June 29, 2014

Yesteryear
One year ago today: June 29, 2013, the Gulf.
Five years ago today: June 29, 2009, one-sixth whiskey.
Ten years ago today: June 29, 2004, Chevs in Egypt.

           It was 101° in the Florida room when I got back from breakfast this morning. (There’s something in the addendum I didn’t want to mention here, be sure to read it.) It was still morning when I hopped the train (Tri-Rail) and rode up to West Palm Beach. That was this month’s trip out of town. I don’t count Miami as that is a frequent destination less than 40 miles away. I almost took the sidecar but it looked like rain. Good move, said this scenery outside the passenger car window. [Photos may be out of order for visual effect.]

           This is your travel blog for June 2014, so listen up and I’ll tell you why I’ve wanted to move to West Palm for so many years now. But you don’t just hop the train. You have to endure the Florida stations, where the northbound trains use the east side rails and the southbound use the west side. Except when they don’t and unless the Amtrak is coming through. So be sure to stand there and stare at the overhead monitor, because they might announce any changes moments before your train arrives and you have to run like hell to the other platform.

           West Palm is my kind of neighborhood and it would be the nearest large city to where I’d like to settle down (Boynton Beach). It is my kind of place, meaning the general type of people who inhabit such cities compared to cities like Miami. Yes, the difference is immediate. The café sidewalk furniture isn’t chained down, the condiments are on the tables, the staff speaks English, you don’t need a key for the washroom, and nobody locks their bikes. The trolley around town is free and runs every fifteen minutes. And it is a neat and clean trolley with wooden seats and traditional styling.

           I used the one hour ride north to read up on my DC motors and stare out the window. For all the women who say they like these quiet times and company, really, there were none on this perfectly safe train nor the trolley. I got off on the corner of Olive and Clematis and did the Yuppie thing. I went to Starbucks. But only because it was on the bus line.

           Other than that, I counted eleven open coffee shops, fourteen bars, an art gallery, and all doing a booming business of not exactly young people, but forty-ish anyway. Packed full, I mean, with waiting lines outside. Back near Miami, the only coffee you’ll get on a Sunday is the wait-forever Starbucks or a Dunkin Donuts, speak up you old farts, we can’t hear you from the parking lot. Up in West Palm, they have a Dunkin Donuts right inside the library. This excursion cost me $8.25 out of pocket. Two way ticket, $5.00; Starbuck’s coffee, $2.00; tip on the trolley, $1.00; and a used June magazine at the library rack, 25¢.
           Incidentally, I don’t know how the donut shop got into the library, but from the location, it would seem more like the library rented the space around the pre-existing business. Still, the local libraries that are cutting back on hours should take a lesson from Barnes & Noble in their heyday. People went there to read and have coffee. Most libraries, including the local circle, have prime space they could devote to a reading room with comfortable chairs.

           Alas, West Palm isn’t cheap. But I would not actually live there. Don’t misread what I’m saying. I can afford to live just about anywhere—but at the cost of my freedom and lifestyle. I could plow 60% of my income into a place to live, but I’d never have another holiday. Forget movies. Forget coming and going as I please. Hey, didn’t I just describe other people who live like that? You bet, so don’t be thinking everyone who lives in a fancier neighborhood than me is richer or happier. It don’t work that way.

           I’m reminded of this lady I dated back in the 90s who also liked the good side of town, but with a difference. She would stay home, a condo on the fringe of the area, saving her pennies to go there on weekends. She could not understand that I was saving up to move there, and until then, yes, I’ll stick within my means. What’s to be gained by going there on weekends and playing middle class? But then again, she likely got picked off by some cowboy pulling the same stunt.

           In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s what happened to her. We had several discussions on the topic. I think she finally got her tush hustled by some big talker. Because at one point in 2004, she disappeared. Probably too ashamed to show her face, if you ask me.
           As you see, I had plenty of time to form opinions. But for me that is part of the draw of long-distance travel. It clears the baffles of the barnacle of junk and civilization that clog up the veins. And getting stuck in a coffee shop during a rainstorm doesn’t bother me, it is just more free time. Ask me any question about DC (direct current) motors now. I found out we’ve been collecting the wrong ones. These are the least efficient, most difficult to wire, and most difficult to program. But I’m used to them, so the rest seems a breeze. (For the logic-minded, I had simple reversible motors. What should be used are stepper motors and servos. These are better for robotics, and provide a possible explanation why factory H-bridge circuits come in pairs.)

           By coincidence, I ran into Jag, my guitar player. He was on his way to Boca. We didn’t visit; I told him I had planned to study. The train goes through some industrial zones, or rather the zones sprang up around the railway and I got to thinking. If anybody is planning on ever invading the USA, they should first go on a tour of any fifty big junk yards. See what’s there. Those places are gold mines to the third world. American scrapyards alone could swamp the economies of most nations. There’s a hundred years of copper, steel, aluminum, and tin than 90% of the other countries could mine, even if they had the mines.

           And yes, that includes Canada. Their biggest mine, which extracts nickel, is the chance result of a lucky hit by a huge meteor two billion years back. Technically known as an astrobleme, it is the second largest known, behind another in South Africa. It is larger than the Yucatan impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. That’s your trivia for today. Personally, I think Lake Okeechobee is a crater and they’ll “discover” this someday and take the credit.
           Here’s vase, around two feet tall. It is actually slices of a vase, if you look closely. It caught my eye because this “slicing” process, on a far more minute scales, is what 3D scanners must do to map out a solid object for duplication. In West Palm, the downtown is just three blocks due east of the train depot, easy walking distance. The trolley serves the route, but even I took the stroll. I can walk a mile, it just hurts the lower back, that’s all.

ADDENDUM
           Blog rules again, I have to report anything new or unusual. Breakfast memory lane. At breakfast, I had a flashback. Years ago, when I had a new job, it was customary to take a longer than usual lunch break on Sunday. It was a known quiet day and I had pulled a shift with Sarah, who I did not know nor associate with. She worked in the next department over and took the repair calls, nothing to do with me. I admit I took an hour and a half that day—and she turned me in. Not because she didn’t like me. Not because she was the timekeeper. But because poor little Sarah “didn’t like to be in the building alone”. (She wasn’t alone, there were security guards on every floor.)
           Poor baby. Thirty-eight years old. Poor baby. Later, when I left that job, I heard she came by hard times. Really hard times. But I won’t tell you about that because some might mistakenly start feeling sorry for the bitch. I hope, however, that now when she has a personal problem, she’s learned to keep it personal. But really, she didn’t ever possess that much brains. Anyway, that was Sarah, paranoid, so she reports the other guy. Yep, Sarah, that’s real compassion for your fellow man. If you had a known psychological defect, what were you even doing at working at that department? It was not my job to babysit you. Like my family, Sarah is one of those permanent stragglers in the left-turn lane of life.

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