Farmers and Fleas

Friday March 9 - Sunday March 11

Friday

Another big day today. I skip breakfast this morning because I am headed over to the Lakes Park farmers' market. I will bike there, have breakfast, do a little shopping, then head back. I bike the short distance on
Summerlin Road, then cut over into the park across from Lakewood Blvd., and locate the farmers market at the far east end in the parking lot. There are several breakfast choices, but I settle on the "Nosh Truck," a mobile eatery that serves breakfast sandwiches. No coffee. I must get my coffee at another stand, but it is worth it ... a nice gourmet cup of coffee. I eat my bacon, egg, and Muenster cheese sandwich at a high top table by the nosh truck.

I strike up a conversation with one of the workers who is slaving away for one of the fruit vendors (he drives the truck from the produce farm, and does the heavy lifting for the setup at the market; he does not interact with the customers. He has a gold tooth, a checkered past, and a cute little daughter -- about 12 -- that he loves. He's one of the people who works hard, helps make the world go 'round, and virtually no one notices.

I ask what is best in season, and he replies strawberries, so I buy a pint container from him and eat the whole thing along with my breakfast sandwich. It is a beautiful day. After that, I do a little shopping. For some reason, I am hungry for guacamole (not my usual things) so am looking for avocados and tomatoes, but lo and behold I find a vendor who is making it fresh on the spot, so after trying a free sample (and it is delicious!) I buy an 8-ounce container for $6 and figure it is a bargain.

I also buy four granola bars from a guy from Punta Gorda who makes them from scratch. I'm also hungry for mangoes, but only find one vendor who has them, and they are not local (the local mangoes won't be here until July or so), and they are cheaper at the Walmart and probably come from the same place anyway, so I skip those.

I also run into a guitar player who is playing for tips, and drop a buck into his tip jar and start talking with him. His name is Grant Werner, and he bills himself as a one-man band. He's playing an acoustic guitar which he has miked through a small amp (powered by 12 volt battery run through a 120-volt inverter because there's no outlet for him to plug into), and is also singing with a recorded karaoke background. Turns out most of the stuff he has recorded himself, as he also plays drums (his main instrument) and also a little bit of keyboards. A triple threat! He looks about the same age as me (he says 58) so we start talking music and I tell him about my days as an entertainer, and we have a very fun conversation about music and how far everything has come from the old days of recording tracks onto tape, to now where near everything is digital. (He accesses all of his MP3 tracks on an Ipad, which he has in front of him on a stand, sort of like a teleprompter.) He's a very nice fellow, and his guitar playing isn't half bad (strictly chord strummer from what I can tell) and he says it only took him a couple years to pick it up to the point where he strum some chords and sing along, so this gives me hope that I still might be able to do this some day (although first order of business is to get back on the keyboards again!)

I bike back to the condo (a relatively short trip), stow the guac in the fridge, and then head out on my next trip, which is the flea market. I take one of my energy bars (from the farmers' market) with me for a quick
lunch. At the flea market, I visit my watch buddy, Chris, and buy another watch from him ... this time a Girard Perregaux Gyromatic (automatic) in stainless steel. I get it for $80. It needs a cleaning and a refinished
dial, but it's a nice watch and should bring between $200 and $250 when restored.

Next, I want a glass of milk to go with my energy bar, and guess what? Virtually NO ONE among all the food vendors at the fleamarket sells milk! I finally find a German bakery who will pour me a glass of milk (off the menu) for $1.25, and I am grateful. I have this with my energy bar, which has a very "raw" flavor to it because there are no chemicals or preservatives to it. Completely different than anything you would find off
the shelf at your average supermarket.

I also buy a combination microphone/headset at an electronics vendor because I want to try the voice recognition software built into Windows 7. I'm thinking this might help me write my eBay descriptions if I can
"speak" rather than type, even though I'm a pretty fast typist. If this doesn't work, I might try the speech software by Dragon, but this costs about $100 bucks, and the Windows software is free. I don't want to spend too much on the headset if it doesn't work, so I'm able to snag this one for $5. It's an "open box return" but I try it on my Netbook which I have brought along, and it works fine.

Next, I make a quick stop to see my book buddy, Chris, to see if he has a first edition of "Sanibel Flats," but no luck. I'm thinking of going to Randy White's book signing over at his new restaurant on March 22, and it would be fun to bring his first "Doc Ford" novel with me (in addition to buying his latest novel, "Chasing Midnight"), but I don't know that I'll be able to find one in time or not.

On the way out, I find a produce vendor who has mangoes -- a variety called banana mangoes because of their solid yellow color -- for a buck apiece, so I buy a couple. I drive back to the condo, rest for a while, then bike over to Anytime Fitness for a workout. Afterward, I stop at the Walmart supermarket for a bag of Tostitos, then back to the condo where I open a cold beer and eat the whole container of guacamole with chips, while watching the start of "Leatherheads" on the DVD player. Boy, it doesn't get much better than this! A great day all in all.

Saturday

With yesterday's big day, I'll be taking it easy today and tomorrow -- reading the Steve Jobs biography, catching up on the blog and emails, and so forth. After the big guacamole fest yesterday, I hit the gym and indeed find that a couple of pounds have crept back on. I'm heading the wrong direction as far as losing that last 10 pounds I talked about!

I finish watching "Leatherheads" tonight on DVD, and I have to say it wasn't that great of a movie. Clooney's character was likable enough, but I have to say I'm not much of a Renee Zelweiger fan, and I believe she was miscast in this movie as a siren. I thought she was great in Cold Mountain, but she just couldn't carry the femme fatale role in this movie. They needed someone like a Catherine Zeta Jones or something. I thought
the plot was a little boring, too, but what I DID enjoy about the movie was the true-to-life story of the early days of football and its  turning from an outlaw game into a "professional" sports with rules, and a commissioner to enforce them. If you can catch it "free" some night on cable TV, it's worth a watch. Otherwise, I wouldn't waste your money renting to buying it.

Sunday

I make an early a.m. grocery run, and between Publix (they have the best deal on cat litter) and Walmart, I spend about $21 on needed items. It's another day of generally laying back and taking it easy. I spend a
leisurely afternoon at the local McDonalds enjoying the ice cold AC, coffee, and wi-fi, and also do another workout at Anytime Fitness.

Carol gives me a call to talk about the cruise options (Key West, and the "Big M" casino cruise) and in so many words she vetoes both options. The Key West Express option is too expensive for her. And the Big M casino boat is too claustrophobic for her, and besides she's not a gambler.

She suggests instead that go to Busch Gardens Tampa and ride the rollercoasters, and I tell her, fine, is tomorrow too soon? She replies tomorrow would be fine, and we sketch out a rough "plan." I will drive the
Prius, and pick her up at her house in North Fort Myers at 7:30, and we will drive from there and make a day of it. We'll go "Dutch" on the park tickets, and I'll treat for the meals. I arrive that this decision on the food after she starts talking about bringing food along and eating in the car mid-way through the day, something about fried chicken and potato salad, and I tell her to "hold it right there."

My Prius may have 196k miles on it, but there's no way I'm eating fried chicken in it, not to mention the possibility of salmonella from potato salad stored in a cooler too long and not staying quite cold enough!
I start doing a little research on the Internet to find out about all the rollercoasters. It's been about 22 years since I was last at Busch Gardens (a winter getaway with Gwen, and we stayed in Venice and hung out with a couple I knew from my stamp dealer days) so I'm sure a lot has changed. The rollercoasters look great, and I'm really excited to go! I also research the Big M Casino cruise and decide I will go on that next
week on my own. It's only ten bucks for the basic cruise (without the buffet) and it's just too good a deal to pass up!

This evening, I also try the voice recogntion software in Windows 7, along with the $5 headphone/microphone I bought at the Friday Flea Market. I make it about half way through the tutorial, and it works OK, but not great. I then bail on the tutorial and try and if works for dicatation on "Notepad" which is your basic, no-frills word processor that comes bundled with Windows. Nothing, Nada, Zip. So it looks like this little experment is a bust, and I'm glad I've only got $5 tied up in it.

Expenses: farmers' market: $25; fleamarket $6; chips $3; groceries, $21; McDonalds (two trips), $6 . Total $55

Bruce