking for and has a very steady hand with binoculars, you're not going to be able to tell whether people are clothed or not from that altitude. OK, you can tell that for some reason there's a lot of dots in one area (the CO section) and hardly any, anywhere else. And you can make out the "snow fence" that separates the areas, but that's it. Being down at 500 feet isn't much better. Besides, most pilots don't like being that low and we're way too busy watching out for cell phone and radio towers down there to be spending time looking down trying to make out what people are, or aren't, wearing. I know where almost all the clubs are in Florida because I've been to them, and for various reasons, I've flown over most of them. Never once, in decades of flying and knowing where to look, have I ever been able to tell whether someone on the ground was naked or not from the air. The same is true while landing and taking off. The ground is whizzing by too quickly and we're way too busy to be noticing if you're sunbathing naked in your back yard.
Drones are another story. Johnny's new toy is typically fitted with an HD camera and can be flow beyond line of sight using a live video feed or a preassigned GPS driven flight path. They're supposed to be below 400 feet (to stay out of our way) and most of them can stay in a stabilized hover for a long period of time, taking very detailed pictures and videos. The law hasn't caught up, and for now you can't do much if your neighbor, or your neighbor's kids, decide to spy on you.
Here in the US, all but the smallest drones are now supposed to be registered. Whatever good that will do. Manned aircraft have registration (tail) numbers, usually at least a foot high, painted across them. Is Johnny supposed to drag a banner behind his drone with big enough registration numbers on it that people call in with it when they complain? Good luck.
And good luck expecting the law to do anything. The airspace above your property really isn't yours, and other than trying to make a general "disturbing the peace" complaint stick, there's not much they'll do about it. Even in rural areas where discharge from a firearm isn't a problem, expect it will be a problem if you try to shoot one of them down. You've destroyed their property and they can often argue that they had a right to be there.
Until all that gets sorted out, we have two choices: Stay indoors, or ignore them. While I might be perfectly OK ignoring my neighbor's new toy, not caring if they see me naked or not, other people do mind. Do we clear our beaches and run for cover when one shows up overhead at our clubs? I hope not. But we do need to press for laws that at least discourage people from doing that. I'm fine with allowing people to fire at them with birdshot when they're over our properties. But until that's allowed, expect the middle finger salute from this naked guy below. I'm not going anywhere.
I'm often vectored over Haulover Beach (clothing optional beach northeast of Miami) at 1000 to 1500 feet. Trust me, unless you're a passenger who knows what you're looking for and has a very steady hand with binoculars, you're not going to be able to tell whether people are clothed or not from that altitude. OK, you can tell that for some reason there's a lot of dots in one area (the CO section) and hardly any, anywhere else. And you can make out the "snow fence" that separates the areas, but that's it. Being down at 500 feet isn't much better. Besides, most pilots don't like being that low and we're way too busy watching out for cell phone and radio towers down there to be spending time looking down trying to make out what people are, or aren't, wearing. I know where almost all the clubs are in Florida because I've been to them, and for various reasons, I've flown over most of them. Never once, in decades of flying and knowing where to look, have I ever been able to tell whether someone on the ground was naked or not from the air. The same is true while landing and taking off. The ground is whizzing by too quickly and we're way too busy to be noticing if you're sunbathing naked in your back yard.
Drones are another story. Johnny's new toy is typically fitted with an HD camera and can be flow beyond line of sight using a live video feed or a preassigned GPS driven flight path. They're supposed to be below 400 feet (to stay out of our way) and most of them can stay in a stabilized hover for a long period of time, taking very detailed pictures and videos. The law hasn't caught up, and for now you can't do much if your neighbor, or your neighbor's kids, decide to spy on you.
Here in the US, all but the smallest drones are now supposed to be registered. Whatever good that will do. Manned aircraft have registration (tail) numbers, usually at least a foot high, painted across them. Is Johnny supposed to drag a banner behind his drone with big enough registration numbers on it that people call in with it when they complain? Good luck.
And good luck expecting the law to do anything. The airspace above your property really isn't yours, and other than trying to make a general "disturbing the peace" complaint stick, there's not much they'll do about it. Even in rural areas where discharge from a firearm isn't a problem, expect it will be a problem if you try to shoot one of them down. You've destroyed their property and they can often argue that they had a right to be there.
Until all that gets sorted out, we have two choices: Stay indoors, or ignore them. While I might be perfectly OK ignoring my neighbor's new toy, not caring if they see me naked or not, other people do mind. Do we clear our beaches and run for cover when one shows up overhead at our clubs? I hope not. But we do need to press for laws that at least discourage people from doing that. I'm fine with allowing people to fire at them with birdshot when they're over our properties. But until that's allowed, expect the middle finger salute from this naked guy below. I'm not going anywhere.
Saturday, December 26, 2015
This was one very hot Christmas
Here in Central Florida, there's usually only a dozen or so days a year one wouldn't be perfectly comfortable being outside nude in the middle of the day. And maybe there's a couple of dozen nights a year when one dare not dash out to get the paper in the morning wearing less than long pants and a jacket. But no. Not this year. We've had a few cool days last month when wearing long pants was more comfortable than wearing shorts in the evening. But this year. This... is something else.
It's been muggy and in the mid 80's during the day and mid 70's and humid at night for weeks now. Day or night, being nude outside has been more comfortable than even wearing the traditional shorts and tee shirts we spend most of our winters here wearing in public. Will it cool off by New Years Day? Maybe into the low 80's, we're told.
Contrast that with a few Christmases of my youth (elsewhere in Florida at the same latitude) where it at least sometimes got below freezing for a few hours in the morning on or around Christmas Day. Heck, once, we got up early in the morning not to see what Santa brought us, but because they said we might see a light flurry. No such luck.
On another post, I mentioned a time when I was dating a member of Paradise Lakes near Tampa and she invited me to an outdoor New Years Eve party there. Darned if that wasn't one of the freaky cold nights. They had outdoor heaters set up and one could spend the hours huddled in one of their many heated pools and tubs. But wow, it was cold that night (low 40's). The club was clothing optional (I prefer nude only) and the party certainly was CO, so I grudgingly went wearing jeans, a sweat shirt and a jacket.
My date was more daring and was committed to going and staying nude. It didn't stay that way and within an hour or so, she was wearing my clothes, and I was trying to make the best of it, buck naked. It turns out that my clothes fit her perfectly. We didn't stay long and well before the bell dropped, we were huddled in our room, warming each other up.
So here we are. I'm off until after New Years and my wife, always thinking ahead, had the fence torn down Christmas Eve day to be replaced next week with a new (and much better) one. The pool's now in the 80's (solar heated) and it would really be nice to be able to spend some time out in the sun back there. But no... We're exposed to the neighbors and they've suddenly found themselves without warning being exposed to us for a good part of a week. :( At least my neighbors will soon be enjoying the improved privacy my new fence gives them. And it fills in some gaps that made our privacy a little less than I liked.
Warm or cold. Merry Christmas. Whether you're celebrating the birth of Christ, or not.
It's been muggy and in the mid 80's during the day and mid 70's and humid at night for weeks now. Day or night, being nude outside has been more comfortable than even wearing the traditional shorts and tee shirts we spend most of our winters here wearing in public. Will it cool off by New Years Day? Maybe into the low 80's, we're told.
Contrast that with a few Christmases of my youth (elsewhere in Florida at the same latitude) where it at least sometimes got below freezing for a few hours in the morning on or around Christmas Day. Heck, once, we got up early in the morning not to see what Santa brought us, but because they said we might see a light flurry. No such luck.
On another post, I mentioned a time when I was dating a member of Paradise Lakes near Tampa and she invited me to an outdoor New Years Eve party there. Darned if that wasn't one of the freaky cold nights. They had outdoor heaters set up and one could spend the hours huddled in one of their many heated pools and tubs. But wow, it was cold that night (low 40's). The club was clothing optional (I prefer nude only) and the party certainly was CO, so I grudgingly went wearing jeans, a sweat shirt and a jacket.
My date was more daring and was committed to going and staying nude. It didn't stay that way and within an hour or so, she was wearing my clothes, and I was trying to make the best of it, buck naked. It turns out that my clothes fit her perfectly. We didn't stay long and well before the bell dropped, we were huddled in our room, warming each other up.
So here we are. I'm off until after New Years and my wife, always thinking ahead, had the fence torn down Christmas Eve day to be replaced next week with a new (and much better) one. The pool's now in the 80's (solar heated) and it would really be nice to be able to spend some time out in the sun back there. But no... We're exposed to the neighbors and they've suddenly found themselves without warning being exposed to us for a good part of a week. :( At least my neighbors will soon be enjoying the improved privacy my new fence gives them. And it fills in some gaps that made our privacy a little less than I liked.
Warm or cold. Merry Christmas. Whether you're celebrating the birth of Christ, or not.
Saturday, November 14, 2015
More Working Naked
Another nasty weekend job with my wife away for the weekend. Power-washing the patio and bleaching it afterwards. Yeah, I know, it's getting chilly in most of the country, but here in Florida, it was sunny and 80 today. That's actually a break from 87 degrees and humid as it's been most of the week.
Since I have good privacy in the back yard, it's yet another job that's easily done naked. I was alternately wet and dry all day, and blasting the deck throws back a lot of dirt. Working all day in wet shorts or a swim suit wasn't a desirable option, especially with all the grit that accumulates as I'm blasting away. I took quick dips in the pool to clean up and air dry while I continued to work whenever I wanted to. It's nice that the water's still a warm 85 degrees :)
Splash-back from spreading chlorine on the deck afterwards is a sure way to destroy anything you're wearing and contrary to what you might think, you feel and can quickly rinse off any chlorine that splashes back, verses having it get soaked into your clothes and rubbing against you for a while before you notice. Then what? Into the pool to wash it off your clothes and be miserably soaking wet afterwards while probably still retaining some chlorine? Yuck!
I took a break mid day and got dressed to run some errands. Just as I was heading out, my sister-in-law knocked on the door to drop some stuff off. If she was earlier or later, she probably would have hear me blasting away in the back yard and would have come back and seen me working that way. I probably wouldn't have heard her. It's not that she doesn't know that I enjoy spending time free from my clothes. Oh well. Awkward for her maybe, but it wouldn't have phased me a bit.
I'll rinse the patio off tomorrow and put all the furniture back in order. Not as messy, but there's no reason to get dressed to do it. Plenty of other chores, tomorrow. Half inside, half in the front yard. Half done comfortably. Half done dressed to keep the neighbors happy. Oh well, half a day is better than having to stay clothed all day.
Since I have good privacy in the back yard, it's yet another job that's easily done naked. I was alternately wet and dry all day, and blasting the deck throws back a lot of dirt. Working all day in wet shorts or a swim suit wasn't a desirable option, especially with all the grit that accumulates as I'm blasting away. I took quick dips in the pool to clean up and air dry while I continued to work whenever I wanted to. It's nice that the water's still a warm 85 degrees :)
Splash-back from spreading chlorine on the deck afterwards is a sure way to destroy anything you're wearing and contrary to what you might think, you feel and can quickly rinse off any chlorine that splashes back, verses having it get soaked into your clothes and rubbing against you for a while before you notice. Then what? Into the pool to wash it off your clothes and be miserably soaking wet afterwards while probably still retaining some chlorine? Yuck!
I took a break mid day and got dressed to run some errands. Just as I was heading out, my sister-in-law knocked on the door to drop some stuff off. If she was earlier or later, she probably would have hear me blasting away in the back yard and would have come back and seen me working that way. I probably wouldn't have heard her. It's not that she doesn't know that I enjoy spending time free from my clothes. Oh well. Awkward for her maybe, but it wouldn't have phased me a bit.
I'll rinse the patio off tomorrow and put all the furniture back in order. Not as messy, but there's no reason to get dressed to do it. Plenty of other chores, tomorrow. Half inside, half in the front yard. Half done comfortably. Half done dressed to keep the neighbors happy. Oh well, half a day is better than having to stay clothed all day.
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