So Long 2016

Last posting for this blog in 2016. As I've said from the beginning, these musings are more a journal than anything else for my own edification and remembrance. As someone once said, you should maintain at least a nodding acquaintance with the person you used to be.

I am glad that a few of you have enjoyed the (mostly happy) journey with me, while enduring my occasional grousings, rants, and pet peeves.

As I write this on Friday Dec. 30, Southwest Florida is experience what for me is some blessed relief from unseasonably warm temps. It has been in the high 80s for most of December. Fort Myers has set several temperature records, and we (sister Dawn and I) have been running the AC near constantly to maintain an indoor temp of 72 degrees. This, by the way, is considered "sweater wearing temperature" for most native Floridians, but for us two northerners is quite pleasant. So today will reach 68 degrees. It won't last long. By Sunday, it is predicted to be back in the mid- to high 80s and will stay there.

There are certainly worse things that could be happening (see earlier comment about grousing), but I miss the winters past down here when I could open all the windows and let the fresh, 70-to-low-80s breeze blow through.

Dawn and I had a very low-key but nevertheless festive Christmas at the condo. As we've done in the past, we agreed not to exchange gifts. However, I couldn't resist the temptation to buy two tickets for us to see a production of "Anything Goes" at the Broadway Palms Dinner Theater here in Fort Myers. We'll see that in March. I guess you could say it was as much a gift for me as for myself ... these are some of my favorite "gifts" to give!

For Christmas dinner, I went kind of full throttle on the menu. I cooked a prime rib roast ... my first. I cooked it by time rather than a temperature because I've never had any luck with those damned meat thermometers anyway. It turned out a little more rare than I would have preferred, but it was still very delicious. We each had a generous portion. Gross weight on the roast was 2.6 pounds, but I figure we lost a pound with the bone and trimming away the visible fat once the slabs were on our plates. We had baked potatoes and a pear/Gorgonzola salad for sides. And for dessert, a "Tuxedo" 3-layer cake procured from the incredibly sinful bakery at Fresh Market at the nearby Bell Tower shopping center. If there is a devil, one of his lieutenants surely resides at the Fresh Market Bakery.

We experienced a couple of power outages here this week. Weird because they occurred almost at the same time (3:30 p.m.), two days in a row, and both lasted approximately two hours. Florida Power and Light (FPL) has a neat online reporting procedure in place that sends you text alerts to notify you of what the problem is, approximately how many people are affected (so I guess you don't feel you are alone), and when they expect to have the problem resolved. In both instances, the outage was blamed on "a small animal causing power wires to short." I guess a couple of squirrels decided to commit suicide. The holidays are rough on everyone, I guess.

For exercise this week, I've been to Planet Fitness twice for 1 hour/20 minute workouts, and once to Lakes Parks to walk the perimeter, which comes to 1.25 miles door to door. I must confess my fitness goals mentioned earlier in this blog have fallen on tough times. I blame this partially on the fact that my knee has been acting up ... patellofemoral pain syndrome which has plagued me for several years. But it's mostly laziness on my part. The knee problem mostly aggravated by  bicycling. I can still walk, work out, and swim in our condo community's beautiful swimming pool; none of these has any ill effects to the knee. I need to get back on a more regular exercise routine again and -- here's the key -- STICK WITH IT!

I completed a nifty little craft project this week. Since October, I have been toting this carrying case in my car:

I got it at Delaney's Surplus between Baraboo and Sauk City for the bargain price of $7. Orascoptic is a company that makes optics for dentists so they can see their patients' mouths/teeth more clearly. I think Orascoptic reject the boxes because they printing is upside down relative to the front of case where the latches are located. Thus, they ended up at Delaney's. The box is nicely lined with foam rubber, and I thought it would make a nice carrying case for watches, so I bought one for me, and one for my friend Mario who is also a watch collector. I have been trying to figure out how to economically turn it into a watch display case, because foam rubber is quite expensive if you must buy it new in the craft stores. Well, after watching a Youtube video of a gal making a display case for her fashion watches, I came upon the idea of using a "pool noodle" to make spindles upon which the watches could be mounted. The result looks like this:

I realize it looks a little "cheesy" with the blue pool noodles, but hey for $1, how can you go wrong? If I want to class it up, I can always cover the noodle segments with black faux leather later on. Anyway, this will be a nice way to take some of my watches to shows, including the upcoming show in February at Lakeland, Fla.

Also watch-related, I wrote a story this week for one of my other blogs on budget watch collecting. The topic is "Care and Handling of Vintage Watches" written mostly for beginner collectors. I have been asked to comment on this a number of times from customers and window shoppers, so I finally decided to write a blog on the topic, and you can read it HERE if you are interested. Anyway, I wrote the entire blog entry while downing three high-test caffeinated coffees at Starbucks because now that I am in their "club" I get free same-day refills on brewed coffee. My fingers were flying across the keyboard, and it took me nearly three hours to unwind once I left the store. It reminded me of Cosmo Kramer in that episode of Seinfeld where he settles a lawsuit with a coffee shop for free lifetime cafe lattes.

Whew! I  wasn't quite as tweaked as Kramer, but even Dawn commented that evening that I seemed a little more chipper than usual. Happily, the guy for whom I specifically wrote the blog entry replied to thank me profusely, and and now I have all that good information down on the blog for all to see.

I am also working on my presentation for the Florida Mid-Winter Regional watch show in Lakeland. I'm doing this completely on Powerpoint, which I have never done before, so I am learning Powerpoint as I go along, and it's proving to be most enjoyable. I should have done this years ago.

Well, it's been a good 2016. I know a lot of people are grumbling about what a crappy year it's been. Yes, we lost a lot of amazing people this year, from Leonard Cohen to Leonard Nimoy. And a former reality TV show host is about to be our next president. But we have a lot of amazing people left, and more are coming up the ranks every day. Most of them are not famous and never will be, but are nevertheless amazing. And we will survive Donald Trump. We live in amazing times; we truly do. I was introduced to a comedy skit this week performed by the comedian C.K. Lewis on the talk show "Late Night with Conan O'Brien." The skit is titled "Everything is Amazing and Nobody is Happy."  The skit is brilliant and I think puts in perfect perspective our modern day "problems." Check it out; it's only four minutes long:

So may your worst problems of 2017 be the occasional slow Internet connection and 40 minutes spent on the tarmac on your next flight.

Bruce

Merry Christmas 2016

"It's Christmas Eve! It's the one night of the year when we all act a little nicer, we... we... we smile a little easier, we... w-w-we... we... we cheer a little more. For a couple of hours out of the whole year, we are the people that we always hoped we would be."

-- Bill Murray, "Scrooged"

Hi everyone. We (Dawn and I) are preparing for a small and quiet (but nevertheless jolly) Christmas here in Fort Myers. I found a lovely little prime rib roast at the Winn Dixie. Just two joints, so it is just the right size ... 2.6 pounds to be exact. I'm going to rub it down with some rosemary, salt, and pepper, and roast it for about 45 minutes to medium-rare. Serve with baked potato, and I'm thinking a pear-Gorgonzola salad with balsamic vinaigrette as the greens. Something festive for dessert, perhaps a red velvet cake, I haven't worked that part out yet.

I'm just going to cite a few highlights from this past week rather than going chronologically. We have more or less settled into a routine here, so not every day is newsworthy.

I quote Bill Murray above because I was somewhat miffed at the little MTV missive this past week. Don't know if you saw or heard about this, but it was basically a "public service announcement" about what white males could/should do to foster better race relations between "us" and "them," i.e., people of non-white ancestry. I don't normally get into this kind of stuff on the blog because racism -- like politics, religion, abortion, etc. -- is another one of those un-winnable arguments. Plus, this is a blog about my travels, not about my political or religious beliefs. But I feel compelled to state for the record that this MTV message is, in and of itself, racist. I didn't need or want to hear this -- especially at this time of year -- that I should feel guilty about being a "white guy." Especially from MTV, which has done more than its share to propagate discord among races, sexes, and the "haves" and "have-nots." So blow it out your ass, MTV. I much prefer the Bill Murray philosophy.

And that's all I have to say about that.

On Saturday (Dec. 17) I attended a holiday party of the Widow and Widowers Meetup Group at the home of "Karen V." in Bonita Springs, between Fort Myers and Naples. It was the first "meetup" of that group that I have attended since arriving here in November because of low activity in the group right now. A couple of the group's main organizers have been MIA since November, so there hasn't been much of anything going on. Hopefully this will change after the first of the year. Well, it was very enjoyable, and gave me a chance to see all my "buds" from the group, and catch up. Many of last year's "singles" have now hooked up with "significant others" and have migrated from the meetup group. The party was a rare opportunity for members to brings their "SO's." This is another reason for low activity. We need some more "raw recruits." One of the drawbacks of a group like this is that, by its very nature, it is a temporary sanctuary. Most people -- including myself -- do not see widowhood as a permanent lifestyle. Were it so, the Internet dating sites would not be pulling in billions of dollars annually! But any way, the party was great fun, the food and drink were delicious and plentiful, and there were games and prizes. At the gift exchange, I received a "Green Steel" thermal mug, which is something I actually can get some use out of for my smoothies and my overnight bedside ice water. And, it was the first time since being here that I wore long pants and a shirt with a collar! (I've been in shorts and T-Shirts the other 99.9 percent of the time.)

On Tuesday of this week, Dawn and I went to "Manchester by the Sea," at the Prado Cinemas in Bonita Springs. There are closer theaters, but this one has a cafe, so it provided us a chance to grab a quick bite before the movie. The movie wasn't my first choice; I think we would have enjoyed "Rogue One" or "Passengers" more as an opportunity for some escapism. But MBYTS will be a likely Oscar winner, and Dawn and I love watching the Oscars, so we feel it behooves us to see at least a few Oscar contenders so that when the program airs, we have some sense of knowing what the hell they are talking about.

It was very good, but very depressing. Not the type of movie I would want to see again, or that I would want to own. It is definitely an Oscar contender -- just the type of brooding, raw, painful movie that Academy members love and vote for. There will certainly be a showdown between this and "Fences," the latest Denzel Washington movie of equal -- if not more -- pain and intensity. In any event, going to the movies was a pleasant diversion from our routine evenings at home.

We (Dawn and I) received some rather unpleasant news from cousins Pam and Steve from Lansing, Mich. In their annual Christmas letter we learned that Steve has been dealing with cancer on and off for the better part of 2016. The source seems to be his lungs. But the cancer has manifested itself elsewhere, including the brain where a mass was removed in August. In September, Pam and Steve traveled to Pittsburgh for a specialized radiation treatment, and as "extra insurance" Steve is currently undergoing four rounds of chemotherapy. I'm sure I speak for all of us Shawkey/Quam relation when I wish the best for Pam and Steve for the coming year.

Well folks, I'm going to cut it short(er) today because I feel my last couple of entries have been rather rambling and long-winded. As we come to the end of another year, may we all be reminded that every day is a gift. I heard a great quote on a documentary this week that struck a chord at this time of year when so many folks are focused on materialistic pursuits -- Black Friday, Cyber Monday, I-Phones, and PlayStations. It's all just "stuff" folks. In a year, two at the most, it'll all be sitting on a shelf or in a landfill. Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus (the "Minimalists") have got it right:

"Love People, use things. The opposite never works."


Bruce

Baby It's Cold Outside ... At Least in Wisconsin

Sitting out here in the Lanai. I have a load of laundry going in the washer. Mundane chores still have to be done. (Cat) Abby is to my left. It's sunny and 82 degrees, while in Madison where most of my "peeps" are, it's 4 degrees ... a 78 degree temperature difference. Been a bad week for you all with a big snow dump, and then bitter cold. My sympathies. With last two mild winters, and mild temps into December this year, it's easy to forgot how booger-freezingly cold it can get up there. Well, the wheel of fortune finally came up bankrupt, and you're in the deep freeze. What do we have for them, Vanna? Slippery roads and sidewalks, cars that won't start, freezing pipes, and enforced idleness. Well, hope you can make the best of it. Break out the books, the board games, and the hot cocoa. (Niece) Kris and (Nephew) Jim, all kidding/ribbing aside I really hope can make a break for it, that they can clear a runway for you, and you can get down here for your cruise.


Recapping the past week ...

Friday Dec. 9

Had breakfast at "Crave" back in the "old" neighborhood because I was hungry for a monster breakfast. This is a great place for that, but I will say quite expensive. A tummy filling Western omelet, potatoes, and one large pancake (I brought my own pure maple syrup), and coffee. Cost $21 with tip, which would have bought me four breakfasts at McD's, but sometimes you gotta have a breakfast made with love, and whoever said that love was free was sorely mistaken. Next to Fleamasters to pick up a watch repair and recycle "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson, back to Chris the Book Guy for future credit on another book. "Walk" was a good read, about Bryson walking the Appalachian Trail, but it wasn't his best work. For one, he only walked 800 of the 2,100 or so miles that make up the trial from Georgia to Maine. (Though to be honest, I don't think I could even do the 800 mile partial walk.)

The guys who run the watch-repair booth at Fleamasters still didn't have my watch ready after more than a week. Very frustrating to me, because this is a minor 5-minute repair, one that I have performed literally hundreds of times in my 30 years of collecting and dealing in watches. But lately, I have developed hand tremors, and I didn't trust myself with this $1,000 watch, especially since it is a consignment and not my own. So I reclaimed the watch and took it to Prestige Time on McGregor instead. Ben Daidone, the proprieter, re-installed the second hand in less than 5 minutes. Ben is somewhat of a flake, and I don't like taking repairs to him where I have to stand and listen to his rants. But he is good at what he does, when he focuses, and I do use him from time to time. Just in small doses.

For dinner, I had previously bought (on Wednesday) a pound of stone crab claws at "Skip One Seafood" on Hwy. 41. I knew Dawn wasn't interested in that, so I went to Fresh Market, an upscale market and deli in the Bell Tower Shopping Mall. and got her some cheese Manicotti and a couple of meatballs from their deli counter. Everything was delicious. I had shelled the claws before dinner to save Dawn the annoying pounding and the flying of shell fragments at the dinner table. So what I had before me was a luscious pile of de-shelled crabmeat, drizzled with melted butter and a squirt of fresh lemon. Served with potato salad, cole slaw, and baked beans to which I had added nice big pieces of maple-brown sugar bacon. Delicious. Dawn said the Manicotti and meatballs were excellent also.

Saturday Dec. 10

Watch and clock collectors meeting today at the Myerlee Golf Course clubhouse. I wasn't expecting much to happen because most of the members are clock collectors and are pushing 100 years old. But I traded a watch with a fellow collector named Duane Dodson with whom I've done some previous trading. Also bought a fairly rare Elgin World War I trench watch from a fellow for $150, and he took two watches in partial trade, so my net cash outlay was closer to $100. I have a nicer case for this watch back at the apartment in Janesville, and once I make the switch, I figure the watch will worth close to $1,000. Not a bad day's work. This guy who traded with me was something else. He came into the meeting room huffing and puffing, carrying a 20-pound display case for his watches. They guy was easily 100 pounds overweight, and had big nasty looking purple blotches on both legs, telltale marks of diabetes/poor circulation. After he set down his watch case, he went outside to the Tiki bar, and came back holding two 20-ounce Bloody Mary's in styrofoam cups. I gotta have a certain respect for a guy who, against all conventional and well meaning advice and warning from friends, family, and doctors, says "screw it" and lives life in his own terms.  For however short a time that might be, it doesn't matter. Quality, not quantity.

I also met a fellow there who is retiring from the clock repair biz and disposing of his holdings, which includes some wristwatches and parts. So I will visit him in Cape Coral on Monday. So all in all, this was a very good meeting for me compared to how visits to this watch chapter usually go where I come away with nothing.

Sunday Dec. 11

Made a nice breakfast (eggs, potatoes, meat) for Dawn and I, and then we watched CBS Sunday morning, as is tradition with us. I think Jane Pauley is doing a fine job, having to fill some big shoes left behind by Charles Osgood. I read somewhere on google news that the show draws 6.5 million viewers and is the number one magazine news show on television. Then to Planet Fitness for a workout. Next we went to the Walmart Supermarket for our  weekly (or thereabouts) big grocery run, and we spent $89. For dinner, I made a meatloaf with baked potato, and carrot coins.

Monday Dec. 12

Made an appointment for scheduled maintenance on the Prius for Friday. Time for an oil change. I've put 51,000 miles on the car since buying it July of 2014. Like the Pruis before it, it's been a great car. Not particularly good in the "fun to drive" department, but she's got it in spades in the economical and reliable departments. In the afternoon, went to Cape Coral to see the guy with the watch parts. Fewer things give me such joy as digging through boxes of dirty dusty watches and parts in search of treasure. You never know what you'll find. I came away with a gallon Ziploc bag of (mostly) parts and partials, but also a few lo- to mid-grade complete watches as well. Paid $200 for the lot, and should be able to make that back plus $200. For dinner, buttermilk pancakes and bacon, for the old "breakfast for dinner" trick, which some people consider anarchy, but I like to do this once in a while.

Tuesday Dec. 13

Today, I called customer service at T-Mobile to try and find out why our bill was nearly $200, which was $70 over the amount estimated by our saleswoman when I signed up to be with (sister) Dawn on her "plan." The CSR told me that we changed plans in the middle of a billing cycle, so we were charged for a half month, plus the next month ahead because we're always paying for the month ahead. I thought this was bullcrap because we've only had the plan for a month (signed up Nov. 9), not a month and a half. But I didn't have it in me to argue with the lady, and she said the next bill would be $136, which assuaged my anger sufficiently to just "let it go." Does anyone else think that the mobile phone companies make their bills unnecessarily confusing and always -- always -- to their favor? Unless you work at NASA, I challenge anyone out there to spend a half hour with their mobile phone bill and understand exactly what the hell they are paying for. I guess if you're going to avail yourself of most any modern convenience such as cable to satellite TV, or Internet, or mobile, you must will willing to bend over and grab your ankles from time to time.

That is, unless you are on a no-contract flat rate service (as was I) such as Boost or Walmart's "Straight Talk" plan, etc.  The tradeoff then is that you have cell coverage about half the time. And when you DO have service, voice quality is akin to two soup cans and a string! Believe me, I know from whereof I speak, having struggled with a "Yank" phone (my nickname for Boost) for a couple of years, and finally throwing in the towel when I couldn't make or receive calls in LaCrosse, WI, a city of 51,000 population.

So I'll take T-Mobile and endure the occasional anal probe.

Wednesday Dec. 14

I rode my bike over to the Farmers' Market at Lakes Park. They hauled away some poor woman in an ambulance who dropped from a heart attack. I think it was the lady who runs the Cajun kitchen food stand. I do know it was a heart attack because some other woman was running up and down the aisle yelling if there was anyone who knew CPR. It cast a bit of a pall over the event for for a few minutes, but after the ambulance left it was back to business as usual. But for me, two reminders in week of our fragile mortality. This poor woman woke up today, went to work, and thought it would just be another day. And, boom, next thing she's in an ambulance. Live each day like it's your last, folks.

Thursday Dec. 15

Went to Planet Fitness today for a much-needed workout. Lunch at a new (for me) Asian place called China Wok at a strip mall by a Publix supermarket. Every Publix has one of these, and there's usually a dry cleaners, a tax place, some kind of restaurant, etc. The China Wok has gotten good reviews on Yelp for cheap, good food, so I wanted to give it a try. They have 26 lunch specials for $5.99 each, and this includes rice and a can of soda or ice tea. Now when you figure most places charge you $2 (or more) for a soft drink, this is a pretty darned good deal. I had the General Tso's Chicken, which is about as Chinese as Kentucky Fried Chicken, but it was nevertheless tasty, and there was plenty of it. China Wok makes my list of the best cheap eats in Fort Myers.

That's all for now.

Bruce

Back in the Watch Biz (At Least For a While)

Friday Dec. 2

Fleamasters flea market today. Visited Chris the Book Guy with a grocery list of about 12 books that sis-in-law Julie is wanting for the cruise. Only found one of them, "Personal" by Lee Child. This is another in the "Jack Reacher" series, which is way outside Julie's usual wheelhouse of "chick lit," but whatever. I also found an art book, photo mosaics by artist Robert Silvers. These are really cool, and made up of hundreds and even thousands of individual photographs. One of his more famous works is "Flamingo."

I will use these mosaics as background to take pictures of watches. (See Saturday's entry for more info on this.) The two books cost me a grand total of $4.

Today, (sister) Dawn attended the memorial service of Wilhelmina Corbin, ("Mother Corbin") mother-in-law of Dawn's boss, Randall (Randy) Henderson Jr., who is mayor of Fort Myers. She died Nov. 16 at the age of 98. Services were at 4 p.m. at Cypress Lake Methodist Church, just a short distance from the condo. She was quite active in the community, especially in her role as "First Lady of Fort Myers" when her husband, Oscar, was mayor of this city from 1967 to 1976. So it's kind of neat that two members of the same family served (and continue to serve) as the mayor of Fort Myers. Randy has been mayor since 2009. He and "Mother Corbin" were very close.

Anyway, we kept dinner plans casual because I didn't know if Dawn would partake in the after-service meal. She chose not to, so arrived at the condo about 6 p.m. hungry. I had bought a take-n-bake pizza from the Walmart Neighborhood Market deli, so I popped that in the oven and --- surprise --- it was actually quite good. I added some more mozzarella because they always skimp on the cheese, but the fresh toppings (green pepper, onions, mushrooms) in addition to sausage and pepperoni were good and plentiful, and the crust excellent. We will keep this in mind for future meals when we are in a pinch. And the best part? It's only $5.99 for a medium-size, which was plenty big for the two of us.

Saturday Dec. 3

Breakfast was "out" today at the "Sunflower," a spot where regulars gather at San Carlos and Summerlin. It's your typical Greek family restaurant, and food leaves the kitchen at near the speed of light. Today, they were a little off their game and breakfast took seven minutes to arrive. Great service, and we saw several members of the "Peckerheads" bicycle club who were there having breakfast also.

Well, it looks like I'm going back into the watch business while down here, at least for a while. My "plan" was to put the business on hold (except for a brief session during the mid-winter regional in Lakeland in February) and concentrate on improving health. However, the family of an old friend and customer of mine, "Bud', from Washington state, contacted me and asked if I'd be willing to continue to help liquidate Bud's watch estate. I had been doing this for them for about the past year, but hadn't heard from Bud's family for quite some time, so assumed they found someone more local to help them out. But the reason for no contact was that Bud's daughter (who was my point person on this project) was dealing with some serious health issues, and has finally turned this over to her husband, who will be my new point man, with the daughter still having final say on setting minimum prices and so forth.

Anyway, I acquiesced and said I would do it if they were willing to "be cool" about the whole thing and not try to micro-manage me ... that rest and recreation were still my major goals down here. They agreed, and the shipment arrived in the mail today. There were 16 watches in all, and a good number of them are high-grade pieces above the $1,000 mark. I will be putting them on my website after the New Year because I don't want to be mired down during the Christmas madness, and also I don't want/need any more reportable income for 2016 for income tax purposes. If they don't sell off the website in 30 days, then they will go to eBay. So looks like I need to "ramp up" with shipping supplies, including Priority mail shipping boxes, padded mailers, and so forth. I think I can still maintain my exercise regimen, especially since the local postal station is "bike-able" and also on the way to Planet Fitness.

OK, for dinner, I decided to try my hand at crabcakes. And to my way of thinking, the only way to go on this is with jumbo lump crab. The regular crab just kind of turns to shreds in the crab cakes and doesn't provide the sensation of biting into a real "chunk" of crab meat. So we broke the piggy bank and bought half a pound at the fresh seafood counter at Publix. That ran us $18.99, which converts to $37/pound. I used the classic "Old Bay" recipe from the can of seasoning by the same name, but added finely chopped celery, green onion, and sweet red bell pepper to the mix. I formed them into four good-size patties (2 apiece) and fried them in canola oil for four minutes per side, being ever so careful when I flipped them to avoid breaking them. I was good on three out of four, and the fourth one held, but had a deep fissure in the middle!

We served these with potato salad, cole slaw, and baked beans. I sprinkled mine with a little extra Old Bay, and Dawn went as-served. Unless you've had one of these, prepared the old fashioned way with lots of crab and just enough bread crumb to hold the cake together, there is scarcely a way to describe it. We both agreed it was one of best meals we've had down here, whether dining in or out. Even lobster rates below this, at least in my book.

Sunday Dec. 4

Made a rare weekend trip to Fleamasters flea market today because one of Bud's consignment watches needs a small repair (re-attach the second hand floating under the crystal) that I didn't want to attempt myself due to increasing shakiness with my hands. If this were a $100 watch, I would have done the job myself. But this is $2,500 Buren pilot's watch from the 1930s, and I didn't want to chance it. Unfortunately, the watchmaker I use there didn't have correct tool with him, so I had to leave it for pickup next Friday. I had lunch at "That Mexican Place" at Fleamasters. I think the actual name of this place is "J-One Concessions" but everyone just calls it "That Mexican Place" and everyone pretty much knows it because it stands alone in the "Green Aisle" of the flea market rather than in the food court in the "Blue Aisle" where most of the other restaurants are clustered. Chicken enchiladas with bean and rice, and a side of chips with salsa. Everything was excellent, due in part to the fact they don't over-salt their food.

Manwiches for dinner. Introduced in 1969, it has long been an occasional staple in my repertoire of "comfort foods." And brings back memories of "Sloppy Joe Days" at my high school cafeteria, another one of the many injustices endured during those painful years of adolescence. So I am somewhat ambivalent about the "Manwich," but sometimes the craving prevails.

Monday Dec. 5

Started working on Bud's watches today. Decided to use the camera on my phone to take the pictures because I can transfer the photos to the internet by wi-fi instead of messing around with a memory card. I was looking into buying a new stand-alone digital camera, but ones with wi-fi transfer capability start about $250 and I just didn't feel like spending the money right now. I think the pics are going to work just fine, and here is a sample, and the background is from the art book mentioned earlier.

I try to avoid talking weather in this blog so as not to "rub it in" with my friends and family in Wisconsin. However, it is worth nothing that Fort Myers set a new record high temperature of 87 degrees this date, breaking a record set in 1941 of 86 degrees.

Picked up a tool (digital caliper) today at Harbor Freight tools. Eight dollars with a 20% off coupon and also got a free pair of scissors. I love this place! Their motto should be "Great Tools if You Only Need to Use Them Once or Twice." Lunch at Five Guys Burgers ... single burger, half-n-half Coke, and course free peanuts. 

For dinner tonight, I made chicken quesadillas and chips/salsa. For dessert, I made an orange cake with lime/cream cheese icing.

Skipped the exercise today due to the excess heat, and also to give the knee a rest.

Tuesday Dec. 6

Continued work on Bud's watches today, and sent the family an email with suggested prices on the 16 watches, and got approval on all. Got a book order today, so went to the local postal station and thank goodness I was able to print a prepaid label and drop the parcel in the mailbox because lord-a-mighty there was a long line of people mailing Xmas packages. I was completely flumoxed today as to where to have lunch, so I defaulted to McDonald's and used a coupon to get a BOGO on a sausage/egg/cheese "McGriddle," that sweet/salty combination breakfast sandwich. I know, I know ... a complete sellout move in a city filled with so many great restaurants. But I just needed a food pill today, and I got out for under $5, which is becoming a near impossible feat these days. From there, I went back to the "Market Place" shopping center to buy something for the gift exchange at a holiday party being held Dec. 17 and hosted by the Widow and Widowers Meetup group to which I belong. This is first time this season I will hook up with the group. This group was a great social outlet for me last year. But this year, it has nearly fallen apart because nearly everyone "paired up" with another person from the group, and now the new "couples" have no further need of the group. Thus, many at the holiday party will be bringing their "SO" and it's certain to have a completely different vibe to it than last year's party. Anyway, I put together a nice basket of goodies (edibles) from the Cost Plus World Market.

Box from (niece) Kathy and (grand nephew) Cameron arrived today, containing goodies from Cameron's school fund raiser. Chocolate chip cookie dough (non refrigerator stable for up to 21 days) and pickle/olive fork. (Brother) Curt mailed it, thus box was plastered with interesting stamps that I will save for him. Dough is now in 'fridge and I'll report later when I bake a batch of cookies.

Wednesday Dec. 7

Litter change day today. This makes (cat) Abby a very happy girl! Next, peddled the bike over to the Lakes Park farmers' market, and damned if I didn't aggravate the knee again. I am simply going to have to walk my bike across intersections to avoid putting too much torque on the left knee. Lunch at a place called the "Shrimp Shack" which as you might guess is a seafood place with emphasis on shrimp, cooked most any way you want. They are a bit off the beaten path, situated along a stretch of Metro Parkway which is known mostly for professional office buildings. Thus, they do a lot of "couponing" which has earned them a bit of a reputation around town as a bit "dive-y." But my lunch there was excellent. I had a "light portion" of their deep fried shrimp with a salad for $7.99. My only gripe is that the platter came with just one hush puppy. That's like getting one piece of toast for god's sake! So I asked the waitress if I could have two more, and got charged 60 cents apiece for them on my bill. But not a huge deal, and I will be back. I'm guessing the "regular size" platters come with more than one HP!

(Sister) Dawn went Xmas shopping after work, so I was on my own for dinner and had a couple of hot dogs from the fridge along with some potato chips. Zero imagination, but it filled the hole.

Thursday Dec. 8

Spent some bucks today. First to the Florida Cafe on my second attempt to score a homemade cinnamon roll there, but with no luck. This is another one of those quirky one-person restaurants that operates pretty much on the whim of the owner/operator, Chrissie. Seems I need to get there earlier in the week. On Thursday, she stops baking them because she is closed on weekends. There is an old fashioned barber shop in the same strip mall, so needing a trim I stopped there next and had "Ben" give me a fine crewcut for just ten bucks (plus a $2 tip). This included a finishing razor trim around the neck and ears, something you don't see much any more. Very satisfied. Next to "Skip One" seafood restaurant and fish market on Highway 41, just a couple miles south from the strip mall. Dropped $31 on large stone crab claws (1.25 pounds), which I'll enjoy during the weekend. Back to the condo to work on watches. (Sister) Dawn and I are dining at Outback Steak House tonight to give the "chef" a little break. Hard to beat their 6-ounce sirloin dinner at just $12.99 plus our AARP card gets us 15% off the bill.

Hope everyone is well and in good spirits.

'Til next time,

Bruce and Dawn

Billy, I Love Ya, But ...

To quote comedian Dennis Miller, "I don't mean to go off on a rant here, but ... "

... has anyone noticed the prices recently of going to see live theater events? I was thinking the other day a nice Christmas gift for (sister) Dawn -- and myself -- would be tickets to see something live at the Barbara B. Mann, our local performing arts center. The Book of Mormon is playing there Jan. 24-29, and Billy Crystal performs for one night on January 30. I went to BB Mann website, thinking I would find some nice tickets for around $100 a person.

Anyone want to guess what floor (orchestra) seats cost for either event? Anyone? Bueller?

How about $265 per ticket? That's right. Over $500 for the two of us to see either Mormon or Crystal. For $100 apiece, I couldn't even get a pair of nosebleeds up on the balcony.

Sheesh. I mean I not one of those old codgers who sits around mourning the loss of nickel candy bars or one dollar haircuts. I realize the cost of living has gone up. But there's fair, and then there's outrageous. Five or even $10 for a hamburger is fair, if it's a good burger. I've paid that much and felt I got a fair value. Twenty dollars for a burger, however, is outrageous. Fifteen or $20 for a haircut nowadays is fair, But somewhere around $40, I would draw the ine and say it's outrageous, especially given my ever shrinking number of hairs to cut.

So nearly $600 for two seats to see a play or a comedian? 'Cause that's what it would be by the time they added sales tax and various "convenience fees." (Don't you just love that little euphamism?) Granted, both would certainly be good. But c'mon. And in Fort Myers, Fla., no less?

Outrageous.

Well, I guess it's what the market will bear. But it saddens me that performers and event organizers have turned live entertainment into a diversion for the rich. And goodness knows we have our share of rich folks down here for whom $500 or $600 is a pittance. But for us folks of modest means who love the performing arts, we'll have to settle for dinner theater and watching our great performers on TV. Guess we'll be going to the Laugh In Comedy Cafe, our local comedy club, for $15 apiece. And "Phantom" will be playing at the Broadway Palms Dinner Theater for $60 apiece which includes dinner. Certainly less thrilling, but at least I can sleep at night knowing I didn't spend a month's rent on an evening out.

Well, enough of that. Here it is, week four in Florida already. A month. Sounds like a long time, but it passes in a blink, doesn't it?

Nov. 25-27

The three days following Thanksgiving were restful, especially for Dawn who was off work and had an opportunity to rest and recoup. On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, Dawn and I ventured across the bridge into Cape Coral to try out a brew pub and grill called "Big Blue Brewing" which also features a full service menu. The place is run by the same folks who own the Cape Coral rum distillery where "Wicked Dolphin Rum" is made, and one of the principals is the husband of my former landlord (and current friend) Heather Mangan. We went during Happy Hour (3 to 6 p.m.) to take advantage of the $5 happy hour appetizers and reduced prices on drinks. I ordered a "flight" of four beer samples, settling on an orange wheat beer, and Dawn had a strawberry daiquiri. For apps, we ordered a grilled bacon/cheese sandwich with tomato bisque, cheese sticks with marinara, and mild chicken wings. Everything was delicious, and our server, Thomas, was very nice. We brought the cribbage board and played two games, winning one apiece. It was a very pleasant afternoon. We finished the "rubber" game back at the condo, and Dawn won the series, one of the few times she's beaten her older brother which gave her a good feeling of learning the finer points of the game.

On Saturday, I aggravated my left knee pretty badly by biking to Fort Myers Beach and back. I have a condition known as "patellofemoral pain syndrome" which is a fairly common knee disorder among athletes (not me) and overweight people (me). It comes and goes, and my primary doctor says there isn't a whole lot I can do about it other than to let it rest and -- guess what? -- lose weight. So I gave my knee a good icing on Saturday night. No bike riding for me for while, and when I resume, I will have to learn to "push off" with the right leg instead of the left, because that's where most of the stress comes. The terrain here is virtually flat, so once I get going, there isn't a whole lot of stress on the knees.

Monday Nov. 28.

Back to work for Dawn. I walked a lap around Lakes Park for exercise today, with no apparent further knee aggravation. Then a smoothie and coffee on the lanai. I went to the Market Square shopping center again to browse the shops and also try lunch at a place called "Crispers," a Florida chain with 24 locations throughout the state. They pretty much stole the playbook from "Panera Bread" right down to the "Pick Two" lunch where you choose two items from their soup/salad/sandwich menu. I had a deluxe "summer salad" of greens, smoked turkey breast, fruits, nuts, bleu cheese (good) and half a Reuben s sandwich (just OK) and an iced tea, all for $12. Don't think I need to go back, and I don't know if this place will make it over the long haul. There is just too much competition around here for sandwich/salad places. I also stopped at "Total Wine and Liquor" which is a wine/beer/liquor superstore and bought three mini bottles of Tolon-Tolon creme liquors imported from Spain. Tolon-Tolon is the Spanish equivalent of "ring ring" in English to describe the ringing sound that a bell makes. This is an example of an onomatopoeia, a word that phonetically imitates the sound that it describes. Examples would be buzz, boom, baaa, moo, etc. My 10th grade English teacher, Miss Dahl would be very proud of me for remembering this. Anyway, each bottle of Tolon-Tolon comes with a little bell fastened around its neck. I had no experience with the brand; I simply bought them because they were amusing. Similar in strength to Baileys Irish Cream. I've had the Macadamia Nut Cream so far (in coffee) and it was delicious!

For dinner, we declared a chef's night off (tired of turkey) and went to Pincher's Crab Shack on San Carlos with a 10% coupon we clipped from the Florida Weekly. I had stone crab, while Dawn had a shrimp platter. Everything was excellent.

Tuesday Nov. 29

Oatmeal for breakfast with pecans, dried cranberries, and maple syrup for sweetener, watermelon, and coffee. Workout today at Planet Fitness which thankfully did not aggravate my knee too much. Then to DJ Chinese on Cleveland for a plate lunch of chicken cashew, pork fried rice, eggroll, and hot tea. All delicious. Then to Chase Bank to deposit (sis in law) Julie's check that she sent me for the upcoming Jan. 13 cruise. I couldn't deposit the check on my mobile phone app because -- get this -- Julie's handwriting had extended into the MICR at the bottom of the check where the numbers identify Julie's bank code and account number. The mobile app was unable to decipher the numbers. So I had to deposit the check the old fashioned way by actually going to the bank. Been a while since I've done that. Just another one of those menial tasks rendered near obsolete by technology.

Wednesday Nov. 30

Farmers Market today across the street at Lakes Park. Rode the bike over there and had breakfast of a guava/cream cheese Danish, fresh cut fruit, and coffee. I was thinking of riding the bike further today, but it is too windy. The wind is a big deciding factor for me because it can make a huge difference between enjoying the ride and struggling with the ride. I am not aerodynamic; in fact I am the opposite of aerodynamic. Today, two watch cases arrived in the mail from a replating outfit in Montreal, Canada. I mailed these out just before leaving for Florida, and a month later I have them back. Cost me $115 Canadian which converts to about $86 U.S. Kind of expensive, but worth it especially on a nice watch. One of these is for a Gruen day/night watch; the other is for a 1920s Haste (pronounced HAS-tay) with awesome Art Deco design. The movements for both of these are back in Janesville, so these cases will go back with me there to be re-assembled and sold. Tonight for dinner, a barbecue sampler platter from Sonny's Barbecue. Big enough to share ... four meats (ribs, chicken, pork shoulder, beef brisket) a baked sweet potato, beans, and corn muffin.

Thursday Dec. 1

It's a brand new month, and also marks one month since (cat) Abby and I left on our road trip to Florida. (Sister) Dawn officially starts as a full-fledged city employee today and leaves the temp agency. Hooray! Raise in pay and city benefits, most of which will kick in after six months (notably health insurance and vacation/sick days). At 5 p.m., I met up with (former landlord and current friend) Heather Mangan at Blue Water Brewing in Cape Coral for beer, appetizers, and conversation. Dawn caught up with us about 5:30, driving direct from work. Always nice to catch up with Heather. She is just 32 years old, but a real go-getter and it does my heart good to see a young person with gumption and a healthy dose of self-reliance and zero sense of entitlement. Everything she has, she has earned. Anyway, she just got married last May to a fellow who is another energetic entrepreneur (he is currently master distiller at Cape Coral Distillery) and partner in this brewery and pub. Her married name is now "Termini" and she goes with a hyphenated last name, "Heather Mangan-Termini." Her hubby's name is Danny, and he has an identical twin brother, Joe, who is also a principal at the brewery, and the two are constantly mistaken for one another, which makes for fun and hi jinx at the brewery. Sounds like a pilot for a TV comedy, no?

Anyway, Heather quit her job at "Rich Dad Coaching" (Robert Kiyosaki) and got her real estate brokerage license and started her own brokerage firm, operating on a flat-fee basis ($2,500 to sell any home, regardless of price). We ordered beers and an assortment of appetizers, and even ordered burgers off the dinner menu. Everything was delicious, and Heather generously picked up the tab. We parted company about 7 p.m., crossed back over the Cape Coral bridge into Fort Myers. Cape Coral is certainly an interesting city with a character all its own ... quite apart from Fort Myers, even though the cities are practically within spitting distance of one another. But with virtually no beaches (save for one miniscuminuscule located within "Yacht Club Community Park") I'm happy to be on the other side of the bridge in Fort Myers.

Well, that's all for this installment. As I complete this on Dec. 5, I note the folks back in Wisconsin got a rude awakening yesterday overnight to today in the form of some wet heavy snow ... up to six inches in some areas. More rudeness is on the way later this week with temps in the teens and night time lows in the single digits. Buck up. Meanwhile, the first of the strawberry crop is coming in down here. Mmmm.

Bruce

Week Three -- Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Thursday Nov. 24

Dawn and I had a light breakfast at the condo, and then watched the Macy's parade as is our tradition for the last few years. We can tell we are getting older when over half the songs and artists seem to be rap-based. Loved the Rockettes, but oh my god Tony Bennett please retire. Thanks, though, to Miss Piggy for saving him from falling off the float. With our bigger kitchen, we decided to make a homecooked meal at the condo rather than go out. We had baked a Mrs. Smith's pumpkin pie the night before. We put a Jenny-O turkey breast in the oven about 10:30 a.m., and made mashed potatoes, stuffing, green bean casserole, and cranberry sauce to go with. And of course gravy. Everything was delicious, and we played Scrabble in the afternoon. In the evening, I boiled the turkey carcass and picked it clean, and made matzo ball soup for dinner with plenty left over. It was a big day in the kitchen and we ended up doing three loads in the dishwasher.  Hope everyone had a great day and perhaps had a moment to reflect on what they are thankful for. For me, I'm thankful for another good year in the sun doing the things I love with relative good health, and accompanied by family and good friends.

Going back over the past week, here are some highlights.

Friday Nov. 18

Went to Fleamasters and bought a laundry hamper, socks, and a copy of Dan Brown's "The Lost Symbol." I went to the Walmart Market solo and bought $100 in groceries, mostly for Thanksgiving but also for some meals between now and then. The checkout lady at Walmart shorted me the pumpkin pie so had to go back ... don't you hate it when that happens? Went to the pool today and swam 20 pool lengths, doubling my normal amount. For dinner, Dawn and I had Asian slow-baked chicken legs and shrimp fried rice.

Saturday Nov. 19

Dawn is off for the weekend, but her sciatica has been acting up lately, so we are curtailing physical activities and looking for more sedate options. Today, we drove to Newton Park, which is a little gem of an ocean front park on Estero Island, about a couple miles south from all the hub-bub of the main Fort Myers beach area. We brought the cribbage board along and ate a picnic lunch secured from a Publix market across street consisting of sub sandwiches, chips, and iced tea. From there, we drove to the Norman Love chocolate cafe on Daniels Parkway and indulged in a sinful dessert and coffee.

Sunday Nov. 20

Made a deluxe breakfast of eggs, fried potatoes, sausage patties, and toast. Watched CBS Sunday morning. While Dawn rested her back and legs, I took a bike ride and made it all the way to Fort Myers Beach, 8.4 miles each way. Had to walk the uphill portion of the Matanzas bridge coming and going, but even walking that portion is a good workout because of the bridge's incline. Got back to the condo, and showered. Dawn and I went to the Fresh Market at the Bell Tower Shopping Center where Dawn hit the deli and got some chicken salad and an artichoke salad for lunch and ate it outside on their patio while I had a coffee. For dinner, I made pork chops with stuffing, Parmesan broiled yellow squash coins, and mini desserts that we bought from the Fresh Market bakery.

Monday Nov. 21

Back to work for Dawn. Sciatic nerve pain continues to bring her down. Pretty much constant pain, just differing levels throughout the day. I did a workout at Planet Fitness today, then lunch at BurgerQue, one of my faves, but I fear they are not going to make it. They're trying to be a burger place, but also a barbeque place, and I think it's too confusing for most people. I then went to Winn Dixie for a few needed supplies. I made lasagne for dinner, accompanied by one of those Dole salad kits called a "Bacon Blue" We both thought there was too much cabbage in the greens mix.

Tuesday Nov. 22

Did a walking lap around Lakes Park this a.m., about 1.25 miles door to door. Ran some errands including the hardware store where I got a replacement handle to fix one of the lids to our pots and pans set. Didn't realize they made replacement handles for those; I was prepared to buy a drawer pull and jury rig it. Lunch was at DJ Chinese on Tamiami Trail between College and Cypress Lake, which Dawn and I have decided serves the best Chinese food around. Cashew chicken in white sauce, with eggroll and pork fried rice, all for $7.95 making it one of the best lunch deals around. More swimming in the afternoon. For dinner, I made salmon with chili-lime glaze, asparagus, and rice pilaf.

Wednesday Nov. 23

Big day today! Dawn was offered (and accepted) her job as admin assistant as a permanent position with the city of Fort Myers. She will not be working for the temp agency any longer, and will receive a boost in hourly wage as well as full city employee benefits which includes 100 percent paid healyh insurance premiums. I am so very proud of her. For me, today was Farmers' Market day at Lakes Park, so I began the day there and met up with my bicycle club friends. I had a pumpkin cream cheese muffin and a half-pint box of sweet red cherries. I biked over to the park, so when finished with food and chatting with my friends, I hopped back on my bicycle and rode Six Mile Cypress to the trailhead for the John Yarborough trail, and rode that to the end and back, a 16-mile round trip ride. I forgot to put on my sunblock, and so got a little roasted. For dinner, we had leftover lasagna, and I made us each a wedge salad of iceberg lettuce, bleu cheese and French dressings, and nice big pieces of bacon that I cooked in the microwave. It was one of the most delicious salads we've had.

Thursday Nov. 24

I reported the Thanksgiving Day festivities earlier, but Thursday is also weigh-in day for me, and I'm happy to report I dropped another two pounds, from 259 to 257. Looking forward to breaking the 250 mark.

Bruce

Florida Oranges

Dawn and I have noticed that, for the second year in a row, the local oranges aren't very good. They're dry and pithy and kind of sour ... not like the sweet, juicy oranges we remember. So I did a little investigating and found out that the oranges (and indeed all the citrus crops) here are being devastated by a bacterium (singular of bacteria) that is spread by an insect no larger than a grain of rice. The bug is the Asian citrus psyllid, and the disease is called "huanglongbing" or more commonly "tree greening" down here. Yep, it's a gift from our Asian friends, and the bacterium is so devastating to citrus crops that in 2003, the United States classified it as a bioterror weapon. At first, affected trees produce off-color, mis-shapen fruit that have an off- or bitter flavor. Eventually, the trees drop their fruit prematurely, and both trees and their fruit are useless.

The Florida Dept. of Agriculture has been keeping its eye on this disease since 1969 when it was discovered, but it's only been recently that the disease has taken a significant bite out of the citrus -- and particularly the orange -- industry. Just this season (2016-2017), Florida predicts a 26 percent drop in the orange harvest compared with last season. That's a fourth of the crop, and translates into 1.8 BILLION pounds of fruit!

So if you do the math, the disease left unabated (and there's no cure for this, at least one that's economically viable) could kill the industry that made Florida famous in four years. One long-term possible solution is to plant 20 MILLION new trees in the next few years, and hope the disease runs its course. But newly planted trees (if they are started from seed versus grafting) can take up to 15 years to produce fruit.

In the meantime, California and Brazil (which grows more oranges than anybody incidentally) can pick up some of the slack, but the disease is gaining force in those locations as well.

So expect to pay more for fresh oranges, and that glass of OJ in the coming months and years. As for the immediate effect on Dawn and I, we are not buying the local Navels, which are the only oranges in season right now, nor are we shipping them to anyone. The Honeybells (hybrid between navels and tangerines) will come in January, followed by the Valencias last. We'll see if those are any better. Meanwhile, the grapefruit are still very good, as well as the lemons and limes. And the fresh OJ is still very good, but expensive ($5 for 1/2 gallon) because I suppose they have to squeeze more oranges to get the same amount of juice.

OK, on to what's been happening this past week.

Friday, Nov. 11, Veterans' Day. I'm happy to report that the snafu with my bicycle was a minor one, requiring only that I turn the handle bars 360 degrees to relieve pressure on the front wheel brake cables. This was the coolest thing to happen to me all day! I had turned the handle bars around by mistake when loading the bike into the Prius from the bike shop yesterday. 

After a breakfast of thick cut bacon and my made-from-scratch buttermilk pancakes, Dawn and I walked a lap around Lakes Park. We skipped the Fleamasters flea market today. We drove to the Gulf Coast Town Center, which I call the "Bermuda Triangle Shopping Center" because it is so big and confusing, and once you enter, it seems impossible to exit. Anyway, there is a place there called "Massage Heights" where you can get a great price on a one-hour massage ($60) if you enroll in a program where they deduct $60 monthly from your checking account. I enrolled in the program, got a tour of the facility (nice, but no locker room/shower), and scheduled my first massage for the following Wednesday.

We then had lunch at one of the many eateries at the shopping center called "Miller's Ale House." We have eaten there before at another of their locations, so we knew the food was good. Their daily lunch special was fish-n-chips for $5.99 which I must say was the best bargain I've run across so far this season. Dawn had a make-you-own burger with bacon, bleu cheese, and mushrooms. Everything was delicious.

Saturday Nov. 12. This morning, we cleaned out the fridge and threw out lots of old stuff, including four bottles of salad dressing. We also re-arranged the shelves into a more logical pattern that would allow for better use of space. We needed to do this because we went to the Walmart Market and bought $90 worth of groceries for a meal plan that we mapped out for the coming week. We were able to get everything in the fridge and freezer with room to spare. In the afternoon, I took my first major bike ride of the season, traveling north on Gladiolus/Six Mile Cypress Parkway from Lakes Park to Daniels Parkway, a distance of 4.5 miles each way, 9 miles total. It was a beautiful ride, and the bike performed flawlessly. For dinner, I made hot beef sandwiches with mashed potatoes and gravy.


Sunday Nov. 13. Breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, home fries, toast, and coffee. I went to Planet Fitness for a workout while Dawn did some errands. We rendezvoused back at the condo, and decided to go to Fort Myers Beach. I clipped a coupon from the Southwest Florida Weekly for a free cocktail (when you buy lunch) at the Sunset Beach Grill. I had a Fuzzy Hurricane (yep, peach schnapps in addition to gin and rum) and Dawn had a strawberry Dacquiri. These were normally $7 apiece, so the coupon saved us $14. For meals, Dawn had fish-n-chips (great) and I had a 1/2 rack of baby back ribs (so-so). We lingered a while to listen to a male/female duo singing vocals to pre-recorded sound tracks. They were actually good, and the guy (who looked like a bouncer) did a solo rendition of Michael McDonald's "Minute by Minute" which I thought was especially good. From there, we walked down to the Lani Kai Resort and each had a rum-n-diet Coke on the rooftop bar, six stories above Fort Myers Beach. Lovely. For dinner, I prepared lemon-garlic shrimp over linguini and tossed salad. In the evening, I went on the healthcare.gov website and renewed health coverage for 2017, this time signing up with Mercy Healthcare in favor of DeanCare. This hit a major snafu later this week, but I'll get to that in a moment. For the time being, I was elated to be saving nearly $70 a month from what DeanCare was providing.


Monday, Nov. 14. Back to work for Dawn. I had a banana/strawberry smoothie for breakfast, then walked a lap around Lakes Park. I decided to hit the Market Square shopping center, which contains a Barnes and Noble bookstore and a Cost Plus World Market, two of my faves. I spent about an hour at  BN, but did not buy anything. From there, was trying to find a cafe called "Crispers" for lunch, which my GPS indicated was somewhere in the parking lot. I had no luck finding it, but was getting mighty hungry so settled for a couple of items from the deli at a Super Target store, and ate them along with an iced latte at the Starbucks cafe inside Target. Not the best fare I've ever eaten, but it it cured the low blood sugar shakes. From there to the World Market where I spent $44 including some decent silverware (knives, forks, spoons) because the silverware provided by our landlord sucks, though god bless their hearts for trying. It's like trying to eat with slivers of metal, like they were stamped out of old cookie sheets or something. Oh, and I found the Crispers place at the far end of a strip mall that is part of the Market Square complex. Looks kind of like a Panera Bread, so I will give it a try next time. For dinner, chicken quesadillas and tortilla chips with salsa.  For dessert, I jury-rigged an orange crunch cake in an effort to duplicate a cake by the same name offered by the Bubble Room restaurant on Captiva Island. Yellow cake mix with orange juice substituted for the water. Icing is a blend of half buttercream frosting, half cream cheese (an eight ounce brick) with about 1/3 cup orange juice concentrate mixed in. In the middle of the two-layer cake is the crunch part made with sliced almonds, brown sugar, and butter, heated in a pan until everything melts together and gets crunchy when cooled. A little frosting goes in the center to act as glue to hold the crunchies in place. Assemble, frost, refrigerate, then serve. It was AWESOME.


Tuesday, Nov. 15. Did some errands in the morning with the Prius, including a stop at the post office to mail a copy of my book ($49.95 in the old checking account ... KA-CHING!) and an early lunch stop at the new Normal Love Chocoloate Cafe located on McGregor Blvd. by our old 'hood. Had a chocolate pecan tart that was awesome along with a cup of coffee. Ran me $10, but totally worth it. If you're going to blow your sugar/carb budget, this is the place to do it. Bike ride day. I rode Six Mile Cypress Parkway to the southern trail head of the John Yarborough bike trail, and rode it to the southern end at Colonial. Eight miles each way, for a total of 16 miles. I think one or two more trips like this, and I'll be ready to do Fort Myers Beach by bicycle, which is roughly the same distance, but includes a heart-thumping climb up the Mantanzas bridge, which I usually walk. Stopped at Sun Harvest Citrus on my way back for a five pound bag of grapefruit. For dinner, make chicken Parmesan, and rainbow sherbet with shortbread cookie for dessert.

Wednesday Nov. 16. Today is the farmers' market at Lakes Park, so I rode my bike over and had a nice breakfast of bagel/egg/sausage sandwich, fresh fruit and coffee. Then, to the Bermuda Triangle Shopping Center for my first massage with "Jill" at Massage Heights. I hadn't had a massage in over two months, so this was a welcome treat. I got the full body, with concentration on neck and shoulders. It was wonderful. I scheduled my next appt. on Dec. 13 with "Lynn," just to try someone different and compare. Had a nice lunch at PF Changs in the same shopping center. Chicken lettuce wraps, and an eggroll. Delicious.

Returned to the condo, and got the boom lowered on me by Mercy Health Care, which I am now calling Mercy-less. Some bean counter from their finance department emailed me to inform me I am not eligible for coverage because of my half-year spent in Florida. I must be in Wisconsin at least nine months of the year to be covered by them. So back to the drawing board on that one, and likely back to DeanCare again, at a nearly $100 per month increase in price over last year's coverage by them, and nearly $70 more a more than the Mercy-less plan. Can't deal with calling healthcare.gov right now. Made dinner instead of beef Stroganoff over egg noodles, and broiled Italian zucchini sticks (great way to prepare zucchini by the way, recipe HERE) and for dessert the rest of the orange crunch cake. Dawn and I played Scrabble and cribbage in the evening out on the lanai. Also, we received some GREAT news from Kim and John Regets, our landlords. We told them we wanted to renew our lease here at Summerlin Trace. They replied and said they would rent to us for another 12 months beginning in April at the same rate ($1,250 per month) as last year. This was a very pleasant surprise (and helped to offset the bad new about the health insurance), because I have been reading that rental rates have been going up in the Fort Myers area due to a rental shortage as more and more people are moving here, both for the winter season and year 'round. 

Thurs. Nov. 17. Weighed myself this a.m. Down two pounds from 261 to 259. My goal is to shed 40 pounds while down in Florida, and if I can maintain this pace, I should make it. Trying to eat healthy and get some form of exercise every day among biking, walking, swimming (pool at condo), and health club. I'm not going crazy with juice fasts or anything; just trying to eat healthy, go light during the day, but have a nice dinner with Dawn, and absolutely no evening grazing, which has always been my downfall.

Called healthcare.gov this a.m. and the lady I talked with terminated my contract with Mercy-less, and enrolled me in DeanCare once again. Once I got the email notice confirming enrollment with Dean (about 15 minutes after hanging up the phone), I went on the healthcare website and made my first month's premium payment of $171.68. We'll see what Trump and Company do to Obamacare, but in the meantime, I'm covered, baby!
Today's gameplan calls for a workout at Planet Fitness, and tonight is chef's night off, as Dawn and I are having dinner at 6 p.m. at the University Grill. I have been cooking dinners for nearly a week solid, which has yielded some great dinners, but also big cleanups in the kitchen, with Dawn on KP. I feel as though I am keeping the spirit of dear old Dad, Howard R., alive, whose kitchen messes during our childhood years of the '60s and early '70s were epic, including a pork chop episode that required the services of the Madison Fire Department.  

Bye for now,

Bruce

Florida 2016-17 week one

Hi all:

I've been in Florida one week already. The time flies by. Enjoying morning coffee and smoothie on the lanai. Dawn is at work; Abby is across from me, sleeping on one of the patio chairs. This is definitely her favorite room during the day.

My travels here were some of the smoothest so far. Only one accident on the Interstate just north of Nashville. My accommodations in Clarksville (TN) and Tifton (GA) were there usual adequate. Abby once again was the perfect little traveler.

I arrived at the condo unit about 3 p.m. on Thursday the 3rd. I got everything from the Prius unpacked and then waited for Dawn to come home. We had dinner at one of our fave restaurants, Pawnbrokers, where I had the 3-way shrimp platter and Dawn had baked cod. All very delicious as usual.

Friday I walked a lap around Lakes Park, about 1.25 miles. The farmers' market at Lakes Park has been moved from Fridays to Wednesdays, so no market today. Next, I stopped at Sun Harvest Citrus (on my way to the Fleamasters flea market) to check out the citrus situation and drink a free sample or two of the fresh OJ. The grapefruit was delicious, but the navel oranges were the only ones that were in season at the moment, and they were awful. So I bought three grapefruit and a half gallon of fresh OJ and called it a day. I had a chance meeting with two guys, Charlie and Ed, from the "Peckerheads" bicycle club. I usually see these guys at the Lakes Park farmers' market, and they assured me they continue to go on Wednesdays and that we would see each other there. We caught up briefly, and then went our separate ways. On to Fleamasters where I met up with "Chris the Book Guy," my book connection down here. I bought a copy of John D. MacDonald's "One Fearful Yellow Eye," which is another in his Travis McGee series. Lunch in the food court of a gyro sandwich and diet Coke (Sorry niece Kris, I just can't completely shake the diet Coke habit, though my consumption is down considerably). Back to the condo to stash the citrus and OJ. Next to the grocery store for needed supplies. In the afternoon, I swam 10 lengths in the swimming pool and got a couple chapters into "Yellow Eye." For dinner, meatloaf, mashed potatoes with gravy, broccoli, and fresh pineapple spears for dessert. I took a chance on whole pineapple at Walmart Neighborhood Market for $2.99 and lucked out; it was delicious.

Saturday Nov. 5. For breakfast, I made a special treat of my homemade buttermilk pancakes, and coupled that with some thick cut bacon. All done on my electric griddle, which I ferried down here from Wisconsin. And of course some that fresh OJ from Sun Harvest, which is awesome. Dawn had a haircut appt. today, so I went to Planet Fitness and did a one-hour workout. We rendezvoused back at the condo and went out to lunch at the Ginger Bistro, a new place for me, though Dawn had tried it over the summer and commented that they serve Dim Sum. So of course I wanted to try it, so we ordered six dishes to share. Everything tasted fine, except when we got to the beef. I thought the menu had stated "beef tenderloin in bbq sauce." But what arrived was beef "TENDON" in bbq sauce. It was like biting into beef flavored Jell-O cubes, and after a couple of awful bites of this, I called over the waitress to ask what cut of beef this was, because it certainly was not tenderloin. After she clarified, we set that dish aside and chalked that one up to education. We both agreed it was one of the most awful things we had eaten in recent memory, but leave it to the Asians to use everything in the cow except the moo to make something to eat. We will look more carefully at the menu next time.

Sunday Nov. 6. Ham and cheese omelets and fried potatoes for breakfast. We watched CBS Sunday Morning together, and this was my first chance to watch it since leaving here last May. Jane Pauley is the new host of course. This episode was their political edition, intended to line up with Tuesday's presidential election. But there were a couple other themed segments, in particular I enjoyed the one on Paul Simon. Geez, 75 years old. Sorry to say I don't really like his later stuff much. He's fascinated by the sounds of obscure musical instruments, but he crams too many into his compositions, and mostly what I hear is a lot of noise. Simon is, for me, one of those musicians frozen in time, mostly with Art Garfunkel, but I do enjoy some of Simon's early solo career stuff like Kodachrome, Still Crazy After All These Years, 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover, etc. After the album "Graceland," things got a little too crazy for me. Next, Dawn and I took a 40-minute drive north to Punta Gorda to do some exploring. We went to Fishermen's Village, a collection of shops and restaurants, and had lunch at the Captain's Table, which was highly rated on Yelp, and was excellent. We both had the fish 'n' chips which contained a generous portion of batter fried cod, steak fries/onion ring combo, and coleslaw. Ice tea to drink. We skipped dessert, saving it for ice cream and coffee at another shop. We had a nice stroll along the marina and window shopping at the various stores.

Monday Nov. 7. Back to work for Dawn. I rode my bicycle over to "EA Bike Shop" on McGregor for a tuneup and safety check. Was going to have lunch at the new Norman Love chocolate shop and cafe, located in the same strip mall, but unfortunately it is closed on Mondays. Took an Uber ride back to the condo ($7.82) then went to Publix for some fresh salmon for dinner. A nice swim in the afternoon and more book reading. Pan fried salmon, rice pilaf, steamed broccoli, and a salad of greens and fresh pear for dinner. We had a Scrabble and cribbage marathon out on the lanai until about 9 p.m., which is Dawn's usual bedtime.

Tuesday Nov. 8. Election Day. Dawn will vote after work, so she is picking up dinner at "Sonny's BBQ" so I don't have to worry about dinner. I did a one-hour workout at Planet Fitness, then back to the condo for lunch. Fell asleep on the couch for two hours, then went for a swim. I made an apple crisp for tonight's dessert. Dawn got home around 6 p.m.; there was virtually no line at her polling place. She came home with a "sampler platter" from Sonny's which contained some of each meat that Sonny makes, including ribs, pork shoulder, beef brisket, and chicken. The sides we chose were baked beans and a sweet potato. We each had a corn muffin, and Dawn got an extra 1/2 pound of pork shoulder, which we didn't even touch because there was plenty on the sampler platter. The platter is $15.99 which makes a reasonably priced meal for two. We deliberately skipped the election coverage and played Scrabble and Cribbage instead.

Wednesday Nov. 9. Well, who would have thought? The polls were wrong, and the media deluded themselves into believing their own rhetoric and completely missed the groundswell of people completely fed up with the Washington establishment. I have my thoughts on this whole "president thing," but this is not the forum for it. I will only say that life goes on. Our Republic has survived 240 years. It survived Nixon and Jimmy Carter. It will survive Donald Trump. I have lived long enough to see that the pendulum swings, and each time it does, we persevere. The folks running around with "Not My President" banners are wasting life energy. Temper tantrums don't solve anything. I am not interested in moving to Canada, and I seriously doubt Miley Cyrus, Bryan Cranston, Samuel L. Jackson, Barbra Streisland, et. al,, will be moving either despite their claims to the contrary. Actually, Miley, if you're reading this, it would not break my heart if you moved. In any event, I spent the morning at the Lakes Park Farmers' Market, and had a lovely breakfast there of a bagel breakfast sandwich, fresh fruit, and coffee. I met up with the Peckerheads bicycle club, and we talked of the election and other subjects. The afternoon I spent on Sanibel Island, where I had a nice lunch at the Island Cow, and rented a bicycle and drove around the island, including a run through the Ding Darling Nature Preserve. Two things of note on the Island: 1. The Sanibel Cafe is closed indefinitely on accounr of a fire. I will miss them, not only for good breakfasts, but they are one of the few places I've found that offered free public wi-fi with no password. 2. Doc Ford's Rum Bar and Grill has closed its location at Rabbit Road and San/Cap Highway. This was always a favorite midway stop for me to have a cold beer on my bike rides from Ding Darling back to the Sanibel's main business corridor. They have relocated to 2500 Island Inn Rd., closer to Sanibel's business hub along Periwinkle Way. Too bad. I liked the old location better because it was off the beaten path a little bit. It did make for a congested intersection, but now the new location makes an already busy intersection (Periwinkle and Tarpon Bay Rd.) even more so.

Back at the condo, I prepared Italian chicken breasts, mashed potatoes with gravy, and broccoli. For dessert, we finished the last of the apple crisp. We then drove to a T-Mobile store, where I got off the "Boost" system and onto the T-Moble network, and got a new phone. I've been loyal to Boost for the last couple years and I like their flat-rate pricing system. But time and again I have been foiled by lack of coverage in some of the most unlikely places (like LaCrosse, WI, for example) and I don't want to chance not having cell service when I really need it. So Dawn and I are on a two-phone plan now, costing $100 a month, and I have a new Samsung "Galaxy J7" phone now (not the model that catches fire!) with twice the memory of the old phone. The old phone was running out of memory to the point where the basic apps couldn't even update any more. So I am having fun playing with the new phone and installing my various "apps."

Thursday Nov. 10. Got a call from the bike shop this morning, so I am headed to Planet Fitness for a workout, then to the bike shop. It will be nice to have my bike back as it will give me yet another option to exercise.

Update: Well, fly in the ointment with the bicycle. When I mashed the bike into the back of the Prius, I messed something up with the front brakes and now the brake pads are pressed tight against the front wheel, and bike cannot be ridden. Damn! Back to the bike shop on Monday. For dinner, Dawn and I went to La Casita, our fave Mexican place in Ft. Myers, but we had a rare miss tonight. The shredded beef that they put into the beef enchiladas (and burritos, chimichangas and everything else) was WAY over salted. I don't know why so many Mexican restaurants are heavy-handed with the salt, but La Casita is a rare exception, but tonight somebody messed up. We brought half our dinners home, and I am hoping to desalinize the beef and repurpose it for another dish, perhaps hot beef sandwiches with mashed potatoes and gravy. I'll let you know on this one.

Well, I know this has been a long, rambling entry with no pictures to break up the text. So congrats if you made it all the way through. Hope everyone is well and in good spirits, and I'll check in with you next week.

Bruce

Update May 15

Hi all:

I have been back in Janesville since April 29, so it may seem silly to update the blog with events that happened over two weeks ago. But I want to close the books on what was my fifth winter getaway to Florida in order to provide "closure" as the saying goes, and reflect a little upon this trip compared with past ones.


Leaving Florida to return to Wisconsin is always somewhat bittersweet. I have the ocean and beaches, the awesome seafood, a bounty of fresh, locally grown produce including citrus. Balmy days cut the need considerably for wardrobe. Most days, it's shorts and a T-shirt. It's a good life down there. I could do without the traffic, but that's part of most anywhere in Florida you go. One of the slogans down there is "Another Day in Paradise," and to a certain extent it's true. Hard to give all that up. But I guess ultimately, I'm "from" Wisconsin ... born and raised here. I merely "live" in Florida for part of the year. I'm an interloper, a "snowbird," and I suppose I am regarded there the same way we regard Illinois "flatlanders" and "FIBs" here. Besides, there's too much here that I would miss ... the rolling hills, the good beer, brats, pizza (yes, pizza. I have yet to find good pizza in Florida!), and friends that I have cultivated over the better part of a lifetime. And my watch hobby/business contacts. Despite all the incredible wealth in Florida, I have yet to crack the code to gaining access to the watch market. During my first two weeks back here, I found and purchased more watches than in all the six months I was in Florida! So I am back where I believe I "belong" ... where I feel I'm woven in to the fabric of the place.

But I digest ...


I left Fort Myers about 7 a.m. on April 27 with my personal belongings, cat Abby, and a microwave oven from the apartment on Kings Point Drive that will become a spare when the microwave in Janesville, WI, gives out, which I sure will happen one of these days seeing as how it's over a decade old. I left (sister) Dawn alone to hold down the fort, as it were, in the new 2-bedroom apartment on Lakewood Trace Court. It will be interesting to see how she does on her own with a scant social network to speak of. She knows how to get around town pretty well, and knows where the grocery and drug stores are, the bank, the library, and a handful of reliable restaurants. She knows how to get to the beach, to Sanibel Island, and to her friend's house in Naples. And that's all good. But that's only part of the equation of course. A job needs to be found, friends need to be made, and sweltering heat and humidity need to be dealt with. I wish her the best and hope at least some of these challenges can be met by the time I return next November.

I arrived at my first stop, a Rodeway Inn at Macon, Georgia. Just a little over 500 miles. Abby traveled beautifully, as usual. Car travel along Interstate 75 was interrupted once with a traffic jam outside Ocala, Fla., due to a crash. It took 1.5 hours to traverse 10 miles before the jam cleared. I hate this, but nothing you can do about it. I traveled with my trusty Coleman cooler, stocked with Diet Cokes, baloney, and cheese. In a separate bag I have a loaf of white bread, trail mix, and granola bars, the latter two are for quick energy. I made one stop in Tifton Georgia to gas up, and also stop at the Adcock Pecan Co. where I bought $21 worth of pecans in various flavors, and a Goo-Goo Cluster for dessert that evening. The hotel was perfectly adequate, and for dinner I had a baloney/cheese sandwich, potato chips from a vending machine, a Coke, and the Goo-Goo Cluster for dessert.

To digress again for a moment, some of you may be wondering why I eat a "white trash" diet while on the road when I am known for splurging on good food the rest of the time. The reason is I don't like to waste good food when I'm on the road. The "getting there" is not a fun time for me. I have no one with whom to share the driving. I'm hustling to reach my appointed destination and usually very tired when I arrive and all I want to do is "flop" for the night. It seems a waste to spend a good chunk of money searching out an A-list restaurant on Yelp or Trip Advisor or whatever when I'm tired and all tense from being on the road all day. So a "food pill" is really all I want. I usually pull off at a rest stop for a sandwich, and another stop to refill the gas tank. Oh, and also a few pee stops thrown in there, which I am finding is a more frequent occurrence these days. Part of getting older, you know, but I find it's getting more and more critical these days. I have a theory that the distance to the next rest stop (or an exit with a clean gas station or a McDonalds type of place) is inversely proportional to the urgency with which you have to pee. Case in point: I kind of needed to "go" right around the time I hit that accident zone. By the time I got through, I felt as though I was going to burst. The next stop happened to be a rest stop. I pulled in, and I swear to God every other motorist who had gone through the accident zone was there, too! There was an actual line at the men's room, which almost never happens. The line at the ladies' room was of course twice as long. So I know I'm not the only one that experiences this. Rest stops are especially infrequent in Florida which has long puzzled me. With the huge number of seniors there requiring frequent bathroom breaks, you'd think it would be state law that a rest stop be mandatory every 50 miles! But no such luck.


Anyway, the accommodations in Macon were more than adequate. A funky smell in my room was cleared away by running the AC on high for about an hour. A hot shower and shave improved my disposition immensely, and I fell quickly into blissful sleep. The "comp" breakfast in the morning was surprisingly good, with real scrambled eggs and sausage links to augment the otherwise usual carbohydrate-rich fare found at most budget motels.


April 28


This is the big push ... the day I kind of dread, because I must traverse three large metropolitan areas: Atlanta, Chattanooga, and Nashville.  I got through Atlanta in 45 minutes, pretty darned good, but hit a traffic jam on the outskirts of northern Atlanta that brought us to a standstill. Fuck me, again. I decided to go rogue and follow a line of adventurers who cut through one of those emergency turnarounds (under construction mind you!) and headed back south. I took the first exit, headed west, and let the GPS figure out an alternate route. I was back on I-75 in about half an hour, clearing whatever jam was in the way. Dawn, if you had been with me in the car, you would have had kittens and scolded me for doing this, but sometime you just have to unleash the inner beast and go outlaw.


Chattanooga wasn't too bad, and the beautiful mountains and scenery certainly helped pass the time. What a contrast to the endless Florida flatness! Circumventing Nashville also wasn't too bad, thanks to the "bypass" around the city by going Briley Parkway (the "Opryland" spur) which really isn't an official bypass, but I've made it one. My theory is that the Tennessee Highway Department doesn't want "thruway"motorists like me using Briley Parkway to circumvent downtown, thereby clogging the route for the folks who specifically want to get to Opryland. But the map shows this as an obvious alternate route, so I've taken it for four out of the last five trips here and back, and believe me it saves a lot of headaches.

I arrived in Paducah, Ky., about 4 p.m. due to gaining an hour by switching back to Central Time. I got Abby settled in the room, and then decided to make a little side trip (6 miles each way) to the Harrah's Casino in Metropolis, Ill. I needed to tame an itch that hadn't been scratched in nearly six months due to a dearth in gambling venues in Florida, save for a rather depressing Native American establishment in Immokalee. I lost $50 at the craps table, but then won the $50 back at the blackjack table, leaving the casino even, which is still a win in my book. I hadn't been to that Harrah's in years, and I wanted to see how they were doing. In a word, not good. A really nice display of antique slot machines has been removed. The eating choices have been downsized, with no snack bar or place to get a decent cup of coffee (machine-made coffee --- yuck -- is available at a bar). Carpet needs replacing, and all the felts on the table games were badly scuffed and needed replacing. This was a top-notch place when it first opened. Just goes to show that casinos are often not the boon they are often purported to be.

Back at the motel, I made my usual sandwich, but broke down and went to a Burger King across the street because they had a special on 10 chicken-like substance nuggets for $1.49. They were everything I expected them to be, and I can see why kids love 'em ... greasy, salty, and with no discernible flavor whatsoever beyond whatever "dipping sauce" one chooses. Enjoyed another good night's sleep.

April 29


The only protein choice on the breakfast bar in the morning was precooked hard-boiled eggs. Thought l could get away with microwaving one after cutting it into slices. But no such luck; the damn thing exploded in the microwave. A lid for the egg plate fashioned out of a second paper plate turned upside down was the only thing that averted a full-blown disaster inside the oven. The breakfast bar lady had a few words for me, especially since there was a sign on the microwave urging guests not to nuke the hard boiled eggs. So there you go; lesson learned.

I was on the road by 7:30, and this last leg of journey was something I could almost do with my eyes closed because I have traversed it so many times. It's just a long, boring slog through the flatlands of Illinois. Field after field (empty this time of year of course) with only the occasional grain elevator to punctuate the landscape. Thank goodness for Google Tunes and Pandora, channeled from my phone to the car's audio system via Bluetooth. My God, how did we ever survive before this wonderful invention? Whizzing through Rockford, Ill., I knew I was only about a half hour to my wonderful little apartment in Janesville. Upon arrival, I let Abby out of her carrier, and I swear she knew she was "home." She sniffed the air a few times, and proceeded to survey the rooms one by one, all the time with tail up in the air.

So that's it for another winter adventure. This all started in the winter of 2010, with a three-month stay in Florida ... holed up in a rather depressing room at a Rodeway Inn outside Orlando in Kissimmee at $150 per week. It's now evolved into a six-month stay at a 2-bedroom apartment in Fort Myers rented by the year at $1,250 per month, which Dawn and I split 50/50 on the cost. So my share comes to $625 a month. Which, when you think about it, is only $25 more a month than what I was spending on that tiny room in Kissimmee, though admittedly the amount must be paid 12 times per year instead of three! But what a change (for the better) in quality of life, not to mention surroundings, since beginning this little experiment five winters ago.


I guess the biggest change I noticed from last year's stayover was the absence of the Big M casino ship. That was one of my most favorite things to do, and I made that outing almost every week. It was the best $5 cruise in the world, and I got to enjoy a little bit of gambling along the way. This was sorely missed this time around, and I can only hope that the Big M decides to return to Fort Myers next season The other big change was having Dawn along for the ride this time. This certainly changed the dynamics of the trip and necessitated an upgrade in living quarters. The latter was a welcome change anyway. The one-bedroom on Kings Point was a great starter apartment that had a certain charm to it. But problems due to the landlord's neglect were becoming evident, and I fear they will get worse. Time to move on, and Dawn's arrival on the scene provided the perfect opportunity to make the move.

I'm glad to be back "home," but certain I will be ready to head south again when the winds of November start blowing. I'm glad this little blog of mine has provided some fun and entertainment for friends and family. As I've said before, I mostly maintain this blog as a journal for myself, but am happy (and flattered) that you all think enough of me to check in on my goings-on from time to time.

Until the next adventure,


Bruce