Taking A Bite Out Of Apple

I don't know why I upgraded my mini iPad to iOS8 in retrospect, but I remember thinking that if I didn't do the damned upgrade that little number one would be sitting there on my screen like a nagging teacher telling me to get with the program every time I opened my portable world of computing. So I upgraded without thinking about it too much. Until my mini iPad stopped working. I called Apple Tech, I downloaded iTunes to my wife's laptop, I backed up the iPad and scrubbed it etc... and still it was working like an Old World dial up signal. In desperation I took it to Keys Technology to see what they might do. As you can see they do a land sale business fixing broken portable gadgets and their vulnerable screens. I told her she looked like a watchmaker.

My mini iPad, which is how I do all my computing these days went into the abyss in back. They scrubbed and backed up and nothing worked. I read my Kindle on my phone and hoped for the best. People came and went including a group of young people who put the fear of God into me but were remarkably well behaved. I generally find Key West youngsters of all ages to be unusually polite. Perhaps my beard intimidates them because not everyone agrees with my assessment of local modern youth. 

No luck; my iPad is screwed by iOS8.2 Thank you Apple. Disconsolate I went home and in desperation scrubbed one more time and instead of using the backed up stuff I rebuilt the mini iPad myself as I only use half a dozen apps anyway, including Blogsy which I use to blog on my iPad; quick and efficient it is too. Somehow that final reboot helped quite a bit and now most of the time the iPad only hesitates slightly. And then sometimes it refuses to open a page. It looks like I'll have to replace it with another refurbished mini sold by Apple for $219. Grr. I don't use an iPad with built in wireless as I have a phone hot spot for cheap and most of the time I run it at home anyway. So I suppose I could be out more money but this upgrade stuff has me pissed off, and a lot of people have been far more damaged by this upgrade. Next weekend I will be on the mainland and my wife plans to stop by an Apple store and try to shame them into a discount for screwing up my perfectly good mini iPad 2. They had better get their flame retardant outfits on as she is pissed off.

I took the picture above as I sat in their excruciatingly uncomfortable, but modern looking chairs, and I was struck by the old fashioned commuter vehicle parked among all the high tech machinery. A bicycle at least doesn't get tripped up by a stupid operating system.

Drinks at the Gardens Hotel

I love the self serve wine bar. Open all day they tell me. And Friday night with Michael Robinson tickling the ivories is always a delight.

You buy a card for $3 and put money on it and the card never expires. When you deplete it you recharge it at the cash register. Then you put the card in a slot and you get to choose the wines by the taste by the half glass or full glass. Each bottle has its own price structure.

You help yourself, taste all you want as you go. It is really surprisingly effective as you can taste at will.

Summerland Boardwalk

Signs

There is an odd mood in Key West as the city tries to deal with its perennial homeless problem. The city has faced a lawsuit by residents of some expensive condos on North Stock Island who accused the city of setting up the Homeless Safe Zone without proper permits to the detriment of their condos; which have increased in value dramatically this century...And the city has folded and promised to move the homeless blight elsewhere.

The slight problem is that no one has a clue where the homeless should now be warehoused. And we says "homeless" blithely but many residents of the Keys Overnight Temporary Shelter are not so much bums as working poor, people unable to raise $3,000 in cash, minimum, to move into an apartment in town. Many residents of the tent shelter next to the Sheriff's Headquarters walk or ride a bus in to town to their minimum wage jobs each day and return each evening. 

We live in a harsh world where having a job doesn't earn you self respect or even a living wage as we live in an era mimicking the worst of the righteous Victorian era of poorhouses and job insecurity. So if you don't earn enough to live you are in some manner at fault, never mind your IQ, your state of health or your background or your goodwill. The fact is the only reason there is a shelter at all is the Pottinger Ruling by the Florida Supreme Court which forbids jurisdictions from moving sleeping people along unless they have a safe place to stay. This important ruling is frequently ignored by Key West residents who would prefer to offer no services to the poor and would like to see them disappear. However, take away KOTS and sleeping in the streets would become effectively legal. 

The KOTS situation is supposed to be resolved by February unless the city decides at the last minute to take up the legal challenge. Which dilemma has left the city leaders wringing their hands and bickering at commission meetings about what to do next. Several new locations have been proposed, including the former Easter Seals building on College Road which has been opposed by the residents of the Golf Course housing who live across the greens from the building location. Apparently conversion of the Easter Seals will devastate their quality of life.  

Another proposal is to set up a shelter on Palm Avenue when the bus service station is moved to College Road onto the old waste transfer station, which in a complex game of musical chairs has moved up the road to Rockland Key. This proposal has been nixed by residents of the upscale neighborhood who live nearby. A resident of  the Meadows has spoken up against this proposal arguing rather creatively in support of affordable housing for workers in the city. This gambit rather brilliantly pits the unwashed homeless masses against the deserving toiling masses in the minds of the observers on the sidelines. City staff oppose this proposal on the grounds that they hope to move the city's cleaning crews, Community Services, into the Palm Avenue location. It's always a fight for breathing space in the city.

There is the proposal to set up the shelter in the large open parking lot at the Catholic soup Kitchen on the 2700 block of Flagler Avenue. One finds it hard to imagine that idea will gain traction but you never know. It makes sense as there are already services for the poor on site but...we are not our brother's keepers in this Vale of Tears, it turns out.

Time is running out but procrastination is a way of life where these momentous issues are invovlved and no doubt the city will take this process down to the wire. One gets the feeling the people in charge would be delighted were some deus ex macchina to appear and solve the riddle for them. No such luck, I doubt. Some city residents are going to get annoyed one way or the other.

This dilemma, even viewed from the sidelines illustrates once again the difficulty of living in a city where pay is not commensurate with the cost of living. Everyone knows this fact yet the reality of life in a same upscale island is difficult to gauge in all its complexity. The Mayor was quoted in the newspaper suggesting the city might be inclined to build dormitory housing for its employees as wages will not secure modest apartment living for them. This bombshell seems to have gone unnoticed and unremarked but I was shocked. A recent pay equity study suggested pay increases for city workers, adopted by the commission who also voted for property  tax increases to cover those costs. Its not a matter of ill will its simply a matter of fact: Key West is too expensive.

Visitors come and enjoy the city, snowbirds buy expensive homes to enjoy winters here.

The actual cost of living here to be borne by the people who make the businesses work is another matter entirely.

I am not confident the city is going to find an answer to the dilemma.

Posted with Blogsy

The Top of La Concha

The Top bar is gone of course. Replaced by this carbuncle of a spa under construction.

Colors On Catherine

I was out last weekend collecting pictures for use here and I saw a collage of colors fall into my camera on Catherine Street, not far from El Siboney Cuban restaurant. The sun was rising under an angry gray sky and as it rose it illuminated this bright yellow Conch cottage. That got me started and slowly I started to see primary colors all the way up the street as I trailed my Labrador.

Catherine runs from George Street in New Town all the way to Bahama Village and it's a broad street, unusually wide in fact, for most of its course. As winter approaches and we get crowded out by the seasonal crowds who stick to the obvious routes, Catherine becomes ever more important as a back road across town. 

Posted with Blogsy