We did not see any sharks during our Florida getaway, except maybe some of the patrons at the Gulfstream race track in Hollywood. No Alligators, no killer whales.
The closest brush with danger was from homo sapiens. While sunsnoozing on the sand, one well-meaning tourist grabbed my leg and started to drag me back into the surf. When I protested he, apologized "Sorry, I thought you were a beached...you know... manatee."
Ok that is an old joke, but I (and some of my fellow beach goers) may possess a strong resemblence to large pale sea mammels.
Now, we are back in the teeth of winter. Going outside is like having a refrigerater gnawing your ears off.
We are back to our pre-vacation retirement mode: We get up late, have breakfast, read the papers, then we go out on errands or meet friends for lunch, come home for nap, watch the TV news, have dinner, watch a favorite program or a Netflix Movie, go to bed.
I know it must sound hard, stressful, and crazy-busy to you Gen-Xers out there, but we love it.
March looms just around the corner. How shall we remember it? Lion or lamb?
2/26/2010
2/24/2010
Chasing the Sun
The forecast for Key West was not sunny, so we checked out of the Best Western and headed for Miami Beach. Booked a room via Priceline at Sheraton 4 Points in North Beach area. Three stars $200 per night.
Today is mid 80's and sunny most of the time. I am about to hit the ocean for the first time since we came to sunny Florida.
Returning to Boston tomorrow night - hope the sun follows...
More later
Today is mid 80's and sunny most of the time. I am about to hit the ocean for the first time since we came to sunny Florida.
Returning to Boston tomorrow night - hope the sun follows...
More later
2/22/2010
It also rises
If you get up early enough in Key West you can see the sun rise on the water. Hence the title of Hemingway's best novel "The Sun Also Rises."However as all sailers know a Red Sky in the morning may bring an ill wind.
2/21/2010
2/19/2010
From Pompano Beach
Dear Fans,
I'm using the computer in the PB library - I only have 3 more minutes on the timer. The weather here during the past ten days has been unseasonably cool. 60's most of the day, colder at night. Good thing we brought long sleeves and long pants.
Food has been scrumptious; many of the drinking establishments serve Sierra Nevada on tap so, no complaints.
Heading down to Key West for a few days. Forecast is for high seventies and sunny. Maybe we will get to go to the beach!
Talk soon,
Signed,
The EPA (Exceptionally Pale American)
I'm using the computer in the PB library - I only have 3 more minutes on the timer. The weather here during the past ten days has been unseasonably cool. 60's most of the day, colder at night. Good thing we brought long sleeves and long pants.
Food has been scrumptious; many of the drinking establishments serve Sierra Nevada on tap so, no complaints.
Heading down to Key West for a few days. Forecast is for high seventies and sunny. Maybe we will get to go to the beach!
Talk soon,
Signed,
The EPA (Exceptionally Pale American)
2/06/2010
Out of Office Message
On Vacation for a few days
Please check the archives if you need a Hellhole Fix, otherwise I should be back soon, tanned, relaxed and ready to resume my job here at the helm of the Hellhole Journal.
I'm feeling a need to rethink the raison d'etre for this blog. In the beginning, it was called Hellhole Update to chronical the experiences and learnings of a typical working guy - a victim of hierarchy and professional management that sought to stifle humor, creativity and above all else, dissent. The intention was to be entertaining more than informative.
Then, a few years ago, I retired, sort-of. Since I have been out of (Escaped...) the workforce, I've lost the passion about work topics. After all, how many different ways can you say that management is generally clueless, nasty, brutish and short?
In the past year I have drifted into political issues. There has been no dearth of events and points of view worthy of derision and mockery. Yet, I have become weary of politics. It is clear that no amount of discussion will alter anyone's position, and that is just a sad state of affairs, and not entertaining.
So it is. I have come to a journalistic crossroads, he wrote dramatically
I need a new topic.
Any Ideas?
2/04/2010
Jumping Ugly on Obama
On Tuesday WSJ printed an OP-ED piece, "The Obama Spell is Broken" by Fouad Ajami. The author is a senior fellow at Stanford University Hoover Institution - a Republican leaning Small Government Think Tank. I mention the author's credentials because this piece reveals how utterly wrong a fancy pants intellectual can be when his research is colored by his preconceptions.
Ajami seems to forget that the reason for Obama's election. A lot of voters felt like we needed a drastic change in 2008. There was a huge shift of independent voters who had voted for Bush in 2004 but who became alienated by the Bush administration's arrogant excesses in the name of the 'war on terror' - which had badly damaged US credibility around the world.
Voters were further driven away from the republican party by the failure of the "small government" party to keep the government small and instead of tax and spend, they were cut-tax and spend. Added to that was the palpable weakness of the McCain-Palin ticket. Then came the stunning collapse of the financial sector, widespread job loss, and the clear indictment against unregulated free markets. Compared to the alternative, Obama seemed to the majority like "not such a bad guy".
To those who see Obama as a Socialist and therefore a threat, his popularity is explained by his appeal to the leftmost of lefties. But that position ignores the fact the independents are the biggest chunk of voters, and neither Bush nor Obama could have won if their support lay only among ideologues. It may have seemed to his opponents that Obama was protected by some magic spell. There were furious and unrelenting efforts to smear him (via associations) as a Socialist bomb throwing sympathizer and Black Nationalist - even questioning his citizenship. To their chagrin, only the conservative choir seemed to resonate with this negative nattering.
When Obama won the big election decisively, and delivered a supermajority to his party, the opposition - failing once again to understand that most of the people who actually show up to vote might actually be thoughtful and deliberative - wrote off the President's popularity to charisma, magic, mystique.
I don't think most voters were tuned-in to the same things that conservatives worry about about all the time. Sure, people want security, but some of us are not convinced that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are making the US more secure. Most people don't feel that the mistakes that have been made over the past year were intentional assaults on the American social compact.
The vast majority of people are mainly concerned with their jobs. Moreover, they understand that there is little that the government can do in the short term to "create jobs" in the private sector. Voters are unhappy that the unfettered free market doesn't work. Most people don't think tax cuts for the wealthy will generate more jobs either.
Ajami projects his idea of Obama as Icarus; he has over-reached and has flown too close to the sun
I think they may be jumping the gun. The shot across the bow sent by Massachusetts was a warning shot, to be sure. To the amazement of everybody, it changed everything. It stopped the bloated shipwreck of a healthcare plan dead in the water. But it does not necessarily sink Obama.
Deliberative minds might see the election of a Republican to the "Ted Kennedy" seat as a statement about status quo, not so much about Obama. The conservative claque has been unrelenting in their criticism of every word and gesture of the new president. But many of those who have expressed disappointment with his results have maintained a positive view of the man. Much of the criticism is leveled at the leadership of the partisan congress who have botched the public trust.
Obama has 3 more years to get things right. News of his demise may be premature.
"The curtain has come down on what can best be described as a brief un-Americanmoment in our history. That moment began in the fall of 2008, with the great financialpanic, and gave rise to the Barack Obama phenomenon.The nation's faith in institutions and time-honored ways had cracked. In a little-knownsenator from Illinois millions of Americans came to see a savior who would deliver thenation out of its troubles. ..."
Voters were further driven away from the republican party by the failure of the "small government" party to keep the government small and instead of tax and spend, they were cut-tax and spend. Added to that was the palpable weakness of the McCain-Palin ticket. Then came the stunning collapse of the financial sector, widespread job loss, and the clear indictment against unregulated free markets. Compared to the alternative, Obama seemed to the majority like "not such a bad guy".
To those who see Obama as a Socialist and therefore a threat, his popularity is explained by his appeal to the leftmost of lefties. But that position ignores the fact the independents are the biggest chunk of voters, and neither Bush nor Obama could have won if their support lay only among ideologues. It may have seemed to his opponents that Obama was protected by some magic spell. There were furious and unrelenting efforts to smear him (via associations) as a Socialist bomb throwing sympathizer and Black Nationalist - even questioning his citizenship. To their chagrin, only the conservative choir seemed to resonate with this negative nattering.
When Obama won the big election decisively, and delivered a supermajority to his party, the opposition - failing once again to understand that most of the people who actually show up to vote might actually be thoughtful and deliberative - wrote off the President's popularity to charisma, magic, mystique.
Progressives pressed for a draconian attack on the workings of our health care, and on the broader balance between the state and the marketplace. The economic stimulus, ObamaCare, the large deficits, the bailout package for the automobile industry—these, and so much more, were nothing short of a fundamental assault on the givens of the American social compact.
I don't think most voters were tuned-in to the same things that conservatives worry about about all the time. Sure, people want security, but some of us are not convinced that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are making the US more secure. Most people don't feel that the mistakes that have been made over the past year were intentional assaults on the American social compact.
The vast majority of people are mainly concerned with their jobs. Moreover, they understand that there is little that the government can do in the short term to "create jobs" in the private sector. Voters are unhappy that the unfettered free market doesn't work. Most people don't think tax cuts for the wealthy will generate more jobs either.
Ajami projects his idea of Obama as Icarus; he has over-reached and has flown too close to the sun
And then there was the hubris of the man at the helm: He was everywhere, and pronounced on matters large and small. This was political death by the teleprompter.In effect, Ajami (and others) are declaring that Obama has "jumped the shark". This phrase is used to declare the clear turning point where a sitcom or celebrity has lost it's popularity and has started sliding downhill.
I think they may be jumping the gun. The shot across the bow sent by Massachusetts was a warning shot, to be sure. To the amazement of everybody, it changed everything. It stopped the bloated shipwreck of a healthcare plan dead in the water. But it does not necessarily sink Obama.
Deliberative minds might see the election of a Republican to the "Ted Kennedy" seat as a statement about status quo, not so much about Obama. The conservative claque has been unrelenting in their criticism of every word and gesture of the new president. But many of those who have expressed disappointment with his results have maintained a positive view of the man. Much of the criticism is leveled at the leadership of the partisan congress who have botched the public trust.
Obama has 3 more years to get things right. News of his demise may be premature.
2/01/2010
Ask Someone ...
For years, the Toyota tag line has been "Ask some one who owns one."
Today, maybe you should ask someone who owns a late model Camry- as soon as they get out of the hospital.
Today, maybe you should ask someone who owns a late model Camry- as soon as they get out of the hospital.
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