March 28, 2024

Yesteryear
One year ago today: March 28, 2023, the American babe.
Five years ago today: March 28, 2019, to boil rice???
Nine years ago today: March 28, 2015, typical.
Random years ago today: March 28, 2007, Remember Dr. Skrbc?

           Ribs for breakfast, you got to know how to feast before the County Fair. That’s how you save $50 per person. And, as we surmised, the even has become outrageously expensive, enough that even we put a brake on spending much money there. We know, entertainment is not the place to pinch pennies, but I am not spending $14 on a turkey leg. Good morning from the Broward County Fair, we arrived an hour early. If you want to park within walking distance of the entrance, that will cost you ten bucks. I will always associate valet parking with the ultimate degeneration of the millennial class. If you can’t make money, steal it.

           The ideal weather conditions means we walked the entire fair and hall the midway. The total fun parts take place in the afternoona and evenings and I can’t wait around. We toured mostly the science and awards area, a mere shadow of what it used to be. The records (of which this blog is the most accurate by a margin) are unclear when we first were here, but at least twenty years.

           I must be careful here, because JZ’s family are big supporters of the Fair and a lot of the long-term staff know them on sight. Plus a host of neices (there are no male offspring in the family) have won some of those prizes. So right now separate what I say from that situation. I’m saying the Fair standards have changed. Not only has the Fair become just the next stop in the full-time Fair circuit, the profit motive eclipses all else. When JZ mentioned one of his neices won first prize, it took us nearly ten minues to find tt hear the botton of entire billboards of other first prizes
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           Am I old enough to say, “in my day”? I think so, and in my day every did did not get a cash award. At my last Science Fair, the prize was $15 (about $150 today) and the school kept it. An exhibit that got me was the eight or so models of the Chichen Itza pyramid. Not one was to scale or showed any hint of study—and yes that is a fair comparison in an age where the information is available in a couple of key-presses. But I can tell you, if they held a “contest” like this in my day, I would have gotten my hands on most of the money prizes. JZ says there was a maximum of 15 entries, I old him that’s what pals are for.

           Gone were any working models. All was paper mache and popsicle sticks. We passed scores of displays that were nothing but single pictues, all computer printed. Zero-effort projects. Some were just scans and printouts of old magazine covers. Others were just prints of color photos using the monochrome pallet technique. By coincidence, we had watched a DVD using that y’day. I did not get a slab of fudge for Alaine, as I had no way to carry it through the fair for three more hours. We passed up most of the midway, it’s all the same old. The monster Ferris wheel with the air-conditioned booths was the only attraction this early in the day, but we balked at the $32 ticket price.

Picture of the day.
American homes in Montevideo.
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           You know what else is expensive. Wegovy, the latest diabetes treatment that has shown to cause weight loss. Claimed to trim off 8% of your weight in two months, you can buy the treatment for $1,439 per month. It uses the familiar injector systes as my cholesterol treatment all those years, so I am used to the regimen. Those would be, if I had to pay for them, $1,100 every four weeks, which strikes me as a bit too coincidental. Now back to the Fair.
The livestock show was just starting, so we saw at least a few moo-cows and a lot of chickens. I neither drink milk or eat beef, so to me they are very large and expensive pets. All the emus were tiny juveniles. A few of the roosters looked more like poodles this year. The sliced carrots at the petting zoo are now $5.00 for around twenty pieces.

           Yep, it is all about money these days. While I don’t expect anyone to work for free, I still tend to think of a Fair as something of a display rather than a market. It turned out a windy day so the climate was ideal for my old motorcycle route around the east side of Lake Okeechobee. It was memory lane. With the sidecar, you avoid the beaten track. In this case it really is the scenic route—as long as you accept that without using one of the few access points on the levee, you will never see the lake.

           Here is the traditional shot of the water town in Pahokee. It looks unpainted since the last time I was here, which was 2021 by car, but 2015 by motorcycle. Traffic was light most of the way. I did not stop at the lake at all, but the few views showed the shiny black water. Look that up on your own, a photo by me adds nothing to the tourist photos. I curved around the northeast of the lake at properties that must now be worth millions. North through the town, drove most of the trim Texas style. That’s with the A/C off and my arm out the window. Listening to my new audio book, “Signal” on the long empty stretches.

           Gave me time to think. Florida is the longest I’ve ever lived in one spot, though not always in the same house or town. I lived twenty years near Seattle, but never actually in Seattle. The northwest was paradise until the locals confused wanting to be left alone with doing nothing. The parasites found the place ripe for the pickings. Sigh. My trip back is postponed until this October, but after that I have no reason to ever go again unless I live until 2033. That will not happen.

           Arrriving back after dark, I stopped at the old club with my last forty bucks. That stayover in Tennessee set me back another $617. Cancel the planned trip for late April. Funny how the power of suggestion works. Because of the route I took here today, all my sensation of motorcycle riding returned for hours after I parked and went inside. Long distances with handlebars use more of your entire ribcage and my arms held the muscle memory. It felt like my arms wanted to float. It was so realistic, I felt a twinge of the slight pains associated with more than five hours a day travel time. Sigh.
           I need the entire day off tomorrow to chill. I’ll check things on Saturday, isn’t that something that I no longer trust the system to function properly more than 72 hours away. Unless you live in a tunnel, there is always some deadline or tax or document due. Get double wary, as nothing has gone wrong since I got back from Nashville.

ADDENDUM
           Driving around to find an open guest parking spot at JZ’s, I was two rats scurrying along. That means it is rat season and a bad one. This lasts a week at least and does not go in stages from the south like other vermin. They hit all of Florida at once and I wonder what I’ll find back at the cabin. You know how it is with older buildings. Wish me luck.
Last Laugh