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Monday, October 31, 2005

Back To Normal

The gas lines (and fist fights) are over. Enough homes and gas stations have been restored so that there is not a panic for fuel, and not as many generators are running.

The cool weather is still here.

Schools are still closed, at least through Tuesday.

The kids will be able to trick-or-treat tonight, which is good. Kids have been couped up in powerless homes for a while, a little distraction will be good for them.

Now for one more thing. I discovered a site from The Netherlands. It is one of those "find the differences in the two photos" game things. I can only find 2 of the 3 differences. Maybe you can spot the third. Here is the link! I must know what the third difference is!!!

http://members.home.nl/saen/Special/Zoeken.swf

Have a happy and SAFE Halloween. Do not give out cheap candy unless you like getting egged.

Friday, October 28, 2005

Panic In The Streets Of Miami

I'm the DJ I'm the DJ I'm the DJ, I,m the DEEEE-JAAAAY..

OK I could not resist. In case you think I totally lost it, I stole this blog post title from The Smiths sort-of smash hit Panic. Only their panic was in the streets of London.

So whats the panic all about? Why gasoline! People are actually getting into knock-down, drag-out, full body contact, mini wars over gas. I saw lines that were at least 4 or 5 hours long.

Of course, The Lazy One is way too lazy to be in one of these lines. As amazing as it seems, I fill my tank before a storm hits. It is not like there is no warning. I also keep my boat fuel tank full. So I had 18.5 gallons in my little truck and another 40 gallons in my boat. I was like OPEC.

Being a nice guy, I sold 20 gallons out of my boat to some friends. I only charged them the every day low price of $5 per gallon.

Naaaaa I am just kidding. I did not do that. I only charged what I paid for the fuel, which worked out to like $2.80 or something. They forked over $30 for 10 gallons. The point was not to make any money, it was to collect enought to replace what was pumped out when things are back to normal.

But gas is not a problem any more. At last count, 150 gas stations are back online. Dade County has a deal with 4 gas stations to sell gas to county employees only during a set amount of hours. Also, I can buy gas from the airport. So I am set. If my friends need more gas, they can pump it out of my boat and either pay for it whenever, or bring back an equal amount of fuel when they can. I am not into hoarding. I have enough for me, so my excess reserve can go to others.

And I should point this out - county employees do not get free gas, we have to pay for it. And these stations are open to county employees only during a limited amount of hours. Also, abuse of this system is HIGHLY unethical and therefore it could get you fired. Also, with three times more stations open today than yesterday, lines should be three times shorter. I think that fuel lines will only last a few more days.

But back to the main point. Why were people lined uo for water and ice hours after the storm? Why did they need to line up for gas so quickly? How about all those assholes on TV saying that people "should have been ready" or our GOOBERner saying that "people should have 4 days of supplies on hand"?

How about this for an answer. They might not have the ability to stock up. Food and gas is not exactly cheap. Many people live on low wage service jobs. Katrina, which just hit recently, might have diminished people's supplies.

There are people that shop every 2 or 3 days, because this is all they can afford to do. They can not afford to buy a weeks worth of food and just sit on it.

But Lazy One, can't they just buy one or two cans of food each week and set it aside for a storm?

Yes they can. But what if more than one storm hits? Storm 1 (Katrina in this case) causes them to raid their storm supplies. Power is out for three or four days. They use up their emergency supplies. Then, just over a month later, storm 2 (Wilma) hits. Now what? They might not have any supplies. And not because they are stupid, but because they are bound by economical factors.

It irritates me to no end to hear the fools on TV pontificating about what people should do, and how nobody is to blame except them, when the cold, cruel, hard fact is that FOOD IS NOT CHEAP! People might not be able to prepare for two storms in one season. People might not be able to replace their supplies in only a few weeks. People DO live paycheck to paycheck.

And to compound matters, people who had to replace a fridge full of food that that had to struggle to buy in the first place now have to throw all that food out, AGAIN, and buy more when the power is back on.

Water is the only thing that people have no excuse for not having. You can save plastic milk jugs, plastic soda jugs, and so on - then fill them with tap water before a storm. Put them in the freezer and you have large chunks of ice that you can put in a cooler. Anyone can store at least 50 gallons of water. If you buy but one gallon of milk a week, in one year you can have 52 jugs and therefore 52 gallons of potable water.

This blog post is sponsored by Titanic Brewery. Support your local brewery! The beer kicks ass, and my DSL is on the fritz. Titanic has free DSL with any beer purchase. I bought enough beer for a few people to sneak in to check their e-mail.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Wilma Photos.

Time for some Lazy Iguana post hurricane photos!


This is my phone line. I actually had a dial tone and DSL after this happned. But when the power failed, I lost my DSL router. The dial tone went dead when the battery backup system for the phone lines failed.


I have no idea who placed these orange square things in the road, but they were in place fairly quickly. I have a feeling a neighbor did it. Anyway, I had to drive under the lines because a tree was blocking the other road.


This is some barrel tile roof damage. This is why I think barrel tile sucks. My roof is pea rock, and did just fine. Yea, some of the rocks were blown off, but there was no damage to the roof itself. Tile roofs begin to fail when the winds reach 100 mph.


This is the tree that took down the phone line. I friggin HATE this tree, and I am glad it will be gone soon. The neighbors will not be able to replant another tree like this, as the melaleuca tree is on the list of prohibited species. If they plant another melaleuca tree, I will report them to Team Metro and the County will remove it. Then charge the people for the removal service.


This is a random tree blocking SW 48 ST. 48 ST is not a major roadway, but it is a divided roadway that connects other major roadways. The cars you see in the photo had to drive off road to get around the tree.


Driving in Dade County is dangerous right now. Notice the lack of any traffic lights in this photo. This is the intersection of SW 48 ST and SW 97 AVE. These secondary roads usually have a traffic light to prevent crashes. Now, it is a 4 way stop intersection only without any stop signs. Today people were driving civilized, but this will wear off soon.


Roof damage near my house. This house is on a lake, off SW 97 AVE. It is very close to where I live. My home suffered no damage to speak of.


This is the closest gas station to my house. I guess I will not be buying any gas here anytime soon.


This is a steel shopping center sign close to my house. The gas station is in the same center. That twisted steel just does not happen in category 1 or 2 winds. By my estimation, winds of at least 100 mph were required to do this.


This is a photo of a DC-3 vintage WWII aircraft. This original aircraft is a decoration for a restaurant loacted near the AOA of Miami International Airport. In fact, the airport is in the background of this photo. The DC-3 was ripped off its wings, and twisted to the side. On the side of the aircraft not in the photo, there is a rather large tear, and part of the body was pushed into an engine. Once again, there was no way this could have happened in less than 100 mph winds. This aircraft made it through Andrew in 1992, and more recently Katrina just a month or so ago.

At the airport, the word on the street was that winds of up to 120 mph were recorded. sustained winds were at least 100. This would make Wilma a rather strong category 2, with gusts of category 3.

Of course, all this is nothing compared to what Mexico got. Once again, while South Floirda was hit - we all got lucky. It could have been much worse.

Post-Wilma Update

Wow. What a ride. Wilma hit Floirda as a category 3 storm, with winds of something like 120 mph.

Now to compare my prediction with what happened. My prediction is recorded in this blog, just go back 5 or 6 days and read it.

WHAT I SAID:

1. Wilma would make landfall at Naples as a cat 2 or 3 storm
2. It would trek in a diagonal manner across the state, with the eye staying south of the big lake.
3. Miami-Dade county would get some stuff, with the worst being in Broward and Palm Beach.
4. Nice cool weather would follow the storm

WHAT HAPPENED:

1. Wilma made landfall 20 miles south on Naples.
2. It hit as a category 3
3. Miami-Dade County recorded category three conditions, but there was more damage in Broward than in Dade.
4. Nice cool weather followed the storm

TAKE THAT HURRICANE CENTER! All your tracks pulling the storm to the north (that I scoffed at and made fun of) were wrong. At work, for my divisions internal purposes, I narrowed the cone of death to about 1/3 the size of the published track.

Now for work. Miami International Airport got clobbered. Many of the jet loading bridges were damaged. The outer security fence had a bunch of holes in it. Air navigation systems (radio beacons and such) were damaged. During the storm I was told not to report to work, but I did report the next day at 0400.

It was pretty cool. 1/2 the power to the main building was out. The airport was operating on emergency generators. Only employees were in the main building. Anybody with a ticket trying to catch a flight was swept out of the airport and bussed somewhere else. The airport was totally empty. It was strange.

As for me, I am fine. No major property damage. Katrina already took care of my trees. Wilma did damage a wooden shed in the backyard, but the shed was in poor repair before the storm. My radio antennas are gone. But I had power back within 12 hours of the end of the storm. I just got my DSL back today.

The cold front behind Wilma is super nice. I have yet to turn the AC back on. Right now, nobody in South Floirda needs AC, just open some windows.

I am going to drive around and take some photos today. Stay tuned!

Sunday, October 23, 2005

The 4:00 AM Shift Is For Chumps

Work is cancelled for tomorrow. This means I do not have to wake my lazy ass up at 2:30 and be at work by 4:00 AM.

Normally, I would have to hit the sack right about now in order to be at work by 4:00 AM and not look like this guy.


But now I do not have to! I can stay up and watch TV and stuff. Maybe I will see this guy on the TV.


I will also be able to watch Squidbillies on Cartoon Network at midnight EDT. That is if a feeder band does not knock off my power.

And in spite of the fact that I do not have to go to work tomorrow, I still get paid! Yes - working for the County has its advantages. This whole storm thing just keeps getting better and better.

Behind the storm is FALL! Wilma is being pushed by a fairly massive cold front. It is about time really - there will be some nice weather behind the ugly storm. Even if the power is knocked off, and there is a fairly good chance that will happen, it will be cool outside. That will be nice.

So there you go. My plans for the night include drinking some more beer (stay tuned for another segment of my beer tour, I am still lingering in the UK), and watching TV. When the storm gets here, I will watch that. It is like reality TV, minus the TV.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

Going Greek

Keeping with the current theme of this blog, I have a new thing to post.


This is the track for Tropical Storm ALPHA! Thats right, they ran out of normal names and had to switch to the greek alphabet. 2005 is now the busiest hurricane season on the books. Of course, the books are only about 150 years old - and the planet is 5 or 6 billion years old (unless you do not believe in science and think the Earth is only 6,000 years old because this is the number a bunch of stone age men decided to run with a few thousand years ago).

The point is that there could have been a lot of seasons busier than 2005 - we just do not know about them. Nobody was keeping records. Dinosaurs could not write. And even then, Floirda was a large coral reef at that time. And even further back, Floirda was just a few coral heads and some sponges. There could have been a whole lot of big storms back then, and only some snails and fish would have known about them.

Alpha will not do very much - just dump some rain on Hispanola and the Turks And Caicos Islands. Nothing at all to worry about.

But now that tropical storms are going greek, frat boys all over the USA will be happy. Those storms can really party! Even a weak hurricane can funnel an unlimited amount of beer.

Tomorrow - non hurricane related posts! Maybe. Who knows. Anything can happen here is crazy land!

Friday, October 21, 2005

That Wacky Wilma!

So, the hurricane is still out there. Somewhere. Lurking in the night.

Actually, we know exactly where it is. It is kicking Cozumel's ass. People who live on Cozumel Island and Cancun are going to need major help. They have been in category 4 and 5 conditions for a good 24 hours at least, and they have more in the way. It is just terrible. Cozumel is still in the eye, they still have the "dirty side" of the storm to deal with. And the storm is just creeping along. Very slowly. There will not be a roof left on any building.

It will not be as bad for Florida. By the time the storm gets to my area, it will be booking and loosing strength. Depending on how long it lingers over land in Mexico, or if it lingers over land in Mexico, it could hit Floirda as a category 1 - 3. More likely as a Category 2 or maybe even 1. It will be moving so fast, and it will not have time to push much water in front of it. This is good for Florida, the storm surge will not be too bad. And the fast speed will mean it will not have time to dump a lot of rain, and the strong winds will hit and pass quickly.

As for my work place, which happens to be this place where airplanes take off and land from, is planning on operating as usual this weekend. They are looking for the worst to pass Monday night and early Tuesday morning (early as in before the sun comes up). This is what they said at the meeting this afternoon.

If you really REALLY want to see what is going on, I will provide a nifty cool link. Click HERE to check flight arrivals / departures for Miami International Airport. If you see lots of CANCELLED status comments, it means...uhhh...what the hell does that mean again? OH YEA! I remember now. It means the plane is either stuck on the ground or it has been flown someplace else to avoid damage.

So there. And I still think I picked the PERFECT theme song for this hurricane season. Freak Out, by Chic. It fits so well. But I am not going to freak out. Wilma tore up Mexico, but it will not be so bad in Floirda. There is a pretty good chance that Miami will only get fake hurricane conditions (in other words, nothing except a few bands of rain and wind lasting only a few minutes each).

By the way, all my readers in New England need to watch Wilma. It COULD hit Long Island. If it does, and if it pushes a storm surge, Manhattan could see major flooding. And it will dump more rain as well.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Freak Out! Le Freak, C'est Chic

THE SKY IS FALLING!

There. I feel better now. Actuall, I felt better before - I just like to say "the sky is falling" in all caps whenever possible. And this is as good a time as any.

People in Miami must be listening to a lot of cheezy disco music. And, as the song goes, they are freaking out.

The store ran out of cat food. Do not tell Fat Fred, he does not know he is out of food yet. I will have to attempt to track down cat food on my day off. I did manage to get gas, there were not any lines to speak of when I got off work tonight. But there will be. Gas stations will run dry as Wilma gets closer.

I went to the store today, but not to buy storm stuff. I just wanted to find some of that Dryell stuff (the stuff that supposedly turns your drier into a dry cleaning machine) and some drain clog remover. I got the drain clog remover - the store was either out of Dryell OR they do not carry it. I also hooked up with some extra iguana food, just in case I can not get any in a few days. Spaz is not picky, he will eat veggies that are slightly mushy.

But I have never seen the pet food isles bare. Never. The water isle I expected to find empty. And, as usual, the beer and wine stock is doing just fine.

Prediction time! I can not remember if I have gone on record yet, but here it goes anyway. I think that Wilma will pass just to the SOUTH of the big lake. By Wilma, I am talking about the eye wall, not the feeder bands. The path will not be due west, it will be moving in a diagonal swath across Floirda. It will make landfall between Ft Myers and Naples, closer to Naples. On the East Coast of the state, North Broward, Palm Beach, and Martin Counties will get the worst of it.

Of course, this is pure speculation. There is no way - NO WAY - to know exactly where it will go. Hence, the cone of death. Which I am in. WOO HOO!

At any rate, we will soon find out how the levees around the big lake will hold up. Lets just hope that they fare better than New Atlantis. Right now, the big lake is holding back 15 feet of water.

And now, a musical interlude. AWWWWW FREAK OUT! Le freak, c'est chic.....

Tuesday, October 18, 2005

You Have To Be F'en Kidding Me!

Guess what?


Hurricane WILMA? That name starts with a W. The end of the alphabet. If there is another storm this season, the greek alphabet will have to be used. Hurricane Alpha is next. As of this image, I am in the 50% - 60% zone for tropical storm force conditions. In fact, this graphic is for tropical storm (or greater) conditions in the next 120 hours.

So, how strong can a storm in October get? Good question. Lets find out!


Category 3? What? I am not exactly 100% on how to read this graph, but from what I can gather the orange is the most likely range for wind speed - with the thin blue line being the average of all the models. Notice how that blue line is NOT in the center of the orange area - it is more at the top. This tells me that it will most likely hit Floirda as a 2 or maybe 3.

In OCTOBER. A cold front is going to steer this thing into the State.

But, if it all works out I will get another hurricane day off - and if I do loose power at least it will be a little cooler outside.

Next up - Tropical Storm / Hurricane Alpha!

Monday, October 17, 2005

Don't Tell The Spammers

Word verification has been turned off, for a trial period. I will only bring it back if comment spam becomes a problem.

Loose Ends (again)

First off, I got tagged a few days ago - and never did anything about it. This should not be a huge shock to anyone - this blog is titled "Rantings Of The LAZY Iguana". Notice the word "LAZY". There is a reason it is there.

So anyway, after much research I have concluded that the 5th line of my 23rd post was:
"This is why Adam Smith is wrong". An economics post! For those who managed to stay clear of all things business in school, Adam Smith invented modern economics. When I say "modern" I mean hundreds of years ago. Mr. Smith wrote about what is now called "classical economics", when the small farmer was the base of everything. He was the genius who decided that government should have a "hands off" policy for business.

And back then, in the stone age, it was good idea. Sort of. Today, we know that a hands off policy leads to a system where 4 or 5 very rich and very white men rule the world. Workers (meaning us) got mere scraps from the table the rich people ate at. No sick time, no holiday leave, no pension, no anything. You worked for meager wages for as long as you could, then you died. Mr. Smith wrote his book way before the industrial revolution put the small farmer out of business, and created a system where one could work in a factory and buy food with wages. Before the revolution, you farmed what you ate and did not need a whole lot of money.

So before you vote for some bozo who says "government should get 100% out of the way of business" ask yourself this. Are you already rich? Do you have, right now, at least 100 million or so in the bank? If not, think about what the message is. Workplace safety, benefits, insurance, pension plans, weekends, pollution controls, and such is the result of government getting "in the way" of business. Labor unions could have been outlawed you know. Government has to keep a happy middle ground going, one which forces business to keep the middle class in SUVs and nice little houses with white picket fences, while at the same time allowing some fat cat CEO to have private jets and stuff. Too much government is bad, but so is none at all.

At any rate, I have something else to post here. Thanks to ODDTODD, I discovered a very cool web cam. The web cam is in Botswana, at a place called Pete's Pond. You can see animals and stuff doing things that animals do at ponds. There is swimming, drinking, beach volleyball, and so on. Check it out HERE!

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Today's Word Is Distraction....

Unless you have been living under a rock, OR living anywhere in the world except for the USA, you probably know that Karl Rove testified before a grand jury, again, for the 4th time. At this point he is an expert at giving Grand Jury testamony.

For those under the rock, or anywhere else in the world other than here (in the States) a little background information. Someone disclosed the name of a CIA agent to Bob Novak, we well known right wing suck-hole "reporter". Being a journalist of a high moral standard who would NEVER do anything to possibly compromise national security, he printed the name of Valerie Plame - CIA operative and wife of a retired US Ambassador Joseph Wilson. According to Novak, she is a "weapons of mass destruction operative".

Joseph had the nerve to write an opinion article in the New York Times stating that he was in on the whole "yellow cake uranium" investigation (which he says found nothing noteworthy), and that Bush overstated the Iraq threat. How dare that pinko bastard refute out exalted glorious leader! Treason!

So Novak, using (according to the artice he wrote) TWO sources in the White House, leaked that the Ambassador's wife works for the shop. That ought to teach the treasonous rat a lesson!

Anyway, one of the two leak sources could be Karl Rove, who in case you do not know is the "brains" behind Bush. Something like that anyway.

So there. Now everyone is up to speed! Moving on....

The right wing spin machine is really going overboard on this one. They are saying that the special prosecutor has a political bais (meaning anything he finds is just liberal bullshit), as if the whole Ken Starr investigation was holy and moral and not biased at all. Keeping in mind of course that what Clinton had sucked did not really screw with national security.

They are also saying that Americans have nothing to fear President Bush is not distracted by any of this at all. God personally faxed Bush and told him that everything would be OK. A swarm of locust are going to infest the ass crack of all the liberals who make too much noise (liberal meaning, of course, anyone who does not agree 100% with the pious exalted honorable fearless leader).

But I am here to tell you that Bush IS distracted. Very distracted. See, I have my own secret sources deep in the White House, and they have told me things. So do you want to know what has Bush so distracted? You do!?!??! Do I dare tell you???


Someone revcently gave Bush one of these as a gift. Since then, he spends hours in the Oval Office - alone. My spies tell me that the only sounds you hear from his office are the click-clack of metal balls, giggling, and clapping.

Lets see Bob Novak top this one!

Friday, October 14, 2005

Nuke The Smurfs, Everyone Knows They Are Communists

It finally happened. Someone nuked the Smurfs.


To my surprise, it was UNICEF. I would have never thought that the UN would be the ones to bomb Smurf Village into sawdust, but whatever. It needed to be done. I never did like the Smurfs, but I still watched the cartoon.

Of course, the ad by UNICEF is making the news rounds. To think, the message that "war is bad, mmm-kay" is somehow controversial. Now if the Smurfs only had anti-ballistic missles and orbiting laser satellites, or a high tech early detection radar system and stealth technology, the message would not contain any controversy at all. The war hawks would latch on to the commercial and claim that spending billions discovering new ways to kill more people in less time is a great use of money.

Of course, everyone knows what war this ad is directed towards. And everyone knows who wanted the war. Was it this guy?


No, not exactly. Maybe it was this guy.


Getting closer! But you can not blame Satan Smurf this time. Everyone who watched the original Smurfs cartoons knows that Satan Smurf does not exist anyway. So who could have wanted the war????


WE HAVE OUR GOOBERS! These guys wanted it. One goober's stock options have gone up like a brazillion percent due to his former company getting tons of no bid contracts, and the other guy is.....well.....just a goober.

This is why the cartoon is controversial. The right wing suck-hole machine can never admit that war is bad, mmm-kay.




Anyway, if you want to see the whole ad, and experience its message of pure evil, here is the full URL: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/10/11/world/main933310.shtml

I will not tell you what I think SHTML stands for :)

Thursday, October 13, 2005

Creepy Mascots

This guy creeps me out.


Seriously, who was the genius that decided to put some guy in a creepy costume in order to sell more hamburgers? I would think that a guy wearing the Burger King costume would scare the piss out of small children. Teens would think the guy is a dork. I would bet that teens would have more respect for the guy standing on the corner wearing a chicken costume trying to drum up business for a dry cleaner or something.

The reason why I have guns is in case I wake up, and some creepy guy in a Burger King mask is looking in my window. Even with his sandwich offer, there would be one less idiot on the planet.

And is it just me, or does that costume scream CHILD MOLESTER. I think I would feel safer sending a child off with Michael Jackson. Well, maybe not. I would have to think about that one.

So, do you think the marketing campaign is working? I do not think it is. Yet, more and more commercials are being produced. The marketing goons at BK just do not get it. The whole campaign is worse than the demonic Quiznos hamster like creatures.


Tuesday, October 11, 2005

More Of Ed's Castle - And His Strange Genius!

This is part 2 of the Coral Castle post. Today, you will see more of the strange genius of Ed. I will start off with this.


To me, this is the most amazing thing Ed built. This is a gate. A revolving door, made of solid limestone. The door part weighs 9 tons, and it fits to within 1/4 of the walls on all sides. It measures 80 inches wide by 92 inches tall and 21 inches thick. Ed managed to perfectly balance this gate so that a small child could swing it open. It is said that an adult could swing the gate open with the touch of one finger, as if the thing did not weigh 9 pounds let alone 9 tons.

Ed built his gate sometime in the 1940s. In 1986, the gate stopped working. A team of engineers was brought in. It took 6 men and a 50 ton crane to take the gate apart. It was then discovered that Ed had drilled an almost perfect hole through the block using only hand tools. Today, a high speed computer controled drill would be used for the same task. The gate was balanced on a set of old truck wheel bearings. Limestone is not of uniform density (it is very porus rock). Finding the center of gravity for a 9 ton block of limestone is not an easy task. Ed had to find the perfect block, realize it was the perfect block, find the balance point, then drill a hole along this point. And this is exactly what he did.

The engineers made new bearings, designed to handle the weight of the block. They used stainless steel - Ed used old truck parts. Ed's gate worked for close to 50 years, the modern engineers gate lasted about 12 years. Today, the gate is once again frozen. The fancy stainless steel bearings are dead. The original bearings are on display inside the Castle gift shop, next to a crystal radio set Ed built with junk parts. Ed had a formal education lasting to the 6th grade in his native Latvia - then he went to work as a stone mason. The engineers all had graduate degrees and access to all the technology available in 1986.


Ed liked to take a bath. So, he built himself a bathtub. He used his favorite building material - solid limestone. He had to line the rock with concrete, to prevent the water from leaking out. He would fill the tub every morning using his well, and let the heat of the sun warm the water. By the afternoon, the bath was ready. The tub is tiny - Ed built it for himself. Remember, Ed was only 5 feet tall and weighed only 100 pounds. The tub did not have to be very large. There are two rings in the tub. The first ring is the level he would fill the tub to. The second ring was the water level after he got in. The rings are carved into the block.


Did I mention that Ed liked to use truck parts in odd ways? This is Ed's BBQ grill. It is actually a pressure cooker. It is made from the housing for a rear differential for an old Ford truck. You can seperate the two parts with a little effort (the things are made from solid steel and are not light). You place the food inside. The weight of the two parts of the housing do a farily good job self sealing. Build a small fire under the housing, and you have a decent pressure cooker. Ed would use this grill when children came to visit his castle. He would cook hot dogs in it.


This is Ed's Moon Fountain. He was very proud of this thing. Back in the day, it was a fish pond. He expected all visitors to marvel at his Moon Fountain, and look at his fish. The cresent moons represent the first and last quarter of the lunar cycle. The fountain represents the full moon. The quarter moons weigh 18 tons each, the fountain weighs 23 tons. The star island in the center of the fointain is the Latvian Star.


This is another amazing accomplishment for Ed, and speaks of his intelligence. This is a sundial. A very accurate sundial. The loops allow one to adjust for the seasons of the year as the sun angle changes. In this photo, you can see by the loops that the summer solstice is close. When the pointer reaches the bottom of the loop, that means summer solstice is happening. At the top of the loop the sun is lower in the sky. The left side of the loop is for the spring, the right side of the loop is for fall. Each loop represents 1/2 hour of standard time. In this photo, it is 12:30 PM. It is accurate to within a few minutes. Ed would have been a great boss, his clock only works from 9 AM - 4 PM. These are the hours when he believed a man should work. Ed kept bank hours. There is talk that the reason for this is that after 4PM and before 9 AM, the clock does not work because the sun is blocked - so Ed just decided his work hours around this fact. Whatever the reasons, I wish my boss would tell me to keep Ed hours!


This is one of the ways Ed was able to make his clock so accurate. This is Ed's Polaris Telescope. Polaris is also known as The North Star. It never moves in the night sky because it is located directly over the Earth's North Pole. Measure the distance from the horizion to the North Star and you know how many degrees north of the Equator you are. Ed's Castle happens to be at 25 degrees north. The crosshairs in the circle would be centered directly on Polaris. It is hard to see, but there is a small pointer stone in the shape of a triangle in front of the scope tower. You can line the tip of the pointer stone to the center of the crosshairs (the hole for the crosshairs is angled down slightly) - and somehow this allowed Ed to make his sundial. The sundial is in a line with the pointer stone and the telescope.


What is a castle without a throne room? This is Ed's throne room. There are three chairs. One chair for him, a slightly smaller chair next to his chair for Ed's "Sweet 16", and a terrible chair behind his chair for his mother-in-law. The mother-in-law's chair is very crude, as in it is not very smooth. Ed was strange.


Today, this guy owns the throne room. I have no idea what kind of lizard this is, but he is neat looking. There are a few lizards of this type living on the castle grounds.


This is one of two known photographs of Ed working. He is lifting a block from his quarry in this one. That tripod is made from telephone poles, the pulley featured in the previous post, the "mystery box" at the top of the tripod, and chains. The block being lifted probably weighs at least 10 tons.


This is an example of what Ed would move. This is just a stack of heavy blocks, one on top of another. The winds of Hurricane Andrew, which leveled all other buildings around the Castle, did not budge any part of Ed's Castle. The blocks in this stack are not attached to the other blocks, except by gravity and weight.


This is Ed's living quarters (upstairs) and his workshop (downstairs). Each block weighs at least 10 tons. As a comparison, the average block size for the Great Pyramid Of Giza is only 5 - 8 tons. The pyramids of Egypt are much larger, but they were not built by one man.


To finish this post, I will include this photo. It is a view of the castle from the air (duh!). You can not see much detail, but you can see how everything fits together. To the right of the outer wall you can see one of the rock pit mines. You can also see the living quarters.

There are two other things of the castle that I did not post photos of. One is Ed's upright obelisk. It is taller than any upright stone in Stonehenge. It is over 25 feet tall and weighs about 28 tons. But why not include it in the post, so here it is.


The last thing, which I have no good phots of, is Ed's well. Ed dug it through solid limestone, all the way to the water table. Ed's land was "high", meaning that the water table is 8 or so feet underground. One side of the well is for drinking water, but there is alother side of the well. There are carved steps going down into the water. Ed used this section of the well as a natural fridge. Ground water is about 55 degrees, so he could put his food in glass jars, seal them, and toss em in the water. Pretty smart huh? There are also stories that Ed would skinny dip in his fridge when it got too hot. The drinking water side is totally seperated from the fridge side.

In December 1951 Ed became ill. He put a sign on the door of his Castle saying “Going to the Hospital”. He took a bus to Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. Three days later he died in his sleep at the age of 64. Ed had stomach cancer. His "Sweet 16", also known as Agnes Scruffs, never came to see the castle he built for her. She was aware of the place, as Ed had written her many letters. Ed never married, and had no children.

So there you go. Now you know a little about South Dade County's own Coral Castle. Not very many people visit this place, I have lived within 20 - 30 minutes of the Coral Castle for close to 32 years and have only been there once. It is pretty far south, but it is located right off US1 so it is not hard to find. If you ever get to Miami, it is worth the drive to see the castle. It is a very unique place. Noplace else on Earth will you see anything like the Coral Castle. Ed was one of a kind.

For more information, visit http://www.coralcastle.com/. The castle is located at 28655 South Dixie Highway, Miami Florida, 33033. Admission is $10 for adults and $5 for kids. Ed charged 10 cents for personal tours, and 25 cents for special tours.

Monday, October 10, 2005

Meet Ed. He Built A Castle.

Today, you will meet Ed. Sort of. Ed is dead you see. Here is what Ed looked like.


Ed was all of 5 feet tall, and weighed in at a hefty 100 pounds. He was not a very big man. When he was 26 and living in his native Latvia, he was engaged to marry a 16 year old chick. He would call her his "sweet 16". Ed was a little bit creepy. On the night before the wedding, Ed's Sweet 16 left him. Ed never recovered from this. He left Latvia, and somehow ended up in Homestead Florida. It was in Homestead that he build his Sweet 16 a castle, out of solid coral rock. She never came to see the castle built for her, but she was aware of Ed's creation.

Ed was a strange man. Nobody is documented as seeing him build anything. He worked at night, under kerosene lamp light. He was a very private man, but he would give curious neighbors and passers by tours of his castle.

Eds castle is made entirely of coral rock, and things he built out of truck parts that were scavanged from junkyards. Nobody knows exactly how he did what he did. All Ed would ever tell people was that he understood the principles of leverage and balance very well. but we do know that he moved large chunks of coral rock, weighing 10 to 15 tons, without any help. The only tools we know he used were primitive home made tools fashioned from old truck parts.


This is Ed's bed. It is a metal platform hanging from the roof. The sacks seen in the photo are not original, but supposedly very close to what he actually used as sheets. The bed is located on the second floor of a tower, made from solid coral rock. There are hand carved stairs leading up to the room.


This is Ed's chair. It is made from Ford Model T parts. It also hangs from the roof.


This is Ed's kitchen. He cooked on that rusty kerosene stove thing. The box hanging above the stove is a cabinet for pots and pans and stuff.

Under his room, Ed had a workshop. In his workshop he would fiddle with gizmos that he built. He was a radio experimenter, and very interested in electromagnatisim.


This is a photo of Ed's generator. It was operated by a hand crank. Ed also experimented with radio.


These are coils. They were probably used as antennas. They might also have been some sort of inductors or something. Who knows. But whatever they are, I am fairly positive that when Ed built them, they worked for whatever he used them for. Ed was strange, but not dumb.


This is part of a block and tackle that Ed built. Yea, a pulley is just a simple machine - but how many have pulleys have you made from old truck parts? How many 10 ton rocks have you moved using pulleys you made from old truck parts?

Ed's castle was built in two locations. The original location was further south than where the Coral Castle sits today. Ed moved the 1/2 built castle, rock slab at a time, to where it all sits today. Why did he move the castle? People moved in next door. Ed did not want neighbors. We do know how Ed moved the blocks. He modified a flatbed truck that did not run. He took railroad rails, and attached them to the flatbed. Under the cover of darkness, he would load a block or two on the truck. In the morning, a friend of his would arrive with a tractor and tow the truck to the current location of Coral Castle. Then Ed would unload the truck, which was really more like a trailer. Then it would be towed back to the old location for another load.


This is where Ed mined some of the rocks used to create his castle. Notice how smooth the sides of the rock pit are. In case you can not tell by the photo, the walls are smooth. Trust me. This pit was left as it was, the others were filled in with dirt. To cut the walls, Ed used a gas powered saw. Then he used sharpened truck leaf springs, which he wedged under the blocks, to break them loose from the floor of the rock pit. Then he would lift the blocks, carve the blocks, and place the blocks all using primitive hand tools. By himself.


This is another of Ed's chairs. It is made from a solid block of stone. It is actually comfortable, for a chair made of stone. Ed would use the chair to read in. He built a few of them, so depending on the time of day he could sit in a chair that kept the sun to his back. He never built a roof for his castle. Only his sleeping quarters and workshop were covered.


This is Ed's Florida Table. It is carved in the shape of the State Of Florida. Ed thought that the table could be used by the Governor in the state capitol. It never was. The table is still exactly where Ed carved it. It could not be moved today, without the use of a crane and a big ass flatbed truck. But in the 1940s or 50s, Ed moved it as a solid block - without a crane. Then he carved it to the shape you see in the photo.

This ends part 1 of the Coral Castle tour. I have 10 more photos, but adding them to this post will be too much. I will put up the other photos later. Maybe tomorrow after work, or at the very latest on my next day off (Wednesday). My days off are split this week because I traded my Thursday off.

For more information about Ed and his castle, return to this blog to see more pictures. Or better yet, google Coral Castle.

Friday, October 07, 2005

Photo Contest Winners

Time to announce the winners of the never-before-announced mystery photo contest! If you were unable to submit any of your photos, well what do you expect? I can not very well have a mystery photo contest if I tell anyone about it now can I?

So here we go! The mystery photo contest theme was "last picture on the roll of film". I had to give all the photos titles, for obvious reasons.


I call this one "creaky bridge of death and doom".


I call this one "Hot air rip-off"


I call this one "Reason to NOT run with the bulls"


I call this one "Oh shit...no brakes"


"Long walk off a short platform"


Now this one is just WAY TOO FAKE, but I included it. The golf dude is holding a PUTTER! Come on now! Even I know that you do not drive with a putter, and I do not even play golf. Golf to me is a waste of perfectly good green space. At least get a photo of someone holding a 1 wood or something. Therefore I titled it:

"Fake golf photo of a guy playing with a blury ball".

Stay tuned for another mystery photo contest, sometime in the future.