More inflation. This morning I bought a newspaper, a coffee and a donut and that came to $4.29. Told ya this was coming. Let the eggheads say inflation is 2%, the fact is the prices of what real people buy has nearly doubled in three years. That has got to hurt. Only the most conservative spenders can keep pace with that kind of change and even then by doing without. The only place left with a dollar coffee (regular pricing) is Burger King.
But I have the scooter. I took the back roads up to Kolb Nature Center, always a good bet for free entertainment. The locals keep voting huge bond issues to keep the place in operation, then never go there. My kind of joint. Here is the lookout at the end of a long walk across the mangrove coastal swamp as shown in the foreground. There are few natural sandy beaches inland. The sand bars that lie off the coast are a better bet, though much of that sand is imported.[Author’s note: I have an ulterior motive to go to places like the Nature Center. I am a regular ready of women’s articles on where to meet men. I go there to get met. It is not like I’m meeting the women and getting rejected. I am very good at picking up women in museums, art shows, nature walks and such, but I can’t do much if there are no women present in the first place. I have yet to find a club, beach, or book store in Florida where single reasonably good-looking women congregate. And hey, I get around.]
The center was open but nobody around had a calendar of upcoming events, so check with me later on that. Instead, I took more side roads up past Port Everglades, then over to Ft. Lauderdale beach. One street took me past some super cabins or fishing shacks now surrounded by the city. They were old and comfortable looking and I never knew they were there. I’ll keep an eye on them.
I found the beaches mainly empty, major bad sign. By Sunrise, I turned west and went to the Flea Market. They have the butane canisters at $2 each, the lowest price in town. There was an exhibit of Porches, a car I don’t find all that attractive, nor do they look like they’d float over a Florida pothole. That’s it for a cheap day, without the scooter I could not have made the trip.
The mileage today was 56 as I took the leisurely routes. I stopped at Borders for an hour, part of which was reviewing the e-reader prices. These devices have really dropped in price in two years. From $400 to $100, now some words of caution. There is no standardized format for the files. Note e-reader is the tablet, e-books are what gets displayed. When they hit $49 I’ll consider one. Right now there are too many formats and too many units are e-Ink (grey scale) only.
On the return trip, I ran out of gas. Relax, I was just ten blocks from the Shell and learned 1/8th of a tank on the fuel gauge really means empty. I ran into guitar Eddie, who has some kind of book he’s written about bayou life in the 1930’s. His family goes back that far so he has a lot of inside info. He’s even got a cookbook from the pilgrim days. I could be wrong but he’s got to understand writing a book, even a small booklet, is a major undertaking.
Trying to convert my Coleman demonstrates I have one of the ancient models. Back to the shop, as I cannot even loosen the brass fittings. They are in new condition, they are just on there that tight and one doesn’t mess with brass. Dang, the temperature is dropping again and I wanted to get this done. The humidity is still over 80 so this will be a Florida blizzard. Plus, one of the awning fell down last night and I have to get Dave-O over here to help lift it. This is the type of repair that costs $600 if you try to get it done from thousands of miles away. (A reminder to Wallace of how lucky he is to have a responsible person at this end, even if he screws up royally.)
Today’s trivia. There is no such thing as a brontosaur. Sorry all the kids who spent your allowance on the plastic models. First of all, all dinosaurs lived on land. The big fish things you see were not dinosaurs. Second, the skull placed on the original brontosaurus skeleton was found miles away and was from a different animal. That’s a little rough news for some, so here is something softer. Next time you are held up by a train, count the number of “clickety-clacks” in 28 seconds. The answer will give you the speed of the train in miles per hour.
There is something walking on the roof at night and I can’t catch it in the act. It weighs around twenty pounds and has a shuffle that makes it sound like it walks on two legs. Probably a possum because it has to shimmy up one of the side palm trees. It does not spook easy and has plenty of time to disappear once it hears me open the side door walk outside. Listen for it between dark and 11:00 PM.
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