Old Pages

I am so happy to finally begin this old family document project. So to begin this undertaking that will take a considerable amount of work I would like to say: Merry Christmas from 1916!

The Season of Orange

Some fall photos from this week's pumpkin festival to get the cooler weather started.





It was not as cool as the photos suggest -- I got a sunburn, mosquito bites, and had broken a sweat once the Florida sun had punched through the morning clouds and roasted the afternoon as it always does this time of year.

At least he still has good circulation!

I am so pleased to see HFCS Obesity Epidemic Baby making the rounds! Here and here. Go Fatbaby, go!

The glassy, vacant stare still haunts my dreams.

Alafia Asskicking

The Alafia River -- perfect for canoes and inner tubes. Sea kayaks? Only if you're going downstream. That's important, here, and I want to underline it. Those three sets of unexpected class 1 rapids you encounter along the route? They're fun and harmless, but, once again, only if you're going downstream. Try to fight the current in an effort to return home and you're in for a fight. Try to do it in a 13 foot sea kayak and you'll likely crack a paddle in your attempt. ...which would be exactly what happened to Russ as we fought our way back inland, today.

Carbon fiber paddle. Busted. Destroyed. By the sheer force of water and paddler alone. It was amazing, laughably so at the time. Russ would have to be gentle with it -- it was still barely holding together -- but how, given the river's wish to push us to sea? What other option did we have? What if the paddle gave way and shattered completely in half? Float with the water all the way to the bay and yell for help, we assumed. There would be plenty of Miller-fueld inner tube pilots willing to offer their assistance, if still sober enough.

That, failing, would leave us in the hands of nature. The predators of the Florida wetlands would strip us of our flesh.


Tiny frogs, Florida banded watersnakes, hawks, lizards, and vultures -- all of them eager to feed upon the bloated corpses of dead boaters that didn't have a ride waiting for them at the bottom of the river. People struggling against the flow of the Alafia soon find themselves overtaken, the last image of them being their glassy eyes staring out from the tangled branches of some fallen oak that blocks the stream, their lifeless bodies conscripted into the natural effort to make the river even less navigable to boaters.

Next time, we bring rope. And a pulley. Something to tie to a tree and assist in the haul back when the rocks threaten and refuse to let us pass. At rapid set #2, my kayak got caught by the swift water and turned a sudden 180. I had to exit the boat and walk it upstream, legs wobbling as my feet slipped on mossy rocks and punched deep into sucking muck holes. Just ahead of me, Russ made it past the roiling waters, only to flip his boat as he turned to check on me. We somehow made it back into our vessels, but Russ's lifeline, his Aquafina bottle, had been washed from the cockpit.

The Alafia was trying to stop us in any way it could, including dehydrating us to exhaustion.


Russ unlocked and turned his failing paddle 45 degrees, only to have another crack develop as we battled on. The river seemed endless, the bridge marking our entry point failing to appear as we rounded each bend. Did we somehow miss the turn? Onlookers sunning on the banks called to us, asking why we were going the wrong way. "Because we enjoy nature's punishment", of course. What else could possibly drive us to do this?

We did, thankfully, make it back before Russ lost his paddle and before either of us lost our will to live. With boats dry docked on the grass and hammocks deployed between the palms at the canoe launch in the summer heat, we raised imaginary cocktails in a toast to another river survived with zero near drownings, no snakebites, and successful avoidance of lurking alligators. Life could not be better. Our conversation drifted to war stories involving the treacherous Junpier Springs run of '04, but not before we agreed the Alafia run deserved a return visit.

Perhaps, even, with a waiting car at the bottom.

Swamp for Rent

The story of our apartment complex changing to condos, then being rented, then being sold again has finally come to a close, although it is a sad one.

Village Oaks at Tampa, an apartment complex unsuccessfully converted to condominiums, has sold for $21.2 million — nearly $14.8 million less than a Boca Raton developer paid at the peak of the market nearly three years ago.

....

Last February in the midst of the condominium decline, Berdugo was visiting his homeland of Israel when he unexpectedly died of a heart attack at 55. The South Florida Business Journal reported the businessman had suffered high blood pressure compounded by stress from troubled commercial real estate investments.

I feel kind of bad for calling him crazy and telling him that I would consider the condo if he reduced the price by $100,000 when he and a realtor knocked on my door last year as they were trying to convince renters to make the leap to apartment owner. Poor guy.

Business is business, though, as is made evident by The South Florida Business Journal's article concerning Berdugo's death that never makes mention of any family left behind and, instead, chose to close with the heart-felt line in memorium: "As of March 18, Ofek shares were up 3 percent since Berdugo's death."

A most peculiar gray

That's Florida up there, hiding in the explosion of clouds just to the north of Gustav. This NASA image taken by GOES 12 earlier today is impressive, beautiful, humbling, and frightening all at the same time.

Living along the gulf coast is certainly an odd experience with regard to these storms, to say the least. I doubt I'll ever become accustomed to it. As soon as we're in the cone of uncertainty for anything above a tropical storm, the locals buzz forth in a flurry of activity as they attempt to purchase bottled water, batteries, canned goods, and flashlights. A handful of shopping carts in isle six will contain nothing but gallon jugs of Zephyrhills, while another already past checkout has a sixpack of liter Gatorades, frozen pizzas, and box of tea light candles. Each time, every time, it is as if no one has ever done this before, as if the threat and fear of a new storm wipes away the memories of all the ones that came before it. 48 hours prior to landfall, the gas pumps run slow as they try to pull from the depths of the underground tanks. 24 hours before landfall, they're dry. People rush online to see what flood zone they live in, others look to their roof and ponder the possibility that they might dwell in a house built in the pre-Andrew era without hurricane braces. Even more go about their daily business, having done absolutely no preparation at all.

Today, the run on the grocery store bordered on madness. Charcoal, beer, food, and supplies flew off the shelves and filled the carts of shoppers as the clouds began to roll in. Boxes of ponchos were eagerly grabbed at as a steady stream of cars flowed through the parking lot just outside. Bags of ice left the store, coolers were filled to capacity. Rain from Gustav had just started to fall, pickup trucks filling the hardware store parkinglot as residents refilled propane tanks.

But people along the north side of the gulf coast, today, aren't getting ready for a college football game tailgate party as the hoardes of USF fans are doing today. As the major hurricane churns out at sea, having intensified to a category four storm, the computer models HWRF and GFDL twitch and shift by hundreds of miles as they reevaluate eddy currents and the steering forces created by upper level lows. The evacuations began even now, long before the lines will begin to converge. Contraflow will commence. Tampa overcast skies above make the labor day weekend a sleepy, relaxed one. Will the game be rained out?

The stops and starts, the on and off terror of Atlantic conveyor belt continue and will through November.

It is so strange, living on the coast, during hurricane season.

Oh, joy, it's that time of year again.

Fay fay!

Tracing Lines

After a co-worker and I got into a long conversation about just how interesting family can be, I realized just how much information I'm missing about my own. So, Mia and I are starting to poke into the whole genealogy thing.

Our findings, here, as we make discoveries.

Day In, Day Out

The Sunshine State, we are not. The state nickname proclaiming such? A lie.

...which makes this time of year really frustrating, since the frequent storms often do not permit any outdoor activity beyond 10:30am. Uninformed tourists tend to somehow equate the months from May to October with fun at the beach in the peninsular state, but this could not be more distant from reality -- a fact which those visitors quickly discover after having deplaned and step outside and into an atmosphere which one can practically swim through. Thick, topical air brews cloud tops to the limits of the stratosphere moments after the sun peeks above the horizon and the lines of rain quickly march inland to destroy any hopes of recreation. Kayaking, bicycling, outdoor games, and even those brisk walks through the neighborhood are genuinely made much more exhilarating when that unexpected moment of purple light and searing heat from the heavens violently explodes a tree as a bolt of lightning finds that the pine just sixty feet away from you was a choice ground. Stomping through an inch of standing water as the ground shakes after each strike, swatting at ravenous mosquitoes as one pushes aside thick vegetation feels more akin to being immersed into a Vietnam combat simulator than an afternoon grocery store errand run. Trapped in this repeating pattern for days, weeks, months, and you begin to wonder if your conscripted tour will ever end. One begins to go stir crazy, clinging to the life support system that is central air conditioning, praying the the power holds through the afternoon bombardment on the city's infrastructure.

That being held prisoner indoors is what proves the most difficult to cope with. Shopping malls, bookstores, and cafes turn into emergency areas of refuge -- shelter with climate control that one can resort to and not continue to be stuck at home. It is only a temporary solution, as window shopping or sipping tea while reading a magazine with no intent to purchase can only go so far, though. It isn't long before the afflicted contemplate escaping into the heavy weather...

Dammit, rain! I can't get anything done!

No, really. A lot of my projects are on hold due to weather. It is eroding my sanity!

Going into Labor

Find a corporation with a solid foundation, be loyal, and stick with them. Dedication of this level will be noted and pay off in the end.

My working for [Company X] affords me some wonderful benefits not found at smaller corporations or start-ups. There's the insurance coverage (when it isn't being reduced each year), there's job security (when they aren't laying off to recover their bottom line) and, of course, there's the induced creative spark and energy to work hard that can only be fostered by that rare form of cooperative leadership and business-driven decisions. That well chosen path, coupled with investor-backed funding and a large workforce, makes for an agile industrial machine that can adapt and respond instantly to the changing environment. So, when the contract was up for northern workers at [Company X] and a potential strike loomed on the approaching horizon, the swift and decisive action of the powers that be provided an efficient and healthy solution that fit the market:

All workers in non-essential positions that didn't check the box marked "afraid of heights or confined spaces" on their application get shipped off to fill in on physical labor after reviewing a helpful pamphlet on how to cope with lobbed insults/bricks. Everyone else gets to stay behind and work 72 hour weeks.

Due to the nature of my work, I fall into the latter collection and cannot speculate on what it is like to be a member of the former. So, while we haven't actually been put into the position of going into "emergency mode" just yet, the reasoning behind this particular strategy isn't immediately obvious to myself. One would suspect that shifting a workforce accustomed to a standard 8 hour/5 day workweek to 12 hour/6 day workweeks (with coverage 24 hours a day) implies that there is a mountain of work to overcome due to the situation. But no, nothing tangible has changed in the departments and a large portion of the unpaid time over the normal eight hours would be spent with twiddling thumbs as work waits on the inverted schedule of the other half of the department. This detrimental change actually costs the company quite a lot of money and seems to be a knee jerk solution to a problem that doesn't exist. When objections were raised, the logical response was given on why we could not be exempt: "It wouldn't be fair."

So, what's the point? What's [Company X] up to? Like an elementary school teacher revoking recess for an entire class based on the misbehavior of a single student, are people taking punishment to influence negotiations through developed resentment? It is not as if denial of vacation one month in advance of the event actually accomplishes anything productive in this mess. Is this a message sent saying, in blurred but with obvious force, that no one else better think of trying something similar?

Man, I hate big business.

Skreeeeeee

The beginnings of a bad Thursday morning.


The crash actually scraped off both sides of the magnetic coating -- you could see through the glass substrate of the top platter down to the one beneath it.

Yeah, that sucked.

Progress Reversed

Logitech finally released a decent mac-compatible USB webcam, which made me really happy since the old iSights were discontinued long ago and I had no luck finding one for any amount less than twice the original price or more on eBay. I had been looking to get some vision for my old Powerbook G4 and this new product surprised me because there really isn't a market for add-on cameras -- all Macs sold, for some years now, have a built-in camera. I knew I needed to grab one before they were also relegated to the trash bin, especially since this would make my portable time lapse movies a lot easier than trying to use a firewire connection to a clunky DV cam.

Of course, no one locally carried them except the Apple store, so on Sunday I called to confirm they had one in stock. Yes, they did, and I told them I would be down to pick it up. 20 minutes later at 4:30pm, I arrived to see security guards and rope barriers protecting the storefront. No, I couldn't go in and no, they were not accepting any new customers for the rest of the day. Could I not see the long, winding line out front of the store of people waiting to purchase an iPhone? "We stopped letting people in at 3:45PM, today."

"But I don't want an iPhone. I need to buy something else."
"Sorry -- you're out of luck. We open at 10:00AM on Monday."
"But I called ahead just twenty minutes ago. No one mentioned this."
"Sorry. Come back tomorrow."
"Will the store be back to normal, then?"
"I don't think so."
"When will you be back to normal?"
"We don't know."
"Well, you let me know when you guys get back to actually selling computers."

This was a full two days beyond the launch date! During the first iPhone launch, the store had a dedicated line and cashiers available for people interested in buying the phone, meaning if you wanted something else you were free to shop at your leisure. This time, the store obviously had some issues and I could just see past the wall of people to notice there were at least a dozen extra Apple staff on the floor, hands in pockets, doing nothing while a single cashier processed orders for the line of drooling 3G fans. I argued some more, trying to make my case and be nice, but had no luck. Angry that I burned all the gasoline for nothing, I went home and placed my order on Amazon with 2 day shipping.

I never pay for faster shipping. Somehow, taking my business elsewhere meant I would pay more simply to, uh, somehow make a statement. Yeah! See that, Apple? I paid extra to not buy from you!

Yeah.

So of course three days came and went with no familiar UPS diesel truck sound outside my door. Amazon's tracking happily declared that my order had shipped, was in transit, and would arrive in approximately -1 days. UPS tracking information stated "Billing Information Recieved", which means the box was never in UPS's possession and was probably sitting in an oil stain on the loading dock, but that someone in Amazon had printed a shipping label. A call to Amazon revealed that their policy is to have their customers wait a full seven days before processing a refund or reshipment. Had I wanted to wait seven days, I argued, I wouldn't have paid for two day shipping. No matter, it was on its way, I was assured, and I should wait.

Ugh.

The next day, I called back, seeing that UPS still did not have the package in their posession. This time, my arguments won and the kind customer rep said something obviously was wrong and that the package had been lost off the truck or the driver had eaten it. Would she like me to ship another, with free overnight shipping? Yes! When would it arrive? Tuesday. This being Friday, nothing would get out the door in time. I declined and had a refund processed instead -- I'd rather just go back to the Apple store (who had to be back to normal operations, I hoped), pay for no shipping, and just call it a day. I phoned ahead, checking to make sure they were still in stock.

"We don't carry that model."
"What?"
"I think we had some in, but... well, we have this other one. It's motorized!"
"I don't want that one, I need the one you said you had in stock last weekend."
"Uh, I don't... no, we don't have that one. You could order it from Apple online."
"Your online store doesn't have it."
"Well, you can wait awhile and see if we get more in."
"But-"
"Are you sure you don't want the motorized one? We have a bunch of them and they hardly ever sell. You're guarunteed to get one."

Have you ever been in traffic, trying to get somewhere in a hurry, and you're furiously changing lanes when you see any hint of forward movement but each time you make the transition to join the flow it suddenly stops and you look back to your old lane to find it suddenly making progress without you in it?

I called back to Amazon, hoping to get in on the free shipment deal. No, they couldn't un-cancel an order and I'd have to try place another one.

Sigh. I figure I might actually see this thing come November. If I'm lucky.

Breaking fast at lunch

Two slices of toast with butter, half a grapefruit, a glass of milk, twelve ounces of orange juice, and a bowl of sugary fortified cereal soaking to a sludge -- you know this image. This standard advertising safety catch designed by the FDA and adopted by grain companies depicting what the correct American breakfast should be was burned into my head during my formative years and has remained with me to this day, much to my confusion and disgust. The cup of soulless black coffee staring at me probably wouldn't agree with my feelings on breakfast, wondering why it is the only thing I will consume from just after waking all the way to my noon lunch.

Did you gasp in horror? Yes, I do commit the sin of skipping the most important meal of the day, nearly every day. I cannot say that it is out of convenience or that I'm too rushed on my commute to the office and cannot find the small moment before my drive to eat something -- there is an entire world of cereal, muffins, pancakes, and pastries available at the corporate cafeteria that practically beg to be taken back to my cubical and eaten as I sit down to check my morning e-mail. In fact, I'm saying that it is exactly because of all of these things that I don't hunger for the first meal of the day. The problem is that the breakfast of champions hasn't been applicable to the American lifestyle for many years.

There are, of course, the arguments in favor of breakfast:

"It is needed to kick start the body's metabolism for the day. Without breakfast, you'll feel tired and sluggish."

Only if you're going to get out and do something active -- try jogging on an empty stomach and you'll quickly run out of fuel. Before I head out on my bicycle on the weekends for some activity, I'll eat a big bowl of oatmeal or some other energy food, but to sit at the office from nine to noon practically requires all the caloric intake of a single, unsalted peanut. Once upon a time, children rose from bed to walk to school and adults headed out to accomplish some physical task on the job. This hasn't been the case for years, as children are now driven to schools that lack a physical education program and adults slowly troll for the parking space nearest the front entrance of the office to enjoy the shortest walk possible. In a world where the average person skips the stairs for the convenience of the elevator to go up (or even down!) just one floor, there is no need for any energy kick start. No one needs the 390 calories from a bowl of cereal to power up their PC, much less the mountain of energy provided in the huge spread portrayed at the end of a General Mills commercial.

"Eating breakfast is good for weight loss. If you skip breakfast, you'll actually gain weight."

I've never experienced this. Ever. I believe the first meal wakes up your digestive system from its nightly rest and I found that eating breakfast actually results in me craving more food come lunch time than if I were to go without, causing me to eat more in the course of a day. That would be grand if I actually changed my day to be an active one by eating breakfast, but my day remains the same regardless of what I eat or don't eat in the morning. More calories in, more energy stored. For the six recent years I was at the correct weight for my height, I only ate food in the morning if I was going to exercise. Forgoing that bowl of Cheerios and banana didn't cause me to gain an ounce.

"Studies have shown that children that eat breakfast perform better in school than those that do not. Adults that eat breakfast perform better at work and are less moody."

I believe this, but only for breakfast foods that aren't processed/don't come out of a drive-thru window. I'm guessing what the average American eats has enough fat and carbs to induce a nice post-food coma rather than spark energy into their day. I'd also like to introduce the mentally slow and unhappy subjects in this study to a sturdy cup of coffee.

In all seriousness, I do recognize that breakfast is important, but the two caveats are that it is required that the person be active, daily, to take advantage of it and that what is eaten is healthy. Without both of these, the benefits completely vanish and more harm is done than good. This simply isn't advertised much -- we're more likely to hear about what we should be doing and what we should be eating, separately, not hearing about what we should be eating based upon our activity level. With the calories you would be consuming, you had better be raising a barn if you're eating every part of "a complete breakfast". In reality, no one eats that. What we Americans do eat, however, is much more disturbing.

Breakfast is considered the most important meal, yet it breaks nearly all the rules we consider core when regarding one. If you were served a ham sandwich every single day for lunch, you'd quickly become frustrated with the monotony and even become ill at the mere thought of eating one after three days. Yet, it is perfectly acceptable to expect children to eat from the same box of cereal every morning until it runs out. You wouldn't restrict your dinner to just a slice of chocolate cake, but it is somehow perfectly acceptable to eat a glazed cinnamon roll with the same nutritional value in the morning and call it a meal. Those "healthy" muffins they serve at my office with banana, nuts, and raisins? Well, they actually are cake -- they're made with store bought Betty Crocker mix. And, for some reason, our culture seems to demand that a breakfast either be delicious and incredibly disastrous for one's health or reasonable but tasteless, cold, and bland. Sunday's bacon, eggs, hash browns, and cheese grits contrast with Monday's unfortunate granola bar. Breakfast out means a stack of buttermilk pancakes slathered with butter and a side of sausage, but cooking in the AM at home means toasting an English muffin. The warm breakfast bowls of noodles, vegetables, and chicken or beef found in Asia has no equivalent, here, nor do the spicy morning meals of Indian curry or the grilled fish and miso soup of Japan. Nope, those sound too much like lunch and we all know you can't eat that kind of food before 11:30! Our weekday breakfasts are strictly functional -- we have no time, no desire, to do more. Cold grains in milk artificially colored to give the appearance of fruit flavor that have been fortified with iron and added vitamins because the base food material is nutritionally worthless. Toasted bread with plain butter. Would you like some instant cream of wheat from a packet? You can add a bit of sugar or milk to it if you'd like to make it more palatable. Flavorless puffed corn. Waffles with imitation blueberries! We would never punish ourselves like this at lunch or dinner.

It is entirely possible, as with most issues in my life, that my disgust with this stems from some childhood trauma from long ago. The creepy image of the child with the death-grin on the Farina box might be responsible, but the flavorless contents set before me in a bowl with a spoon and the weight of the parental expectation that I would happily slurp the watery mush down each morning before the bus arrived is equally suspect. I cannot describe how bad a bowl of microwaved Cherrios in hot milk smells when you've just pulled yourself from the depths of slumber, but someone in my household managed to eat it for years and, to my horror, even claimed to enjoy the foul concoction. Brand after brand of cereal both hot and cold, perfectly good breads rendered inedible by the heat of the toaster and coated with a mixture of butter and sickly sweet Smuckers corn-syrup based flavored jelly, various preprocessed microwavables that included "meat" -- I was told I had to eat these things in order to start my day. But even when the TV made this declaration back then, I didn't believe it, which is possibly why I don't buy it now.

Standard American breakfasts are a sham. There is likely a good balance to be found, something in between gruel and southern Sunday spread. I will find a companion for my coffee, someday, and maybe I'll even get off my ass to actually make use of it.

Until then, I'm brewing my breakfast.

...with the occasional beignet, perhaps. Mmmm.

Bored and Nuts

These things are wildly addictive. Our craving to consume the entire bag made us glance at the nutritional facts label on this new product to make sure we weren't eating sugar by the metric ton and spare us the horrible, bloated future as predicted in Wall-E.

Serving size: 8 clusters. Servings per container: about 6.

There are not 48 of these in that little bag. We should know -- we would loved to have eaten that many. The next thing I knew a second bag had been purchased, the counting began, and both the electronic balance and calculator were deployed. Oh, how bored we were! Some fun numbers:

Total product mass: 156g stated, 156g actual.
Total number of clusters: 48 calculated, 24 actual.
Total amount of nut debris in bag bottom: 22g
Individual Cluster Weight: 3.5g calculated, 5.6g actual (average).
Serving size stated: 8 clusters (~28g)
Serving size actual: 5 clusters (~28g)

At actual weight, eating a suggesting serving size results in eating about 44.6g of product versus the stated 28g for an error of ~16g, or 57%! (federal law permits up to 20%) That's around 100 extra calories and 7.7g more fat than printed on the label. Whoops.

They're [mostly] nuts and nuts are healthy, so it can't be so bad. Right? Hopefully, Frito-Lay will be kind enough to give us a lifetime supply for correcting their manufacturing problem.

Bat Rescue

The bat hanging around just outside my office hadn't moved from its spot in more than 72 hours, meaning she hadn't had any food or water. So, using a good pair of gloves, we scooped her up and shuttled her off to The Florida Bat Conservancy, where she was declared to be in good health, but too young to be out hunting on her own just yet. It is possible, we think, that she was displaced by all the construction going on in the business park.

She is most likely a Southeastern Myotis who is, indeed, very far south for her range. Bonus: this species does eat mosquitoes!

Mosquito Control

Today's discovery: a tiny brown bat hanging out on the outside of my office building. He/she was snoozing away at eye level on a support pillar, waiting for the sun to drop before taking flight and hopefully to eat thousands of the mosquitoes that have proven very bitey, lately.


Love the tiny claws. I see more cool wildlife at my office than at the local parks.

Making Green

Proof that green is in: it can be found in advertisements completely unrelated to the environment and, of course, horribly misused. I found this ad prominently displayed on each and every table in the dining area inside my office building, having been placed there by the catering company that supplies and maintains the cafeteria. It seems to imply that if you'd like to help the planet (recycle! reuse! ...refuel?), you can do your part by, uh, ordering a combo meal. I'm not entirely sure that is what the ad designer had in mind and, in truth, I have no idea what this ad is supposed to say other than "you should purchase a drink and chips with your meal". Too bad those additions don't actually get you any type of discount, negating the very concept of a combo meal.

Extra green bonus points for the including both modern day icons of the antithesis of reuse and reduction: a bottle of water and the inefficient, incandescent light bulb.

Camping at the Falls

There is no better reset for stress than camping at Lake Rabun and getting to play in the waterfalls.

...oh, and a massive omelet. That helps, too.

Everything is coming up tulips

"Blasphemous greed and stupidity of the masses."

Just wait until they place drinking water on the commodities market.

Buzz versus Buzz

Watched Discovery lift off, yesterday -- we had a good sight of her from Tampa despite clouds on the horizon. It was amusing, knowing that a Buzz Lightyear toy was atop that column of flame speeding thousands of miles per hour into orbit.

To prepare for the difficult journey, Buzz had to be trained by...Buzz.



I'm also really pleased to see the Mars Phoenix Lander has a Twitter page.

You're Going Outside, Now!

Oh, giant wolf spider, why do you feel the need to run across the floor at top speed on a Saturday morning at 9am?

Wonderful World Intro

I had to do a pistol cleaning demonstration in a video, so I decided to string together some absolutely stupid clips for the intro. GTA included as a commercial -- yay!

Ping Pong

Gopher Tortoise eggs! Found near the office building where I work. Crows got to them despite my best attempts to thwart their efforts with a cover of packed dirt and a shield of rocks.

Miss You

We're going to miss you, little hedgehog.

Bailey hadn't been running quite as much over the past two nights, but seemed to be eating and still doing well. Last night he was lethargic and slightly wobbly and I knew it was time for a trip to the vet on Tuesday. This morning, though, he was gone.

Two and a half years of age for a hedgehog is a pretty good life, but we're still going to miss him and wish he were around to fill the apartment with the sound of little running feet at 2AM.

Take care, little hedgie.

Money Pool

This American Life has a really excellent episode about the housing crisis that goes into the complex and intricate dealings of how people were whipped into a frenzy, why madness was able to take control during the boom years, what exactly caused the backward slide, and just how big this problem really is. The hour long program is definitely worth a listen. (MP3 audio)

More to fear than sharks this year

"I immediately put my hand on my face and blood was gushing out," said Shoemaker, 50, a housecleaner from Toledo, Ohio, who was vacationing in the Bay area this week. She needed 25 stitches. She is on painkillers and antibiotics and cannot eat solid food.
...

She stanched the blood with her beach towel and went to Palms of Pasadena Hospital in St. Petersburg for treatment, which included a consultation with a plastic surgeon.

The gash on her left cheek is 3 inches long, Shoemaker said by telephone from her home in Toledo. Doctors told her they were concerned about the accident's impact on her salivary glands and the tiny bones that help her smile, she said.

Never let your guard down while out in the Gulf -- it seems absolutely everything is out to kill you.

A Contrasting Audience

We went to see BB King in concert last Friday and, aside from being impressed by the eighty-two year-old's still amazing gift for the guitar, were left somewhat confused by one aspect of the concert at Ruth Eckerd Hall that I didn't notice until Mia mentioned it after we had already removed our earplugs and gone home for the evening: there were, at most, ten black people in the audience. Even more interesting is how the great bluesman spoke of his life in the days of segregation by pointing to himself, saying "we lived on one side of the tracks" and then pointing out to the audience, "and you all lived on the other". (Times, today, are pleasantly different and he was very grateful for the changes he had seen over the decades that led to a more balanced society.) But Mia noted that she thinks the Blues, in current days, is much more likely to have an audience composed of pale middle-aged guys working desk jobs rather than the original intended listeners from when the genre came to be. It appears that she is at least somewhat right and that BB King recognizes this -- he made several references to the audience as, well, not being as "melanin enriched" as himself. For African Americans no longer being in tune to the Blues, I can see them distancing themselves from these historical assosciations or that, simply, the music doesn't appeal to the current generation. But I also have to wonder what caused the other shift, because I'm not certain there are any ways that any given thirty-something, middle class white living in the US could ever relate and be able to appreciate the Blues for why they were written and from what social environment/context they were born.

It has to be a strange experience being BB King and thinking across the memories of years gone by and who listens to his music, who shows up to his appearances, and why. Of course, someone already has a nice set of answers for my questions regarding these puzzling phenomena and even examines the difficulties of being a white blues musician.

As for me? I just love the wail of Lucille. That may be all that really matters, anyway, or at least seemed to when I got to see the great bluesman do what he does best.

Greens

The garden is looking good this year, so far, with green beans beginning to twist and turn to find supporting structures to cling to and flower sprouts making their way up from the soil. Some habanero peppers have already come in (but still show no signs of heat in taste) and the garden herbs are ready for eating. By fall, we should hopefully have a good collection of tomatoes. The bottles in the photographs? An experiment on watering for while we are away on vacation that mimics those expensive glass bulbs they advertise on television.

But, there is also The Mystery Seed, a brown corn-like kernel that Mia rescued from the dusty concrete floor of the Home Depot. We potted it and, in under a week, it has sprouted a single leaf, leaving us mad with guessing on what it could possibly be. I'm placing my bets on something thick and vegetable-like while Mia is putting money on the table that it is a flower, but knowing what kinds of chemicals are to be found in the garden section of the orange box store leaves me wondering if we're not going to end up with some kind of hideous, mutant poison plant. Sadly, we may never actually know what it is if it never gets big enough, doesn't put out flowers, or fails to produce anything.


All guesses welcome.

Unscheduled Therapy

In the month following the wedding, I've been subjected to all the standard, reasonable questions concerning my marriage. By week three, it has become somewhat routine.

Thank you, yes, the wedding went great.
Yes, it was a highly stressful event.
No, life doesn't feel much different than before we were married.
Yes, I have a ring. See?
Etc, etc.

Except at my office, the congratulations seem to always shift to unusual side topics and, on occasion, turn down a dead-end path of awkward social discomfort that no amount of play will permit me to escape gently. I'm fairly confident that it is only marriage congratulations that can change so quickly into one-sided therapy sessions with me on the unfortunate receiving end of a series of must-tell stories about previous marriages and relationships that ended in disastrous wrecks of twisted metal and mangled emotions. "Welcome to the club", one officemate said as he shook my hand and started into the standard spiel: "I love marriage, but it wasn't until my third that I came to truly appreciate it." That seems to be how these lectures start and I'll note that the descent is rapid and uncorrectable. No amount of fidgeting, panicked pretend dialing of a phone, or declarations of intent to walk to an important meeting on the other side of the building will end it early or peacefully. What soon follows this opening consists of bitter recounts of unsuccessful attempts to mold a first love into the person they desired and the heartbreak endured during the final realization that marrying so young was a rushed decision that ended in failure. These acrid tales are always finalized with a forlorn sigh and that unique upwards glance with sad eyes that relays the message, "Oh, you poor bastard. You're going down the same road, aren't you?" I suppose, in a way, these moments are akin to post high school graduation hugs and "keep working hard"/"be careful out there" messages, but I don't seem to ever remember any of these talks digging into darker depths of tales on how a diploma pushed a man to counseling, then the bottle, and finally to AA meetings before he reached bottom. Once word got around that I had just been hitched, a queue of hand wringing men and women burdened by their own albatrosses formed at my office and seemed to stretch into the distance. My pending psychology degree has proven to be of no help.

I've also been equally surprised at how often the topics don't involve marriage. Other personal issues have managed to thread their way into the conversation out of some unusual, burning necessity brought on by the presence of a newlywed. One woman several desks down the hall stopped by my office last week to take the opportunity to congratulate me and to tell the story of how she met her first husband in the office, how everything was stellar at her wedding and during their first several years of matrimony, and how could anyone like me keep working at a terrible place like this and why are workers' insurance costs going up as they keep offshoring more jobs while hiring incompetent contractors instead of employees but they won't let her retire yet? The gear change was that quick, yet the workplace griping went on for another twenty minutes before a subtle and graceful return to how wonderful life is with husband number two. I remained frozen in place with wordless terror until she flashed the universal acknowledgment that her venting was complete, "the smile", which signifies that "I'm okay, my marriage is okay, everything is okay, and you're going to be okay, too". With lifted shoulders, she marched confidently away while enjoying a freshly cleared mind.

Don't take this post as me showing anger over this strange phenomenon and the people airing their life's grievances in these impromptu and unexpected therapy sessions. If anything, I've heard some fun stories that I'll be sure to treasure for years to come.

So, yes, I was recently wed. Have a seat on the couch over there and we'll begin.

Real Estate Never Goes Down

...unless you're forced to take a loss. From a complex just north of me in luxurious New Tampa:

The 396 units in Portofino were put on the market as condos in 2006, but the developer sold just 31 of them. Last July, an apartment management company bought the rest of the units. Now, that company wants to terminate the condominium, buy out the individual unit owners - at today's lower market rate - and convert the whole complex back to apartments.

And, apparently, the condo owners may have little say. A revised Florida statute and provisions in the original condominium declaration make it easier for the developer to force owners out.

Well, this can't possibly go on for much longer, right?

Since 2004, nearly 29,000 apartments were converted to condominium units in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Hernando counties, according to New York-based research firm Real Capital Analytics. That's the third highest of all metro areas in the nation. Only the metro areas of Miami-Palm Beach and Orlando have more. So far, 3,500 units in the Tampa area have reverted to apartments, according to the research firm.

The Florida of 1925 called and wants its swamp back.

Nutty Legislation

The big uproar in Florida at the moment doesn't concern the real estate crash, Democratic primary votes, budget cuts, or gasoline prices. Our government is embroiled in something far more threatening:

The Fake Testicle Debate of 2008

Burns said he has seen the adornments but doesn't know anyone who has them.

"I drive a Prius," he said, "so I wouldn't put them on it."

Summer Escape

It is nearly time once again to escape to higher ground, to sleep in a tent, to live off of rationed supplies.

No, it is not hurricane season, yet, although this newfound camping ritual happens to coincide with the beginning of tropical terror time. Still, there is something very fitting (and possibly comforting) about spending the start of the season in lush mountains far away from the warming waters of the coast and the towering anvil heads feeding off the rising energy in their attempt to convince the coriolis effect to set them spinning.

There's also the whole fun of the road, which always leads to the possibility of highway side BBQ and other worldly attractions. You can never turn those down.

Oh, how I am looking forward to this.

That photo? Toivo took it.

Movement

Yeah, I think I'm going to move my blog here. This will work out better, for a number of reasons.

More on this in a bit.