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The enigmatic f-i-n recently visited the Everglades, and brought back a great travelogue. Taking a bike tour of the 'Glades? I think not, for me anyway. I doubt I could take a bike tour of my neighborhood.
And should you be interested, here are my own Everglades photos.
I went to a friend's fiftieth birthday party on Key Biscayne last weekend. The party itself was fine — hey, you must be doing something right if the police grab the mike from your DJ and tell a bunch of middle-aged partiers to vacate the premises or be arrested! — but one of the highlights was catching this photo of a tagged police boat.
Maybe that was why they were a little testy.
Whatever the reason, they picked the wrong crowd to fuck with. Among the attendees were several attorneys, law professors, a past president of the Miami-Dade ACLU (and on-air legal analyst on CNN), and an aggressively anti-bullshit broad from Brooklyn. They never stood a chance. Hell, by the time the dust settled we'd been offered comp tickets to the Ziggy Marley show next door, and they got money back from the bar, too.
When I woke up my first thought was, "Damn, I do not want to go to that funeral home today." A mixture of depression, frustration, and resignation enveloped me as I struggled out of bed and into the kitchen.
I put on the coffee, checked the levels in the cats' bowls, and staggered into the bathroom for my shower. I was standing in the steaming mist shaving my head when I realized I couldn't recall the name of the person who had died. Another few moments of confusion passed before I knew it had been a dream.
When you wake up remembering that someone has died, your day can only improve.
Too many things are demanding my attention at the moment to get in a decent update. With luck I'll be back Sunday night. Don't do anything I wouldn't do. And if you get up early enough on Sunday, look for me at the AIDS Walk.
I have a friend who survived the 2005 hurricane season on Wolfgang Puck self-heating coffee. Okay, so that might take care of the mornings, but in those powerless, mosquito-infested evenings, perhaps you'll want to relax with a can of Miller self-chilling beer. It isn't going to be cheap, though, more for those with beer tastes and a champagne budget.
I'm not big on beer, so it doesn't help me much. Fortunately, Barbancourt is just fine without ice.
For the last week I've been experimenting with the new Google Calendar service. It's still in beta, which is clear from some aspects, particularly in publishing public events. Nonetheless, it's got a lot of potential, and it's worth checking out.
In the sidebar I've included a couple of links for those of you who might like to try it out. I've put a public calendar together with events from Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden, the New World Symphony, and a few other miscellaneous events. It would be great if those organizations published their own calendars in the iCalendar standard, but no such luck yet. So I'm going to take it on myself to try to maintain something of interest to Hidden City readers. If you know of a similar calendar already available, mention it in the comments and I'll point readers in that direction.
On a related note, I'll be at the AIDS Walk on Sunday morning, and I hope you will be, too. If you are planning to be there, drop me a note.
The anglerfish is well-known among schoolchildren and the aquatically curious for the "fishing pole" extending in front of its mouth, used to catch its prey. It is less well-known for a peculiarity of its biology, wherein the much, much smaller males attach themselves to the females, and then proceed to ... well, burrow in permanently. Their circulatory systems join, their skins merge, and the male's brain and body atrophies until it is effectively a pair of gonads attached to the female for when she needs to fertilize some eggs.
I'm in the market for some new personal calling cards. Can anyone local recommend a printer and/or designer willing to handle small jobs? We're not talking about a huge branding job here, just an interesting card for use in my non-corporate identity.
If that printer and/or designer is you, so much the better. Leave me a note in the comments, or send e-mail to mkhall{@}gmail.com.
When it first aired I was a fan of The X-Files. Therefore, given the number of DVDs I've collected it may be surprising to learn that I had never bought the boxed sets. It wasn't lack of interest; frankly, $100-140 for each of nine seasons just seemed a touch unreasonable. Now that Fox has released the sets in a new "economy" format — only $50 each, but without some of the special features — I starting thinking of picking them up, but I still wasn't sold.
Costco came to my rescue, though. They have the original $100+ sets (probably mis-marked) at $43 each. I could get the extra features and interviews and such at the discounted price. But still, nine sets?
Hey, I needed to do some therapy shopping, anyway.
It's nice to see that Marc Fest is getting some attention with After Sunrise. It is a textbook example of a great single-purpose site: it has a clear goal; the videos are small, fast-loading, and brief; and it is extremely accessible. It's always worth the time to visit.
You may recall that I've been taking care of some kittens. They are growing up quickly (don't they all?), and this week they took a trip to the vet (along with their mother). In another couple of weeks they will be ready for adoption. I would call that a hint, but frankly, I need to know the potential parents at least a little before I'll give them up. When we're living in a country where people can adopt cats from animal shelters to kill and dissect them, and still be elected to the US Senate and made Republican Majority Leader, it makes me distrust everyone a little more.
Anyway, I've been getting up at unholy hours because the four siblings are now living in a large cage on my front porch. Why, you might well ask, are they not roaming freely? I keep them in their spacious quarters during the hours I am not around for their own protection. There are dog-killing cats in my neighborhood, for one; for another, it is far too common for people to use my short residential street as a test lap for NASCAR time trials.
Today, for example, I was planning to relax and detox from the past few hellish work weeks. I thought I might get in some writing, do a little housework, that sort of thing. Unfortunately, when I went out I discovered that a neighborhood cat had been run down across the street from my house. It wasn't one of the regulars who wander through — I think his family recently moved in a few doors down, but I'm not certain. However, I was certain that I wouldn't want to find the body of a my pet lying by the side of the road, so I would have to take care of this before some child found it.
It's been dealt with; I'll spare you the details.
My weekend is pretty much dealt with, too.
I've spent the last few (very early) mornings sitting on my porch and listening to my neighborhood. For all that it is an old single-family home suburb — built in the 1940s, which makes it Bronze Age by Miami standards — there is a surprising amount of noise, even at 5:30am.
There's the service worker traffic heading south, the older cars and jitneys coughing and clanking toward downtown, mixed with the occasional clattering truck. The sustained but muted thunder overhead is the flight path to Miami International Airport, invisible in the darkness. Occasionally there is an insistent thump from a nearby bass car, its windows up but the beat still drowning out all other sound as it passes.
But overall, the peace still wins, if only by comparison to the rest of my life. The soft rustling of the pre-dawn breeze through the palm fronds, the trills and coos of waking birds, the arhythmic patter of early rain — these are calming sounds, so unlike the cacophony of the day to come.
But that is still the future. For now, it is quiet.
On Saturday I attended a NWS performance of Steve Reich's Drumming, a masterpiece of minimalism. The performance was marvelous, but rather than write my own review let me direct you to Alesh of Critical Miami. He provides some excellent background for the piece, and a good evaluation of the NWS performance itself.
Marc Fest is a sharp guy. He's created some well-regarded web tools, is the communications VP for the New World Symphony, and starts each day by going to Miami Beach with his video camera to capture the sunrise and talk to people who might be around. Admittedly, I live more than Marc's two blocks from the ocean, but I can barely manage getting to the beach before the sun comes up once a year.
So if you like the idea of starting the day with an ocean sunrise, but need two cups of coffee to make it to the computer, visit AfterSunrise.com and pretend. It's the next best thing.
I need to get out more. So I am trying to untether myself from my offices, and I'd like to be able to perform as many of the standard tasks as possible via WiFi access or WWAN (cellular wireless broadband access). I've been investigating some web-based applications, looking for inexpensive and flexible alternatives to MS Office products as well as other useful web tools.
Of course, some things I've been using for quite a while, like Blogger, Gmail, and the personalized Google home page. Some others — Flickr and del.icio.us — I've played with, but can't quite wrap myself around.
A few notable tools I've found are listed below. I haven't worked with any of them long enough to form a strong opinion, but they all look promising.
Do you have any web tools to suggest? I'm open to suggestions.
I got a phone call this morning from a grip friend.
"Hey, where are you? I can see your building from here. Are you near a window?"
"No, very few offices here have windows that work. The windows you see from the outside are covered by wallboard on the inside. What are you doing downtown?"
"Well, we just blew out a plate glass window. I had to run a power line 200' around a building to run a special effects fan so the glass looks good. Pain in the ass."
"Having fun?"
"People downtown are all nasty. The natives are restless and grumbling."
"Working a commercial?"
"Yeah, hey wait, they are going to blow up the window again."
A shattering sound is heard.
"Did you hear that?"
"Yeah, but through the phone, not through a window. I don't even hear it when the police detonate luggage outside. I'm in a bunker."
"You need to get out more. This Sharapova chick we're working with is pretty hot."
"Who's the commercial for?"
"Canon, I think. Gotta run, looks like we're moving down the street to blow up something else."
"Enjoy!"
[The following was originally run October, 2001, in a slightly different form. I'm reprinting it now in view of the recent news regarding South Florida shopping carts.]
I ran into a new technology at the grocery yesterday, or at least one which I'd not seen before. Near the doors to the store there are large signs warning would-be cart-thieves that their shopping carts are now equipped with electronic locks on the wheels. Outside of the parking lot the cart's wheels will seize up, rendering it useless as a ghetto home or as a garden accessory. Judging from the fresh cut-marks on the asphalt, I'm guessing it uses a similar technology to those electronic dog leashes, some sort of wire embedded under the pavement.
Of course, by the time I finished shopping and left the store I had completely forgotten about this innovation. Cart theft was not on my mind, and besides, I was parked very near the front of the store, well within the parking lot. Imagine my surprise, then, when about twenty feet from my car the cart wheels seized up. As I pitched headfirst over the basket and onto the ground my first thought was that I'd hit a pothole, but a moment's investigation showed me that indeed the damned sensors thought I had left the premises.
So picture me now, dragging a shopping cart full of foodstuffs out of the center of the lane and over to my car, swearing like a longshoreman, sparks flying off the grinding wheel locks. I'm sure it was not a pretty sight. The managers are damned lucky I was too tired to go back in and ream them out; besides, that's why we have e-mail.
Such as they are, here are my photos from the 2006 orchid show. Flowers and lizards abound!
Hmm, that title has some unfortunate resonance with Flowers for Algernon. Ah, well, I'm sure she'll understand...
As planned, I attended the symphony Saturday evening. The performances were quite good, as usual, with Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun being a standout (in my view). Afterward we went to Miss Yip Chinese Cafe just off Lincoln Road and enjoyed dinner and conversation with Mr. Matthew Heller of Hella Frisch, writer and bassist with the New World Symphony.
Yesterday I attended the Fourth Annual International Orchid Festival at Fairchild. It was a great day for it, bright and sunny, filled with natural beauty. A bit too sunny, though, since my efforts to keep my shaven head under the canopies were for naught, leaving me with a scorched pate. Unfortunately, my photo-fu failed me, and my pictures are not good. I'll try to salvage a few of the less embarrassing shots for a gallery in the next day or two, but for now you (and Manola) will have to make do with these.
My best overheard comment of the day was a young boy asking his mother to buy him something to eat. "I want a funeral cake!" was his lament, to which his mother, glancing around nervously, replied, "Funnel cake, dear, it's a funnel cake."
After several long weeks — okay, months — of toil, I'm getting in a little r&r this weekend. Tonight I'll be attending the symphony again, and tomorrow I'll be taking my camera over to Fairchild for the International Orchid Festival. Here are last year's orchid photos, if you are interested.
You know, with all this exposure to culture I'm starting to feel like some kind of socialite. God only knows what will happen if I go to a museum. It might all become too delicious. [NB: Management is not responsible for any emotional trauma incurred from exposure to that MP3 file.]
Hidden City Video Library: a databased list of the DVDs I own, which may tell you a bit too much about my taste.
