One year ago today: December 23, 2016, with striking accuracy.
Five years ago today: December 23, 2012, five habits of good bloggists.
Nine years ago today: December 23, 2008, boy, was I wrong.
Random years ago today: December 23, 2007, early Jimbos gig.
What do you want to do today? Nearly unlimited budget but we’ve got to get back here by six. Cross off the first five ideas, they’ve all closed early for Xmas. And there is no place on the Amtrak schedule for just a day trip. Well, there is Tampa, but that would mean leaving the car parked at the station and there must be a reason nobody ever parks at the Lakeland station, even during the day. Let’s try applying a little logic to the situation. We observe Christmas but do not celebrate it. So what have we?
Yep, I made it to Davenport, an adventure in itself. I took the scenic route from memory, it’s an excellent motorcycle route and I sure missed the sidecar. Dang, I took a bunch of pictures but the dash camera recorded over them when I parked with it on. I had a heck of a time finding Davenport, however, because the business and malls are many miles from the old downtown. The highway soaked up everything from the old town and moved it out to the road to Orlando. I was wondering why the town had no shopping or restaurants. Nothing.
I have an instinct for finding my way in this instance, so I drove out of town on a road that seemed a bit nicer than the rest. Mile after mile of nothing, with Davenport long back over the horizon. Then bam, I hit good old Highway 27. That highway that gives you the impression you can drive right down central Florida on it. Well, you could, provided you have all the time in the world. Without GPS, you will get lost. That’s how I found Davenport back in 2012. On my first motorcycle camper trip, I got stranded there in a rainstorm and crashed overnight at the Denny’s.
Here’s a scan of your basic homemade sparkler. It works by generating a gas that sparkles because of the baking powder. This was the only type of reading that interested me on this trip. The bookstore is thirty miles from here, but in perspective, it is cheaper and faster to get there than to the place near my old digs. That was 11 miles through the city and there are no easy drives in south Florida. Every moment is white-knuckle. Again, the state has the same driving laws, but they are rarely enforced on third-world drivers. If you are used to the road courtesies of Texas, you won’t find any such in Florida. There is always somebody tailgating you.
Frostproof is not that far from here, but not knowing about that auto business at first got me thinking I was in the land that time forgot. I saw greasers roaring around in souped-up 1960 cars. It made sense when I saw this place. The whole area is full of little towns five and ten miles apart. But the supporting industry is agriculture. It can’t support that many towns and overlapping services, so most of them are dying. Like Texas, a single larger town around every thirty miles begins the thrive and the rest begin a slow decline.
If you go through the area and see an inordinate number of trailer parks, they are likely housing for migrant workers. That’s one rough life, it’s no wonder Americans don’t want to do it. But they would if it paid enough, so call it a paradox. There is also evidence of how badly the citrus blight has shriveled up thousands of trees. But new plantations are appearing, California style, with trees that seem cloned. And acres of trees that are cut flat-topped so all the fruit is at ladder height.
Anti-bird spikes.
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Davenport continues to keep a good reputation. Out on the highway, I passed more and more malls and shopping districts, when I finally decided to just turn around. I got southbound for a few hundred yards and found a Dunkin. Needing my morning coffee, as it was now close to noon, I grabbed the crossword and guess what? The staff gave me the coffee and donuts for free. Well, the lady who was in charge did, she said she just plain liked me when I walked in. Very nice but not my type. And I was right across the road from the book store. It’s a kind of dumb luck I’ve always had in these situations. It took nearly a half-hour to get there in the last minute Xmas traffic.
I skimmed a few articles and wound up buying an $8 magazine. I was looking for the 2018 writer’s guide, you know, kind of my fantasy of becoming a real author, real as on paper. Now that I have the time I’d like to look closer at some of the writing contests. There is so much bad writing out there. But I could not find the guide, so I browsed for a few hours. There was one paragraph I looked at that I hope does not come true. Follow along here, you know how a broiled steak has the char marks from the grill? Imagine some day soon you go for a steak, and somebody has used a laser to burn onto the meat some real estate agent’s business card. Please, no.
It’s another supersonic transport which addresses the problem of sonic boom. The description says the design of the fuselage, see the long pointed nose, will reduce the noise to a loud thump. Don’t worry, somebody will complain about that as well. I still question the need for “executives” to incur the expense of getting everywhere in a hurry. I’ve been to enough meetings to know that most champions of industry could get the damn job done by telephone. They are just not that impressive enough that they have to always show up in person. That’s caused by self-infatuation.
ADDENDUM
I see one of the oldest computer fake outs is making the rounds again. It seems they cycle back every ten years. That’s the one where you take a screen shot and set it as wallpaper. The next guy supposedly will go bonkers wondering why the icons don’t work. That was, you know, the trick I was using that caused Craigslist to completely revamp their code. Even after that, I used to just publish 50 blank pages or change the foreground and background colors to the same. If you wonder why in rants & raves most of the html commands no longer work, now you know I had a hand in causing it. I’ve already told you what I had against Craigslist.
There was one trick I used a lot, I think it might still work. I used different computers at my Internet shop to figure out how many flags were needed to kill a post (it was usually eight). Then, I would go to a different computer (Craigslist can tell) and flag the offending post to that number minus one. Then publish a post saying I had empowered the user to kill a post with one flag. The first person who tried it would, of course, succeed. And that is why there used to be so few “Christian rock” ads in the musicians section.
[Author’s note: I have a low tolerance for the whole Christian rock thing. I suggest they chose rock and ignored blues or reggae just to be as annoying as possible. Well, I got a flood of comments saying that the reason was those other types of music were full of weed smokers and bad people. I guess they’d never heard of sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll. Anyway, it’s a super weak argument because it doesn’t explain why there is also a complete lack of “Christian” marching and polka bands.
One reply said it was just a tag, like having a Christian auto mechanic. It only meant, they said, that he didn’t do drugs and always showed up for work on time. Really? Anyway, I told him back that I could not care less if my mechanic was a Christian, but I’d dump him fast if he mentioned it every time he twirled a wrench. So it was with the music I listen to.]
I didn’t get a photo, but in Haines City I passed a place called the “Blessing and Tire Shop”. Today’s car tour also included Dundee, Hamilton Lake, Hillcrest Heights, and Waverly. They appear nice places to live but only once you’ve decided to really settle down. Buying this cabin was partially to have a base to look around the center of the state, so this trip was a spin-off of that. It was a perfect winter day for it and I was gone eight hours. It still gets as cold as I care for even this far north.
Last Laugh
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