I see the Sanibel Island article is a popular topic. Get your atlas, it is a 15 mile long island off the Florida west coast with no parking. The noticeable thing is the vegetation, it is similar to equatorial forests. The island is worth a drive, although it is hard to find a place to see the ocean, in this case the Gulf of Mexico. Be prepared to see the ugly Malleleuca and time-sharing condo infestations everywhere.
What I found amusing was that we did not see any chain restaurants. I recall years ago reading an article about an island that forbade fast food joints to give the mom and pop operations a toehold. We did not see the whole downtown, since we took the scenic route, but I suspect this may be the island. Who was it that once said a policy that accomplishes the opposite of what it intended is to be considered successful? Anyway, we did not see any Burger Kings or Dairy Queens. The net effect is that the so-called mom and pop restaurants are soon owned by millionaires by charging huge prices for the same plastic food and plastic furniture. New startups are discouraged by the huge capital requirements, and mom amd pop soon start franchising elsewhere from their protected home base.
I found the restaurant names amusing. Would you eat lobster at “Gasparilla’s Grill”? How about the “Blue Giraffe” (head and shoulders above the rest), or “Island Cow” (un-herd of low prices)? A few places advertised live music, but the definition of “live music” in Florida is truly long-suffering. Your first clue is when a girl who cannot sing sounds like she is doing ABBA harmonies with a philharmonic and who hates guitars because they block the view.
Wallace had plenty of time to scout the territory, and I must say that he has a far more patient approach with people than I. He will talk to people about where they are from and whether they have any children, two topics guaranteed to send me packing in the other direction. I’ve known my best friends for twenty-plus years without ever discussing such things. My kind of people just never get bored enough to talk such talk.
Note Wallace, who thinks it is him watching the twelve-foot alligator. Don’t worry, for there is no danger. Alligators are extremely docile animals who are slow to anger. They never exist where there is a shortage of food and humans are not on their diet. Wallace is in less danger of losing important components than he would be talking to a five-foot blonde Miami divorcee.I got a call-out to a car lot. Sure enough, they bought several of those accounting packages on sale and could not get them to work right. Neither could I, which probably explains why they are on sale. This one was called MS Professional Accounting. There was no documentation or Internet help. It is a waste of money because there is no intuitive way to get it to print reports the way you want them. Instead, you select from a menu designed by bookkeeping retards who are worse at practical design.
The on-line Professional Accounting home page was an abortion. You have to sign up before you can use it, even if you are just helping out somebody else. As was the case here. They want your life history before they will even let you see the FAQ. It was worse than no help at all, for they were just helping themselves. To your personal and private information.
In the end, what appears to be the solution is a database to keep track of the inventory. They sell cars all over the world and some of those cars are already there. For example, they sold a car in Sweden. Ah, the wonders of a computerized office. Many of their for sale items are in the Dominican Republic. I’ll design the database and show them how to make it work, with the understanding if they want fancy, it will cost considerably more.Here is a picture that got missed on my report of Everglades City. You have to look closely, but the house is built on stilts. My understanding is that due to flooding this is a building code. The carport and non-living areas are on the first floor, but all else is on the upper platform. This code must be recent as the older buildings are on ground level.
I got to thinking about Tamiami Trail. You know, it is an existing thoroughfare and with a smidgen of imagination, I see that the area south of Naples is an ideal candidate for a rapid transit system into Miami. Build a high-speed metro along the levee, and you have a perfect run. No useless stops in bad neighborhoods where nobody works anyway that make the jittery commuters wish they had not bothered.
It used to take me 22 minutes just to drive from Hialeah to Doral (4 miles). At a cannonball 140 mph, the 58 mile Naples-Miami would be over in under 25 minutes, far bettering any freeway system South Florida has ever come up with. Add on another 10 minutes because Florida will add choke points where fat ladies, beggars and wheelchairs can block the exits, and you still come out ahead.
The downside is Florida corruption would make the fare prohibitive and the fact that no matter where the line terminated in Miami, it will be difficult to get anywhere else from there. Nor would the city provide a safe place to leave your vehicle overnight. The savings in time ensures my idea has merit anyway. The residents of Marco Island would dynamite their causeway.
The only other place I’ve seen buildings built up on posts was in Inuvik, in Canada. The anticipated floods must be sluggish because anything carried along by even a small current will easily smash through those spindly posts. Then again, considering the location of Everglades City, maybe the whole idea was purely to improve the view.
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