In some ways 2004 was a rotten year. We were peppered with hurricanes and tropical storms, Cheryl had to stay home on bed rest due to an at risk pregnancy, and to top it off… Bush won a second term that November. Sitting around waiting for the 11am, 5pm, and 11pm updates from the National Hurricane Center brings back some memories – but not all bad though. A very pregnant Cheryl checks for an update on the trusty old eMac on September 5th, 2004. After a string of storms that September, Adam was born on the thirtieth. He was a [...]
The Sunshine State
The three day track still ain’t gospel, but…
I was just checking the county elevation maps – you know, just for kicks – no real reason. I noticed we’re eleven meters above sea level. Woo-hoo! We went out tonight to refresh our supply of batteries and non-perishibles, to try and beat the rush. If the track still put’s it here Tuesday in tomorrow’s forecasts, we’ll probably start to see the stores’ hurricane supplies thin out a bit tomorrow night.
Here we go again
There’s been a lot of talk in the news here recently that hurricane season was about to giddy-up. Sure enough, look what arrived in my inbox this afternoon: A few months ago Cheryl and I were talking about what it would be like to live in Vermont. I think I might be willing to trade severe tropical weather for a little cold air in the winter. I say a little like it’s a trifling matter. Fifty degrees, zero degrees… what’s the difference? You know, I’ve been thinking. It seemed like our little off-ramp on the hurricane superhighway was pretty quiet [...]
This is summer
This is another post that got lost in the shuffle, written sometime during the last week of June. My least favorite time of year is here, but a string of days with our typical (at one time) afternoon thunderstorms have my spirits up. It’s one aspect of summer in Florida I enjoy. It’s hot and sunny all morning, until the early afternoon. Then dark clouds start forming on the eastern horizon. We get blasted with a wicked downpour and window rattling thunder for twenty exhillarating minutes. You have to take the bad with the good though. The sun always comes [...]
We like Florida, really
I went a little shutter crazy this spring, snapping lots of shots of wonderfully sweet citrus blossoms and gardenias. It’s hard for me to like much about Florida in July (or August, September…), but looking through these pictures the other day reminded me there’s more to Florida than heat and humidity. I hear gardenias are supposed to be hard to grow, but they’ve been thriving in my yard with nothing but the occasional trim for ten years. They must really like being in the shade of my lime and tangerine trees. If you want to know where yard work falls [...]
Tuna waffle
I wonder if Charlie is feeling a little heat… The gov’s words, via St Pete Times: “Only when we are able to do so far enough from Florida’s coast, safe enough for our people, and clean enough for our beaches, should we even consider increasing our oil supply by drilling off Florida’s shore. Let me repeat: far enough, safe enough and clean enough.” But allow me to pile on a little. Later-day drilling doesn’t sound so clean, not with all the crap they put in the water when they start to drill (before they get the first whiff of crude). [...]
Oil on my mind – or – A well oiled rant
Sorry for the swearing… For the moment, let’s set aside the merits of offshore drilling. It seems to me like some “conservatives” (note the strategic use of my buddy, the quotation mark) bat around the words “offshore drilling” like it’s an act of patriotism; a shared sacrifice for a greater good. I think it’s code for building a bunch of oil platforms in Florida’s gulf waters. It’s a nice/neutral/GOP-speak way of saying “I wanna turn the west coast of Florida into a shit-hole, fuck-you very much.” As you can guess, I think I’ve got a lot to lose in this [...]
Light tuna in oil
McClatchy: Describing his position as evolving, Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said he now supports exploratory drilling for oil and gas off Florida’s coast because “Floridians are suffering…” The National Petroleum Council estimates the eastern Gulf might hold 36.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 5.2 billion barrels of oil. Others doubt those numbers but say there is no way to know without further exploration. Environmentalists warn, however, that Florida’s multibillion-dollar tourism industry, its fisheries industries and its soaring coastal real estate market are as much at risk as the environment if drilling anywhere in the Eastern Gulf is allowed. [...]
Have pity on your health insurance company
I mentioned a Republican representative from our state legislature the other day, the one I heard on the radio. I kind of suggested he might’ve said something that made me a little mad; “pissed off” may have been the words I used. Well, if you don’t want to read a rant on Florida politics, now is the time to bail. The Florida Legislature is in session for two months of every year, and has been in session for a little over a month now. That means I’ve been slowly grinding my teeth down to smooth, uniform stumps… for a little [...]
The post Beth wanted to write
A few weeks ago Beth begged me to set up a blog – or more precisely, begged me to let her set up one herself. She wanted write this post, but call me old fashioned, I think ten is still a wee bit young for a blog. I offered to post it here, if she wanted to write something for internet consumption, but that wasn’t good enough. It HAD to be her own blog. She HAD to do it on iWeb. She HAD to post it to her own web site. I suspect she wasn’t really that interested in the [...]
