Cheyenne On Petronia

There are days I envy my dog. On this occasion she was hot and thirsty so nothing came more naturally to her than to sit down and drink her bathwater.

Had she been moved to take a dump I would have been there, the perfect valet, ready to leap into action with a plastic bag and take care of all her needs, as well as the needs of the next pedestrian to walk that way.

Cheyenne is actually quite well trained in that regard as she prefers to wander off into the bushes rather than to just let loose anywhere but the guiding principle here is that I have to keep my legs crossed till I find a loo, while for my Labrador the world's her loo, her bathwater, her refreshment.

 Of course not everyone views her as benignly as I do when we go for a walk in town.

 Had the Jewish breakfast joint been open I'd have no doubt found my way to sharing...

 ...a  taste of an onion omelette in a soft fragrant pita with diced cucumber and hummus on the side.

There are those pesky pink Crocs again doing daily duty as actual usable footwear. These wheels  fascinate me ever since I discovered a set can cost more than my Bonneville. That's the wheels without the tank attached to them.

Ooh! Look!  Another Labrador!

And in the fullness of time Cheyenne stumped around Bahama Village far enough to come up behind the new courthouse which is now free of construction. The building on the right is the Freeman Courthouse which was designed and built at vast expense with no functioning lobby so jurors had to stand around in the fresh air waiting for the metal detector to approve their presence. Supposedly that small oversight has been repaired at a cost of $600,000. I should be an architect because that short coming became apparent to me the minute I was lined up across the parking lot waiting to get into the jury pool, and I have no experience designing buildings. 

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Lobster Mini Season

It started yesterday and ends tonight and not a minute too soon.

I have been feeling under the weather for a couple of days and spent most of Tuesday sleeping and chewing ibuprofen while feeling sorry for myself. I worshipped briefly at the porcelain altar and called out from work. It was in all respects a day best forgotten.

By the time I resurrected myself Wednesday, the bed a nightmare nest of twisted sheets after a restless period of unconsciousness, Cheyenne was trembling in anticipation of her walk. Such was my state of mind I had completely forgotten about lobster mini season and only remembered as I approached Big Pine and saw the highway lined with cars and the water filled with boats.

I have a plan to one day ride to Maine and eat a lobster roll which consists I am told of cold lobster and mayonnaise wrapped in a hot dog bun. People say it is delicious but I have to wonder. Lobster is a delicacy so I o end up eating it from time to time though I cannot imagine spending a perfectly good morning chasing lobsters underwater.

Mini season is a two day grace period for amateurs to go out and blunder aroud and see if the can catch legal sized lobsters in their natural habitat. Next month commercial lobster season begins and we will hear endless stories of too much rain, too much wind, etc etc explaining a poor harvest ad igh prices. Fishing is like fading I that cndrions are never quite right.

So these two July days see thousands of amateurs with only the vaguest knowledge of local waters and a tenuous grasp on the rules invade the Keys and get first dibs on the much sought after Florida lobster. Which some people say is much inferior to the North Atlantic version but on that I have no opinion.

Like any self respecting sport lobstering requires manly equipment, big trucks, big boas and lost of paraphernalia. So when I see these cast trucks towing huge trailers I wonder what chance do the little ouster have? Quite a lot it turns out as every year one or two less than capable divers end up dead.

Not everyone has the wherewithal to bring a boat but nothing daunted they set up camp by the side of the road and jump in anyhow and scrape around looking for te tell tale anenna of lobster lurking under rocks. There are limits on where exactly you can hunt including staying offshore a certain distance and not hunting in canals but enforcement is a huge task.

I tried to induce Cheyenne to take a country walk away frm the water but she was having none of it. My perverse dog wanted to walk by the water, perhaps for the breeze, perhaps for the bait that fishermen drop as they angle. It was a good plan, she hunted back and forth amusing herself while I stood on the slope and watched the busy boats come and go. Honestly I wasn't in the mood for a sturdy walk myself.

It was a beautiful day to be out on te water and I regret tha 2013 may be another year when we keep futzing around on land so much we don't get the skiff in the water ourselves.

Lobster mini season s one of those times in the Keys when you have to assume everyone is a little less focused than usual and one must drive accordingly.

I tried sitting in my folding chair with a book -Aurelio Zen by Michael Dibdin is my summer read this year- but Cheyenne with her usual precise sense of timing decided she wasn't going to amuse herself or leave me alone so reluctantly I landed us in the midst of the fray.

It's an odd business really, you can't spear them you can only tickle the to persuade them to come out of their lairs. You can't use compressed air, you must rely on what you carry in your lungs. You can only take lobster with tails of a certain length.

Imagine. A lobster will live 120 years if you leave it alone.

Locals maneuver their way between the busy keen amateurs. Some sit on the rocks, above, and watch, while others, below, go about their business as usual.

It was, in any event, a lovely day to be in the Keys.

I spoke with a Monroe county detective who was working with a Fish and Wildlife Officer trying to keep lobster hunters in line. "Thirty years I've been waiting for them to ban mini season, " he said with a sigh. I was anticipating the usual chaotic night in Key West with sun baked dehydrated hunter gatherers recounting their exploits over several too many drinks...FWC the yellow tag says. They were everywhere.

Last weekend it was Hemingway Days and now it's lobsters and next week it will be something else. It used to be that summer was quiet time but not anymore. A few people still refer to "season" meaning winter but It hardly seems to apply anymore. Lobster hunting is one more way to spread the money around so it will never be closed down. From the Citizen:

It' will be over soon and quiet times will return, and as they go maybe they will take the rowdy kids screeching about lobster in the rental home across the canal. That would be nice.

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Tropical Storm Dorian

It became an orange spot off the coast of Africa, denoting a reasonable chance of storm formation, and now Tropical Storm Dorian, as the spot is formally known, is headed toward the northeast corner of the Caribbean...but massive development is not yet on the cards, they tell us. Some forecasters think Dorian may weaken irretrievably from its current 50mph spinning speed but the National Hurricane Center in Miami isn't so sure about that. At the moment its far too far away to know anything much but next week things will be clearer. I'd like a quick bout of rain to save me watering and a return to hot sun and blue skies, thank you.

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As  of Saturday morning the National Hurricane Center indicated the storm is  dissipating and should soon turn back inot  a tropical wave of wind and rain of manageable proportions. Good news all round. 

Business As Usual

This arcade marks the bottom of La Concha, the hotel that has a bar on the roof called The Top, which the Spottswood family has decided to demolish. I guess thirty years is a good run and up next is a beauty salon with a view. Ugh!

This little shop on Fleming Street reminds me of one of those odd islands that set up headquarters for companies looking for an offshore address. This isn't Grand Turk or Bermuda, but there sure are a lot of nameplates on building the size of a bike shed. Keepin' busy.

Fast Buck Freddie's is still showing signs of its former life as the city's eccentric department store. The owner says he has refused offers from a drug store chain. Tony Falcone says he wants something suitable in his building.

The city had received a proposal to make the five and six hundred blocks of Duval into a pedestrian zone weekend evenings, as an experiment. A funny thing happened at that point. The business owners in the neighboring blocks protested saying the pedestrian zone would be too successful and draw away their customers. Thus instead of expanding the pedestrian zone in act worthy of The Twilight Zone the city leaders decided to shut down the whole idea. Wanna walk Duval in peace? Gotta be there early with me and Cheyenne...

The San Carlos used to be the Cuban Consulate and technically belongs to the Cuban government but the unpleasantness between the US and Cuba has rather shredded that relationship, so Cubans in South Florida operate this rather stylish theater. Now apparently with some new program with the local Community College.

When you think of Fast Buck's becoming a national chain that's exactly what happened to The Strand, a single screen theater that died a slow public death via the path of 1970s porn. I suppose becoming a drug store was a better fate but I am not alone in wishing this lovely facade had housed the Tropic Cinema but there it is.

You know how people extoll the wooden architecture in Old Town? Some of it isn't wood.

I published the essay on the ELF electric trike with this sort of barn door in mind, parked on narrow Appelrouth Lane.

Keeping with the theme of limited space... No room for trash!

Personal dust catchers! Whatever next? There is no end to the business ideas.

This is a good one from the Green Parrot Bar. I'm trying to imagine all those patrons trying to remember to separate the food from the containers...one day it will be second nature for all of us.

And then there were bucket lists. One hundred ways to have a Real Florida Keys Experience. Hmm, and you need a guide book to do that?  David Sloan wrote the quit your job and move book of similar design. I quite enjoyed that so perhaps this bucket list fad needs a look see.



 Why visit when you can explore? Step beyond the guidebooks and transform your time in Key West and the Florida Keys into a true adventure filled with purpose meaning and accomplishment.

~Invent your own tropical drink.
~Search for sea glass.
~Make a Key lime pie.
~Watch a meteor shower from sea.

Lifetime residents and casual visitors alike are guaranteed to find hidden gems in The Key West Bucket List that take you beyond the island's glossy façade , up close with the people and deep into the heart and soul of the Florida Keys.

Thousands of interviews with hundreds of residents over more than a decade have culminated in the ultimate list. Concise, honest, and carefully crafted, The Key West Bucket List is guaranteed to show you the time of your life.

(Please note that this book is a list of 100 ways to have a real Florida Keys experience. Each item is accompanied by a quote. The book is not rich in text or flowery descriptions. It is a concise list, filled with adventures that will not waste your time.)

I really need to ponder that idea of interviewing thousands of people to find  out what constitutes a Real Key West Experience. I'd have thought being in the Keys would have started that ball rolling, everything else just follows on. I have no propensity for sales and hyperbole. There again I have absolutely no clue what hookah tobacco is, and the idea of smoking like a Turk does nothing for me.

The true story of why I wear pink size 13 Crocs is that many years ago I bought some convenient plastic shoes in a dark blue color at a boat show. The idea was to be able to toss them in the dinghy and not mind if they got wet or sandy. My Birkenstocks were martyrs to salt water. One day my wife asked me if I wanted a new pair as she was going to the Big Pine flea market and she knew they sold them there. Sure I said, too busy with some improbable project to descend from Mt Olympus myself. What color would you like she asked me, intent on my manliness. I don't care I said and I stuck to that line when she came home with a pair in pink and asked if I would rather she exchange them. Don't care I said and then I discovered two wonderful things.

 One is that straight men are afraid of pink footwear and another seems to be (though I can't be sure) that most gay men think they are too ugly. The result is Crocs retailers will sell you a pair of extra large pink Crocs for half price just to be rid of the wretched things. That would be an excellent result on its own but then I discovered that mere  mortals think there is something wrong with a man padding around in pink Crocs. Result! It takes a stout hearted human to approach a stranger in pink rubber footwear so I tend to get left alone. My cup runneth over and I remain in debt to my wife a decade after she pushed this fashion faux pas into my life, a life not much concerned with fashion till then.

 

 Mangoes on Duval was drumming up business above during the recent period of heavy rain trying to entice punters beyond it's formerly enticing deck area while below the gross t-shirt and dust catcher emporium is expressing a widely held desire. Often these dens of stupid puns put signs in their windows announcing they are going out for business as though shoppers will be induced to come running to seek bargains on t-shirts advertising sexual prowess and flatulence (frequently on the same shirt).

This architecturally intriguing building overlooking Duval has come back to life after a stretch as former cheap seafood place. Now apparently it's  back as Pinchers which I Googled on a whim and it turns out it has nine locations in southwest Florida and now also on Duval "You can't fake fresh" they say; I say oh yes you can all too easily apparently. I feel no need to check out how fresh this place is as  long as Hogfish is open.

 A  fresh start, a new day and soon the sidewalk will be filled with people anxious to shop. Long may they keep showing up.

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ELF Power

Walk Cheyenne on Big Pine Key and you might find an egg.

And if you found a large plastic egg on wheels might be surrounded by nerdy people trying to make the electronics talk to each other.

I knew what it was: I had just seen it on the front page of the paper as I left the house that Saturday morning. It's an ELF built in Durham, North Carolina and it now costs five grand complete with pedals electric motor. And solar panel, which they say doesn't work while the recumbent bicycle is in motion.

The owner Kim Gabel lives on Big Pine according to the paper and commutes thirty miles to her job in Key West. Apparently the trike has a computer widget and it wasn't doing its job properly so there was some fiddling underway. I didn't want to intrude.

Wired had a rather patronizing review of the technology: Three-Wheeled ELF Can Be Plugged In, Pedaled or Solar-Powered | Autopia | Wired.com. It pisses me off when snotty magazine writers mock this kind of stuff with the "locavore vegan co-op" line. I grant you the ELF won't replace the hordes of trucks and SUVs cluttering Highway One but this gadget that apparently maxes out at 20 mph will be able to ride the bike path that is in the final phase of construction.

I remarked to Gabel that it is a shame how slow theKeys are on this front and she agreed. However she is miles ahead of me when it comes to commuting. I'll IDE a scooter in the rain, but a two hour ride in an egg is outside my comfort zone. Is gas still bad at 70 mpg?

Cheyenne had had a pretty satisfying walk so she was content to lay down and accept tributes.

Seen close up this ride was nicely put together and with a 350 pound payload and a locking trunk it is quite practical. The issue really is whether or not city dwellers can see themselves using practical wheels instead of status symbols...besides pioneers are not universally admired.

The city of Key West recently rejected a proposal to equip parking control with electric cars. No charging infrastructure the city commission said tossing that radical notion to the curb. I'm not saying the ELF is suitable for daily parking control but there are plenty of electric cars already in private and rental use in Key West the city could have used.

Electric technology is riddled with problems especially if you are looking for a replacement for a gasoline engined car. The Chevy Volt looked promising but like the Boeing 787 the Volt has been having trouble with lithium ion batteries. They were supposed to power the new electric revolution but unfortunately larger li-ion batteries seem able to produce combustible gases and the chemical means of ignition leading to the fires that have made the headlines. Electric motors are relatively easy to build and stick in motorcycle frames and car chassis but the battery needed to power the motor is still in development. One day scientists hope to build batteries that will take a charge in seconds, hold it, and power an electric motor for a serious range. The other issue for those considering electricity as a substitute for gasoline is that it takes energy to build electrical components. It takes oil to make plastics. If we are looking for a way out of Peak Oil electrical propulsion raises questions, not answers just yet.

However, unless we start to look at ways to make changes changes won't come looking for us. There's a guy driving a Tesla electric car around Big Pine in the winter but at a cost of a hundred and thirty grand grand and a range of 250 miles I don't see that as a substitute for my 30mpg Ford Fusion. Tesla Motors - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

My strategy to deal with a 50 mile round trip commute is to go simple. Having to commute at all isn't the smartest choice I know but here we are. So my idea of using an old tech Vespa may or may not be smart. It is two stoke but it uses very little gas, and at 34 years of age it is in line with the re-use principle. Automotive technology is constantly driving us toward greater complexity and electronics support that push with gadgets and increasing reliance on electrons. Call me an iconoclast but I beleive less is more not least because I am trying to deal with today while hoping tomorrow brings us some pleasant surprises. An ELF in every garage?

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