Rantings Of The Lazy Iguana

Fall

2010-10-03T13:30:00.002-04:00

So I was out last night, at a public telescope viewing put on by an astronomy club. And you know what? It was NOT hot and muggy!!

The air was cool. Not cold, and not cool by your standards (I am assuming readers are north of the 30 degree parallel). But here at 25.45 degrees north, the night air had just a hint of coolness.

And low humidity. Again not low for you if you are in an arid region - but for swampy South Florida it was "dry".

So fall is here. It arrived on time this year! Usually it is late. It can be well into November before I notice anything.

Well for this fall / winter I have a lot of things to plan for! I hope to be able to do a lot of things I usually want to do, but never get around to it. Outdoors types of things. Kayaking. Cycling. Maybe camping - or at least full day trips to Everglades National Park. All that kind of stuff.

Yes, this is going to be a great winter season. Better than the last one, the one before that, and so on.

Back To Normal!

2010-09-26T19:59:00.002-04:00

The long night is over. Or so it seems.

I was working at a two bit casino, doing security. And by "security" I mean chilling out in an office, watching over things left in my care by homeless people, bag ladies, and various other ancient people who did not speak any English.

You see, the casino is across the street from a K-Mart. So people would come in with all sorts of shit - blenders, cheap shoes, even groceries. Company policy was for them to leave the stuff with security, so they could go upstairs to gamble away all their savings without trying to sell the shit they bought at K-Mart so they could just get five more dollars to lose.

That would actually happen.

Needless to say the job was mind numbing, depressing, and not really something I needed to keep doing.

But there was nothing else. Really. There was NOTHING else. It is that shitty out there.

But just as I was closing in on one year at the casino, I got delivered unto a new and better job.

Actually an old job. Or at least a job I had sort of done before. The job title is different, but that is OK.

So I am back to the exciting world of diplomatic stuff. I am a front line ambassador of sorts. Sure, it is only for a county (as opposed to being the Ambassador to Norway or something) - but you have to start somewhere.

Things are back on track. And that is a very good thing.

Holy Shit!

2010-05-02T16:04:00.002-04:00

It seems I have been neglecting this blog. I have no good excuse, other than having nothing to say and being very busy.

Work is a drag. And also a reason for staying anonymous! The cheap bastards I work for (and they are cheap bastards) have this Orwellian "thou shalt not talk shit on the internet" policy. So if they find out who I am, and that I am actually talking about them - bad shit can happen to me.

And really this makes sense. You hear all the time about people getting in trouble for their blog. This is why I actually AM a giant lizard, and why I work for mumble mumble. Cough. In fact, it is ALWAYS a good idea to remain anonymous. You never know when something you say can get you fired later.

But I have plans to move on anyway. It has become clear to me that the current employer is a dry hole. They are playing the "shit economy" game, and choosing to defer compensation and just risk losing people. That is fine with me - it is not my business. Once I leave I could give a shit less if they close or continue. The owners are rich anyway - so whatever happens they still own a bunch of other shit. In my view - they have a golden opportunity to build and keep a highly loyal and very sharp team - but they are pissing it away. Once the job market is back I estimate 75% (at least) of the people there now will bail out. What they will be left with are the people that do not speak English or that can not obtain any other job. The competition and/or other opportunities will take the rest.

The bike thing is working out well enough. I can easily do 30 miles nonstop. I can hold an average speed of almost 15 mph - and maybe higher if I push myself. I really need to try to ride with a moderate pace group (say a 16 mph group) to see how long I can keep up.

But after a 30 mile ride I feel like going on another 30 after a short rest. Of course I never do - but I feel like I can.

I really need to find a weekend group going on a 50 mile ride, or even a metric century (meaning 100 kilometers). Just to see if I can hang. If I can hang then great. If I can not hang Ill get dropped, and just ride back to the vehicle and try again later. Not a big deal at all.

Anyhow, that is about it. For now anyway :)

Still Here!

2010-02-22T16:51:00.003-05:00

But you would not know that by the posting here. It is almost like I vanished!

And I did. Sort of. I settled into a routine of working and then days off. The good thing is I get three full days off a week. The bad thing is that a work day is 12 hours. So between working, getting ready for work, driving to work, then getting food and whatnot after work - there is no time for anything else. On work days if I get 5 hours of sleep that is not unusual.

But there are some cool things going!

I might get temporary work with the Census. Apparently in my area there are a number of people who live on boats. These people need to be counted. And since you can not get mail delivered to a boat at anchor, the only way to count people is to go up to the boats and ask how many are on board.

Which is where I come in. You see, the census people are looking at ways to count boat people - using other boats. Already they are hiring temporary workers at $15 per hour to beat the streets, but there is talk of paying people $35 per hour PLUS FUEL (a big plus for boats) to take a census worker out to count people living on boats.

For that scratch, Ill take a leave of absence from my regular job - as the $35 per hour is more than I am getting now by a good deal.

And finally - I got my tax return! And of course, I promptly squandered it. And what did I squander it on??

A bicycle! Yes, a bicycle. A very nice bicycle. I have a nice aluminum frame mountain bike, but it was not really cutting it anymore. I have a friend that is also into bikes now. For years he was a smoker, then he quit and bought a road bike.

Well with the mountain bike, keeping up is really hard. So if I wanted to do longer distance rides, I was going to need a road bike. Something with a more aggressive riding position (yet still comfortable), lighter weight, and more suited for longer distances on pavement than shorter runs off road.

And partly because of the shit economy, I found a 2008 model bike that was still brand new. It has a full carbon frame, SRAM gears, Mavic wheels, and so on. All good shit. In 2008, this bike had an average retail price of $2300.

I picked it up for a whole lot less. $1,000 less actually.

Now I was not really looking for a full carbon bike. I did not think I could afford one. I was looking at bikes that had an aluminum frame with carbon forks, or carbon forks and rear stays - but then I found an all carbon bike for the price of an aluminum / carbon bike. And so I have it.

A nicer bike than I was originally looking at. More than I thought I would get. so I should be good for a long time to come in the bike department.

Overdue Post

2010-01-11T15:05:00.002-05:00

Apparently it has been a while since my last post.

The holidays came and went. Nothing too exciting there, I had to work on December 24, 25, and 26. I also had to work on the 31st and January 1.

The people I work for do not believe in holiday pay either. It was all straight time. Oh yea they also decided to send a bunch of people home on the 24th, without pay. So just about everyone got the "bonus" of a missing days pay.

The company "party" consisted of leftover food that was going to be thrown away if nobody ate it. I arrived to the "party" about 30 minutes after it started (I had stuff to take care of in the office) and by the time I got there the leftovers were cold, and everyone was bailing out. I looked at the pathetic joke of a "party" and just left.

And since I had to be at work early in the morning on January 1, there was nothing to do on New Years either. I had to come home, shower, grab some take out at Denny's, then crash. But I did manage to get some bike riding in. 15 miles in 1 hour and 8 minutes. That works out to an average speed of 13.5 mph.

Oh yea, I got back into bike riding. I acthally have a fairly decent mountain bike. It is a Specialized Hardrock Sport. It has disk brakes and fairly decent components. It has indexed shifting, which makes gear hunting easy. It also shifts smooth.

The problem is that there are not very many mountains here. The bike I have is nice - and I have a decent amount of money locked up in it - but as a road bike it sucks. It is too heavy and the riding position leaves much to be desired. Putting new tires on it that are better suited for the road than for the trail helped, but it is still brutal to fight a head wind for long distances. Even for distances of only a few miles a head wind is tough. So I need to get a road bike. I am looking at a Trek all carbon bike for around $1600 or so. A step down gives me a bike with carbon forks, rear stay, and seat post with an aluminum frame for about $1300 or so. A step down from there is aluminum everything except for the forks, and then a step down is aluminum everything.

Carbon has some flex to it, and it is lighter. So the more carbon you have the softer the ride tends to be. And to complicate matters, each step up is about $250 - $300 up to the $2,500 mark then each step up is another grand.

So lets say you want to spend no more than about $900 for a bike. Well there are some good options for you - but for another $200 you can go to the next step. Well if you have $900 to spend, you can just hold off and save up that extra $200. And then at $1100 the next step is another $200 or so away, and so on.

And if you get something, then decide later that you want to upgrade, you eat a fairly decent loss when you trade in your old bike or try to sell it.

In other news, it is cold as shit here. For two days in a row there was ICE on my windshield in the morning. ICE. Now this is just not right. This is South Florida, not Montana. The only ice that should be here is in frozen drinks and freezers - not car windshields.

But this did not stop me from going out to the everglades last night. Sure it was frigid - but the skies were clear and there was no moon. So I lugged out the telescope and set it up. I saw Saturn and Mars. But it was so cold that I lost the ability to use my hands, so most of the time I was just looking at the sky without using the scope. Plus for some reason the scope does not track well. I have to research why and maybe even recalibrate it.

On the plus side - there was not even ONE bug. No mosquitoes. For the everglades, this is uncommon. I think they all froze solid.

There were also SNOW FLURRIES. Nothing lasted on the ground, but there was actual snow in the air.

Now this cold weather always brings out stupidity. This time around the "King Dumb Ass" award goes to some idiot who decided to collect a bunch of large WILD iguanas that fell out of trees on account of the cold. He loaded them up in a station wagon. Well the heater in the car warmed up the lizards, and they became very agitated at the whole situation. And being wild animals, and lizards, they freaked out. One rather large lizard jumped on the guys head which caused him to lose control of the car - wrecking it.

It must have been pretty funny to watch, unless it was your car or property that the guy crashed into.

Smoking The Mac Crack

2009-12-15T13:38:00.002-05:00

It finally got me. This whole Apple Mania caught up with me.

For a long time, I managed to resist. I never bought an I-Pod - I just bought cheaper MP3 players that did the same thing. Hell the MP3 player I bought is a 2 gig USB thumb drive that cost me a whole whopping $15. It plays MP3 files, it does not care where the MP3 files came from (there is no rights management on it, it will play anything without regards to the legality of the file in question), and even has a built in FM player. And it did not need any special software to be installed.

The 2 gig ipod was selling for something like $150 at the same time. And you could not even use it as a USB thumb drive!

But I had to smoke the mac crack eventually, so I got the iphone 3GS. The newest one. My old phone was OK - but it did get a little wet and stopped working for a day. During this time I accepted that the phone was dead, but at least the SIM card lived. So at least I still had all my contacts.

Anyhow, the old phone dried out and started working again. But I never really liked that thing. The battery life sucked, the web browser sucked, the alarm clock program sucked, and so on.

So now I have the 32 gig Iphone 3Gs. I was able to get the promotion price because I had the old phone for 2 years. Now Itunes is installed on my computer.

The Mac invasion has begun.

But the phone is really cool. I has a much better Google Maps application. The old phone had Google Maps, but the Iphone Google Maps is better. I also have a You Tube application - which the old phone lacked. I could not really even watch You Tube clips (at work) on the old phone.

I can watch the clips now. And the I.T. snoops will not even know! HA! A whole new era of clock killing at work has begun!

But really the apps are where it is at. I have a cool carpenters tool kit app that includes a plumb bob, a surface level, a spirit level, a ruler, and a protractor! Cool huh? I thought so.

Now I can see how level my desk at work really is - and harass the mainentence guy if I find it is off. Can't have my pens rolling all over the place you know!

I also have a Sirius/XM app, so I can listen to my satellite radio over the phone. I also have the free Pandora and Slacker music apps.

And I even have something called "active sonar"! This cool (and probably useless) app uses sound to measure distances! It was also free, so if it does not work no big deal.

I also got a bar code scanner, so now I can scan something in the store and use the internet to price check it. I can buy movie tickets with the Fandango app, or use the movietickets.com website I usually purchase through.

I even have the classic arcade game Dragon's Lair.

But the coolest thing so far is the Navionics app. My phone now has marine charts from Maine to Florida's West Coast, including a good part of The Bahamas and all of The Keys out to the Dry Tortugas.

As far as phones go, the iphone is the one to get.

Winterfest Photos

2009-12-14T01:13:00.008-05:00

I did manage to get some pictures from Saturday. And I said I would post them, so here it goes!

There were big ass cruise ships. The true size is not very apparent from this photo, but it is big.

And there were fake owls! Apparently, they keep real birds away. They must work, because the docks were not all covered in bird shit.

There was also....RAIN! Yes, lots of rain. And on my open boat there is not really anyplace to hide from said rain. So you just get wet. Nothing much you can do. So my ass was wet for most of the day. Literally. Pants and underwear were wet. Here is the "oh shit" moment captured on a data card. Nobody uses film anymore.

But when it was not raining, it was pretty nice. Here is a cool house I saw.

And here is one I think is for sale. You know, housing crisis and all. Lots of stuff for sale. In the rain.

More photos will be posted soon!

Back And Dry

2009-12-13T09:14:00.002-05:00

Photos from the Winterfest Boat Parade will be here soon! I have things to do today so Ill have em up by Monday.

5 Day Weekend!

2009-12-11T16:53:00.002-05:00

I managed to score a 5 day weekend. I managed this through an elaborate series of complicated swaps. It really all started the week after Thanksgiving, when I worked a Sunday and Monday for someone else - and traded them my Thursday and Friday. Since I did not ask for that trade, I was able to score this Saturday off, by agreeing to work this past Tuesday.

With me so far? Good.

Then Monday - which was a scheduled day off - someone got sick, so I worked on Monday and traded for today. So now I have today, tomorrow, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday off. Wednesday work starts at 1 PM.

And what was the point in all this? Well it seems to have confused the boss slightly.

But in reality, the plan for Saturday is....THE WINTERFEST BOAT PARADE! Yes, it seems it is that time again.

I have yet to assemble a crew. I might not have a crew. And it might rain. Forecast calls for a 60% chance. So I have that much going for me. Did I ever mention there is not really a good place on the boat to hide from the rain? Yea. Well there isn't.

But there is one cool thing. The Oasis Of The Seas is in port! This is currently the largest passenger ship at sea. She is 5 times the overall length of the ill fated Titanic, at 1,181 feet. This can also be expressed as .223 miles. Her beam (width) is 154 feet at the waterline and 198 feet at the widest point. She has 16 passenger decks and looms 236 feet over the water.

In relation to my boat, Oasis Of The Seas is 59 times longer, 23 times wider, and some 30 times taller.

I still have to get everything ready. I am hoping I know where the orange flashing light I need is. I have everything else.

Except a crew.

Sunday is another boat mission - on a friend's boat. So that is less work. No trailering and stuff. Monday and Tuesday are more like real days off.

Then Wednesday starts a regular week.

Ill be sure to see such a large ship when I am in Port Everglades. Ill attempt to get pictures of it, if the lens on my camera is wide enough!

Black Froday, Cyber Monday

2009-12-03T12:42:00.002-05:00

Well I survived the madness of Black Friday.

This is mainly because I had to work. Thursday too. And Saturday. So being safely away from all sources of retail craziness, I was not really worried about being trampled to death at a Wal-Mart.

So as a result, I really do not know how Black Friday went. Sure - there were stores that had long lines of idiots standing around for 6 - 8 hours waiting for the doors to open. And I assume the mobs were orderly, as I did not hear any reports of a trampling death this year.

I have heard various "news" reports however. Bloomberg reports that sales "may have" advanced 2.4% over last year. Of course last year there was a slump of some 8% over the year before. But the retail industry forecast of a 1% slump in spending seems to have held true also - so who knows.

I think the actual numbers are WORSE than what is reported. For one, nobody was trampled to death. Compare this to the 90s when multiple people would get trampled to death. And not just at Wal-Mart! Oh no, you were taking your life into your hands every time a new shipment of Tickle Me Elmo hit a store. And even if you were just driving within 50 miles of that store - you were at a greatly increased risk of harm. People had lost their mind.

When the economic shit hit the fan in 2007, it was close to the holiday season. Sales were down from what they were, but since many people did not realize just how shitty things were to become stores were still hopeful. It took the sales figures AFTER the entire holiday season was over to make that clear. As the season went on, things got shittier and shittier.

But still - people were trampled to death on Black Froday.

Last year we all knew what was up. We were firmly into the shit. No question about it. Anyone who said "oh, this economic thing is not so bad" was clearly smoking crack.

And still, on Black Froday there was one trampling death.

So I have developed an index. The more people who get stampeeded, the better the season is. Pretty simple really.

This year, by my accounts - nobody was killed. Nobody even so much as tripped and fell down. It all seemed to be rather calm and controled - which is not a good sign really. Chaos and madness is a better indicator.

Saturday, after work, I did make a spy mission to a Best Buy. The store was full of stuff. Much of it was Black Froday sale items that had not sold out. There was one Garmin GPS for $99 that was sold out - but from what I could see everything else was still there. Even the $25 DVD players.

So either the Best Buy stocked up and built up sufficient inventory (unlikely in my opinion, given the poor sales forecast) or else stuff did not sell as anticipated.

Also -there were not any people in the check-out line. I did see some people walking out with stuff - but there were no check-out lines.

Now Cyber Monday is more my speed. This is the day when people spend time at work looking for online deals. I did this. I ordered a Garmin Nuvi 550 GPS for $199, a universal mount for the GPS ($20), and a LED light ($8). That concluded my Cyber Monday shopping extravaganca. Not very exciting, but now the Waverunner has a primary GPS, and the boat has a secondary backup GPS. I can also use the 550 in the truck, on foot, or on a bike. It has car mode, boat mode, foot mode, and bicycle mode. Plus it is waterproof. Pretty cool.

I wonder if there is a measure of productivity lost on Cyber Monday. I bet that the sales boost minus the productivity loss would make for an interesting topic for an economics class.

And today - the universal GPS mount arrived. Just now. Really. West Marine apparently ships shit out fast. So today, on my traded day off - I have something to install on the Waverunner! Now if I can just get that GPS in all will be good.

Thanksgiving Adeventure

2009-11-26T20:37:00.002-05:00

At work. Thursdays are not one of my days off, so I had to work.

But all is not so bad. Sort of. It was not a very busy day. It was actually quiet. So it was a chill out day.

I brought rum cake. So at least there was rum cake. It was a pretty big hit.

There is a rumor that there will be holiday pay - but I am not really holding my breath over that. Whatever.

Lets see what else......well nothing really. It was a workday, but a very low key workday.

After work I had my dinner.

And that, so far, is it. Well there is the beer I am about to open. Maybe watch some TV. And so on.

Hope everyone had a good day!

1/2 day off

2009-11-18T09:19:00.002-05:00

Today is my 1/2 day off. I do not have to be at work till 1300 (1 PM). Now normally I would be tempted to sleep till at least 11:00, but not today! I have two missions to accomplish!

1. Get my teeth cleaned

AND

2. Refuel the boat.

The dentist office called the other day and reminded me that according to their records, I have not been there in a while. This is true. I had an appointment in January that I just bailed out on - on account of limited funds and whatnot. Well I decided that teeth are important so I scheduled another cleaning for today.

As for the boat, I actually got to use it for a couple of hours Sunday. It needs to be topped off. Nothing major, probably 6 gallons or less per tank. So Ill get that done.

Then after that Ill put the boat away, lock it up, and go to work.

I should have enough time to get it all done and still not be late! Work days that start at 1300 rule.

Insurance And Stuff

2009-11-17T13:51:00.002-05:00

One of the things I have done (so far) with my days off is kick on the TV. It seems I have not missed much when it comes to the great health care fiasco.

Now I have one of these full time jobs that the right likes to talk so much about. You know, the kind that comes with benefits and options and all that other happy horse shit. So therefore, I must be set!

Well not exactly. You see, my employer is somewhat cheap. The plan offered is really not a plan. It is a supplemental plan. The way it works is that I get paid directly if I need care, then I use that money to pay bills. So I can go anywhere and see any doctor. It does not matter.

Well here is the problem with the plan. Without real insurance to back it up it is WORTHLESS. Lets just take emergency care for example. If I were to end up in intensive care the "plan" offered would pay a whole whopping $750 per day. The problem is that intensive care costs somewhat more than $750 per day.

They will pay $25,000 if I need an organ transplant. Hey great - better than nothing but I would still be in the hole by a couple of hundred grand.

So I opted to not sign up for the plan. I did my cost benefit analysis and determined that the plan was not worth the cost.

So what about routine care? Well it turns out I can do things like see the dentist or eye doctor and they will also pay me directly. Problem is the amount they will pay me is less than what I would have to pay anyway. They will give me $80 for a routine eye exam for example - but for me a routine exam is closer to $125 - $150.

Now why the hell do I want to pay someone about $7 per pay period so that they can give me back $80 later? Keep in mind the premiums I would pay would total more than what I would get back in routine care reimbursement. Here is $100 - you can give me back $75 later! What a great deal that is.

The "plan" was also fragmented. There was the emergency plan that only covers emergency care, the routine plan, the dental plan, the eye plan, the cancer plan, and so on.

To get them all would equal the premiums for a real plan.

So what good is the plan offered? Well lets say that a real plan was also offered (which it is not). I could buy into the supplemental plan and it would more than cover the deductibles for the real plan.

But offering only the supplemental plan is just a joke. People who buy into it think they are covered - but guess what? If you need anything beyond routine care (which you will have to pay roughly 1/2 the cost for anyway - on top of the premiums paid to get back less than what you paid in - which in effect just makes your routine care MORE expensive) you will end up bankrupt.

Well to hell with that. If I am going to end up bankrupt, I am going to keep the $7 every 2 weeks premium payment. That will at least pay for a six pack. I will get more benefit out of the beer than the plan anyway.

So there you go. More reason why we NEED more options. There are those of us out there working 40 hour weeks, in what appears to be a real company with some 400 employees (with plans to hire another 600 upon planned expansion) - but we have no real insurance.

And I am not really being paid enough to buy my own private plan. As it is now a decent place to live (as in not an apartment in Crack City) will cost me more than 1/2 of my income. At the very best, with the move in specials because the economy sucks I might be able to find a decent place to live for 1/2 of my income. This leaves me another 1/2 for everything else.

In other words - nothing for health insurance.

I also do not see wages going up anytime soon. At least not till the economy recovers. Right now it is not like there are a lot of other jobs I can just take. And as long as there is a shortage of jobs, employers can offer lower wages and people will take them.

I know of people with many years of experience, and graduate degrees - working for $10 - $12 per hour. So that is the reality of today.

But as it stands now - we need more choices when it comes to health plans. I would like to be insured - but I can not afford to buy into a private non-group rate plan, and the garbage plan offered at work is not worth the premiums I would pay.

I suppose some radio clowns would just call me a cheap bastard who thinks everything should be free. Someone who probably supports labor unions, and who is just lazy and really hates capitalism. Why I might even be a communist! Or at least a socialist.

I just do not want to be horribly in debt should I get sick. I suppose that is too much to ask for.

Good News, Bad News

2009-11-16T17:31:00.002-05:00

It seems I have been really extra super busy! And the updates here reflect this.

Which reminds me of the good news. There will be more updates. I get days off again! I was working twelve hour shifts 6 days a week. This works out to 72 hours a week. Now if you consider that there are only 168 hours in a week, I was spending 42.85% of my time at work. At least. A 12 hour shift is really longer than that. You have to count the time spent getting ready for work (which I have worked out to 20 minutes in the morning), time spent driving to work, and then the 10 - 15 minutes reserve time so you are never late. And after the shift I have been getting out anywhere from 15 - 30 minutes late.

Add in this reserve time and I was easily up to 44.64% of my time spent at work, on the clock.

Well all that is over for now. I always knew it would not last. The bean counters looked at operating expense and wondered why myself and others were getting so much time on the clock. I was easily at 35 hours a week overtime.

So the shoe dropped, overtime is discouraged, and I get three days off as a result.

The BAD NEWS is that I got used to the overtime income. I was pulling in some serious jack. Over a year, I was set to make anywhere from $52,000 - $58,000. Now for Miami this is a decent living, but you are not exactly rich or anything. If you want to live outside Crack City you need at least a grand a month for rent, plus electricity and water and all that other shit. So the money is spent rather quick.

But I was doing OK. Sure I was always at work, but work is not that hard. When work is not really that hard I do not mind it. I have an office job WITHOUT having an office job. There is no filing and schedule keeping and all that other shit - but I have a desk and a chair. At my job there are only two or three slots per shift that are sitting - the rest are all standing. So I have that going for me.

But my job is special. I have to keep track of EVERYTHING going on. I have a radio, and I handle all the radio traffic. If something is going on - I know about it first then direct the response team. There is a lot to keep track of.

I suppose it could be stressful - but to me it is not. I can deal with it.

But still - having more time is going to hurt. My income is going to go way down. WAY down. I was making more in OT than I was straight time. Now that I am back down to just straight time, checks are going to suck.

So there it is. The good and bad. I have time to have a life - but no money to afford that life.

Honestly, I would rather be at work. On the clock. Where I have something to do, and I am paid to do it.

The Week

2009-11-02T20:28:00.003-05:00

It seems I finally got a week with more than one day off. For the past couple of weeks all I had off was Sunday. Every other day was a work day. Not so bad really - but having only Sunday off every week presents interesting problems.

Like the nasty gram I got from Florida. Something about my license being up for suspension on the 17th unless I do something. So this means going to another county, going to a court house, producing some documents proving the computer records the state already has are true, paying $60, and then going home.

All to prove some computer records are true. Amazing huh?

But that is not so bad. Ill have time to get it done tomorrow.

That is if this does not happen again.

So here I was, driving home minding my own business. And then I hit something. Maybe I kissed a concrete construction barrier, maybe there was something in the road. To be honest I am not sure. But the end result was a massive and sudden tire failure. The people at the Sears auto center said it could not be patched.

And the rim is apparently bent. So right now the spare tire rim is in use on the drivers side front side. There also seems to be damage to the drivers side rear rim, but the truck seems to be driving OK. No shakes. I still have to get to a tire place and have the other wheel put on a balance machine. Ill be able to get that done tomorrow too.

The good thing here is that there is no other damage to the vehicle. Or anything else.

Week Almost Over

2009-10-22T20:34:00.002-04:00

Things are still going fairly well. The long work weeks do not seem to be having much of an effect. At least I do not feel like they are having an effect. I just show up, hang out for however many hours, then go home. But not directly home. I go hang out first.

As a result, I spend less time at home than anywhere else. And more time at work than anywhere else.

But no matter. It is all good. Work is not exactly difficult.

And now for the good part. The "health plan". Work offers a "plan" that pays me directly. Sounds good on the surface - but it really sucks. It is not much of a plan at all. If you happen to already have insurance, then it would be cool. You would get paid more than enough to cover most out of pocket expenses.

But if all you can afford is the work plan, it sucks. You see - if you need treatment you have to go to a hospital as a self pay patient. Meaning you are charged the highest rates. So the $750 per day you get paid for intensive care will pay maybe 1/2 of the cost - which means you pay the rest. But if you have existing insurance where your co-payment is say $500 per day for intensive care, you will get enough from the other plan to cover that.

On what I am being paid - there is not really a good way to afford an actual insurance plan.

So I do not know what I will do. I am thinking of taking some of the coverage - but not all of it. I can pick and choose what I want. I am still calculating the cost/benefit thing.

Other than that - this weekend is another sailboat race. I think I will be involved in this somehow. So that is how most of my day off will be squandered. Either on the power boat or on the Waverunner - doing sailboat race support stuff.

Not a bad way to end the week really.

1/2 Day Off

2009-10-21T10:14:00.003-04:00

So today is my 1/2 day off. Meaning of course that I only have to show up for 6 hours, as opposed to 12.

It is not so bad really. I have time to do shit. I do not have to be anywhere till after noon. So I can squander my 1/2 day by sleeping, or I can arise at the usual time and really get shit done.

Or I can split the difference. Sleep in a little bit then still do something.

Today I was supposed to pay a ticket. But this involves driving all the way to Broward County. I can not do this shit over the phone, the bastards in Broward County are too stone age to manage that. They are so stone age they make Fred Flintstone's record player seem like a blu-ray DVD player.

You see, the ticket is for not having a "valid registration". Which is bullshit. There are these things called "computers". Using one of these devices, one can easily run a vehicle tag and drivers license info and the magical device will tell you things. Like if the tag is in fact valid, if the tag belongs to the vehicle, if the tag is stolen, and if the tag tax sticker (and vehicle registration) is valid.

It was.

But I still have to go in person and show them the stone age slip of paper to prove what is in the computer is correct.

And now pay a late fine. Because I sort of forgot about the whole mess.

I was to take care of that today - but screw it. Since I already owe the late fine I might as well just milk it. Hell I can put it off till I have to renew my registration - in January.

TAKE THAT BROWARD COUNTY!! Wait in line for your money. Trust me, you at the bottom of a long list. Well really the list is not so long, but you are still at the bottom of it. You will be the LAST to get the money. If there is any left after all the higher priorties are taken care of, then consider yourself lucky.

Your gestapo like force can not touch me here. I am safely outside the limits of Broward County. SO THERE! HA! Patrol your streets all you want - I shall not be there. I will taunt you from the Dade County side of the border however. Whats the matter?? Cop cant cross the street to arrest me without mommys premission?? AWWWWW! Aint that sweet!

Any nightsticks you throw will be kept by me. Ill sell them on e-bay and the proceedes will go to pay the fine. OH WAIT! That was a lie! Any proceedes will be used to pay off things higher up on the list! Like for example going to see a movie!

Yes Broward County, movies are higher on the list. When I said you were at the bottom - I meant it. I will put this off for as long as possible.

As for my schedule - I have expenses. And I assumed more expenses. So I will need to keep working extra overtime. 6 day weeks may become normal for me. I may even have to see what 7 day weeks are like. Burnout risk is minimal, as it turns out the job is not really that difficult. boring sometimes - but not difficult. And on top of that I have to do what I have to do in order to make various financial situations work out.

The problem is that right now overtime is free for the taking. I can get as much as I want. So what happens when I get used to the overtime bonus and then the overtime dries up because more staff are brought in? Well Ill cross that bridge when I get there.

Ill have to either inquire about getting paid more or else seriously consider packing up and moving on to somewhere else that offers more. Various things are happening here, and they will happen rather quickly. Using newly accuired experience in the right manner could work out nicely. But if I screw up and choose the wrong path - well I could screw myself.

So like the giant squid, I shall reach my tenticles out into the inky blackness. Feeling around for stuff. Plotting. Calculating.

But for now the 1/2 day off is only about 1/2 over.

Master Of Overtime

2009-10-15T21:03:00.002-04:00

I am the master of overtime. Next week I nabbed 24 more hours. And there will be more. It all depends on what I want to do.

Which is not really a bad deal. The extra money is good I suppose. And by working so long, in theory there is less time to spend money.

Of course that is pure theory. And not exactly true.

And really I have nothing else better to do.

But the week after next week will be different! I have better things to do. Something about using the Waverunner Sunday, to kick off my three day weekend.

Yes three day weekend. Every week is a three day weekend, assuming I do not get greedy and exchange a day off for money. Which I have been doing.

And this is a bit strange. You will notice I scored high on "greed" and very high on "sloth" on the seven deadly sins test. But it seems to me that the two sins are in conflict. Sloth makes me not really want to work the overtime. Too much effort. To hell with it, just sleep in late.

But the greed gives me motivation to work extra time.

There will be much time for sloth later however. Right now I need the greed a lot more.

Not My Job

2009-10-12T23:20:00.001-04:00

This is an actual photo from work.

It is not my job to do anything about it.

72

2009-10-11T22:20:00.002-04:00

Seventy two. The number of the week.

It is the number of hours I am scheduled for at work this week. This works out to six shifts, each one lasting for twelve hours.

My normal week consists of a 42 hour week. One six hour stint, then three twelve hour shifts. So the 72 hour schedule is really not so bad all things considered. Two days off become days on, and then my 1/2 day becomes a full day. That is all it takes.

And I also get an extra 30 hours of overtime. This is nice.

Things at work are starting to come together. Operations are still not at 100%, but they will be soon. There will be more opportunities for overtime. I do not know for how much longer, but they will be there at least for the short term. So I suppose Ill grab it while I can get it. Strike while the iron is hot. And so on.

It will be a long week, but a good week.

Alleged Days Off

2009-10-06T23:58:00.002-04:00

This week I had one actual day off and two alleged days off.

But how is this possible? It is only Wednesday! And this is true. But you see I never have a normal job schedule. Never happens. So my day off was Sunday! Monday and Tuesday were also days off.

Only I was called in Monday and Tuesday. Hey no big deal. I was just going to piss the days off anyway. So might as well get called in for extra money.

But I made the best of the deal. I was out on the bay Sunday. On the Waverunner. That was nice.

Today is my first regular day on. And I have to go in early. You know what that means! MORE OVERTIME!!

Hey like I said - works for me. I am making myself useful as part of the team. Helping out the department. And so on.

And making some extra money as a side benefit.

All things considered, it is all working out OK.

In a side note, I have to HAVE TO get a ticket cleared up. I must remember to do this. It is of a very high level of importance.

But first I need a weekday off.

What To Do

2009-10-04T20:06:00.002-04:00

Work has me fairly busy. There are 12 hour shifts. Well one shift is only 6 hours, but there are three 12 hour shifts in a week. It is only 42 hours total - not so bad really. But the distribution is a little non-standard. Three days back to back of 12 on 12 off, then one day with 6 hours.

The nice thing is the three days off.

When there are three days off. Right now things are slightly frantic so I have to go in for 2 of my days off. No big deal, it is just more overtime. I am sure I can find something to do with the extra money. I have a couple of ideas already.

The extra days on will only be 1/2 days, so I will get out in the early afternoon. Ill be able to get things done, because I will not be able to get lazy and sleep in late.

Oh yea, one more thing about the 12 on 12 off thing. It is a little bit strange. When I get ready to leave, certain people show up to start work. This is normal when you do shift work.

But when the same people are still there when you are showing up, it throws you off. It feels like you never really left for long. Almost like you just left for lunch or something.

And then there is the time warp thing. You have to really budget your time well. You have 12 hours before you have to be at work again. OK - what now?

Well lets say you want 6 hours of sleep. OK now you have 6 hours left. But at least 1.5 of those hours are for waking up, getting dressed, teeth brushing, and driving to work. Lets throw in another .5 hours for a shower (it does not take that long but whatever).

Now we are down to 4 hours.

What if you want more time? Well you have to take away from somewhere else.

But I am not complaining. Far from it. I seem to be doing OK with things the way they are now. At least as far as the complexities of shift work go.

Things I Will NOT Do

2009-09-29T00:52:00.002-04:00

Twitter. Or Tweet. Or whatever the hell the act of posting a minute by minute account of your entire day on Twitter is called.

I will not do it.

It really amazes me what people will post on that site. They will even use their real photo! A really bad idea.

Really. If you are a hot chick, this is a BAD idea. You are aware there are these things called "stalkers" out there right? And if you say "I am at the bar on 5th and Main" guess what a stalker can do?

Plus, my life is really not that interesting. Here would be a typical Twitter day for me.

I am awake.
I am taking my morning dump
I am taking a shower
I am driving to work.
I am at work
I am on break at work
I am leaving work
I am home
I am taking my after work dump

Wow! A really exciting day there huh? I am sure millions of people worldwide care.

But aside from that, I just do not care to post constant updates. I fail to see the point. Now maybe I am missing the point - this is possible. Maybe you think Twitter is great. If so then it is great - for you.

But it is not for me.

What cracks me up the most are the obvious attempts by some to use Twitter to make themselves seem cool, hip, or "in touch". Please - stop this attempt. Nobody is buying it. You look like a clown. So if you are some old fuddy-duddy Congress Critter, just stop it. Tell the staffer that convinced you this was a good idea to come up with another idea. You are not appearing any more "in touch" or "hip" or "cool".

But there is at least one good use for Twitter. I know this girl who has stalker problems. I suggested to her that she sign up for Twitter, and somehow let the stalker(s) know this. Then when she wants to go to club A she can Twitter that she is going to bar X somewhere far away from club A.

Brilliant huh? I thought so!

Cat Poem Monday

2009-09-28T03:25:00.003-04:00

This is Skipper.
He is not at the vet.
But he is still pissed off,
Because he is stuck in a net!

UPDATE - Skipper did escape from the net. He was only stuck in it for a little bit.

Projects

2009-09-27T00:11:00.003-04:00

Today will be a productive day.

I think. The boat needs some work done to it. And there is no time like the present! This is mainly because the new job situation is probably going to result in a screwy and unpredictable schedule. For now anyway. So while I have the time I should use it to get some shit done!

First up is resolving the fuel alarm. Last time I was out the port tank was running low, so I opened the valve for the starboard fuel tank. Then a couple of minutes later I get an alarm. A fuel alarm. Attached to the engine is a water separating fuel filter. This is the source of said alarm. There is a float switch in the filter, and when water gets in it the float switch trips sounding the alarm. I was able to keep doing my thing, but I do need to figure out what the hell is going on. I have the new filter. I am hoping that the problem is NOT phase separation! That would be bad. But I think the gas I have in the boat is not that E-10 shit, so I should be OK. Remove the fuel filter on the engine, dump the contents into a jar for a visual inspection, hope there is not signs of ethanol phase separation going on, put the new filter on, then dump the contents of the external fuel filter into a jar, visually inspect it, hope there is no signs of phase separation going on, then haul the boat off to ye ole filling station to top off the tanks. And while I am at it add the usual fuel treatments I use.

Keeping the tanks full is the best way to prevent water in the fuel. I know this - but I got lazy.

And then there is problem 2. This is my cool custom made cooler rack that is installed in the splash well.

Pretty nifty huh? Notice how it holds the cooler. I like this set up because the cooler is never in the way.

Well this is what the cooler rack looks like now.

Notice the slight difference. What happened was a little bit of shitty engineering. The previous owner designed and built the cooler rack. That was pure genius. The splash well is wasted space, so it was put to excellent use. The cooler lives back there, leaving the deck 100% free and clear.

But as cool as the idea was, and as good as the design was - the guy used screws to hold it in place. This was not the best idea in the world. A cooler, loaded with ice and beer and whatever else is in it, is heavy. The boat rides well but it still pounds a little bit in waves. Well the last time I was out I hit some wake and landed a bit hard. The screws pulled out of the fiberglass and the cooler rack was down. Nothing was really damaged, but it needs to be fixed anyway.

My solution is going to be BOLTS! Not screws. I will use stainless steel bolts, large washers, and self locking nuts. I might even put in a backing plate and washers - but I do not think the backing plate will be needed.

What the washers and/or backing plate will do is distribute the force exerted by the weight of the cooler over a larger area of fiberglass. The end result will be much stronger than screws.

In addition, the tarp over the boat got ripped up in a rain storm a few weeks ago. It needs to be replaced too. I have the tarp, I just need to get it strung up.

Then the project will be over, and the boat will be ready for use again.

Work Saga

2009-09-25T13:48:00.002-04:00

The new line of work is going OK. I suppose.

I got some special advanced secret training today, so now I have an idea of what some of my duties may include.

Or not. Nothing is yet set in stone. But it seems to me that if I was selected for some training that not everyone got, then that must mean something.

It still remains to be seen what my duty hours will be. Will I get the night shift and resume my zombie hours? Will I ever see the sun again? Will I show up to work as the day is ending for everyone else, and get home when the day is just starting for everyone else?

Well that may not be so horrible. Some people can handle the night shift, some can't. Truth be known I am one of those who CAN sleep all day and do other stuff all night.

But the flip side of this coin is that I have had night shifts before. I love the working hours - but you really do turn into a zombie. Even on your days off you keep zombie hours. You find it difficult to do seemingly simple things, like go to the bank. The darn bank closes before you wake up and opens up after you are asleep. If you need to buy something, good luck. You find that the stores close around the time you really want to roll out. 9 PM suddenly seems "early". 8 AM is "late".

Your life really is turned upside down. You become a creature of the night - seeking the darkness and shunning the sunlight. You never get to see your day shift friends, because they are all saying "it is late and I am tired" when you are just waking up!

And do not even get me started on weekends! You do not have any. Lets say you work on Saturday and get Sunday off. OK great! Sunday off huh? Well not exactly. See you show up to work at say 10 PM SATURDAY. Then you are let off at 8 AM or 10 AM SUNDAY - assuming a 10 or 12 hour shift. If you are working 8 hours then you get off at 6 AM.

But still - it really does not matter what your hours are. The point is you get out Sunday MORNING. Good luck getting anything done. You will go home, eat "dinner" - maybe have an after work beer (at 9 AM) then crash. You wake up on your "day off" sometime later that afternoon. After the day is over.

And lets say you work Monday - Friday. OK great. You show up Friday night, get off Saturday morning. Then you sleep all day Saturday (pissed that day away) - which of course means you are awake all night. Not such a bad thing really - there are lots of things to do Saturday night. But then you sleep all day Sunday and are up all night again - so that Monday you sleep all day to work all night.

And so on. The best case in this situation is that you work Sunday and have Saturday and Friday off. Then you get out of work Friday morning and force yourself to stay awake. Friday evening you are tired so you sleep. Then you can get up at a reasonable time Saturday for some sun time. I would be able to do things like use the boat and/or Waverunner. Or just hang out with day shift people. Have a beer at a reasonable hour of the day where people do not look at you like you are mad because you want to drink at 8 AM. HEY! I was working all freaking night! It is 8 AM to you but it is 8 PM to me! So lay off and give me a damn beer OK!?!?!? What the hell do you mean the bar is closed?

You daytime people NEED people like me. People like me keep the world functioning while you sleep. We are the guardians of the night, watching over the planet while all the normal people slumber. And then how do you pay us back? By mowing your lawn at 11 AM.

But the chance still remains of a day shift. The stuff I learned today happens over a transitional period. It starts during the night shift, but then gets passed off to the day shift. So maybe I will get to be "normal" and arrive to work in the morning.

This also presents interesting problems. For one, I become a rat stuck in the great race to nowhere. I so love morning hush hour traffic! Nothing says "what a pleasant morning this is" like being stuck in horrible traffic with tens of thousands of other angry people. But I believe the morning shift would actually require me to be on the clock at about the same time morning rush hour starts to build. I would actually leave the house BEFORE things stacked up, which should put me in clear traffic all the way to work. This is good.

But am I really a day shift person? Sure, I can adapt. Anyone can adapt to anything if they have to. It is part of the whole evolution thing. The world throws a problem at you - you either adapt or die. So yea, I could survive on a day shift. It would actually allow me to be far more normal. My days off would truly be "days off". I would still get up in the morning, leaving me all day to get something done.

But all this is moot really. I will get whatever I get. I can not do anything about it one way or the other.

Adapt or die.

Blog Update

2009-09-23T00:40:00.002-04:00

It seems that I have gone for some time without a blog update! This is not good.

But the truth is not a whole lot is going on. I have no funny new job stories yet. And really, even if I did I would probably not post them out of concern of blowing my secret identity. I have read many blogs where the author disclosed their real identity, and it usually ends up bad. Some crazy shit happens. People have been shit canned over a blog. People have made the newspaper over a blog. And so on.

One has to be careful. Google is your friend, but it can also be your enemy.

Summer must be over. I can tell this not so much by the weather, but by the Samuel Adams seasonal beer selection. Oktoberfest beer is out. If you go to a bar with Sam Adams seasonal beer on tap, it will be Oktoberfest. Not that this is bad - but for my taste the Sam Adams Oktoberfest beer is not my style. Too malty.

In other news, I picked up a 12 pack of Shipyard sampler. It came with three Summer Ales, three Pale Ales, three India Pale Ales, and three Export Ales. The pale ale seems to be my favorite so far.

But I like the Sierra Nevada selections better than Shipyard.

Last time I went out in the boat it was somewhat exciting. First I had a fuel alarm go off. Attached to the engine is a special fuel filter that catches water that may be in the tank. Apparently there is water in this filter, which caused the alarm to go off. So now I need a new fuel filter. I probably also should put on another filter I bought some time ago but never got around to installing. A Racor water separating filter. It has a clear bottom that will allow me to see what kind of crud might be in the fuel tank.

But that is not all. In the splash well there is a nifty custom made platform that holds my cooler. Apparently the guy who made it just screwed it in place. Well it collapsed on me. The screws pulled right out of the fiberglass. Now I think that the proper way to install the thing is to through bolt it using a backing plate and washers and shit. So I will look into doing just that. I have a feeling it will be a pain in the ass however. I know that I have to pull the batteries. And then depending on where the bolts will be at, the battery cables, battery selector switch, and/or fuel lines MIGHT get in the way. This would suck.

Oh yea, the deep cycle battery is also on its way out. Great huh?

But such things should be expected. I knew that the battery would not last forever. It is about time to replace it anyway. It is at least three years old. The fuel filter is supposed to be replaced yearly, I got two years out of the one I have now.

So it is a good thing work is going to ramp up. I need more of it. A higher wage too. I am hoping that internal opportunities will open up at the new job. But we shall see what happens. Ill keep my tentacles out there and go with the highest bidder for my labor. Nothing personal against any single employer - but capitalism is capitalism! It is all about business. If I can make a buck an hour more somewhere else, I will go somewhere else. I need the money. And I know I am not alone here.

But as we all know, jobs are growing on trees right now. So I am sure other offers will just pour in. Note the sarcasm there.

Week Outlook!

2009-09-14T19:00:00.002-04:00

I secretly always wanted to be a weather forecaster. I still do really. It seems like a pretty sweet job. You just guess about what is going on and what will happen as a result. And if you are wrong? No big deal! Hey - I said 20% chance of rain! So it rained on your day at the park - tough luck being in that 20%!

And if I say "the hurricane will hit Tampa Bay" and it actually hits Port Charlotte, IT WOBBLED!!! Not my fault there! You knew you were in the cone, should have taken proper action!

So pretty much you get paid and it does not matter if you are right or wrong. As long as you say something that properly covers your ass.

Anyhow the outlook for this week seems to be OK. I am still shaking this slight cold I managed to pick up on Thursday / Friday. Or maybe Wednesday? Who knows. I started to feel crappy Thursday, Friday I was worse, Saturday I felt a little better, Sunday was OK except for a spell in the early afternoon when I almost blacked out. I am better now.

In addition, there are new jobs afoot. Training has already started. In a couple of days I will be fully trained to do something. Then I do it. Pretty simple stuff really. They tell me to do something, I do it, I report back when it is done or why it was not possible to get it done given the resources I had at my disposal (along with what additional resources / time I think I need to get the thing done).

Everything should be OK. In theory.

New Policies

2009-09-12T00:04:00.000-04:00

I start a new job sometime. Exactly when is a mystery.

You see, I actually read stuff given to me. And even though I do not know why - I have a fair amount of common sense.

I asked for - and was given - a handbook of general policies. Policies are good to know - so you do not get in needless trouble.

What was of the most interest to me was the internet policies. This place has a fairly uniform and not at all uncommon internet policy. No using company computers for unauthorized stuff and so on. Not a big deal.

But this is not all. It is also common for companies to restrict personal computer use while off duty. Namely - blogging. They do not care if someone has a blog, you just can not say that the company sucks on it. They also frown on opinions that an employee has that are contrary to company policy or company operations.

People HAVE been fired for personal blogs.

This is why it is mostly a good idea to remain anonymous online. And I do this. I refrain from posting photos of myself here, and I will not mention any employer.

I think this is a good idea. Stay anonymous, and nobody can pin anything on me. No proof means I did not do it.

And it is also the fair thing to do - for everyone involved.

Today

2009-09-11T00:52:00.002-04:00

Today is the day. I think everyone knows what I mean here.

But today is a strange day. It is across between Memorial Day and a regular work day. Sure there are ceremonies and memorials that take place, but at the same time it is business as usual.

I find this sort of strange.

At the very least, I would like to see the nation come to a halt for a minute or two at the times the planes crashed. Stop the cash registers, stop the sales pitch, and so on. Only for a couple of minutes. I would also like to see radio stations announce the times, so that drivers can stop and get out of their cars. Inside your car you are inside a private world - disconnected from all other humans. Outside of your car you are part of a group of people again. Much like the nation was 8 years ago today. All for one, one for all.

But I do not know if this will ever happen.

Public Service Announcement

2009-09-04T15:16:00.002-04:00

The last long weekend of the summer is here.

Well not for me. Technically I still have more summer left. The water in the bay does not start to cool down till October. For me, the "end" of summer is actually Columbus Day weekend. And the super massive boat party that takes place.

But that is not important.

What IS important is that AAA is once again offering its popular "Tow To Go" program. It is very simple.

Should you get stewed, you can call AAA and they will arrange for a tow truck to come to your aid. You get towed home for free, and you also get a free ride home.

And best of all - you do not go to jail!

Works out great huh?

As of now, this program is available in Florida, and a good deal of the Southeast including Nashville and Atlanta. But it may be going on in your area too.

You do not need to be a AAA member to use this free service. All you need to be is drunk.

The service is being offered NOW through Monday. So if you are boozing and live in an area served by this or a similar program - no need to be cruising!

Just call 1-800-AAA-HELP. Then using your best drunken slur, try to tell the nice person on the phone exactly where you are. If you need to, ask the bartender for help - chances are your bartender knows where he/she is. Then the tow truck comes, and you wake up at your home wearing shoes but not any pants.

Try to figure that one out! You had to remove your shoes to get your pants off right? So why then put the shoes back on? Did you decide to take a drunken walk in the buff? Did you maybe have a good time that you can not remember? Who knows. It shall always remain a mystery.

So remember, call 1-800-AAA-HELP. It beats calling the bail bondsman.

Thursday Already?

2009-09-03T02:21:00.002-04:00

WOW! A whole lot of days passed with no posts!

I blame Meowcenaries. It is a good game. I passed the first level, and I am working on the desert level now. The Super Kittanks are tough.

Other than that - there is not really much going on. There is a tropical storm out there somewhere, but it will not effect things here. In fact it is very weak and is not projected to really do anything. Conditions are not at all favorable for the storm. By this evening it may even be downgraded to a depression. The experts have it dissipated by Sunday - they say it will not even be a rain maker after that.

So much for Tropical Storm Erika. So far the sexiest name of any storm I can remember, but it will be short lived.

A three day weekend is approaching! I like these. Sort of. The water ways will be clogged. Lots of people seem to think that summer is over. I never understood this. THIS IS SOUTH FLORIDA! Summer never really ends - it just gets not as hot. Even in December the beating weather is usually decent. Really.

But still, there will be a lot of traffic. So if I want to go out Ill have to put the boat in the water in advance, and leave it tied up at the boat club. This way I avoid the public ramp craziness.

Or just not go out this weekend, and wait for next weekend. The water will still be warm - only there will be less people out.

Cool Shit

2009-08-31T00:04:00.000-04:00

First up - I found some good shit! Sierra Nevada 2009 Anniversary Ale. For 2009, they whipped up a lovely IPA featuring Cascade hops grown in a sustainable manner. Sustainable is good, because running out of hops would so totally suck.

If you can find any, grab it while you can!

In other news, NEW FREE GAMES! Yes new FREE games!

First up, Meowcenaries. You lead an elite team of kittens, who are out to rescue the President from the Evilcat. Along the way, you have to kill a lot of kitten Badcatz. And find all the hidden Cheezburgers. Hours of fun there.

But maybe you are up for some strategy based games. Well in this case you want...HRmageddon. Two companies merge - only one team of employees is needed. So of course, you and your team of co-workers has to take over the office OR ELSE GET FIRED! You take over the office by either killing everyone else, or occupying the cubicles.

And then there is Dungeons And Dungeons. The King and Queen of Kink present a night of extreme pleasure and pain. The object is for you and some sort of gimp to get through each level. You have to use various kinky weapons to destroy your enemies.

There are a bunch more cool, creative, and fun games here. All free. No spyware bullshit either.

This should get you all through this week. I do not know about next week however.

Unlicensed Song Thursday

2009-08-27T02:30:00.003-04:00

Enjoy the unlicensed song! Also if you are some sort of lawyer please note I am NOT hosting the song. I simply embedded it from You Tube, where someone else uploaded it.

So no nasty threatening letters please.

I kind of like it.

In other news, I went to see a movie. Ponyo. This is a cute really nice date movie. The movie was released in the US by Disney, but was originally made in Japan. The animation is all in the Japanese style. I enjoyed it.

Ponyo is only playing at select AMC theaters, and apparently has a $0 advertising budget. This is odd considering it is a Disney release. Disney is really good at marketing and promotion - and they really like to make money. But this movie is not really being pushed much.

But like I said this one is a good date movie. A classic tale. Goldfish meets boy, boy and goldfish fall in love, some nutty stuff happens, and nobody gets turned into sushi.

The Next Storm

2009-08-26T02:19:00.003-04:00

Well it is not named yet, but it will be soon. Just wait. I think that by the 5 PM update today, it will be a tropical storm.

The news people are saying that the strom is expected to take a path similar to that of Bill, and therefore Florida will not be in the cone.

There is only one problem with that. Well TWO problems with that.

Problem 1 is that the area of disturbed weather soon to be Tropical Storm Danny is close to The Bahamas, moving west-northwest at 20 mph. Since it is going more west than north, if it is going to remain at sea it better turn quick. But it is moving at 20 mph, so how fast can it actually turn? Who knows.

Problem 2 is the radio station I was listening to is 610 AM. This Clear Channel station carries Fox "News" and all right wing rabid hysterical programming. Except for Coast To Coast AM after midnight, in case you want to hear the latest on bigfoot and aliens and shit.

Even the traffic reports on that station are frequently incorrect or incomplete.

So most of the time, all you hear on 610 is bullshit.

Now the as of now unnamed storm may remain at sea. And Florida may never be in the cone. But who knows.

All that can be done is to watch and see what happens.

There is supposed to be a sailboat race this weekend. I am supposed to act as a support / safety boat for the race. The sailboats might finish the race really fast!

UPDATE!!

As of 0800 EDT, the speed of the storm has slowed to about 15 mph, down from 20 mph earlier. A Hurricane Hunter aircraft is en route to check it out, when the aircraft gets there it could be upgraded to a depression or maybe a storm. The direction of movement is still west northwest.

But if the forward speed is slowing down - it could mean it is trying to turn. If it turns it will be taken out to sea.

The truth is nobody can really say where this thing is heading, or even if it will make it to a storm.

Research Results

2009-08-24T01:58:00.003-04:00

My research on the possible trip to Brazil leads me to suspect that they do not really speak a lot of English. Sure you can find people that speak English in the big fancy hotels and in the hot tourist areas. And I might stay mostly in these areas. The big cities can be very dangerous if you venture into the wrong area, so when in a big city Ill have to be careful.

But even in the safe areas of the big cities, the average person you meet on the street may not speak English. This could make ordering a beer somewhat difficult.

So I will need to learn some Portuguese. I am thinking Ill need to obtain a copy of Rosetta Stone. Maybe. That program is somewhat expensive. Maybe I can find someone who has a copy?

Anyone have a copy of Rosetta Stone Portuguese (Brazil)? Please note that Portugal Portuguese is not the same as Brazil Portuguese.

My research also indicates all I need to to to have a phone is obtain a SIM card for my phone. Supposedly, my phone is a "world band" model that can use any GSM network. I think I can also have it unlocked to work on a CDMA network. If I get a prepaid SIM card that allows for data access, my Google Maps will work - so the phone is also a GPS. Handy for finding your away around when you have no idea where the hell you are.

I will also need a travel visa. Brazil has a "you do it to us we do it to you" immigration policy. This means that as a US citizen, they charge me whatever the US charges a Brazilian citizen who wants to travel to the USA. In this case, that amounts to $130. The Brazilian Consulate will determine how long my visa is good for. It could be as short as 6 months, or as long as 5 years.

Further research also indicates that I should not really bring much with me. Lots of places suggest you pack really light, and shop for more clothes once you get there. Domestic clothing brands are really cheap and of good quality - but more importantly you do not like some idiot tourist. As easily as I can play "spot the old French Canadian" during the winter in Florida, people in Brazil can play "spot the gringo". So to as not draw any more attention to my dumb ass (Ill be the guy constantly using his phone GPS to find his way around, and ordering a cold beer like I just had 3/4 of my brain removed including 100% of the speech processing center), I should get some Brazil clothing.

This probably means a Speedo for the beach. I promise not to wear it when I get back, unless it turns out I look really good in a Speedo.

Oh yea - the beer! Brazil seems to have some decent beer. They have a lot of German style beers. They drink the stuff ice cold - as close to freezing as possible without the beer turning into ice.

I do not yet know the proper way to say "beer" in Brazil Portugese. I will need to do something about this.

Tipping for food service is accomplished by adding 10% to your bill. This is all the tip the locals will pay. It is not necessary to add any more.

One Brazillian Real = $0.546 US dollars. The best exchange rates can be found at the national bank. So Ill only exchange a little bit of money at the airport before I leave.

That is if I leave. I am still in the research phase. But really, the idea seems like a better and better one as time passes.

If I go, the trip will be in November. This is the "off" time and so airfare is generally cheaper than other times.

South Of The Equator

2009-08-23T03:15:00.002-04:00

So I may have this chance to go to Brazil. It is not a totally done deal yet, but I am working on it. I am in the research phase.

A friend of mine is having a wedding party there. His wife's family live there This means there will be a party of some sort. And the party will be in a smaller town, in Brazil's wine country. Up in the mountains.

The general idea so far is I would fly form Miami to Rio de Janeiro. I think this means "River Of Janeiro". Or something like that.

From Rio I would have to Porto Alegre, which is in the south of Brazil. Close to Argentina actually. And from there it would be a land trek to wherever the party is to be at.

I would not get to see the Amazon River - unless the skies are clear when I fly over it. Assuming that the jet does not arrive to Rio from sea - which it probably will.

I might need to get a Yellow Fever shot. And I might also have to get the swine flu shot. Or something like that. When I get the travel visa Ill have to ask the Brazilian Consulate what the hell is up with that shit.

Malaria - the souvenir you never forget. Got to love it.

And there is more! Since most of Brazil lies south of the equator, the night sky is totally different. Seasons are reversed (when it is winter in the north it is summer in the south), but that is not all that is inverted. The moon appears to be inverted too. So do all the constellations visible from both hemispheres. Also, the winter constellations become summer constellations.

The circumpolar constellations (the constellations you can see year round - like the Big Dipper) are not visible at all. The southern hemisphere has its own set of circumpolar constellations which can not be seen north of the equator.

There is also a chance I would be far enough south to see the Southern Lights. That would be ass kicking cool.

Also, in Brazil booze is not taxed - and it is cheap as shit. The whole country runs on alcohol. Literally. They do not use gas in cars down there, vehicles run on booze. E85 is common, and there are even many stations selling all alcohol fuel. Or as I like to call it - Vodka. I am sure they denature it or something so you can not drink it.

I would probably bring back a lot of booze. US Customs will let me bring so much back for free - I think 5 or so bottles. Anything over that and I would have to declare it and pay the duty. No big deal. Even with a duty of a couple of bucks per bottle it would still be cheap. And many times as long as you declare what you have, and you are not bringing back hundreds of gallons - they do not care. if you try to hide it then get busted - they DO care. So just declare everything.

The research phase continues.

To The Asshole On SR 836....You Know Who You Are

2009-08-22T02:36:00.004-04:00

You are the pecker wood that almost hit me. I can understand you might not be able to see a BIG FUCKING RED TRUCK. Maybe I should be in a Cooper Mini - you might notice that better.

I was in the far left lane. Hanging out. Minding my own business. I was not zipping from one lane to the next, I do not roll that way. If I can move I do - if traffic is too heavy I just pick a lane and STAY THERE unless I have a darn good reason to get out of it. Such as my exit is approaching, or the lane is blocked off for construction or something.

And when I do change lanes - I use these things called "mirrors" to make sure nothing is around me. Hell I might even glance over my shoulder to check a blind spot.

But no. Not you. You just decide - AFTER PASSING ME SO I KNOW YOUR DUMB ASS SAW THE TRUCK - that you can just jump over into my lane.

But I know you heard the screech of all four of my tires skidding at 65 mph. Hell I might have even been going 70. Yea, above the 55 mph posted limit but this is Miami, so the speed limits are merely suggestions unless there is a cop around. What I was NOT doing was lane hopping. I had been in that lane for some some time cruising around.

And what did you do? Nothing. You kept moving over. You would have hit the passenger front quarter panel with your bumper - effectively doing the police PIT maneuver to yourself. You would have also spun my truck out of control and right into the bus load of nuns you were trying to pass. Nuns would have been running around on the highway, on fire, screaming, with blood gushing from their ears.

Jesus would have been pissed off about that.

Holy crap dude - either learn to drive or stay the hell off the highway. Better yet, stay off the highway. Or drive your car off a boat ramp into Biscayne Bay.

Really - keep moving over? What the hell? You are lucky my truck is smarter than you and decided to drift to the left on its own once I was skidding. Otherwise you would have hit me.

I let off the brake to prevent the truck from skidding into the guard rail.

By the way, I wanted to go south on the 826 - but I saw you were getting off there so I kept going east. I got off on SW 72 AVE and took the longer way home, just to avoid you. As horrible as 72 ave is (not to mention the hell known as Flagler Drive), Ill take my chances there over with you on the same expressway.

PS - just to give you an idea of how normally laid back and chill I am, when I passed you at the interchange of SR 836 and SW 826 I used my horn for the FIRST time this month and maybe the second or third time this year. I know everyone else in Miami is horn happy but not me.

I hope you are the next person in town to encounter the Green Mamba that is apparently on the loose biting people.

Say hello to my little friend.

Cross posted to Craigslist Miami.

Things That Suck

2009-08-20T03:26:00.002-04:00

Welcome to another installment of things that suck!!!!

In today's segment, I will start by featuring LA Fitness. They suck. Really bad.

And here is why they suck. First off, on their website there is no pricing information listed. It is some sort of carefully guarded secret. Well I figured there was some sort of scam going on there, but I went in anyway.

The facilities were nice enough. There was a pool and a hot tub and all kinds of machines and racquetball courts and shit.

But....after they show you all the shit comes the fun part. The sales pitch. So here it is. The big secret that the website will not tell you.

The initiation fee is either $150 or $199 - PER PERSON. If you pay the $199 your monthly membership charge is like $4 or $5 a month less. Something like that.

There are no discounts for additional members that join with you. So if you and a friend or family member want to join, it costs $150 PER PERSON - plus first and last months membership at $45 PER PERSON PER MONTH.

MATH TIME! $150 per person times two people is $300. $45 per month times two is $90, which covers the first and last months membership for one, so double the $90 for two. that is $180. Grand total - $480.

Then $90 per month after that.

And the staff will present you with a high pressure sales pitch. But wait - there is more! The pricing is so fucking secret that they WILL NOT give you the piece of paper that has all the fees. They will not write the numbers down on another piece of paper they can give you. And they will not really let you take your own notes.

Well fuck them. They suck.

Compare this to Ballys - which currently has NO initiation fee. Memberships run about $30 per month for the primary account, and then $20 for additional memberships. So for two people the grand total to get in is $100. After the first month, it is $50. But the Ballys was not that great.

The 24 Hour Fitness place is $10 a month more for two memberships than Ballys. And no initiation fee. So I am going with them. I like the hours of operation better.

So LA Fitness sucks.

In other news, there are MORE things that suck. Hurricane Bill. It could very well become a cat 4 storm in the next 12 or so hours. And it has shifted its path just slightly to the west.

Now here is why this is bad. IF it keeps shifting to the west - and it is by no means certain that it will (in fact odds are against it) - it could get dangerously close to the New York / Long Island area.

Now hurricanes HAVE hit this area before. We know this. The last time it happened was a long time ago. Powdered wig long time ago. George Washington long time ago. So it could happen.

And what would happen? Well the hurricane would push up a sizable storm surge. This is normal. But then geology comes along and throws up a big problem. Look at a map. Notice how Long Island juts out from New York at pretty much a 90 degree angle. It will act as a natural dam, blocking the storm surge and actually amplifying it. Flooding in New York City will be legendary.

Bill is not going to be that storm. It is already too far to the east. Prevailing winds are westerlies, meaning the wind comes from the west and blows weather patterns to the east. So it is highly unlikely Bill can move much further west.

But Bill still sucks anyway.

Roped In

2009-08-19T01:33:00.002-04:00

It seems I have to join a health club, also known as a gym.

See the President told us that if we want to be healthy, we must do the following things.

1. Get off our asses
2. Eat fewer Big Macs
3. watch less TV
4. Exercise.

And for saying that, he was made fun of by the opposition. Remember the run up to the elections? When it was stated that lifestyle choices were a leading cause for much of the health care costs? And he was made fun of by fat guys who make a living sitting on their ass talking on the radio?

But really - has the USA fallen this far? When the President has to tell people that exercise is good, and sitting on your big fat ass all day is bad?

Now I was in a gym before. I decided to get into one, with the idea that after work I would stop by on my way home and do shit. Lift weights. Maybe get on a treadmill. Whatever.

I did this exactly 1 time. After work that is. Then I went 4 or 5 more times. Possibly as many as 6 times. Then I did not go for many many months, yet I kept paying the fees.

Well this time it will be different! This time I am slightly more motivated! Or so I think.

But really, it is not a terrible idea. If I use the membership. I am starting to get this gut thing going. Not common sense tells me that if I start working on getting rid of the gut now - while I can still see my feet - Ill have less work to do than if I wait.

And I know someone else who also wants to go do the gym thing, so I will not have to motivate myself to just go alone. I am sure this will help.

I do not have insane expectations. I just desire some more strength. That would be nice. I could also use some stamina. Things I used to be able to do seem like they are harder to do now.

And I need a rowing machine. This way I can compete in the DRAGON BOAT CHALLENGE!!

or I suppose I could just get a row boat. But who am I kidding there? Ill never use a row boat. Ill have to load it on the truck, go to a boat ramp. pay to park, launch it, row around, pull it out of the water, take it home, clean it off, then put it away.

I might do this a total of 1 time.

But I do want to take part in the Dragon Boat Festival. That will be cool. I already have a team name and everything.

The Drunken Sailors.

That is my dragon boat team name. Drunken Sailors. My team will take dragon boats to the next level, by combining a boat race with rum. We will start the race with a full bottle of rum, and during the race we will have to empty it.

I am really hoping that Flor De Cana will be a sponsor. That would be so cool. I may also write to Sierra Nevada Brewing Company and ask then if they want to sponsor a boat. If Sierra Nevada goes for the sponsorship, the team will still be The Drunken Sailors and the boat name will be something witty such as "Pale Ale". The hull can be painted green and everything. That would be cool.

If you are a marketing person from Sierra Nevada - think about it! Sponsor my dragon boat team! It will be great exposure for you (unless we capsize and all drown) AND it will not cost much. Dragon boats are not really super expensive.

But back to reality. The gym. I have been ordered to join one. So I must do so - as I have learned to always just follow orders. You get into less trouble that way.

I am thinking I will like the 24 Hour Fitness place the best. They are always open, so there is no rush to get there within certain times.

But do they have a rowing machine? Who knows. Ill have to find out.

Photos of the dragon boat and the scurvy band of pirates crewing it will become available as soon as I have a scurvy band of bilge rats to form the team, and of course a deagon boat to put them all into.

Ana Is Dead, Bill Is Still Around

2009-08-18T00:24:00.002-04:00

Tropical Depression Ana has dissipated. I expected this to happen. It was already weak and disorganized before it encountered the land mass of Hispaniola - so really it did not have much of a chance.

It could reorganize over water, but that is not very likely. The models are against this happening. It is still out there, and will probably dump some rain somewhere.

Bill is still around. It is also getting stronger. It is supposed to stay out at sea, but will probably throw high surf at the Atlantic Coast from the Carolinas north to Long Island. No big deal - so long as it remains at sea.

And that is pretty much it for all that fun stuff. At least for now.

Other than that, there is not a whole lot going on.

I have plans to get out on the water this weekend. It remains to be seen if this happens or not.

Tropics Heating Up!

2009-08-17T02:15:00.002-04:00

It seems I stopped paying attention to the news and the Tropical Prediction Center website, and THREE things managed to sneak up on me.

1. Tropical Depression Ana.

Not going to be a big deal. The forecast track drags it over Hispaniola no matter what. Pretty much, There are some decent size mountains that rip storms a new one if they pass over them. And then there is not much time over open water till it could get very close to Cuba.

And even if it stays off Cuba, conditions are not supposed to be too favorable for storm development. Added to this is the storms rather rapid movement. The rapid movement indicates wind sheer and stuff.

So pretty much for South Florida Ana looks like just some rain. Might get some wind too. But nothing too terrible. It looks like it will either be a tropical low pressure area (rain storm) or possibly a tropical depression (rain storm with some wind).

2. Tropical Storm Bill.

This one will be a hurricane soon. Hell it may be now, I have not checked the most recent update.

Bill will remain at sea for a while. There, in the warm waters, conditions are more favorable for storm building. If it is not a hurricane as I type this - it will be soon. By the middle of this week it could even be up to a cat 3, maybe 4. A fairly strong storm.

But it looks like it will remain at sea - a threat to nothing other than ships. And ships at sea can get the F out of the way.

3. Tropical Storm Claudette. This one popped up out of nowhere, and hit the FL panhandle. And it is probably a good thing it just popped up out of nowhere. Sort of.

On one hand, this is bad because people have little time to prepare. If you boat is at a marina - you better get there quickly and do something about it. If you live in an area prone to flooding - better get ready fast. So that is not really good.

But here is what is good. There is no time for the storm to get any worse. The Gulf waters are bath tub warm. If this storm had more time, it could very well have hit as a hurricane.

I really ought to pay more attention to this stuff.

Readers Ask Again

2009-08-12T14:26:00.004-04:00

Today's question is from Fuzz! It was actually in a comment left on his blog, but I am cross posting it here in an effort to update this site with something.

Fuzz asks:

"Love that India Pale Ale. I believe it is a Sierra Nevada. What's a double like?"

Glad you asked. It is like a regular IPA on roids. It is darker, on account of the increased amount of malt. This also gives it more alcohol kick.

It also contains A LOT of hops! The bottle claims that the brewer uses 7 different kinds of American hops! And not just a dab of this and a pinch of that - over 6 pounds of hops goes into each barrel.

The result is an intense beer, with a very fragrant nose and a deep hoppy taste. It blurs the line from a pale ale to a barleywine. Without seeing the label, I would have probably put it into the barleywine category - although most barleywines are more sweet than bitter. Maybe that is the difference.

The double IPA is not the kind of beer you are going to pound. You are not going to sit down with a 6 pack and drink em all up. Well not unless you had some buddies to help you out. This is the kind of beer you really only want one, maybe two of per sitting. It would make a good after dinner beer.

But it would be a terrible beach beer. Far too heavy. I picture this beer more as something you could crack open and pour into the proper glass (fine beer requires the right glass after all), while you lounge on the couch by the fireplace on a cool night.

Or in my case, while I hang out on the patio in the dead of winter and it feels like the whole world is air conditioned. A nice crisp cool South Florida winter night, with an optional patio fireplace thing if I ever get one.

The Samuel Adams "Longshot" beer selections are limited editions. They come from an annual home brewing contest sponsored by Samuel Adams. Various winners are selected from the entries, and Sam Adams brews winning beers for a period of time. The double IPA I have is a 2008 winner.

If you happen to find a box of "Longshot" pick it up. The box I have came with 2 double IPAs, 2 traditional bocks, and 2 cranberry wits.

Readers Ask

2009-08-11T02:30:00.002-04:00

Today the question is from Doozie.

"How are you? I've not been here in a coons age. Are you on facebook?"

I am OK. Not a whole lot is going on right now. Things are actually pretty slow. And yes, I am on Facebook. Using my secret identity, also known as my real name.

Come to think of it - how have you been? You changed the settings on your blog - so I can not get to it anymore.

Ill check the email posted on this blog if you want to contact me there. I really do not use that gmail account very much anymore. All it gets is crap at this point. Gmail has spam control, but it does not seem to work that great.

If you find me on Facebook, Ill give you a better email address through a private message or something.

Harassed By The Police

2009-08-09T03:31:00.003-04:00

Actually the title is not very fair to the police. I was not exactly "harassed".

What DID happen was I was driving home from a night of hanging out with a friend of mine and her really hot friend. As a consequence of this, I was not exactly paying much attention to what was going on.

And for some reason, every single light on US1 was timed in such a way that I had to stop for ALL of them. What the fuck? It was almost 3 AM! Why can't the lights cycle so as to let whatever traffic is on the road to FLOW?? Why stop me at every damn light?

No wonder traffic flow is so shitty here. The idiots who time the lights can not even get light traffic flow at 3 AM right.

So by the time I got to another road that would take me off US1 to I-95 I hit it. Hallandale Beach Blvd. I was actually able to move. I did not get stopped at every single light.

Which was the problem.

I was not exactly paying attention to every last detail on account of the hanging out with my friend and her hot friend. So I did not notice that one of the cars I flew past had a light bar on top of it. I also did not notice the cool paint job it had. Most importantly, I failed to notice the word "Police" written on the side of the car.

I did at some point notice a car behind me. And I thought "I bet that is a police car".

And then the red and blue lights came on. Oh great. I instantly knew what the problem was. I was clearly speeding. I knew it. The cops knew it. Everyone knew it. Busted.

I did not know I actually passed the police car until after I was stopped however. The first question asked after "where is your license" was "did you see me when you passed me"?

Well no. I did not. As crazy as that sounds - no.

And the real crazy thing is that normally I do not speed. Usually I am going a reasonable speed - not 60 in a 40 or whatever I was doing. And when I am going too fast, I certainly do not pass a cop! That is just insane. Who the hell does that?

Apparently me. That is who.

So here I was. Busted. No defense. Nothing to say other than "yea, that was me" and "I am sorry for being a dip shit". I figured that whatever I was going to get was well deserved.

As it turns out, all I got was a ticket for not having a copy of my vehicle registration. This is actually a very good thing. I was cut a MAJOR break. All I have to do to make all this go away is obtain a copy of my registration, and mail it back to the police. Then the ticket vanishes. No fine, no points, no anything.

A speeding ticket would have cost me money. Money I really do not have right now.

All in all, it worked out quite well.

I will not pass any more police cars when they are doing the speed limit. Lesson learned. It was really stupid. Ill go back to my usual driving habits.

I am apparently really bad at speeding. I can not do it right. My dumb speeding ass did not notice I was passing a police car?!?!? Really?!?!

If you can not do something right, you should not do it at all. So I will not.

Movies

2009-08-06T01:10:00.003-04:00

Wednesday was a movie intensive day! I went to see two of them. On the big screen.

There was a good reason. Both had a very limited number of screenings. In one case it was see it today or never. Well maybe not "never", but not anytime soon.

Movie 1 is called "Moon". This movie had a $0 advertising budget, which is a shame because I liked it. I only found about it by looking at show times for the other movie I went to see. I saw a listing for one showing of "Moon" at noon. That was it. Well that was a bit odd, seeing as how I had never heard a thing about it.

So I looked it up and discovered a few things. First, it is a Sundance film. Sony is behind it - so it had some sort of budget. And it takes place on the moon, So I wanted to see it.

The movie is about one Sam Bell, who has a three year contract to mine helium III on the far side of the moon. Earth needs helium III, not for balloons - but as fuel for fusion reactors. Important stuff!

I recommend not watching the trailer. Just look for it playing near you and check it out. Watching the trailer lets you in on too many things.

I did not watch any trailers or whatever before I saw it - and I am glad. I just had to watch it without any clue of what was going to happen next. The way a movie should be watched.

It was nice that there was no advertising at all. Counting me and my friend I went with, there were only 6 people watching it. It was quiet, nobody was trying to yell things at the characters in the movie - it was like a private screening just for the two of us.

Movie 2 was a one time one day showing of an opera. The Magic Flute. The live performance took place in 2006, but this was an encore thing. It played nation wide yesterday only at 7 PM in whatever time zone you are in. If you missed it - you missed it. Better luck next time I suppose.

It was interesting. First, they made all the opera people stand in a special line. Normally you just hand the people your ticket, they rip off the stub and hand it back to you, and then you are in. You can go buy concessions or play video games and stuff.

But no. Not this time. I was directed to the special line. Everyone else in the line was old. So I am thinking why the special line? Did the opera goers cause a problem last time? Did they get routy? Did they all try to sneak into another movie they did not pay for? Did they rob the concession stand? What?

The mystery deepened when none of the other people in the line reported never having seen such a thing before.

And then they checked everyone's ticket stub again before walking into the theater - which was only a few steps from the line.

Those opera people must be a big problem! Trying to sneak into Harry Potter 6!

Anyhow the theater we were eventually allowed to go into was one of the larger ones. There was PLENTY of room, although a good number of people showed up. It was really nice too. A good seat at a live opera is a couple grand. In Miami, the best seats are $2 - $3 grand! That is some serous scratch.

The step down from seats that cost $1k or more only cost about $700. Then $400.

The cheap seats way WAY in the back are around $45 each - but you are looking down at the stage from great height. Good luck seeing much.

At the theater, you are looking at a big screen. You can see the performers and stage set very well. And it is only $12 a pop for tickets.

All in all, it was worth it. I liked both movies. So did my friend. She had not heard anything about Moon. I knew we were going to see the opera, and since Moon was only showing Wednesday and Thursday at noon - I just asked her if she wanted to see two films on the same day. It was either that or miss it. We both have things to do today, but Wednesday was clear.

There are other movies I want to see. One is "The Hurt Locker".

But if you can find it playing, DO watch Moon. If not, there is always Netflix! Add it your your queue now.

Sleepless In Miami

2009-08-04T03:43:00.004-04:00

While not being able to sleep (for various reasons) I decided to look for things to do. I have a friend who expressed interest in going to see stuff at the Performing Arts Center.

So I went to the PAC website and downloaded the performance schedule. There are some good things going on - but not anytime soon. November or December the Bizet opera "Carmen" will be there - that could be cool. There are also various orchestra performances - next year.

I also checked the Florida International University school of music schedule. There are some cool things going on there too - for cheap! Since I went there I can get tickets for $5. But the season is sort of over, it starts up again in the fall.

Same for the New World School Of The Arts. Most of the stuff that New World puts on is free, or really cheap.

But there was one thing I found. A Fathom Events presentation. What Fathom does is bring live or recorded performances to your local movie screen. Can't go to London to see a concert? Well if Fathom Events covers it - you just go to a nearby movie theater and catch it there.

Wednesday there will be a one time screening of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute.

So I ordered two tickets. Ill pick them up Wednesday. Then go see the opera. There will be at least one magical flute - or I will demand my money back.

I still can not seem to get to sleep.

Short Mission

2009-08-03T01:07:00.002-04:00

The boat mission was short today. It was a nice enough day - but there is something to say about getting back home when there is still daylight.

I forgot to take pictures. I suck. I know.

In other news, I was watching some news show. Actually these shows are less about news and more about opinion and commentary. But these days opinion and commentary is passed off as news.

The guest on the show - who may have been fake for all I know - was bitching and crying about how the new GI Joe movie was somehow proof of a vast liberal Hollywood conspiracy to hate on America. The movie was unfit for anyone to see. It sent the wrong message. And so on.

Get this - his main bitch was the uniforms in the movie. All black metal robot suits. Something more like "the UN" than American forces.

Uhhhh...the UN wears camo and blue helmets dude. What the hell planet do you live on?

He also said that the original cartoon was not like that.

Uhhhh...what cartoon were you watching? Are you sure it was not Scooby Doo and you were just high?

Now, which branch of the US Military is represented by the cartoon character above? Garden shears? Is that guy using garden shears as a weapon? Do the Marines not use rifles anymore or something?

No, the original cartoons represented a military force with no uniform code at all. Wear whatever you want! Like flip-flops? No problem! Want to walk around with a parrot on your shoulder? OK! How about a football jersey and some sort of WWII tankers hat? Also OK.

If the movie has the actors all wearing the same stuff that is closer to the real military than the 80s cartoon.

So was the guy on TV high? Stupid? No, I do not think so. He just wanted to get on the TV to push the accusation that there is a vast Anti-America campaign taking place in America. That liberals and mostly liberal Hollywood hate America and want to see it destroyed. And only he - and those who agree with him - can stop it.

And the "proof"? A movie based on TOYS and a CARTOON from the 1980s.

That or the whole segment was a set up. Fake. Made up. Some actor reading a script. Some sort of secret marketing campaign designed to create "controversy" in an attempt to drive up box office sales.

Who really knows anymore?

Still Kicking

2009-08-02T02:19:00.002-04:00

It has occurred to me that I have not updated this site in a couple of days, Maybe even a week? Who knows.

An unprecedented amount of time. Well stuff happens I suppose. There was not much to report really.

Today I plan to get out on the water. Once the sun rises. I have to be up in 5 hours. At least the alarm is set to go off in that amount of time. Ill get up, no problem. Everything is mostly ready to roll.

Ill try to get some cool photos. It will be a simple day without much running around. I have to balance going out and having a good time with fuel consumption. I want to have fun - but I do not want to use more gas than necessary.

I anticipate a good day. It will be a party cruise, with some swimming at a popular sandbar.

After that - it will be Monday. For what that is worth. I have a lot of things to do. The question is will get them done, and what (if any) success will be had.

Home

2009-07-28T01:04:00.002-04:00

I arrived back in Miami on Friday. Just in case anyone was wondering.

I have more photos that I need to post, but I am fairly lazy and have not done so yet.

I also have a significant amount of work to do. For one, the Waverunner needs to be put away. The engine was flushed after the last ride, and the engine was also hosed off. When I got it home I jacked the trailer tongue WAY up and rinsed it off very well - including the engine and bilge again. I also removed all the crap from the storage compartment and rinsed that out.

The fire extinguisher got broken somehow.

I still need to wash it down with soap, dry it, wax it, put all the crap back into the storage compartment (assuming it is dry), then put the cover back on. Oh yea - and spray the engine down with Corrosion Block. I forgot to mention that part.

The boat also needs to be washed down. I really need to do a deep cleaning on that thing. The hull at and below the waterline has a yellow tinge to it. So that means I need more strong acid based cleaner. I love working with that stuff.

But that is just how it is.

Ask The Iguana!

2009-07-22T23:04:00.002-04:00

Fuzz asks:

"Money? for wallpaper?
What kinda place is this?"

Glad you asked.

This place is the restaurant / bar on Cabbage Key. Cabbage Key is a privately owned island, accessible only by boat. Or Waverunner. Or kayak, canoe, rowboat, windsurfer, or whatever else you have that floats.

The key was first purchased in the early 1900s. I forgot exactly when. The question I have about that is who did the first owner buy it from? If you are the first owner then that means there was no owner before you - so how does that work? Hey! Want to buy this thing I do not own from me?

Anyhow, they built a house there. The house is still there, along with the 25,000 gallon rain water collecting tank thing. See, there was no water on the island, so it was necessary to catch rainwater. I think they still do this - although the current owner paid for a water line to run out to the island. There is also an underwater power cable.

Anyhow at some point the people living on the island decided to open up a small kitchen and bar to the local fishermen. Sometime in the 1960s. Back then there were fewer people living in the area (it is in the Fort Myers / Pine Island / Port Charlotte area), and fewer boats. So it was not a big hang out spot.

The fishermen would sometimes catch stuff, and sometimes not catch stuff. So then they had a good day, they would leave a dollar on the bar. Literally on the bar. They would write their name on it then staple or nail or tape it to the bar. Whatever worked.

That way on a bad day, there was already one of their dollars at the bar, which could then be converted into a beer and some soup. Things were a lot cheaper back then.

Well as time ticked on, motorboats became more common, and so there were more weekend boaters. They quickly discovered Cabbage Key and started going there for beer.

They still go there for beer. And food. And they discovered the dollars left by the fishermen. And for some reason they thought it would be cool if they did the same thing. So they did.

The owners did not discourage this, because people started talking about "that place with the dollars on the wall". This brought more people in, who left a dollar on the wall, making more dollars on the wall for more people to talk about - and ultimately selling a lot more beer and burgers.

So today there is an estimated $70,000 on the walls, support columns, ceiling, doors, rafters, and so on.

Every year at least $10,000 falls off the walls. Some years more - some years less - but the average is around $12,000 or so.

The money that falls off the wall is collected, and donated to a charity.

Selected Photos From North Captiva And Cabbage Key

2009-07-21T02:07:00.003-04:00

First - North Captiva!! Accessible only by boat, some people actually live on the island. There are no cars, as there are no ferry boats that can carry cars that go to North Captiva. You do not really need a car anyway - the island is mostly empty. Open deserted beach. No crowds. The way it should be.

Some of the houses on North Captiva are rental units. If you can arrange for your own transportation to the island (I recommend a boat - unless you are a good long distance swimmer), you can stay there.

The second stop of the day was Cabbage Key. This is a privately owned island, but it is open to the public. There are various rental cottages, and a bar / resturant. People do live there - the owner of the island is one of them. The staff also live there - as the commute to work would be a bitch every day. This is the resturant - and the original house first built on Cabbage Key. Well part of it is anyway.

A dollar is just not worth shit anymore. This is apparent when you go to Cabbage Key. The value of a dollar has dropped SO LOW, that people have resorted to using dollar bills as wallpaper.

I Have Too Much Blood In My Alcohol System

2009-07-20T00:04:00.000-04:00

Or something like that.

Sunday was WAVERUNNER DAY here on Sanibel Island.

Now some of you may be wondering why I stay in Florida. I sure do bitch about this place a whole lot after all. Why do I stay? Got me.

OH YEA! I remember now. By the way, the above photo was taken in the "surf zone" of the beach. I was anchored on the first sandbar, in really super shallow water. Notice the lack of waves. It was FLAT calm out today.

Perfect Waverunner conditions. It could not have been much better. Wide open throttle (WOT) gets me to around 50 mph. Slower if there are are waves. 55 mph is supposed to be top speed but the speedometer does not read a steady speed much above 50 mph. I tend to cruise at around 40 or so.

It is a wild ride.

For lunch I met up with my parents, who were on the boat. Lunch was at a place called "The Waterfront" on Pine Island.

On the agenda for Monday is a run to Cayo Costa State Park. This state park is accessible only by boat. Or Waverunner. Since you can not drive there, the beaches are less crowded. Not like the beaches on Sanibel are crowded or anything - but there are less people at the State Park. I can usually find cool shells.

Then Ill make a trek to Cabbage Key. What the hell.

Beachy

2009-07-19T01:54:00.002-04:00

Things are going pretty darn good here on the island. I managed to wake up, then get to the marina.

This took more effort than one might imagine.

Of course the boat is at the marina. Floating in a wet slip. Ill have the same slip all week. This is great because all I can leave my dock lines tied to the pilings. To leave, all I do is remove the eye splice loops from the cleats on the boat - then leave the lines on the dock. When I get back the lines are already set. Once the spring lines are on the right cleats - the boat is exactly where I want it to stay.

This is the resort as seen by sea. It faces the open Gulf Of Mexico. The marina is on the San Carlos Bay side of the island. The ride from the marina to the resort beach is short.

Once anchored it is a short walk to the beach. And once on the beach you are close to the pool. I thought this was a decent photo. A shot of the beach, the path leading to the pool, and the boat anchored off the beach.

And the pool is close to the pool bar. The pool bar has rum. The rum featured here is Mount Gay rum from Barbados. On the rocks. A simple drink for a simple time.

After the proper amount of time spent at the pool bar, one remembers that the boat is still at anchor off the beach. So I had to wade back out to the boat, bring up the anchor, and get back to the slip at the marina.

Life is hard right about now. I am on a barrier island in Florida, with a powerboat in a marina wet slip.

There is also a Waverunner around here someplace. I remember towing it from Miami. I plan to take it out to play later today. Once the sun is up.

The Other Side Of Florida

2009-07-18T01:05:00.002-04:00

Well I am here. On Sanibel Island, FL. And where is that? If I wanted to know I would use this secret internet site NOBODY knows about. It is called "Google maps".

Anyhow every year I make the trek over to the island for a week. It is always the same exact week too. I have been doing this for some 30 years now. It is a timeshare deal. A pretty good deal too.

But there is one problem. The nemesis. The nemesis is here every year. But I have concocted a way to defeat the nemesis.

And what is this nemesis? Stairs. There is no elevator here, so everything you want to bring must be hauled up the stairs. There are 4 flights of 7 stairs - for a grand total of 28 steps. This may not sound like a lot, and in reality it is not. Unless there is a lot of shit to haul up.

Now you may notice something odd in the stairs photo. There seems to be a rope of some sort in the picture. More on that later.

Now if I am at the top of the stairs and I look over the rail, I can see that it is a long way down. Too far to jump, and too far to throw things up to someone standing at the top.

But there is a solution. The rope you see is a big part of that solution. Using that rope, a pulley, some straps, and some scrap metal parts this device was cobbled together.

I am a big fan of labor saving devices that actually save labor. And this device really saves A LOT of work. No having to go up and down all those steps carrying shit. Someone downstairs simply attaches a bag to a hook, loads shit in the bag, then hauls it up by pulling the rope. Someone at the top of the stairs is there to receive the shit, remove the bag from the hook, take the bag in the apartment, unload the shit, then send the bag back down.

Meanwhile, the person at the bottom of the stairs loads the second bag with shit and waits for the other person to get done so that bag can be sent up.

Doing this, all the crap can be hauled up MUCH faster and with MUCH less effort.

This means that I can hang out here faster. The view from the back porch.

The water in the background is the Gulf Of Mexico.

The beer is Sierra Nevada.

Goings On

2009-07-16T00:04:00.000-04:00

I have TONS of stuff going on. So here is a preview of things to come!!!

Wednesday - Take the truck to Ye Ole Service Department for a new timing belt. I like to be on time to things, and for this to happen it helps if you have a good timing belt. Also, if the timing belt breaks pistons can slam onto valves - and this is NEVER good. I got this part done already, seeing as how Wednesday was yesterday.

Thursday - Get the truck back. Ye Ole Service Department finished working too late for me to get the truck back the same day, so Ill need to get it today. Then I have to finish getting the boat ready to trailer. And I have to get the Waverunner ready to trailer. This is pretty much done already. The boat trailer got a new torsion axle Tuesday! it needed one, as the old one had a rust hole in it that you could feel the rubber rods through. The rubber was also pretty shot, and was not really acting as a shock absorber as much. The action on the trailer axle was stiff. It is springy again now. The Waverunner trailer could use another tire. I also need to clean out the truck, and clean out the toolbox. I have to pack. I have to find the antenna for my wireless access point, or just get another one that will have greater range (802.11 G).

Friday - load the shit I packed into the truck. Take the cats to the vet where they will hang out for the week. Hitch up the Waverunner and pull it to the other side of Florida. Sanibel Island to be more precise. The boat is going to go also - someone else will pull it. Once on the island the boat needs to be put into the water and taken to the marina where it will hang out for the week.

Saturday - Drink something made with crushed ice and rum. Maybe use the boat. Maybe use the Waveruner. Who knows.

Sunday - Same as Saturday

Monday - Same as Sunday

Tuesday - Same as Monday

Wednesday - Same as Tuesday

Thursday - Same as Wednesday

Friday - return to Miami. Collect the cats from the vet. Wash down the boat and Waverunner. And a bunch of other crap.

Ill probably remember to post photos from Sanibel Island here. The place I stay at every year has high speed internet.

Three Knots

2009-07-12T00:04:00.000-04:00

A retired old sailor decides that just one last time he will put on his captains uniform and head to the docks.

After a couple of drinks, he decides that just one last time he will hire a prostitute for the night.

While engaged in the act, the old sailor says to the prostitute "How am I doing? Not bad for an old guy huh".

The prostitute replied "Well sailor, you are doing three knots. You not hard, your not in, and you are not getting your money back".

Stolen joke from a boating forum.

Radio Call

2009-07-11T01:38:00.002-04:00

I put the boat in the water Thursday. I am going to be a support boat for a sailboat race today to help out the boat club. Putting the boat in the water Thursday means I do not have to get up extra early Saturday, and deal with the trailer.

It also means the boat was floating Friday, ready to take out for a quick ride. Which was part of the plan.

And so it happened. I call a friend of mine and tell her to come to the boat club. We will then head off and go to someplace on the Miami River for food and drinks. Arrival will be - of course - by sea.

Thus taking care of many things at once. A boat ride. Food. Some sightseeing. Time together. And so on.

Leaving the place on the river, I turn on the radio. It is set to channel 16. Channel 16 is for distress, urgency, safety, and hailing. Channel 16 is always on in my boat. Most of the time it is just background noise - but sometimes something important happens. Such will be the case tonight.

Off in the distance I can see flashes of light - alerting me that somewhere there was bad weather. It was not too close, as I could not hear the thunder. I could only see flashes of light. As I make my way down the river, a voice comes over channel 16.

It is the US Coast Guard radio watch stander, telling everyone listening that for urgent weather information turn to channel 22a. So I turn to channel 22a. The flashes of light are indeed indicators of bad weather. Wind gusts up to and in excess of 50 mph were reported. All mariners were advised to avoid the weather if possible. The smaller your boat, the more you want to avoid the weather.

No big deal. I had no intention of getting caught in the rain anyway. I was close to the club and if I had to - I would ignore the slow speed zone. There was no boat traffic anyway.

I point out to my friend (who is learning boat stuff) some of the signs that the weather could turn shitty. Other than the flashes of light which seemed to be getting closer, there were other signs too. The wind was picking up. Earlier the wind was still - and now it was blowing. The wind was also cool - which was actually very nice.

I make the decision to go back to the club, and not taking an extended night time cruise.

The radio remained fairly quiet for the next 15 minutes, then the weather information is repeated. This time I do not turn to channel 22a. I am very close to port.

As I am retrieving the small fender I attached to the line I left tied to the mooring buoy, I hear another voice on the VHF radio. The voice sounds somewhat calm, yet not quite right. Something is going on. I do not know what, but something tells me that this call is not ordinary.

I slip the line tied to the mooring buoy to a stern cleat, and bring in the fender I was using as a float. I am now almost all tied up.

There has just been a collision at sea. One boat ran over a flats boat. The voice on the radio is reporting it. I do not know if the person making the call was involved in the collision, but I get the impression that whoever it was simply witnessed the event.

Flats boats sit very low to the water. They are designed to not draw much water. They can get into very shallow areas. To be able to do this, they have very little freeboard - or very little distance from the water to the gunwale.

Knowing this, I instantly get a picture of what probably happened. Something ran clear over the flats boat. This is never good.

I stop tying the boat up for a second. I know that the range of VHF radio is somewhat limited. Since I was hearing another boat (as opposed to a shore station with a tall tower and powerful antenna) this has to be fairly close to where I am. The transmission was crystal clear - so the range was only a couple of miles at the most. Probably less.

More information comes over the radio. One person is dead. One more was pulled from the water. Another boat that out with the flats boat is running a search pattern, looking for more people. It is unclear how many people are involved. The flats boat is upside down and has suffered significant damage.

The US Coast Guard radio watch stander is trying to sort that out. But if one boat with people on it that knew the people on the flats boat (or other boat involved in the collision) were running a search pattern - it suggests that there were others missing.

How the person talking to the Coast Guard was remaining so calm suggests a few things. Whoever was talking was not involved - allowing them to be distanced from the event. They were also probably somewhat experienced boaters.

And here I am. I am trained to run search patterns. I know the search patterns used by the Coast Guard. The boat is in the water, full of fuel. The engine is still running. The event has to be close by, because I can hear the transmissions so clearly. I have already turned the GPS off, so I so not know my exact location when the GPS coordinates for the collision are read over the radio - so I can not really make a good estimation of the distance involved.

But I was lacking a crew. Contacting the base over the radio, identifying who I am, and offering to help could just increase confusion. Rescue units were already on the way. I had a couple of beers at the place on the river. Only 2, and with dinner - and over a good 1.5 hours of time (at least), but still. And I did not know exactly where the event happened at.

I made the decision to turn off the radio, and finish tying the boat up. There was nothing I could do. I would have probably only added confusion to the situation. Bad weather was possibly moving in, and I have an open boat with noplace to hide from lightning in. I did not have a good crew for a SAR mission.

All those factors influenced my decision. I turned off the engine and raised the lower unit out of the water.

I wonder if I made the right call.

Heat Index

2009-07-09T00:42:00.002-04:00

Temperature is not everything. There is also this thing called "heat index".

The heat index is a function of actual heat and humidity. The idea is to come up with a "feels like" figure to throw out to the public.

And here is how it works. You take the actual air temperature as felt by the thermometer. Then you factor in the relative humidity. Now using this chart, you can figure out what the heat index is.

Wednesday at around 1 PM it reached at least 94 degrees, with a relative humidity of around 55%. The chart says the heat index was at least 106.

I was outside under a tarp, working on the boat at this time. Out of the direct sun.

My shirt was soaked. It got so bad that holding onto the tools became difficult. I had to get rags to wipe sweat off things once my shirt was no longer working for this chore.

But I am a native. Heat in the summer is not really unheard of for South Florida. It is summer, therefore it will be hot.

Since I was working on the boat, and the boat is ALWAYS stocked with stuff to drink - it was not so bad. There was plenty of drinking water on board (I am never short of 20 oz water bottles) and also Gatorade.

It is critical to remain hydrated. If you get thirsty, you are already in the first stages of dehydration. Water is always good - but you also need something to replace the salt and other stuff you lose by sweating.

If you can prevent dehydration, then the heat is something you can deal with.

It is not like you have a choice down here anyway.

At least there is no reason to own a snow shovel down here. That works for me.

Late To The Punch

2009-07-07T00:56:00.003-04:00

You may not have heard this, but Palin quit her job as Governor of Alaska. Not that it really matters to me - I do not live in Alaska.

But the speech she made was just silly. It made little sense to me. She goes on and on about how she fixed the whole state in two years - so it is time to quit. Or something like that.

What amazes me the most is the TV people who were stumped. What the hell is that all about? Here you ass clowns are getting paid the BIG BUCKS to keep up with stuff like this. And you were surprised? You do not know what is going on?

I may be a little late to the punch here - but Ill spell it out for you anyway.

She wants to run in 2012. She thinks she can. In her deluded world, it will all work out.

So why quit? Being Governor of a horseball state is just not working out for her. It was getting in her way. How could she fly around all over the place making speeches and shit if she has to be the Governor of Alaska?

I am not sure she would even win reelection in Alaska. Since she was tapped for the VP slot, she has seemingly spent more time OUT of Alaska than in it. But who knows how voters in the state would have reacted to that.

Face it Alaska - Palin is WAY bigger than your state. She has more important things to do. Only losers stick around in Alaska! Everyone else moves someplace warmer. So she quit. Screw it. She was hired for 4 years, and quit after 2. The pay scale was not enough, the working conditions sucked, and most importantly the job was getting in the way of bigger and better things.

She thinks she can run and win in 2012. I would be surprised if she made it past round 1 of the primaries. And if by some chance the Republican Party has dwindled to only the cranks by 2012, her running all but gurantees Obama is reelected.

But that is why she quit. She feels her state is dragging her down.

I also like how she claims to have "asked her family". Yea - right. I suppose you also asked your family about running for VP? Hey pregnant teenage daughter - how would you like your sex life splashed on the national news? Sounds like fun huh?

Or did you not know that your stance on teen pregnancy would NOT become an issue - seeing as how your own daughter is pregnant. Abstinence only huh? Works great for your family - it must also work great for everyone else.

So no, I do not buy this "I asked my family" crap. You put your own ambitions over your family. Otherwise you would have not accepted the VP bid, nobody outside Alaska would know about the pregnant unwed daughter, and things would have been A LOT easier on said teenage daughter.

Not that who is pregnant is really any of our business. But whatever.

And the media is STILL talking about this issue. Why did she do it?

I told you. End of story. Move onto something else now. Please.

No Rain

2009-07-06T00:59:00.002-04:00

Independence Day went over pretty good.

It started out pretty crappy however. I got the boat all hooked up and shit, then I went to the ramp. It is a good ramp in a great spot, but parking is limited. So I planned to get there early.

And I did. But there was no parking.

And there was a cop there. And some parking enforcement asshole. But did either of them bother to say anything to anyone?

Hell no. They watched me pull into the area, get the boat ready to launch, then put it into the water. And tie it off to the dock.

Then I pulled out to park - and there were no spots. At that point, after I had already figured out that there was no parking - the cop says that there is no parking.

Captain Obvious joined the police force.

But I was not in a very jovial mood, so I asked the cop why he did not say anything to me about the parking BEFORE the boat was in the water. Because that would have been a lot more helpful. The cop was also not in a very jovial mood, so he said to me something about it not being his job to count.

I could not resist that setup. I mentioned that they should include counting at some point in police cadet training.

Well it went downhill from there. The cop insisted that I had to leave due to there being no place to park, and I insisted that it would be a lot more helpful if the cop put down the doughnut, got out of the patrol car, and did something productive.

I got to tell a cop to put down the doughnut and do something useful. I always wanted to do that.

The cop repeated that I had to leave, and alluded to being towed, having the boat impounded, and me going to the station for "disturbing the peace" or some such bullshit. I replied that I intended to leave, but first I had to put the boat back on the trailer because someone was not helpful to give me a little heads up before the boat was floating.

Then I went to another boat ramp. Where there was plenty of parking. The second ramp is a County ramp, and they need the money. So they do not care where the hell you park. You can use a marked space, but once they are gone anywhere you are not in the way is OK. I found a space on the grass and all was good. So long as you have $15 cash, the County ramps love you.

From that point the day got better. I went from the ramp to the yacht club to say hi to some people I know. Then I went to a party island to drop anchor and swim around.

More like float around. Swimming requires effort. Floating is a lot more relaxing. All you need is something that floats, rope, and beer. You tie the rope to the thing that floats, then attach the rope to the boat so you do not float away. Then you get in the water, get on the thing that floats, then grab the beer.

My preferred floating thing is a pool toy known as a "Wacky Noodle". I carry two Wacky Noodles on board. I found both of them - they were free.

After that I had to meet up with the crew. The crew consisted of one of my friends, his girlfriend, and three other girls (another friend of mine, one of her friends, and a foreign exchange student from France). It was a pretty good time. Everyone had a good time.

Most amazingly enough, it did not rain. At least not on the water. It rained like hell on land. I got various spy reports confirming this. But on the water there was clear skies and sun.

On the water, I can get really close to the fireworks display. The shock waves from the explosions could be felt through the hull of the boat.

All in all, it was a nice day. I am ready to do it all over again.

Happy Birthday America

2009-07-04T03:01:00.003-04:00

The first US flag.

All Signals Are.....Uhhhhh....Maybe?

2009-07-03T02:02:00.003-04:00

So the great planned July 4th boat trip is currently on a "maybe" status. The forecast is questionable.

It has pretty much been raining every day. Lots of lightning too - which really is the dangerous thing. I can rig a rain shelter on the boat using tarps and shit, but creating a safe refuge from lightning is another story.

So right now the plan is a go. The idea is to put the boat in the water early, then collect the crew later.

If there is to be afternoon rain storms, Ill find a safe place to hide. Then they can pass by, and I will be able to anchor someplace and watch fireworks.

That is the plan anyway. It remains to be seen how it all pans out.

Brain Clutter

2009-07-02T02:03:00.002-04:00

Did you know that the deepest point in the world's oceans is called "Challenger Deep", and that it is named after the HMS Challenger that discovered the general area? The ship's crew did this with a lead line - or a very VERY long rope with a chunk of lead (pb) attached to the end.

Before the underwater survey was done (in the golden age of sail, then the sun never set on the British Empire) it was thought that the open sea bottom was flat and featureless. Nobody had any idea there were mountain ranges, trenches, and other shit.

The HMS Challenger survey was supposed to confirm this belief. Well, it failed its mission and discovered the Mariana Trench (the trench where Challenger Deep is found).

And why do I know this? Who the hell knows. I just do. I try to rot my brain by watching Cartoon Network - but it is clearly not working out too well.

Nautical Code Flag Post

2009-07-01T00:59:00.006-04:00

I am thinking of flying these signal flags this weekend when I am out on my boat

Click HERE for the letters each flag stands for.

UPDATE!!!

2009-06-30T00:06:00.001-04:00

The area circled in yellow below fell apart - as I expected. But it is still a lot of rain. It still has the potential to fuck up the weekend.

The County, and various cities, are also canceling some fireworks shows in order to save money. Well here is an idea to save a BUNCH of money!!!

1. Cut the "discretionary" spending accounts that each County Commissioner gets by 2/3. They get enough graft to more than make up for that cut anyway.

2. Cut the unpublished perks that the commissioners get - like cops (with fancy titles like Sargent At Arms) to drive them around, the $900 a month car allowance, and so on. Also - why do they get free health insurance (paid for by the County) for life after one or two terms, while employees who work for 15 years get diddly shit if they should get reduced? At least the employee was (presumably) doing something productive - as opposed to fucking the system up even worse.

3. Bye bye Marlins. It has been nice knowing you (not really) but we just can not afford that $100 million stadium payment. Sorry you have to move to Dead Horse Alaska - but they need baseball up there you know. Bring warm clothes.

4. STOP PAYING CONSULTANTS! Millions have gone to various "consultants" - and what have the results been? How about that roof at the airport! Not a single leak right? NO?!!? Well hell. What about the money pissed away on consultants? Did they not notice that it rains indoors?

People that CAN NOT manage, CAN NOT do the job, and have NO skills are called "consultants". If they really knew what the fuck they were talking about they would be managers. But they are not. Because they could not manage to find their way out of a wet paper sack. So quit paying them.

Or just pay me to be a "consultant" on the consultants. Ill tell you that you wasted your money for the low low fee of only $1 million - which by the way after you give it to me Ill laugh and say that the $1 million was also wasted. My firm is called "Honest Sam Consultants". My slogan is "pay us and we will tell you how badly you just fucked up".

5. What the hell is up with all these "decorative" road paving projects? Really City of South Miami - was it necessary to tear up Sunset Drive for months so you could have fancy brick work in front of the hovel you pass off as City Hall? How much money did that piss away? Probably a lot, because the Mayor's brother also happens to sell decorative bricks, and the City Manager's sisters husband happens to operate a road paving business. And the consultant (your retarded uncle Fred) did a survey and found that 80% of respondents favored the project. Of course the only ones polled were people in the Mayor's office - but hey! That was worth a cool 1/4 million right?

I am sure I can come up with more things you could do to "save money" that does not involve screwing with fireworks displays. And really - how much are you "saving" here? A million? chump change and you clowns know it. It is just something very public that everyone will notice you doing - so that later on you can say "we tried to save money" when election time is up.

Fucking bullshit.

Monday Madness

2009-06-29T01:03:00.002-04:00

Monday is here.

And I have a lot of stuff to do. For one, the truck has to go into the service department. Something about needing a new timing belt.

I hate having to go to that place. They will hold the truck hostage for hours, and then demand a hefty ransom for its safe return.

Bastards.

From there on it will just be a regular week. Fairly boring as far as weeks go. OR WILL IT???

Allow me to direct you to the yellow circle labeled "1". This is an area of disturbed weather heading northeast. It is not very well organized right now - but who knows what will happen. Truthfully I do not expect it to develop into anything significant - but it could dump an ass load of rain. It is heading towards Florida.

As long as it does not fuck up the Saturday plan I really do not care. Saturday July 4th there is a boat mission planned. So far it looks like 4 (including me) will be on board. The general idea is for me to get the boat floating EARLY because I expect a lot of other people to be out and about. Ramps will fill up - so I have to be in the water before things get too insane.

The crew will meet up with me later.

From there it will just be a matter of finding a floating party (I know where to look for these) and then as the day is ending finding a place to drop anchor off Downtown Miami to watch fireworks.

Right now it looks like there will be 4 people including myself on board. A friend of mine, one of her friends, and the friends friend. I have already met the first friend, she went out on a boat mission last weekend. We got rained on and had to seek shelter at Stiltsville. The other friend I do not know - other than it is another girl. That is a good ratio I suppose. Too often I feel like I am on the wrong boat. This will not be the case this time around.

But I am good at behaving myself. I can not have too much to drink as I will be in charge of the safe operation of the boat. Not having too much to drink drastically reduces the odds of me making a total ass out of myself - something I am actually very good at.

It should be a good day. If this yellow area labeled "1" does not fuck it all up.

Nothing To Say Sunday

2009-06-28T02:28:00.001-04:00

The title about says it all.

Things have been pretty slow here. REALLY slow.

Even so, there is still a list of things I have to do. Problem is getting them done. Things keep getting in the way. It is easy to put of one list of things in order to concentrate on another thing.

For example, the truck is over 1k miles overdue for an oil change. That is something that has to get resolved Monday. I can change my own oil, but the timing belt has to be replaced. I might as well have the oil changed at the same time. What the hell.

A bunch of stuff also has to be moved. I still do not know exactly where it will be moved to, I figure Ill just "wing it".

Next Saturday I plan to watch the July 4th show from the water. But next Saturday seems so darn far away.

Movies And Vet Trips

2009-06-27T00:53:00.002-04:00

I went to see The Hangover.

It was pretty funny. At least I thought so. After the movie I was told that it was "guy humor" - whatever the hell that is.

I always thought that humor was without gender. Shit is either funny or it is not.

Maybe I should have asked what "chick humor" is. But I did not. It is probably better that I did not. Better to let sleeping dogs lie.

But really, I thought it was pretty funny. The next movie I will likely see is Ice Age 3. It comes out July 1.

In other news, I had to take three of the cats to the vet for annual shots and stuff. Fred had the shit scared out of him.

Really. He had the shit scared out of him. One of the vet assistants was holding Fred and trimming his nails. Meanwhile, Sake the white haired Siamese looking cat was having a stool sample taken. Sake really hates this, so she was hissing and howling and pretty much carrying on something terrible.

It was all too much for Fred. He shit all over the girl trimming his nails. But in doing so, he did not have the plastic stool sample collector shoved where the sun never shines.

What do the two have to do with each other? Nothing. But yet I skillfully combined the two.

Results

2009-06-23T13:38:00.002-04:00

I passed my on the water practical exam. I figured I would do so - but you never know.

Part of the test involved me having to tow a 32 foot twin engine heavy boat with my 20 foot single engine boat. It was clear to the examiners that the two boats were not matched - my boat was much smaller. But I got it done anyway. I was able to get close enough to heave the towing line over, where it was attached to a bow cleat. This was the easy part - the long tow.

To transition to a side tow I had to bring the towed boat into the wind. Once it was bow into the wind I turned it slightly to port. The wind caught it and pushed it sideways, exposing the starboard side. From then it was a simple matter to just inch my boat up along , my port side. The 4 tow lines were attached, plus one more line that acted as a bow line because so much of the other boat was ahead of me.

The apparent ease and flawless execution of the transition seemed to impress everyone.

The key to the whole thing was thinking ahead, and taking my time. I just had to put each boat where I wanted them to be, working with the forces that were around. You have to remain calm and in control of the situation. You have to clearly communicate with your crew, so they know exactly what you plan to do, when you plan to do it, and how you intend for it to be done. Other than that it is just a matter of confidence. If you get nervous then you are more likely to make a mistake.

So at any rate, that is out of the way. I passed. I put a fair amount of time and effort into preparing for it. There was the closed book navigation rules test, countless hours of classroom instruction, who knows how much time out on the water, and so on. In the end it was worth it.

So what do I get out of all this?

A long sleeve t-shirt that reflects my new certification, and this pin.

I also received training on boat handling - which was my goal from the start. All the time spent was worth it, as now I can take the boat out with friends on board and I can approach a dock without hitting it - among other things.

Water Intensive Weekend

2009-06-20T01:51:00.002-04:00

Saturday: The day of the test is here. I have to go out on the boat and demonstrate I am not some sort of idiot. People will be watching and taking notes, evaluating how I do. If I screw up - I fail. If I do not screw up I pass. And that is all there is to it.

If I fail nothing really happens, I just get to do it all over again later.

Sunday: The plan is to just go out. No testing involved. There may even be beer in the cooler. I am thinking that the ODOTD (official drink of the day) shall be ......

SHANDY!

A nice refreshing summer drink, composed of beer (Blue Moon is a good choice) mixed to taste with lemonade - usually 50/50. But you can really vary the proportions as you see fit.

Orders for the day include meeting one passenger at the boat club, then heading off to cruise around a bit. Then later pick up another passenger at some other location. Or maybe pick up both at the same time and location. Or whatever.

My idea - which may be over ruled, is to leave early but not too early. 10ish is good. Then cruising out to a party spot to commence hanging out.

As the sun creeps up, and it gets hotter and hotter - it will be a good time to seek a place to hide. So by 11:30 be docked somewhere for lunch. Hang out there (where there is a lot of shade) until around 2 or so (or till everyone wants to go) then cruise another party spot.

Then be back at the docks by whenever. Probably not much later than 5 PM.

Being able to leave the boat in the water really does make things so darn much easier.

News To Me

2009-06-17T00:55:00.002-04:00

This may be ancient news to you, but I just discovered this a few days ago.

You can now run Apple's Safari web browser on your PC. This is pretty cool. I like the look of the browser, and it seems to load faster than Firefox.

What I do not like is the lack of user controls. For example, it will not let you change your homepage. Or if it will, I have not figured out how yet.

BEST of all, it is FREE. Free shit is always better than shit you have to pay for.

So if you have not kicked Internet Explorer to the curb yet - there is no excuse. Run either Firefox or Safari. It is free. Just download it.

BIG NEWS for this weekend! Sort of exciting. I have a boat handling final exam of sorts. People will be on hand to observe me conduct various tasks. If I pass the practical exam, then I get a promotion in an unpaid volunteer position. But I will get out on the water more often, so that is good.

A lot of training and study went into the promotion in the volunteer gig. Many hours. What happens next remains to be seen. I either pass or I don't.

And now.....BEER NEWS! Yes beer news. News about beer.

While I was out and about, I ventured into a different supermarket than the one I normally go to. It was the same chain that I go to, just another store. And it had a nice beer selection. So I selected this. From the Fish Brewing Company of Olympia WA, Fish Tale Organic India Pale Ale.

A pretty good IPA if I say so myself. Easy drinking, smooth - yet with enough hops kick to make it an IPA.

The Pacific Northwest is someplace I have to get to one of these days. Portland Oregon is at the top of the list. That city is LOADED with micro breweries. And then there is Seattle, Olympia, and a bunch of other cities. All full of beer.

Stuff Is My Weakness

2009-06-11T02:36:00.002-04:00

But really it is not.

I suppose I am not getting the job I interviewed for. But that is OK - I do not think I really wanted it anyway.

It was for Budget-Rent-A-Car. I think I rented the last car I got from them. A Ford Mustang convertible. Really sweet ride. It came with the V-6 engine and the premium sound system upgrade. The premium sound system upgrade involved an amp, and larger speakers. The woofers were 10 or 12 inches. It really did sound nice.

Anyhow the interview was a total abortion. They would ask a question and I would answer it. Problem was that the answers I gave were the wrong ones.

Which really is a lot of fun. You give an answer, and watch the expression of the other persons face change. The expression says "did you really just say that".

Yes. Yes I did just say that.

So it is not a big shock to me that the phone did not ring today. I knew it was not going to ring.

The reality is I would have taken it if it were offered. And I am sure I would have done a great job. I actually thing customer service is important.

Problem is I also think good customer service is NOT trying to upsale them on every little extra thing offered. People just want the car they reserved - they do not want to tell you "no I do not want that" over and over and over.

Really - the optional GPS unit is advertised all over the place. There is even a display unit on the counter top. If they want it they will ask.

But hey - what do I know. Maybe people want you to try to sell them things they did not ask for.

Anyhow, it was really not for me. The base pay was low, but there are commissions. You would not make anything without the commissions. $7 something an hour. After taxes a full time check for two weeks - 80 hours - would be less than $560.

And the new guy - which would be me - gets the last bid for shifts. So guess who gets to man the counter at 3 AM when nobody is renting cars? When customers are trickling in at a slow rate? The counter is at the other airport - so when there are no flights there are no customers. Yet someone has to be there.

No customers means no sales which means no chance to upsale anything. This means no money.

I would much rather have a higher hourly base rate, and no commissions. Of course if the boss said "try to upsale stuff" I would. Got to do what the boss says. But I think - and this is just me - commission based pay puts the pressure on me to pester people to no end, trying to sell them a GPS they do not want.

This is bad customer service and would make me want to go to Avis or Enterprise next time.

But what do I know.

WARNING! Week Ahead.

2009-06-08T00:36:00.002-04:00

Lots of exciting crap going on here this week.

Sort of.

In an attempt to obtain a more stable financial condition, I will be going off to a few events this week. Who knows if anything will come of it or not. Maybe it will, maybe it will not. Only time will tell.

The shitty part is that some of these events take place north of the border so to speak. People living in Miami-Dade County know what that means.

For those who do not live in Miami-Dade County, "north of the border" means Broward County. Or for that matter anyplace north of Miami-Dade. What makes this less than optimal is the drive. Unless I moved north, it would be a long commute to and from work. And with gas prices creeping up, and the vehicle with its less than great MPG, Ill be a frequent customer at Shell.

Or I will have to relocate closer to the line, so as to make any commute shorter.

In reality moving closer to the line will make more sense in many ways, as Ill be closer to action north and south of the border.

I am ready for the week ahead. I went out and got a haircut and everything.

Minnesota Zoo Poop Expert

2009-06-06T01:56:00.003-04:00

I have been certified by the Minnesota Zoo as a poop expert. I can identify poop from the zebra, ostrich, and giraffe. I could probably identify poop produced by lions, tigers, leopards, and other big cats.

I think big cat poop would look a lot like house cat poop - only it would be in larger quantities. But that is just a guess.

But the certification process only requires you to identify poop from the zebra, ostrich, and giraffe.

You can go through the certification by going to http://whopooped.org/. And keep in mind this is a REAL process from a real zoo. After going through the online training (about 5 minutes) you can print out your very own poop expert certificate.

I plan to frame mine.

Skipper The Cat Update

2009-06-05T00:06:00.003-04:00

As you may remember, Skipper The Cat (AKA The Gray Menace) was looking more like a mole rat than a cat. Which was bad for him as the other cats would look at him and say COOL! MOLE RAT!! This resulted in many cat squabbles that would take place mainly in the middle of the night and whenever I was on the toilet. I suspect Skipper actually starts the majority of the squabbles. He makes a game out of it.

The cats here are mystified and amazed by the bathroom. If anyone walks into the bathroom, the cats instantly go to the door and hang out on the other side of it. As soon as you open the door they want to inspect what you were doing. To them, the toilet and the shower is a magical place. Full of mystery - and danger. There is water in those things you know.

Anyhow - this is what was going on.

Well things have improved a bit. This is good because Skipper was looking pretty rough. He was always licking himself. Not so much scratching, just excessive licking.

Here is how he looks now. More like a cat, less like a mole rat.

It seems like fleas were the problem. Not that there was an infestation of fleas here, but some were spotted. So I use that once a month flea stuff. Skipper also eats some special (expensive) allergy free cat food - but he has been sneaking more and more of the cheaper food the other cats eat, and the fur is still growing back. So I think it is actually fleas.

Scratch one crisis.

My Grand Plan To Work For The DMV

2009-06-04T01:29:00.004-04:00

I have put in for a lot of things. So when I get email about various applications I usually open them.

But it is odd to get a flood of emails regarding applications. Yet, this is what I got. A bunch of emails sent rapid fire style informing that I was not selected for jobs.

The interesting thing there is that they were all sent at 1 AM. I know for a fact that at 1 AM NOBODY is in that office.

I know this because said office is in a government building. A building where by all I can figure out, there are few people working there at 1 PM on a weekday, let alone 1 AM.

Ever try to get anything done at the DMV office? Ever? How long did you have to wait in line? How many "employees" did you see in the place? Did it seem like these "employees" were working very hard? Or did it seem like they were in a race to see who could take the longest amount of time to do the least amount of stuff?

Thus proving my point.

This reminds me - I want to work for the DMV. I am sure that on my first day I could not only win the slow race, I could set a new agency world record. I do not care how long you have to wait. The way I see it, there are too many cars on the road as it is. Allowing more people to obtain a license only means more congestion. So it would not be in my best interest to help you. Not if I wanted the drive home from work to take less than an hour.

Where was I? Oh yea - the multiple emails announcing I was persona non-grata sent to me at 1 AM when nobody could possibly have been in the office to send them. I remember now. My dreams of working for the state DMV and performing a public service by doing nothing distracted me.

I figured that the emails were sent in error. That is the only thing that made sense.

And today, in the afternoon at a normal and reasonable time - I got another email announcing that emails were sent to a number of applicants in error, and that I should ignore them.

Which is what I already figured was the case.

Being right kicks ass.

Body Soap

2009-06-03T01:19:00.002-04:00

I do not remember exactly when I started to use that body soap stuff. It was a few years ago.

I also do not know why. Bar soap had worked up to that point. But slick advertising campaigns being what they are, I guess I just fell for it.

At any rate, I use the stuff. There is at least one benefit to the body soap stuff over bar soap however. No more body hair stuck in the soap bar.

So tonight on the way home I remembered I was out of shampoo. I needed to get more. And I was also out of body soap - which is also why I was out of shampoo.

You see, after careful investigation and label comparison, I concluded that body soap and shampoo have enough of the same ingredients to actually count as the same thing. If I run out of one, I can use use the other.

Except there is one slight difference in ingredients that makes it necessary to keep both shampoo and body soap handy. 1% selenium sulfide.

Anyhow - I go to the 24 hour pharmacy and find the bath stuff isle. I grab the 1% selenium sulfide shampoo, and a bottle of body soap. This body soap was a different color than the yellow stuff I normally get. It was blue. It said "with glacier water and deep sea mint" on the label. Yea yea - whatever. At some point it is likely all the water on the planet was at one time in a glacier, so all water can be called "glacier water". Hell, call it "comet water" or "deep space comet water", as one idea in the theory of planetary formation is that Earth has so much water because it was hit by a whole lot of water containing comets. But who really knows.

And of course, there is no such thing as a "deep sea mint".

But who cares. It was there, I needed it, so I bought it. Done and over with.

When I used the stuff I figured out what the "mint" part seems to be. Just a touch of menthol.

Just enough that when the soap hits sensitive areas that never get exposed to the sun (for fear of a terrible horrible sunburn that will make it impossible to move) you notice the menthol.

I am stuck with the rest of the bottle now.

Animal Testing

2009-06-02T01:55:00.002-04:00

So today I was taking my weekly shower (Florida is having a water shortage - we all have to make sacrifices) and for whatever reason I read the back of the body soap bottle.

THIS PRODUCT IS NOT TESTED ON ANIMALS.

As if this is a good thing. And I suppose it is. Or is it? So I got to thinking.

If it is NOT tested on animals - how do I know I am not going to break out in some sort of rash? How do I know all my hair will not fall out, and my skin turn green?

So here is what I am thinking goes down.

Vice President of New Products (VPONP) - hey boss! Check this stuff out! Smells great huh?

CEO - yea. What is it?

VPONP - it is the newest body soap! Sure to be a smash hit!

CEO - does it have any side effects? Has it been tested?

VPONP - uhhhhh....no? But it is OK! We will print "not tested on animals" on the bottle.

CEO - so, we will test the product on humans?

VPONP - YES! Exactly! Test it on people, not animals!

CEO - OK by me. People suck anyway. Market it to those hippies and we will throw some leftover Agent Orange into it. We have been trying to get rid of that shit since 1973. MUBHAHAHAHAAAAAAA! (evil laugh)

VOPNP - MUBHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAA

Mr. Burns - (rubbing his hands together) Excellent......

Now I am sure that the real reason why products are not tested on animals first is that the companies already know they are safe. If all the chemicals in the newest shampoo were already tested once - no need to do it again. Although it would make the lab monkeys smell better. And who thinks that is a bad thing?

OK so you might. But do you have to work in the lab with the monkeys? Probably not. If you did then you would not mind them getting a bath. And if they quit throwing poop that would be even better.

Hurricane Season 09 Begins

2009-05-31T01:12:00.002-04:00

But not today. Monday is actually the first day of Hurricane Season 09.

I am pretty much used to the drill. Nobody does anything. Sure, the TV people are all like "get your kit together" and "buy your crap".

But that is a scam. Nobody will actually heed the advice. I know I will not.

It is a good idea. Right now you can get anything you would want. Since nobody is going to buy squat, the stores will be full.

However, there is no urgency. Therefore there is no fun.

The truth is there is not a lot for me to do. All the windows in this place are impact resistant - no shutters needed. This is really good, as the old method of having to put up shutters sucked ass. It required much effort. So it would always get put off. And then it was the same shit every storm. You get the plywood shutters out and discover that some of the shutters are either rotted or so warped that they are cracking. So you have to go to the plywood store and get a couple of sheets.

Now you need to cut the things to length.

And then you ALWAYS need more hardware. The lead anchors seem like they will work, but a lot of times they just suck. So you get those metal concrete screws - but they suck too.

Bottom line is you ALWAYS need to go to the store to get something.

Then to make it even worse, it is now known that plywood is shit during a storm. A lot of insurance policies will not cover storm damage if all you put up is plywood. Even if you use the 5/8 thick and heavy shit, it really only offers minimal protection. They do not meet standards in South Florida.

So you think you are just going to get metal shutters huh? Well those are steel. Steel is heavy. And sharp. If you mishandle a steel shutter panel or drop it - you could get cut badly. Then you have to put up shutters AND go to the hospital. Or just say "fuck it" and drink. When the storm is almost there, as the outer bands are blowing in - show up at the emergency room all bloody and pathetic looking. Hopefully they take you in. Play the pity card.

And steel also rusts, so you still may have to replace those panels from time to time. Most likely you will discover this a day or two before a storm.

But you will get aluminum? OK that does not rust. And it is lighter. But the panels still have sharp edges. And they cost more.

But the impact windows - I am thinking that is the way to go. No need to do much of anything.

Of course there is all kinds of other things to start thinking about. Like for example, which canned food would I most like to eat for a week or so. And how do I secure the jet ski and boat? I am thinking about some dirt anchors. I am thinking of going with the aluminum "arrow head" anchors from THIS SOURCE.

I need at least 4, but 6 would be better.

But for now my plan is to do nothing. It is more fun to put things off.

Post 1,341

2009-05-27T02:49:00.002-04:00

Yup 1,341 posts on this blog.

And who knows how many hours of my life Ill never get back.

Actually - math knows! Math knows all there is to know, assuming numbers are involved. If numbers are not involved - math is rather retarded.

Assuming a mere 10 minutes per post, times 1,341 posts, means 223.5 hours. Or 9.3125 days. 1.3303 weeks.

I would go into months, but then Ill have nothing but a zero, then a decimal point, then random numbers. And nobody pays attention to small numbers. They seem so insignificant. Laughable. This is why you do not see people expressing their height in light years. Or the dimensions of various organs.

Not you could start to express your weight in kilograms. Then if you weigh say 200 pounds, you can say that you weigh a mere 90 kilograms. Same thing, but one sounds like less than the other.

But 10 minutes per post is a low ball estimate. So even with the power of math - who knows how much time I have wasted.

It really does not matter. I really had nothing else better to do. It is sad, but the truth is often sad.

Memorial Day Weekend

2009-05-22T18:24:00.003-04:00

Ill be back Tuesday.

Rain, Weekends, Boats, And Getting Seasick

2009-05-21T01:56:00.006-04:00

I like getting some advance notice of things.

Like just now. The satellite TV cut out. The screen got pixelated then went black. So I knew it would rain. And then it did! Just now. And there is the thunder clap. Just one? That is odd. Usually there are more than one.

South Florida still needs the rain - so this is good!! Even though a three day weekend is approaching, anyone in FL who bitches about rain is an ass. Would you rather we not get any rain? You like taking showers right? Well guess what genius! You think that water just falls from the sky??

Oh wait - it does. Never mind. But if it does not fall from the sky, then we run out of it. So a rainy weekend is well worth it.

And speaking of three day weekends, I have yet to form a plan. All my associates are either going out of town (smart move), working, or have little projects to accomplish.

I kind of want to hit the water, but it remains to be seen if this will happen. In a way it would not be too bad if I did not do anything. I have things to do that really need to get done. Using the boat would be a wonderful excuse to not get those things done.

So maybe Ill just do some of those things, and if I want to take a break go watch a movie. That will be a whole lot cheaper than using the boat anyway.

Unless of course the schedule of some friends clears up. In that case I might have to reconsider the options.

And speaking of boats - this is fairly exciting. The chance to go hang out on an 87 foot vessel is here, and for real. I have to jump through some hoops - but the hoops have a dual payoff. I will have additional things to put on job applications and ye ole resume. This never hurts.

At first, the duties will be dockside. Lots of learning to do. I have to prove myself, and gain the confidence of others.

Once that is done, I can go to sea. And probably get somewhat seasick. Word on the street is EVERYONE gets seasick. 87 feet is really not as large as one might think it is in 4 - 6 foot ocean rollers. Sure, the sea may be at two feet or less - but it can just as easily not be that calm.

All that is part of the fun anyway. If getting seasick is not for you - then neither is going to sea.

So I will get involved in the program. The goal is worth the effort - at least in my view.

And if I puke I puke.

Land Of Extremes

2009-05-20T03:15:00.002-04:00

NOTE - this is not a complaint post. Just an observation post.

South Florida - and Florida in general - has been experiencing a somewhat dry spell. The "winter" is normally the dry season. But "dry" is a relative term.

So is "winter". We really do not have winter as many people in the USA know it. We have hurricane season and not hurricane season. Bug season and less bugs season. And wet and dry season. Hot as hell and nice and pleasant season.

By the way, all the seasons overlap nicely. Hurricane season is associated with hot as hell season, wet season, bug season, and no snowbirds season.

Not hurricane season is associated with the others on the list.

So what does "dry" season mean? Well it means less rain. Not really no rain - just less of it.

But these past few months it has been BONE DRY. Extra dry. In some regards this has worked out OK. There are no mosquitoes! Well not as many as normal anyway. With no standing water, the only place for the bugs to lay eggs in is water that contains fish. Fish that eat mosquito larva.

Well apparently - and almost perfectly on cue - nature turned on the tap. We went from an extended period of no rain at all to three or four (I lost count) days of steady rain. Skies went from blue and clear to gray and cloudy.

Just like that. And when the rain came - it fell rather hard.

Now like I said - this is not a bitch post. We need the rain. Bad. The rain needs to continue. Maybe not as hard and fast squalls, what we really need is a good steady soaking type rain. The kind of rain that falls slowly, over a longer period of time. This way the parched Earth can soak up the water. The hard and fast stuff is mostly washed into storm drains and dumped in the many canals - which eventually dump into the sea. That does not really do much good for the rain situation.

So I welcome this rainy season. Even if that means more bugs. And lawns that grow. And all that other fun stuff associated with the wet season.

The good outweighs the bad. So long as we do not get the urban flood type rain - or some other nasty surprise.

12 Days

2009-05-19T00:56:00.002-04:00

Hurricane season begins in 12 days.

Great. I hope it is a quiet season. Hurricanes are a pain in the ass.

But at least there is a director of FEMA. Quietly, and without much fanfare - one David Vitter (R), a Senator from (of all places) Louisiana, sat down and shut the hell up.

Finally. Because he was holding up a very important appointment.

And there is some good news! This time around, the FEMA director is actually qualified. His name is Craig Fugate. Google it if you like. He knows emergency management. And I would know.

You see, Craig Fugate is from my home state. Florida.

Here is a sampling of what he has done to be qualified to head up FEMA.

He became a volunteer firefighter in high school, like his father and his uncle. Later attended Florida State Fire College.

After Florida State Fire College he worked as a firefighter, a paramedic (all firefighter are also paramedics - not all paramedics are fire fighters), and eventually made it all the way to the rank of lieutenant in the fire department.

He served for 10 years as Alachua County's chief of emergency management.

He served for 15 years as the assissitant director for the Florida Division Of Emergency Management.

From 2001 - very recently, he was the director of the Florida Division Of Emergency Management.

During this time (2001 - 2008) Florida had the following hurricanes:

Charley, Frances, Jeanne, Ivan, Dennis, Katrina, Rita and Wilma. Charley was a major cat 4 storm by the way.

But hurricanes were not all that happened. There were also a bunch of major fires. Here is a fire map from summer 2007.

There were also floods, tornados, and all kinds of other fun things. Oh and by the way - the above fire map was drawn BEFORE the fires peaked in number and intensity.

Needless to say, the new FEMA director knows what a disaster looks like - and how to put a handle on the response.

I will not even bother to compare Craig Fugate, President Obama's first pick for FEMA - to Joe Allbaugh, the man appointed to head FEMA in 2001. What did Allbaugh's resume look like?

He worked for Oklahoma Senator Henry Bellmon in 1974. In 1984 he worked on the Reagan campaign. Then in 1986 he worked on Bellmon's staff for his successful run for Governor of Oklahoma. He later worked as deputy secretary of transportation in Oklahoma.

In 1994 he went to work for Bush, to manage his campaign for governor. He was then the chief of staff till 1999, when Bush ran for President. He worked on the Bush campaign - then in 2001 became the number 1 man in FEMA.

Not a shred of emergency management experience.

His number 2 was "Heck of a job" Michael Brown. The horse breeder with even less emergency management experience. Brown was brought into FEMA by Allbaugh as general counsel. A lawyer. Brown was good friends from way back with both Bush and Allbaugh - so he went from someone hired to give legal opinions to the number 2 for FEMA.

I feel a lot better knowing that FEMA is back in the hands of someone who knows emergency management. The current director did good for Florida, and I think he will do good for America.

Thank you Senator Vitter, for sitting down and shutting the fuck up - allowing a qualified person to take an appointment.

Beer Surprise

2009-05-17T00:10:00.004-04:00

The first day of National Boating Safety Week went well for me. I was not involved in any boat related accident. Of course I was not actually out on the water. Not being out on the water really lowers your odds of being involved in a boating accident.

I may be out today. I have not really decided. It all depends on how motivated I get when the sun is up. If I do end up out there, it will be on the Waverunner. I know some people that will be out riding. If I go then I can meet up with them. If I do not go then I save some money by not having to get more gas.

Anyhow - the beer surprise. Hold on - you will be surprised. I know I was!

I have said before that pale ales are my preferred beer style. When I see one I have not yet tried, I am drawn to it. Like the moths I once released in the movie theater were drawn to the projection booth window - pissing everyone off except me. I thought it was amusing.

By the way - if you do something like that DO NOT laugh. When you laugh you give yourself away. You also need to have a plan to ditch the moth jar discreetly.

Anyhow, I was at the supermarket looking at the beer isle. The Sierra Nevada Pale Ale - my current favorite - was restocked. The 5 pack from a few days ago was gone. Well actually I think it was still there. Only now it is a three pack.

But every so often I scan the isle for something new. And then I saw.............

Yes - Michelob. Michelob Pale Ale.

Now I know. Michelob? What the hell? Normally, I would scoff at anything in a Michelob bottle or can.

But the label DID say "Pale Ale". My favorite of all the ales. So I just had to do it.

I put away the Sierra Nevada and picked up the Michelob.

I will also admit to being highly skeptical. I have tried the Budweiser America Ale. I was somewhat excited about the American Ale, thinking it could be on par with Samuel Adams. But I was let down. The American Ale was not at all well balanced. I think it needed more hops. Or less malt. One of the two - it is hard to tell. The bottom line is that I thought the American Ale has potential - but it is not ready for prime time yet.

So now I see Michelob Pale Ale. That is a tall order there. You are screwing with my favorite beer style here. And I put down a 6 pack of Sierra Nevada!

So I get it home, and stick it in the fridge for a couple of hours to cool down. Then I opened it.

The color is very good. I have had pale ale that was a deeper color, but a pale ale is supposed to be...well...pale. Not a brown ale, not a red ale, not a porter, not a stout - but a pale ale. So the color of the Michelob is acceptable.

But what is important is the taste.

The Michelob Pale Ale is dry hopped. This means that hops are dumped into the fermenter after the brewing is over. What this does is adds aroma without adding hops bitterness. So when you take a wiff of the Michelob, you can smell hops. It is not an overpowering nose, but it is there.

That was good.

The head is a bit weak. It goes away fairly quick. Even when you pour directly into the middle of the glass. By the way - this is the recommended method. Pout directly into the middle of an imperial pint glass - not down the side. If you want less head, you can pour about 1/4 of the beer down the side of the glass then the rest into the middle.

And now for the taste. It is actually good! I like it. I will have to compare it head to head with Sierra Nevada. I think it will come up short against Sierra Nevada, but to beat Sierra Nevada would be tough.

I think the Michelob is a tad "lighter". This makes it a better hot weather beer. Down here, when it gets hot as hell in the summer - a heavy full beer will kill you. Well not kill you, but it may not be something you want. I prefer a lighter beer when it is hot. Flavorful, yet lighter. Maybe a lower alcohol content. Something like that.

Unless I am chilling in the AC.

Anyhow - now for the rating. For a pale ale - I give it a "B". This rating is subject to change once I compare it head to head with Sierra - but it is still good, if you like pale ale.

I can easily see myself buying more of this stuff. It might even become the official boat beer of the summer - edging out the reigning champ Samuel Adams Summer Ale.

Michelob. Who would have thought?

NSBW 09

2009-05-16T00:04:00.002-04:00

It is time for National Safe Boating Week. A week where we pay attention to boating safety.

The other 51 weeks of the year are a free for all.

Now I understand the point of these national weeks and days. Every day is national something day, every week is national something week, and every month is national something month.

By the way, this month is national hamburger month. So.....eat a bunch of hamburgers? Or maybe we are suppose to be aware of the dangers of choking on a hamburger?

Who knows.

And I am not even sure the National Hamburger Month thing is for real or not. It is just something I heard on the Jimmy Buffett channel on Sirius radio.

But back to NSBW. It is for real. A week when boating safety is promoted nationwide. Where I live boating season is all year. But for most of the USA - boating season officially opens Memorial Day weekend. Next weekend in fact. This is why NSBW is this week.

So how am I involved? In all kinds of ways. I have to be up at some unholy hour of the morning, so that I can be where I need to be in time to get things going.

The person designated to bring the coffee better come through.

Options

2009-05-15T00:10:00.001-04:00

It is no secret I like boats.

So here is the deal. I have the opportunity to go out on a REAL boat. A US Coast Guard Cutter. Now this is not a cruise ship. First, Ill have to prove I am worthy of being a member of the crew. I do not anticipate this as being much of a problem. I am sure I can find some way to make myself seem useful.

Or at the least, I have the sense to get the hell out of the way if I get the idea I am clogging up the works.

Of course, there are other factors to consider here. The last big boat I was on was in fact a cruise ship. So the job of the entire crew was to see to it that I had fun. There were multiple bars so I did not have to wonder around looking for more things to drink. There was food available all the time. There were chairs upon which I could sit and watch the world float by. I had a cabin with a private toilet. And so on.

The cutter will probably be lacking in some of these features. I can take a pretty good guess at what features might be different.

However, the idea is still sitting there in my head. A cutter huh? Out in the open sea, doing open sea type things. On a military vessel! No telling what sorts of adventures might await me. No telling who I might be able to start a legendary brawl with at some port of call bar.

Oh wait - that is the US Navy. They have been known to get involved in this sort of thing. But then again, drunken brawling is a tradition among sailors. But that was then. In the days of yore, before there was all this "media" bullshit creating the need to maintain a "positive image".

I plan to go to the meeting to get more information. I want to see what it is all about.

Pile Of Loot

2009-05-14T01:45:00.002-04:00

So here is what I managed to accumulate at the hurricane conference. There was a small trade show that was part of the event. Now I like trade shows. There is usually cool shit to look at. And if the trade show is half way decent - there are always free handouts.

This is what I got!

1 - portable water jug. It is called a Bagula. It was invented by someone who went to a disaster to distribute water. The people had nothing suitable to put the water into. The Bagula is a thick plastic bag. They are cheap to produce, light, an ass load of them can be transported easily, and they hold around 4 gallons each.

1 - magnetic hurricane tracking map with clip on dry erase marker

1 - calendar good till 2010, or the end of the world / humanity. Whichever comes first.

1 - Bamaco Inc hat. They sponsored the show or some shit

5- tote bags!

5 - 2 ounce packages of "Bayou Bang Dry Rub" seasoning

1 - thing that looks like a smurf size backpack. I am not really sure what the hell it is for but it was free. I am thinking cell phone holder??? Stash pouch??

3 - flashlights. 2 of them are ultra cheap lights that take AA batteries and use a standard bulb. The other one is actually a 5 LED light that is bright for something that uses three AAA batteries.

2 - neck lanyard ID clip things - one has an additional retractable ID clip on the end of the lanyard. I can also remove the retractable thing and just use that if I want.

1 - poncho in a bag.

1 - sewing kit

1 - 8 inch / 20 cm straight edge WITH a calculator. Solar powered, with battery backup

1 - key chain measuring tape thing

1 - DOUBLE LED key chain light

1 - single LED key chain liight that is also a bottle opener

1 - cheap ass non LED key chain light

1 - plastic letter opener

2 - Sharpie marker size spray hand sanitizer things. I can refill them when they are empty. Hand sanitizer was a big thing there. Something about a flu going around???? I was not really paying attention

5 - pens

1 - rubber ball like thing that bounces in random directions. It is not really a ball - it is made of solod rectangles attached to make a cube. Makes an OK cat toy

1 - light up LED ball surrounded in what looks like a giant soft rubber sand spur. When you throw it the LEDs inside the ball light up.

Not too bad really. The trade show portion was not that big.

I am done with the conference till next year . If I go.

17 days remain till Hurricane Season 2009.

LIVE! From The Florida Governor's Hurricane Conference - Part 2

2009-05-13T15:14:00.002-04:00

GOOD NEWS!

My green ID card holder was good enough for admittance to the free loot room. And I got.....

FREE LUNCH!!!!

So that was good. A free all you can eat as long as you only go through the line ONCE and can fit all the food on the plate buffet. The lunch buffet I had to pay $10 for was also a "one pass only" deal - but they gave you a plate and a paper tray to carry the plate on. So I ditched the plate and just used the tray. What the hell - the tray was made of paper. The plate was made of paper. So why not.

But I am sneaky, so I was able to sneak through today's line twice. See, they had "security" for the buffet. Only people with blue or green ID holders got the free food. I was given one free meal card and one free "ONE DRINK ONLY" card.

Apparently, there is a terrible shortage of water and ice tea. So all you were allowed was one cup of drink. That is it. No more.

Anyhow I just bypassed the "security" without even realizing it. Then I got some food. Then I went back for just a little more - at which time someone noticed and revoked my card. No problem. The free drink guy remembered me.

Anyhow - I loaded up with other free goodies. I have multiple tote bags, all sorts of pens, a cool flashlight, at least three LED key chain lights, an ass load of pens, and a bunch of other stuff. I also entered a drawing to win a bunch of crap.

A complete inventory of my take will be posted here tomorrow! And more Cookie Monster photoshop creations -that I actually made.

LIVE! From The Florida Governor's Hurricane Conference.

2009-05-12T07:58:00.002-04:00

Investigative reporting! I love it. And now I get to do some!

You see, I am currently at the convention center where the Florida Governor's Hurricane Conference is.

It is not as exciting as one would think. There is no hurricane. The conference part is here however. I assume the governor part is also around here someplace - but I do not know where.

So why am I here? ICS-300. Look it up. I am learning all about the incident command system and how it works. Pretty neat huh? I think so. The training is actually very informative.

But I also got some bad news. There will be NO free stuff. I lack access to the free stuff part of the conference.

The cost to attend this thing is broken down into three areas. Conference only, training only, or both. If you are training only, you get a cool green ID / wallet thing you have to wear around your neck. The training and conference people have a blue wallet / ID holder thing.

I have a green one. So no access to the display booth room for me.

I could gain access to the full conference - for another $100. I did the cost/benefit analysis and determined that for $100 I could just buy more crap than I would get for free. The cost would therefore outweigh the benefit.

But all is not lost. Sort of. You see, I paid for the training. In theory it will be a benefit to me.

But I did not expect a cool wallet / ID holder thing. So that counts as "free". I also got this tote bag thing that is actually fairly decent. That counts as "free".

And there is all manners of free coffee. The stirrers are even encrusted with rock candy (AKA crystallized sugar). And there are even cinnamon sticks (tree bark) for the coffee.

That is some gourmet shit right there.

And trust me this night owl is LOADING up on that stuff. It is my lifeblood at this point. I am like the cookie monster, only I am walking around saying "coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee coffee".

I fully expect an intervention at any moment now. But I do not have a problem - everyone else does.

As long as they do not try to slip me that decaf stuff Ill be fine.

And what kind of sick bastard came up with decaf coffee? That is like non-alcoholic beer, THC free pot, or cocaine free cocaine. It is just not as much fun without the active ingredient.

Pirates Have Nothing To Do With This Post

2009-05-11T00:39:00.000-04:00

This is how I envision what my life would be like, if I were a pirate.

I have to arise at some unholy hour today. By 8030 I have to be in Fort Lauderdale. For those of you who do not understand why this is a problem, allow me to fill in some information that will help you realize the gravity of this situation.

Morning rush hour traffic flows to the NORTH and/or EAST. If you are going south, or west, it is clear sailing. if you have to go east or north, you are fucked. You will not be going very fast. Hell, you should consider yourself lucky if you even move.

To get from where I am now to Fort Lauderdale, I have to go about 10 miles east, and about 27 or so miles north.

On the highway.

So to be there at 0830 I am pretty much forced to depart at some unholy hour of the morning. At a time when no human being should be forced to be on the roads - unless they are leaving for home from the bar that has last call at 5 AM.

By 7 AM traffic is building rapidly. So I figure I should be out the door by 0630. The goal is to make it to I-95 BEFORE the exit ramp off the 836 to I-95 north backs up like a toilet at the bar where last call is 5 AM during chili cheeseburger night.

And all for a hurricane conference. The Governor's Hurricane Conference. Lots of conferencing abut hurricanes.

Do not worry - I plan to LOAD UP on the free stuff. At these types of things, a shrewd individual can load up on free stuff. Nothing is too large or too small. For the large free stuff, the truck is parked nearby. For the small free stuff, I have a bag.

If the pickings are good enough, Ill bring a suitcase on wheels.

I truly have no shame.

But one can not just show up to a conference and expect to plunder all the free stuff. You have to fool the people in charge of handing out the loot that you are actually important.

For example, here is what you DO NOT want to do.

PERSON IN CHARGE OF LOOT: Welcome to my booth! Are there any questions I can answer about the products and/or services we offer?

ME: Not really. I am not in any position to actually buy anything. You see, I am a fairly low level cog in the wheel.

BZZZZZZZ! You will be lucky to get one pen this way.

Now lets see what happens if you use some creativity and improv skills! Here is how you would dazzle someone with bullshit.

PERSON IN CHARGE OF LOOT: Welcome to my booth! Are there any questions I can answer about the products and/or services we offer?

ME: Yes! I was just promoted at the Emergency Operations Center, and I have some plans to rethink the way we work. I am very interested in new technology, new ideas, new ways to do things, increasing agency efficiency, and so I need to keep on top of the latest new products and services.

LOOT PERSON: Wow! sounds like you have a lot on your plate there!

ME: You said it! I have this budget that I will need to spend, and to be totally honest I do not know what to spend it all on. I have never had a budget this large to spend before! I am really excited about it.

At this point, you will get loaded down with free stuff. Anything in the booth is now yours. Like the shoes the booth guy is wearing? They are yours. Just say "nice shoes!". The guy will staple his business card to the shoes, and hand them to you.

Here you go! Oh no...it is not a problem at all! I like to go barefoot!

Needless to say, I have no shame. There is no such thing as a low I will not stoop to when free stuff is at stake.

Ill keep a running tally of the loot I obtain as I obtain it. There is an internet room at the conference. I am hoping they have free wi-fi, because the internet room is close to the training room I will be spending the most time at. And the laptop is fully wireless compatible. 802.11 B/G/N - and bluetooth!

Odds And Ends

2009-05-09T02:18:00.002-04:00

Just a few odds and ends here. Stuff I could not really fit into any other post format. No matter what crazy ass tangent I go off on. It was just not going to happen.

So here it goes!!!

1. Scarlet Blue is back. I have to assume her screen name was picked because of the eternal question. Which Chimay version do you select? There is the red/scarlet label, and the blue label. And yes - there is a difference.

Chimay Red is a 7% top fermented selection.

First sold in 75 cl (25.4 fl.oz.) bottles, it is noted for its coppery colour which makes it particularly attractive.

Topped with a creamy head, it gives off a light, fruity apricot aroma produced by the fermentation. The taste perceived in the mouth is a balance confirming the fruity nuances noticed in the fragrance.

Its taste, which imparts a silky sensation to the tongue, is made refreshing by a light touch of bitterness. To the palate, the taster perceives a pleasant astringency which complements the flavour qualities of this beer very harmoniously.

This top fermented Trappist beer, refermented in the bottle, is not pasteurized.

Not bad stuff really. I like it. I do not drink it often on account of it being harder to find AND somewhat expensive. But hey - Tappist Monks have to eat too.

Chimay Blue on the other hand.....TOTALLY different.

Named Grande Réserve in 75 cl (25.4 fl.oz.) bottles, it is principally distinguished by its character of a strong beer (9% ABV).

This is a beer whose fragrance of fresh yeast with a light, flowery rosy touch is especially pleasant.

Its flavour, noticed when tasting it, only accentuates the pleasant sensations perceived in the aroma , while revealing a light but pleasant touch of roasted malt.

This top fermented Trappist beer , refermented in the bottle, is not pasteurized.

I prefer the blue label myself - but only on special occasions. The stuff ain't cheap.

Anyhow - this is my theory behind the blog name "Scarlet Blue". Why commit to just one kind of Chimay? Keep your options open.

#2 - Where is Doozie? Apparently she just vanished. And her blog is closed. So if you know where she is - pester her to add me to the approved readers list. Remember - the key to pestering is to do it often!!! 8 or 9 times a day is a good start.

#3 - I made some creations for Dusty. Dusty's blog may not be for anyone - she can go off the deep end from time to time. But hey - what else would you expect from a blog titled "Left Wing Nutjob"? Agree or disagree - you have to admit the title is fitting. Anyway, in the spirit of wasting time and accomplishing absolutely nothing in the process - I made THESE PHOTOS. Not my best creations, but Ill do better at some point. No telling when that might be. I have to be inspired to do really good work. The inspiration for the things I made so far was just a simple matrix of bordem and beer. And it shows. On a scale of 1 - 10, I give the stuff a 3.

But since I am not an asshole who never admits to schlock - there you go. The proof is on the internet, for all to see.

#4 - Skipper The Cat is getting his fur back. This is good. He was starting to look like a mole rat with a long tail. But now he looks more like a cat again. Ill have to remember to post a photo.

#5 - I have taken a bunch of FEMA self study courses. Why? Well I had my reasons. But mostly - they were a good way to pass some time. Go here for the NIMS selections, and here for the ISP selections.

By the way, various jobs now require some of these self study courses. The common ones are ICS-100, ICS-200, ICS-700, and ICS-800. The courses can also be listed a IS-100, IS-200, IS-700, and IS-800.

And since this is a FEMA creation, the numbers are not exactly in order. IS-100 pairs with IS-700, IS-200 pairs with IS-800. I know, I know - that is odd. But that is just how it is. So roll with it. Trying to figure it out will just drive you insane. The numbers may not make sense, but then again the course numbers are not what is important. The content is.

Other than that - happy Saturday!

How Many Sports Stations Does One Market Need?

2009-05-08T01:20:00.003-04:00

The answer is........FIVE! Yes, five. Five sports stations, for a town that does not give a shit about sports. Hell, the Marlins can not even sell out a game unless it is a series playoff. But even so - and in spite of a dismal economy that is forcing every County department to cut back, the Marlins are getting a new stadium.

Anyhow, it all began with deregulation. Deregulation allowed media companies to own as many TV and radio stations as they wanted in any given market. In time, this resulted in the plague known as Clear Channel Communications. They are the largest of the radio companies, owning thousands of stations in hundreds of markets.

The effect of this was the death of local radio. Local radio is expensive. You have to hire on air talent inside each market. And this is just the start. You have to hire support staff for each station in each market. Now if you only run one station in one market - no problem.

But it is FAR CHEAPER to just have a switch board monkey flip a switch, and pot up a show that is syndicated nationally. Under this model, you can pretty much run a station with 4 or 5 people on the staff.

For a very long time, there was one sports station in South Florida. And that was enough. People that wanted to hear sports talk all the time knew where to go. All was good.

The rest of the dial was news or talk commentary. If you wanted to listen to that stuff. Few did. FM ratings were always better than AM ratings.

Sometime in the mid to late 90s, the last station that still carried local talk radio pulled the plug on that format. I used to listen to this station - 610 AM - as my job at the time had me stuck in a commercial van that was equipped with a push button (no digital tuning) AM/FM radio with two speakers in the dash. No CD player, no tape player.

940 AM was "all news", but this was a dead format. Nobody really needed "all news all the time" and what happened was that if you listened for 1/2 hour you heard the whole days programming. Sometime in the 90s Clear Channel bought 940 and made it the outlet for shows like Rush Limbaugh and so on.

When the last of the local programming was pulled from 610, the programming on 610 was the same as 940. They just used both stations to broadcast the same thing. I went back to the FM dial - where honestly I spent most time anyway.

At this time, ratings for the local programming was higher than the ratings for the nationally syndicated stuff - but the plug was pulled on the higher rated shows anyway. The ratings were not much higher, but still - they were higher. My guess is that 940 did make more money than 610, even if 610 had the better ratings because 940 had lower operating costs.

Now lets fast forward a few years. 610 and 940 are still airing the same shows at the same times. But a new network is born. Air America. All the AM dial is pretty much one big right wing radio show at this point. Not because of ratings - just because there is nothing else there. Stations stack shows - so you have Rush competing with Rush. This is how it was in Miami anyway.

Well sort of. There was a time when you had Bill O'Reilly's radio show on some horseball station. But NOBODY listened to it. Seriously. His show would pull in 0.1 and 0.2 share numbers. Sometimes even 0.0. Yet his show could be heard (by nobody) for at least a full year.

But other than that there was not really any competition for the format.

Clear Channel decided to syndicate Air America. They put that on 940. 610 remained right wing.

At around the same time, I was discovering satellite radio. So I really did not care about the AM dial. Plus, the job I had did not have me stuck in a vehicle for most of the day. I would drive to work at 4 AM when there was no traffic, then return home at 1 PM when there was no major traffic conjestion. 10 minutes to get to work, 20 minutes to get home.

But over time, I started to go back to the AM dial. Sometimes. For short periods of time. I still had the satellite radio in for most of the time, but when I wanted a break from the same 5 or 6 channels I had the habit of listening to on Sirius,

As the political bullshit heated up - I listened to more 940. There were two shows I would listen to. Not the whole shows - who has time for that. But I would tune in.

I had a desk job. And on this desk I put a radio. It had a CD player, and that was good. But when I was tired of the CDs I brought in and sick of the endless commercials on the FM dial I would kick it on 940. Mostly it was just a little background noise. The purpose was to claim my little cubicle. Somethine to keep invading noises at bay. I could not blast music, so talk shows filled in decently enough. I did not spend all the time in the cube - a good deal of my day was actually spent outside the little space. So it was not like I was sitting there, actively listneing and taking notes and calling in and stuff. No time for that.

I also listened to NPR - mostly on the weekends, and when I was working before and after normal office hours.

VERY recently - there was a major change however.

940 ceased to air progressive shows. They went all sports. The format change was announced by someone using a very fake Rush Limbaugh voice, saying something that since Obama won the election and it was because of progressive radio - the format had to go. And it was going all sports because there is a black president and since black people like basketball, 940 would be the new home of the Miami Heat. 940 was then The Sports Animal. Just like that.

Of course it was all ratings. The fact that it is a Clear Channel station - and Clear Channel loves the right wing format - can not possibly have anything to do with it. It was the ratings!

It is true 940 did not have awesome numbers. These are the ratings for 2007 and 2008. WIOD is 610, and WINZ is 940. As you can see, WIOD did have better numbers for both years. Of course, WIOD shows were also better promoted. Clear Channel also owns a bunch of billboards, and when nobody wants to rent the space the company puts up an ad for a radio show. Uusually on WIOD. But be this as it may, WIOD had better numbers. In 2007 WIOD ranked 12 overall and WINZ ranked 23 overall. But as far as numbers go, in 2007 WIOD had a high of 3.2 VS WINZ high of 1.7. The top FM station had a 6.4 share.

WQAM, the highest rated sports station, ranked 22nd in 2007. And the highest rated show on WQAM is Neil Rogers - which is not a sports show. Neil is the last truly local show in the market that is in English.

In 2008, there was not a lot of difference in the trends.

The other sports format stations do not even register on the ratings. They are ranked below 25th place. The number 2 sports station has less than half the audience of WQAM. And there are two more sports stations under that.

NO audience. WQAM is the only sports station that this market needs. It is the only sports station that has any audience.

Which brings up the question - and the point of this long pointless post.

Why change formats? It could not possibly just be numbers. WINZ with the progressive talk shows was already doing as well as WQAM - the number 1 sports station in the market. WINZ was kicking the ass of the other three sports stations. There is no way possible that changing the format to sports is going to see better ratings for WINZ.

So then - why?

If you ask me, it was not just a business decision. If it were, I would expect that the format change would be to something that would have a hope of producing much better numbers. Since WIOD already carries the right wing stuff, it would not make sense for WINZ to just adopt this format.

But switching from a format that at least got you in the top 25 to a format that will NOT be in the top 25 seems like either a terrible business decision - or one that was politically motivated.

WINZ will now air the Fox Sports syndicated stuff. That nobody will listen to. Nobody. Ratings will drop.

Now I do not think this is going to be a surprise to Clear Channel and station management. So this leaves only one option.

It was political. Clear Channel will syndicate more Fox stuff, giving more money to Rupert Murdoch. And to do so, they will dump the progressive format in South Florida.

EDITORS NOTE

I really do not care. I was not a die hard follower of WINZ. I would occasionally tune in from time to time just to hear what was being said - providing I did not want to listen to music instead. But the format change did get me to thinking of what the reason behind it was. Not being able to make sense of a format that would at least get you a 1.5 or 2.0 share would be dumped for a format that almost guarantees a 0.5 share (or lower) - I had to assume it was a political move by the parent company. Fox sports??? As opposed to any other sports network?? Seems a little strange to me.

Ode To The Asshole At Publix

2009-05-07T02:32:00.002-04:00

Who took one bottle of Sierra Nevada from the 6 pack.

Why would you do this? Single beer bottles are NOT bar coded. You can not just buy one. You have to buy all 6, or not buy any. That is how it works.

But no - you had to take one. I hope you choked on it. I hope the bottle cap became firmly lodged in your trachea - blocking airflow forever.

Because you see - once you removed the one bottle the six pack became a five pack. Nobody buys five packs. NOBODY. The store can not just charge me for five beers, and they will not sell me the five for the price of six.

What on Earth were you thinking? You just wanted one? Why? Are you such a pussy that you were afraid of the beer?

You really should just stick with Miller Lite.

I went to the store, to forage for dinner. And get some beer. I was thinking "some Sierra Nevada Pale Ale will be good right now". So I go to the beer isle and all I can find is one five pack.

Needless to say, I was less than amused.

If you are the mega douche bag responsible for the beer injustice at the Publix located on Miller Drive and SW 94th Ave - you suck. I hope you stub the shit out of your toe or something.

I had to go with the Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Not a bad beer really. I like the stuff. But what I really wanted was the Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

Awards

2009-05-06T02:07:00.002-04:00

It seems I have won an award. I have no idea what I could possibly have done for it.

Truth be told, all I do is have a couple of shots of rum and then start typing. Only sometimes I do not feel like having any rum, and other times I find the rum bottle already empty.

But for whatever it is worth, here is the award. It is from Utah Savage.

Now this is not just an award you get, stuff in the sidebar, and forget about. OH NO! It is one of those awards you are supposed to pawn off on someone else. Just like you do with the flu when you work in an office.

Spread it.

In theory, if everyone spreads this award EVERYONE will get it. Which to be honest, I do not understand. What is the point in an award if everyone else gets it too?

But be that as it may, I am supposed to pick 15 other people to pass this off onto. Of course I am fairly lazy. And I do not read 15 blogs. And judging by my comments, 15 people do not read this blog anymore.

So I pick cheesemeister / Lily Strange and all the blogs she keeps track of. I think I can get all 15 awards pawned off in one shot that way. And if not - well at least I tried! Can't say I did not put any effort into this! You can say I put minimal effort into it. That would be fair.

Oh yea, if you want it you can have it too. Don't want to leave anyone out after all!

I got Photoshop to work with Vista. A friend of mine who uses Photoshop all the time said that it would not work. Maybe this was the case with earlier versions of Vista, but it installed just fine with the version I am running.

I did not try very hard with this creation, but here it is.

Proof photoshop does work in Vista. And also of Marvin The Martian's true identity. His real name is Marvin Ray-Gun.

Get it? Ray-Gun? I slay myself. Sit down comedy at its finest.

Crazy Email

2009-05-05T01:52:00.002-04:00

I get all sorts of email. Most people do not know this, but I have 5 or 6 email accounts. I do not check them all frequently. I have one account that forwards to my phone, and another I check on a regular basis - but the others are pretty much just there to catch the spam.

One account is used just for political shit. I sign up for various bullshit "action alert" stuff. Moveon.org has this address. And so does the RNC. I also got email from both candidates for the last election cycle. I did not read most of it, but I could have if I wanted to.

It is just that I did not want to.

But every so often I get a real gem. Something that stands out. A subject line that says "do not just delete me without reading it".

Like this one, from the RNC. Outrage over Arlen Specter. I just had to open that one. I was down for some good old fashioned outrage. So in case you did not get the email - here it is!!

"Dear Lazy,

I hope Arlen Specter's party change outrages you. It should for two reasons:

First - Specter claimed it was philosophical--and pointed his finger of blame at
Republicans all over America for his defection to the Democrats. He told us all to
go jump in the lake today.

I'm sorry, but I don't believe a word he said."

OK so far I get it. I should be outraged because Specter switched parties. Well as one who does not really care much about parties (unless there are hot chicks at them) I could care less if Specter changed parties. None of my business really. He did not tell me to jump in a lake. He told what is left of the Pennsylvania Republican primary voters - who do not like him anyway - to jump in a lake. I live in Florida. Specter is not even my senator.

And it seems to me that his reasons were philosophical. The man said so himself. Specter has a rather moderate voting record. I can respect that. I think most people are actually moderate. In the middle. Leaning one way on some issues, and another way on other issues. Maybe you support stem cell research, and also believe in the right to own guns. How about that? Is it possible??

Well no. Not if you want to be Republican.

Bottom line is that Specter was chased out of the party. No longer welcome. Get out. How dare you disagree with one issue! So who else is there to point the finger at? Me? I do not even live in the man's state! No, the finger of blame is pointing at the party. The party that turned too far to the right for most Americans. The party that continues down that path - even in spite of dropping poll numbers.

And there is no room for moderates. There is no room for people in the middle. There is only room for those who agree 100% with everything being said on Fox.

"Arlen Specter committed a purely political and self-serving act today. He simply
believes he has a better chance of saving his political hide and his job as a
Democrat. He loves the title of Senator more than he loves the party--and the
principles--that elected him and nurtured him."

This may be true. It was purely political. Political parties are purely political. And Specter may just win reelection as a Democrat. You see, the Democrat primary pool in PA has a lot of moderates in it. A lot of people switched parties for the last election. They had enough. But that does not mean all those who changed parties are going to be hard to the left. They will not be. They just realized that they did not fit in with the "base" and were pushed out.

And really - what is wrong with liking the title of "senator" more than your party affiliation? Is your job as Senator not representing the people - not the party? So if the people in your state want something, it is your job to vote for it.

Or am I crazy?

"Second--and more importantly--Arlen Specter handed Barack Obama and his band of radical leftists nearly absolute power in the United States Senate. In leaving the Republican Party--and joining the Democrats--he absolutely undercut Republicans' efforts to slow down Obama's radical agenda through the threat of filibuster."

And now we get to the good part! And if this does not prove my point (there is no room for moderates in the Republican Party anymore) nothing will. Because Specter changed a single letter in his title (Senator R-PA to Senator D-PA) he is now.......

A radical leftist. Specter is Che Guevara reincarnated. If you are not a Republican - you must be a radical leftist. Specter - the moderate - will hand power over to the "radical left" -0 giving them absolute power.

Now of course this is not true. Specter is still a moderate. So are many democrats in the house and senate.

And what is so "radical" about Obama's agenda? I do not see it. Now I know the RNC and talk radio sources like to say it is "radical" - but is it? And if so - what is radical? Name one thing.

If any "radical" policies are proposed, we can count on the moderates to vote no. This is what moderates do. They vote no on crazy shit. This is why there is no room on the Republican side for them - the party platform is too far to the right. So why the hell would they suddenly go for a platform too far to the left?

They will not. It is just bullshit. Nothing more, nothing less.

"Facing defeat in Pennsylvania's 2010 Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record, and an end to his 30 year career in the U.S. Senate, he has peddled his services--and his vote--to the leftist Obama Democrats who aim to remake America with their leftist plan."

Have you ever seen a paragraph that used the word "leftist" so much? And what "left wing" voting record are they talking about here? One vote? Voting yes for the recovery plan? That suddenly makes him "left wing"? What about his other 30 years of votes? Do they no longer count? I guess not! He is now "left wing". A radical. A far leftist.

And he has handed his vote over to the radical left. All because he disagreed with the party on ONE issue. One. Not 10. Not 1,000. One. One single vote.

As recently as April 9th, Senator Specter said he would run in the Pennsylvania primary next year as a Republican. Why the sudden change of heart? Clearly, this was an act based on political expediency by a craven politician desperate to keep his Washington power base -- not the act of a statesman."

Once again - I do not agree. A statesman is supposed to represent ALL of the people they represent. If you are a senator - this means the whole state. Not the base of your party - unless the base of your party happens to be the majority. If the base is going to reject him in a highly partisan primary, then why not change parties? Why not switch to the more moderate party? Let the primary voters of that party decide who they want - then run in the general election. Or run as an independent. If you truly represent the people of your state, you will win the general election.

His defection to the Democrat Party puts the Democrats in an almost unstoppable position to pass Obama's destructive agenda of income redistribution, health care nationalization, and a massive expansion of entitlements.

Arlen Specter has put his loyalty to his own political career above his duty to his
state and nation."

OK OK got it. Far left voting record, going to pass the destructive agenda, automatic vote, and so on. Even if he is a moderate, usually leaning to the right on most issues. OK.

You and I have a choice. Some will use Specter's defection as an excuse to fold the tent and give up. I believe that you are not one of those people. When Benedict Arnold defected to the British, George Washington didn't fold the tent and give up either.

He grit his teeth more determined than ever to succeed. That's what I'm asking you
to do today."

Uhhh...so now the RNC is George Washington? Specter betrayed his nation to a foreign power? Other Americans are the British?

Really? Is this not just a little tiny bit of a stretch here?

Join me in this fight by making a secure online contribution of $25, $50, $100, $500 or $1,000 right now to build our army of supporters and defeat Democrat candidates like Arlen Specter in next year's elections.

Stand with me. I need your support today.

Sincerely,

Michael Steele
Chairman, Republican National Committee"

And now we get to the real reason! Send us money! To defeat the far left and people like Specter.

Mr Steele - you need more than my support, which as someone closer to the center I can not give you anyway. You need to get a grip here. I know you have nothing else to go on, but that is not my fault. I did not decide to label anything I do not agree with as "the far left". Now I may not know everything about politics - but I do know that Specter is NOT the "radical left". You, and people who think like you, helped push me away from supporting any Republican long ago. You see, I did not agree 100% with everything. I happened to disagree on some issues. most notably, the "wedge" issues. So I was part of the "far left" too. A radical. Like Specter.

P.S. Lazy, we need to respond to Senator Specter's decision to join President Obama's efforts to change America into a European Welfare State. Please help our Party move forward by making a secure online contribution of $25, $50, $100, $500 or $1,000 to give our Republican leaders & candidates the political muscle they need to resist the Obama-Pelosi-Specter agenda. Thank you."

Another pitch for money huh? You just made a pitch a paragraph ago.

And I like how it is now the "Obama-Pelosi-Specter agenda. What happened to Harry Reed? I thought it was "Pelosi-Reed". But now it is "Pelosi-Specter".

And of course, another pitch for money. Just in case I missed the first one.

Simply amazing. If you do not agree 100% with EVERYTHING the base of the Republican party (as heard on talk radio) says - you are a far left radical. A communist. Or at best, a socialist.

This is why the Republican party is losing in the polls. People are sick and tired of hearing about how they are "far left" just because they happen to not agree on even one issue.

Moderates have nowhere else to go. As the base turns harder and harder to the right - candidates that hope to win a primary will have to adopt harder and harder right wing views.

Moderates are unlikely to do so - meaning they could lose in a Republican primary.

And if by chance they win the primary - if their hard right positions are not what the majority in their state want - they will lose the general election.

One of two things will happen. The moderates left in the party will have to take it back, then clean house. Make the party more inclusive.

Or else the party will have fewer and fewer seats.

If I could pick one of the two - I would pick the more moderate party option. It would keep the Democratic party from swinging too far to the left, as moderates on the Democrat side would also have someplace to go if the day ever comes when their views are not welcome. But right now the Democrat party is looking more like the party that WANTS the moderates.

Summer Is Here

2009-05-04T00:19:00.002-04:00

Yes, summer has invaded.

Now I know what you must be thinking. How the hell can I tell when summer is here? It is not like I have indicators like 10 feet of snow and shit to tell me winter is here. The leaves never change colors - unless there is a severe drought. And by the time there is a hurricane somewhere - summer has been around for months.

So how do I know?

The simple answer is the fish finder tells me. It measures the water surface temperature.

But I do not always have advanced sonar technology with me. Or a thermometer. Such was the case last weekend. The vessel I took out lacks advanced electronics.

So I had to just jump in. The swimming area picked out is closed to the Waverunner - so I had to leave it tied up and hitch a ride on another boat. Once at the sandbar there was just one thing to do.

Test the water temperature by jumping in.

The water will get warmer. But as it is right now it is not exactly "cold". One can jump in and there is no shock to the system. No moment of clarity where one realizes "shit, this water is cold".

I no longer require the shorty wetsuit when riding the Waverunner.

I was able to just do what I always do when swimming. Toss a life ring attached to a rope overboard. Then you stick one leg through the hole in the life ring. The ring will keep you floating without you needing to expend any energy. The rope keeps the current from taking you too far away.

Safely floating and attached to the boat - the swimmer is now free to drift around while drinking beer.

By the way - beer cans that are not open float. I suppose with enough unopened beer cans one could construct a raft.

This summer I hereby pledge, before the Gods of the sea, that I will obtain and use one of these devices. So the cold beverages can float nearby.

H1N1 Is Here

2009-05-02T03:57:00.002-04:00

I figured this would happen.

The first confirmed H1N1 case in south Florida. She is a high school senior at Hallandale High School. She is 17.

No big deal. The doctors gave her some anti viral flu medicine. The school is closed till Thursday while it is being decontaminated. I do not know if the place has to be decontaminated, but they are doing it anyway. Probably just to make people feel better.

And lets not fool ourselves here - the air conditioning units of ALL schools could probably use some decontamination.

But you know what did not happen? A mass outbreak of students and faculty of the school.

So I am not really worried about this whole thing. So far, there have been only 17 confirmed deaths. While this still means 17 people, the common flu kills some 30,000 per year just in the USA. Thousands are suspected of having contracted the bug by the way.

But even so, I feel it is time to take some proactive action. People are generally not found out on the water. At least not in the numbers they are found on land. And it is pretty easy to stay away from people on the water.

So Ill be out on the water. For part of the time. I actually have a thing to go to. Some kind of picnic. By the water.

I plan to arrive by sea.

Do All Posts Really Need A Title?

2009-05-01T03:55:00.003-04:00

I can see not many people were impressed by the video of the home built fully automatic lawn mower.

I was impressed. I think that video could change my life forever. Lawn mowing sounds a lot more appealing if all I have to do is hang out under the tree with a beer while I watch my home built robot go around in circles.

Then I can laugh at the neighbors. They all said it could not be done. That I could not build an automatic lawn mowing robot. It was impossible! A fool's errand.

Ill show them. Ill show them all.

Or not. The yard is really not that big. And there is crap in the yard that will make building the contraption more trouble than it is worth. With the trees and bird bath and shit - there is no place for the center pole. The circles would have to be pretty small.

So maybe it would not save any labor at all. It might actually require more labor.

And now....VISTA NEWS!!!!!!

Adobe Photoshop 7.0 runs under Vista. This is good news.

In fact, so far Vista seems to be working better than expected. I still can not seem to get the wireless printer to connect, but other than that it has been crash free.