Wallace is just getting his second wind in the Florida climate where I wake up feeling like a sack of potatoes. He could not even tempt me to a crib game at the Panera. I was in the shop all day working on the new system and ran into some snags. For example, a lot of the sites my people use require ActiveX controls, the vector used by the recent virus attacks. If I disable ActiveX I lose business. Things are definitely better now that Kinko’s has pricec themselves out of the market and the new Internet café downtown is charging $12 per hour. And apparently those hours are very inconvenient for working people.I drained what energy I had rewiring the area to accommodate more terminals and possibly to add back a cheap printer just to have something that works. Wallace was in by mid-afternoon with the results from taking his car in to find that rumbling noise. Yes, it was a tire problem and yes, it was getting bad enough to cause other damage. Turns out all four tires had a bald spot. This is the result of slamming on the brakes or the car being slid sideways. That explains why each day we kept feeling the problem in a different part of the car. There is no truth to the rumor that the real cause was Wallace doing a four-wheel slider into the last parking space at a girlie bar in eastern Montana.
My energy has disappeared in the heat. This is the longest hot spell in my memory. Wallace will be on his own until I can find some gumption. I advised him to teach somebody local how to play crib. Much as I enjoy the game, I cannot play it when I’m tired. I lose often enough as it is. This is a home evening for me. Maybe I’ll even watch that “Family Guy” series of DVDs I got for Christmas three years ago.
I even wrote a quick note to Jocelyne and Normand, our French-Canadien neighbors from Quebec. Inside I put pictures of the old place, now surrounded by a fence. There are other places that gouge, er, I mean, rent seasonal parking spaces to tourists. However, nothing available compares to the quiet beauty of the last place. As a reminder, although I call these places “trailers”, they are no such thing. They are very sturdily-built mobile homes with special hurricane anchors every twelve or twenty feet. There are so-called hurricane-proof houses in the vicinity that have a lot more to worry about in a storm. They will be flattened before this place is even even rocking.
I’ll repeat the fact that hurricane damage comes from wind, not water. A few people from New Orleans may disagree, but like, those people were living below sea level, know what I’m saying? Because there are actual trailers in most mobile home parks, I believe they contribute to flying debris and a battering ram is something these walls cannot take. The nearest trailer to us is over a half-block away. That is too close. Florida requires a residential grade framed structure or better to remain inhabitable in a high wind scenario.
Ha, I do tend to forget that I’ve changed my diet over the past years. I just don’t eat a lot of potatoes and beef any more. Wallace will begin to look like chicken and rice if I don’t find something else to cook, so he sprung for some steaks and sausages this time around. I like large meals, not heavy meals, so I think I’ll dig out those recipe books Sharon B. got for me back in 1995. Like me, Wallace doesn’t seem to eat a lot of cakes and pies, which are things I like to make. Same with wine. I like to make it but I never drink it. It doesn’t go well with things I consume, like grits and oatmeal.
Not another Batman movie. It looks like one more in the making. The near full-face mask makes it easier to change actors, but I think I have a new theory why Batman comes around so often. It is because he does not have any super powers. That cuts the special effects budget by several magnitudes. The fight scenes involve only human movements and any gadget in the old utility belt can be reproduced on a good iMac.
