Monarch Butterfly

Butterflies.  Since I was a child I'd stand with a big gaping smile while I watch them glide by.   In South Florida, we get the pleasure of seeing them all year around.

This beautiful specimen of a male Monarch Butterfly came through metamorphosis in April of 2009. 

My godmother was kind enough to give me some Mexican Milkweed Seeds that I spread all over the back yard.  Some actually grew into plants that have bright red flowers.  Sometimes the caterpillars will allow them to grow otherwise, they're sticks waiting for the next caterpillars to land and feast. 

Either way, I am more than happy to share the back yard with these beautiful creatures.

Firefox Tabs Review

To anyone who is technical, this stuff is old news.   To the non technical folks who I speak with on a daily basis, maybe I can explain why I did it.  Does it matter?  Probably not.

Back a couple years back, I had been using IE and I decided I didn't like it.   Around the same time I was using Linux and I think both are connected.  Firefox had just it the scene, and the browser was one of the choices on the Linux install I used, CentOS, along with Konqueror which just never really felt robust enough.  When compared with IE, Firefox running on a slower Linux machine felt faster, more stable, and there were these neat extensions that allowed me to do all sorts of things like see the weather forecast and control cookies.   I even started playing around with the extension programs for traffic Webcam so that I could look at things through the country at a click.   It was pretty neat, and gave me an opportunity to play with code and see a quick result.

Then I got the chance to move to South Florida and needed to look for work and the Tabs View option in Firefox became the "Killer App".   So much so that the rest of the industry followed and IE in its lumbering size now has the option to open in tabs.   What this does in Firefox (I never bother with IE since it bogs the entire PC down) is to create virtual windows within "this" browser and load the page in background.   Simple right?  I'm sure there's a lot of programming effort that happened to make this so useful, but I took this to heart.  When I do a Job Search, I have a folder within my Firefox Bookmarks that has over 115 pages that I want to open, all at once.   The old way to do that was to do a shift click to get the page to open in another browser, and work through the list.   Manually to open a page in a tab in background, Control Click on the link and it loads and is there when you need it.   Try that with 115 pages all at once! 

The wrinkle is that Dice, Monster, and Careerbuilder all allow you to save a search.   Drag the link into the folder in Bookmarks and that page will open next time you start an Open In Tabs.   You can do this on the first page, but when you're looking at something that has hundreds of links and only 25 per page, you are more interested in having the second and third and subsequent pages in tabs while you're looking at page one.   So drag those pages into the folder and now you have them all open.   You are only limited by the number of pages you drag into the folder and your PC's memory.  At the end of an Open In Tabs with 115 pages (literally) Firefox reports as using over 500 Megs of memory and it releases it back to the operating system better now than it used to, although not perfectly since nothing really seems to return all the memory within Windows when written on a "modern language" such as C++.

Simple instructions for Firefox:

1. Organize Bookmarks by Control + Shift + B 
2. Create and name a folder where you want it by Right Clicking on the Bookmarks Menu or use an existing one and give it a name if new.
3. Switch back to the main window in Firefox and surf the pages you need one at a time to set this up.
4. When the page loads as you want it, drag the icon in the address bar to the left of the "http://" into the Organize Bookmark window and into the folder you created and drop it there.    You can also do this by grabbing that icon, dragging it into the Bookmarks pulldown which will automagically open and you can drag it into the appropriate place.  I do it that way but it is fiddly and I tend to have to do it a couple times before it "sticks".
5. Now your Bookmarks Folder has a new link and at the bottom of that Folder when it opens up you will see the Open All In Tabs link.   If you have multiple links, you will get multiple tabs.
6. Navigate through the tabs by doing a Control + Page Down to move to the next tab on the right, Control + Page Up to move to the next tab on the left.   You may close the tab by either clicking on the little red X box or Control + F4
7. If you just want to create a blank tab, Control + t will do it for you.
   

If this helps, great! If it is unclear ask me, since I did this before the second mug of coffee.

Lettie Sleeping In The Sun

Lettie the SuperDog (TM) doing what she does best.  When we lived in Philadelphia, she'd find a square of sunlight and plop down no matter the temperature outside.   I swear she's solar powered.

I liked this pic, decided to share a picture of my constant companion.   She's been with me for almost 8 of her 9 years and we haven't looked back.  In fact she's better in the car than most people I know!

Amazing when I think that she was a shelter dog who was abandoned at 6 months, stayed there for a year before I found her and took her into my life.  Border Collies and Mc Nab Dogs are incredibly intelligent, require a "Soft Hand" and are one of the most frequently abandoned dog breeds as a result.  People don't have a clue what it means to raise an intelligent dog.   I guess I lucked out.   We had some stumbles along the way but I wouldn't trade her for the world.

Old friends on Facebook and Myspace

While I write this blog which serves for me as a place to open my skull and pour out everything onto your desk, or your lap for our mutual entertainment, I also read a lot.  Why not, I've got the time, right?   I hit one of my tech blogs and they describe this tendency of people to look up old flames and Time Magazine of all places coined the word "Retrosexual" to describe it.

Retrosexual huh?  Cute.  Quick!  Someone grab retrosexual.com before some link farmer does!

Reading this I was thinking of their description of trawling the Internet search sites, Google, Facebook, and Myspace looking for folks that people went to high school and college with and it had me thinking.   Why not look through your past and find old friends and old flames?   What they do with them when they're found is their own business.   I'm sitting here thinking what do I have to be smug about, I've done pretty much that same thing...  almost.

I've searched through Google and had good luck finding old friends from College and High School, a few teachers, and even a person who shares my first and last uncommon name in a small farming town in Nebraska.   With a last name like mine, we're related if you go back far enough.   We figure five generations or so should fit.  Nice guy and we always talk like long lost friends when we do for a LONG time.

There are others I've reconnected with like an ex in Palm Springs who I'm truly happy to know is doing well, a couple random college friends here and there, but never to date.   I'm the person who says "there's a reason they are your ex", for right or for wrong.  

What struck me as amusing and perhaps a bit ironic is that Time Magazine is hitting on this like its new and a big deal.   I met my present partner on the old dial up bulletin boards after a year and a half of chat in 1992.   Print media, trailing the trend, behind the curve again.   Meeting people online has been going on since the first emails were sent back in the dusty old days and will go on until we pull the plug.   Meeting new people happens on a daily basis, meeting "new old people" is a natural curiosity and is only an extension of the High School Reunions, just on your own terms.  There are class websites and ones that promise to keep you connected with everyone in your school once you sign up and pay a fee such as Classmates which can make it easier. 

An interpersonal relationship is as innocent or as tawdry as the people in it.   It all depends on where your head's at.  That's a trend that is old as mankind.

Mexican Petunia or Ruellia

We've got a whole lot of these flowers all over the yard.  They grow like weeds.   Cut them and stick the stem in moist soil and they almost always "take".

 They're called Ruellia or Mexican Petunia.  They're also basically weeds but they're pretty.   I get annoyed every so often when they try to take over the yard and the Japanese Yew or Podocarpus, but slice them and they always come back.

Easy gardening tip in Florida huh?

FPL Has Dirty Power Part 2

When I had my board meeting at City Hall, we had a bit of a Bull Session before hand.

It turns out that my experience with FPL's Dirty Power is common here in Wilton Manors. Out of the seven board members there, and the Board Secretary, every one of us have had a complaint about losing electronics here.   When you have computing equipment plugged into the walls, they can take a Power Hit at any time whether they are turned on or not.   NOAA Weather Radio will tell you to unplug your unused equipment when a storm approaches, but how reasonable is that when some of it is hard wired like your oven, is required to be on all the time like your refrigerator or freezer, or is needed for "normal" life like your Tivo, Cable Box, or electric clocks?

Not that any of my rant will have that much of an effect, but FPL in their great wisdom is agreeing with me.  They have a For Profit group called FPL Fibernet supplying Internet to Downtown Ft Lauderdale at the old ImpSat building at Dixie Highway and NE 20th Drive.  They have agreed with my comment by digging up the lawns on NE 20th Drive and sending the Fibre Optic lines underground.   Wow, underground?   Its For Profit, that would be why, and I'm waiting for the trees that were disturbed on the properties to start dying.  Thankfully the trees on my property are well back from the swales and I am a couple blocks from having my yard torn up.  After all, trees and the neighborhood are not as important as paying customers who aren't being directly served by better internet access for Downtown?

So when will the power lines go underground?

The Living Room in Question

Here's the room I'm talking about below.  For now, I'm lazy and haven't gotten the Ikea Poang Chair picture separately but it shows the two green La-z-boy Barnett Rockers.

Basically a Moose's Eye View of the World with the Cheeseburger in Paradise being ignored by Lettie the Super Dog sniffing the silly iPod Pillow Radio instead.

Ikea Poang vs La-z-boy Barnett Reclina-rocker review

We finally got to the point here where we hit the wall with living like frat boys with cobbled together furniture and finished getting the Comfy Chairs for the house. Now that all is a rather loaded statement because put two opinionated people together trying to figure out what is comfortable, looks good together, and is appropriate for our lifestyle and you may find yourself surprised.

When we lived in Philly, we had a living room full of old La-z-boy furniture. Specifically a Blue Couch and Recliner. They were fine, and by the time we moved here to Florida, they were 20 years old plus. They did however hold up well and were well built pieces. The couch and recliner had eventually worn to fit whoever sat in the same position every day and you could tell which was preferred by who. By the time we moved, they were too worn out to be moved so we left them behind on the curb and in our rear-view mirrors.

When we got here we muddled through with a Futon, replaced the mattress, and a couple chairs that weren't quite fitting the bill. So we started looking. I insisted on a rocker and didn't care much about the brand so we went looking at La-z-boy and it was fine, not perfect, just fine. On a whim we went to Ikea and I went to sit on that iconic chair they have there called the Poang. Only now they have a rocker. I was in heaven because in all my years I had never fit in a chair that was form fit to me so perfectly. Unfortunately it would mean that the living room would have a La-z-boy couch, La-z-boy chair, and the Ikea Poang chair, Mismatched. It reminded me of the Bunkers in All In The Family with Edith's little chair next to Archie's ugly wingback.

So after we went back to the La-z-boy show room in Wellington FL, sat on every chair they had, and found that the line we had in Philly was just closed out but they did have four "Barnett" Rockers in South Florida of that line on discount I was swayed. We went back to the showroom in Ft Lauderdale on Federal Highway, spoke with them and they told us that we could have the matching chairs at the Palm Beach County Price which was a discount, and wrote us up. That left me scratching my head wondering why Wellington was in a different sales district but since we got that price I didn't care.

Still a couple weeks later I was left with a La-z-boy chair that wasn't quite as comfortable as the Poang and I couldn't sit in it more than an hour or so without shifting around. My partner was still happy. We wandered into the local thrift store and someone had dropped off a Poang in a particularly odd beige and green floral pattern that had seen better days, but when I sat in it I was home. It fit me like a glove. We ended up with that chair in my living room and I'm happy. I can sit in it with my laptop for 3 hour stretches, and still bounce when the music moves me. I have the La-z-boy which is comfortable and perfect for TV Viewing Positions. My partner can't sit in the Poang for 10 minutes, or so he says, and heads for the La-z-boy.

The Moral of all of that is To Each His Own.

Oh and P.S... The Poang with the Leather upholstery is firmer than the one with the fabric and more comfortable, but I'm still happy and sitting in the fabric upholstered chair and now writing to you.

FPL has Dirty Power

According to the Wikipedia Entry and according to my broken appliances at any rate we do.

Since moving to this house in September 2006, I have lost 2 alarm clock radios, a table radio, a Desktop Computer, 2 Laptop Computers, 3 Wifi Routers, 2 Cable Modems plus one owned by Comcast, 3 Hard Drives (80GB, 120 GB, and 240GB), a cassette tape deck, 2 stereo tuners, a VCR. I'm sure there were other things that were lost in the general background noise of life.

That may sound normal to someone else living here, but in the 13 years I lived in the City of Philadelphia, I lost zero equipment. None, Nada, Zip, Zero. Sure things would wear out but I can repair most of that sort of thing.

We finally got tired of losing equipment. It got to the point where we'd have a twice weekly "Power Pop" where the power would just cut off inexplicably and then back on in rapid succession. Usually around 2 in the afternoon. If there were a storm of any strength, my power would do all sorts of things like dim, brighten, turn off, or strobe. It was like being in a disco or club.

Our final solution to the FPL Dirty Power Problem was to get APC Power Conditioners. APC H10 and APC H15 specifically. They weigh quite a lot, have a lot of heat sinks, capacitors, and blinky lights to entertain the passers by. My house at night has a wonderful eerie blue glow as a result of the things. Those entertaining lights show me just how bad the power is in this city. During a Thunderstorm, the Over Voltage light comes on regularly telling me that instead of a nice 120v, I get 150V Plus. I can be here listening to music and hear a relay SNAP! and the music may or may not get cut off because I will still get a few seconds of power as the capacitors drain into the equipment filtering all the spikes.

I do have to wonder how many pieces of equipment on a daily basis are lost in this area every time the daily thunderstorms fire up and march across the land making mosquitoes and watering the land.

The real solution would be to weather proof the power lines and bury them under the swales of the streets instead of having them strung across the landscape waiting for a flying coconut to hit them in a Tropical Storm. FPL has a reputation of saying they're trying to keep up with the weather and have a creaky infrastructure as a result of the tropical storms, but if other parts of the country and other utilities made this step, I have to question whether its just a bad decision on the level of their Executive Managers to keep the profits higher and they'll just muddle through so they don't have to take the hit on their bonuses.

I live in a swamp

Ironic. Everyone wants to live in the sunshine these days. See the demographics trend since WWII for proof. People left the Northeast for places like Phoenix, Fort Worth, and Fort Lauderdale.

So I got the bug the first time I visited here in the early 70s with my family, all piled into a beast of a 1973 Buick Limited and we did a tour of Florida after getting off the Auto Train. Great excitement for a kid, I'll tell you.

That bug I was speaking of? I fell in love with Fort Lauderdale (area) when I got here and never wanted to live anywhere else. We stayed at a motor court style hotel, adjoining rooms with a door in them, swimming pool and all right off Federal Highway. No matter that it now is run down and kind of a No-Tell Motel, it was one of the best memories of my childhood.

In 2006, I finally moved. April 11, 2006 at 8:43am to be precise, I crossed over the St Mary's River into North Florida and never left. We bounced around and ended up in Wilton Manors, a quirky city with a reputation that is only partially earned outside, and like anywhere it is different when you live here.

Growing up in South Jersey, there were never as many creatures trying to get into the house as there are here. Other than field mice after the first cold snap, we never had to tent the house or worry about anything other than the brown mosquitos getting in. I have personally captured five geckos this last month and released the little things into the garden, have been invaded by armies of ants going after whatever was left in the sink the night before, and spiders and unidentifiable creatures of a variety that even my own habits of going to The Pond when I grew up didn't quite prepare me for.

Fishing Iguanas out of the pool, seeing flocks of Parrots flying by through the day, the Mourning Doves watching me while I walk around the pool, and many other critters I am just learning about are some of the experiences of living in Wild Florida.

Being one of those people with Sweet Blood, and I've been told that its got something to do with relatively high Potassium intake (anyone have any bananas?), I am the first person in a crowd to get bit by Mosquitoes. I noticed early that our yard was chock full of those aggressive Tiger Mosquitoes and stopped going outside. The problem was that we were much worse than other places around the block for them and when our Pool filter gave out it turned out we were the local captive breeding program for the little blighters. Pool filter had a steady drip of pool water onto the pavement, and into the ground. Water dried up, and so did the skeeters in that part of the world.

The other thing is that with all the rain we get in the Wet Season (A.K.A. Hurricane Season - Duck and Cover!) everything grows with a ferocity that I'm not used to. You can practically watch the grass grow and not take a day to do so. Being someone who always liked plants and planting, I noticed that about 4 out of 5 of the cuttings I take from the Screw Palms (A sort of Dracenea related to the lucky bamboo) would root if I would stick them in the ground deep enough to hold them vertical. So now I have a garden of the things. Not the best for a hedge but when you live in a place where house plants grow as accents to your garden you can have a bit of fun.

Anyone need some house plants? If I ever come North, I'll be bringing some to my family.