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Spoke briefly but pleasantly with my brother after playing a considerable amount of phone tag this afternoon… it seems that Francesco (his landlord) took my suggestions of cleaning the place up to heart after a potential tenant decided not to lease after seeing it sans a coat of paint and a good cleaning. Latest word is that the Terrazzo will be overlaid with tile or carpet. I hope tile, much simpler with a pair of hirsute boys living there…though Newt sheds more than I do. The bro apparently sold him on my moving in with true tales of my reliability with payment schedules and quiet living. (No bills overdue or crack use here!) Also, Francesco likes my brother… he’s been a good tenant with him since he arrived back from Hawaii. I’m quite enthusiastic about living next door… He and I both have enough respect for one another to call before coming over, even if we only live two doors apart.

I’m also hoping that it comes through, because it’s one of the better deals financially for the district… taking into account that cable will be free, I’ll be paying about $15 less a month than I am now. I’ll finally get the History channel unscrambled, and the Sci-fi channel again. (Is there anything worth watching on Sci-fi anymore? I used to only watch it for the Bionic Woman and the odd 60’s shows…Time Tunnel, Lost in Space, Land of the Giants… I hear that the original programming is a little feeble.)

Doable would be running a wireless network (or heck, even a cable, maybe if need be) between here and the outside courtyard… maybe into my brother’s place, too, for multiplayer gaming, or just to let him surf from his place at DSL speed. I imagine that I’d be burning more CD’s for him now, as he discovers the wonders of file-sharing.

I like being closer to the bro, being able to help him out and be more social.

Variables off the top of my head to take care of when I move into a new place:

  • Theft / Disaster insurance
  • Parking for the future bike – I may end up just keeping it in the apartment, by the door.
  • DSL or Cable High-speed access (looks like both are available)
  • Shopping Areas, particularly for groceries, books, and hippy-goods.
  • A separate green-grocer?
  • Places to walk, parks, beaches, etc.
  • Library
  • Laundry
  • Takeout & Sit Down – Thai, Chinese, American, Spanish and Italian
  • Nearness to Police / Ambulance / Fire Stations (Close enough to be quickly served, far enough away to be quietly served.)
  • Bus Routes / Taxi / Metro Rail
  • Possible New places of contract employment?
  • Local Human & Animal Hospitals
  • A local map is going to be a must… do like I did when I first moved to Pompano from Davie… put it on the fridge, or a corkboard.
  • Clothes Store
  • Shoe Store
  • Blood Donation Center
  • How’s the night sky’s light index?

From metafilter –

And The Winner Is….
Hurray! I can finally sleep at night, the new M&M color is Purple. The intro is a bit annoying, but the flash page they have to show voting stats by country is kinda nifty. mmmmmm…purpliscious

The new money will be called NexGen
The Treasury and Federal Reserve make it official: Starting in 2003, U.S. currency will have pretty colors. But they don’t say which colors!
Is anyone else creeped out that they call the money “NexGen”? It sounds so … Orwellian.

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Rainy Morning… cool, and moist.

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Well, the first alternate near me looks ok… but I’m sort of getting my heart set on being a little closer to where my brother lives.

I talked to a few other possibilities down in Lauderdale… there’s one that’s a little expensive, but is quite nice… I’m still hoping that the one I really want gets his act together, and cleans it up properly. The cottage is ok… about $90 more a month than I wanted to pay, but the utilities are included. (so it’s really only about $25-50 more, depending on the A/C costs)… and it’s not available until the bottom of July. (which means I might take a month to month lease hear, just for July… we’ll see how the deadline goes.

Looks like this Saturday will be spent in Lauderdale, eyeballing some of the properties there.

I’m confident that a good place will be found.

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There… done and done.

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just finished giving newt his teefie-brushies.

He got so much loving, he fell into the drool-snore level of purr-dom… he didn’t mind at all that I was giving his dental hygiene. what a good boy!

Now my teef are brushied too… and I’m ready to tuck in… I have the champa burning, lights down low, and a happy kitty… I think I’ll tell him a bedtime story.

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I’m looking to pick up a mountain bike or hybrid for tooling around sometime soon… maybe even as part of my commute to work, depending on weather. a “sitting-up” bike for city and beach traffic.

Stuff I have to make a point of getting –

  • Rack over the rear wheel for spare clothes / books / etc
  • basic tool kit and tire pump
  • *fenders*… I don’t want a skunk strip up my back if it starts to rain…
  • White headlight, red rear reflector, and a red tail light.

Where I live, a bike is legally defined as a vehicle. Same rights to the roadway and must obey the same traffic laws as operators of other vehicles, including stopping for stop signs and traffic lights, riding with the flow of traffic, using lights at night, and yielding right-of-way when entering a roadway.

I may not get the apartment next door to my bro…. it needs a *lot* of work, and I don’t know if the landlord is interested in getting all that needs doing taken care of by the time I’m ready to move in.

I have a few new alternate places lined up… going to give one a look-see tomorrow morning at 9… all new kitchen/bath/tile/doors/appliances, and about $50 more a month than the one near the bro. At this rate, I’m beginning to suspect that one of the alternates is where I’ll end up. Brother rode around his neighborhood, and collected a few excellent phone numbers of places near him… I’ll call them again tomorrow during normal business hours. One sounds especially good.

Argh! why is my lj in read only mode, *now*? (9pm)

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Today, I make a point of packing at least one box a day. two, or more if possible. I’d like to have everything ready to roll comfortably by a week from Saturday.

First thing to attack – my books.

Also, it’s time to decide if some of those things I haven’t used in the year since I moved here get purged, or retained. I’m a terrible pack-rat. I think that the Atari ST will be trashed… I have an emulator for the PC now… and I really haven’t booted the machine since it arrived.

The reel to reel recorder can go to goodwill, along with many of the clothes I’ve not made use of.

I’m keeping the Godzilla slippers.

I’m keeping my ties, in case of a court date, funeral or a wedding. (Unless the wedding is very lax, I won’t wear my Godzilla slippies there)

Old stereo… I’ll probably toss, but will keep a few of the albums. (real albums… even if I don’t have a turntable… the nostalgia is great.)

Free-flow thought…re:walkies to the mall of the dead

Who has left this golden day,
I don’t know, but I have found it…

Beautiful morning, remember me?
Who sat here once in days of spring…not all too long ago
Flowers were everywhere here… even in the doorway…
These ruins… the Parthenons of Pompano
weeds and cans and broken bricks… and I am a child again,
across the blowing fields
On this spot three years ago in pouring rain I leapt a puddle to help a crying baby… shortly his mother retrieved him and thanked me.
strange soft day… I think now of the time when I’ll be somewhere else, and the land will still be here.

I look up and see trails in the sky , a silver plane so silent… the airships will remain here, too. I’ll miss the blimps.

Leaves blow.

Old telephone pole covered in staples…there must be thousands.
Only on a day like today do I remember to notice such obscure treats.

Walking, wandering like a breath of air… floating like a cloud.
So many old places here.

Heavens have rolled by
many seasons
oceans of pavement
long gray lines of time…
since I last really looked at this spot.

they were supposed to tear down the mall years ago
no one knows why they never did.
look at the windows
like eyes frozen half closed, in the moment before sleep.

look at the drain pipe hanging half off

look at me standing here looking at it and talking to myself.
remember blowing soap bubbles in ’96… waiting for a ride.
cross-legged and smiling

in the parking lot
unspoken words
like cheap toys
fall from my lips

footprints echo from the past,
skies stare out from my shielded eyes
daytime wear on the heels of my shoes

I am here now,
wandering in and out of myself

my mind makes invisible phone calls to parties who don’t need to answer.
it’s enough that I reach to them.

life seems to be in slow motion
and the laughter sounds like angels

shadows move before I can look at them
and reaching out of the dark
behind my back
barely touching…
ghosts of moments gone and done.

memories
barely just alive
like tingled vertebrae
scamper through the rattled junk

I may not return to this place again
even if I do… it won’t seem the same.

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handy hints from Scotto as a boy –

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How to make a really nifty smoke bomb – (make sure you’re in an open area, and get proper zoning permission if needed)

Combine four parts sugar to six parts saltpeter (potassium nitrate). Heat this mixture over a very low flame until it starts to blend into a plastic substance. When it begins to gel, remove it from the heat and allow it to cool. I suggest that you stick a few wooden match heads into the mass while it’s still pliable. You also add a fuse at this point. The smoke device is non-explosive and nonflammable. A pound of this mixture will produce enough thick smoke to cover a city block. Assorted coloring agents can be added for red, gold, green or darker black smoke….probably others that I don’t know of.

Watch which way the wind blows.

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Hunches, intuition, subconscious perception or sensitivity…

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Whatever you call that “instinct of awareness”, I feel that there’s no reasonable denying that such though processes exist and work for some people in varying degrees.

I’ve always had pretty good fortune with them, myself… going with a “gut feeling” or acting on some cues that can’t really be explained more thoroughly than just saying “it feels right” or “it feels wrong”. When torn between matters of the heart and head I’ve found that the first instinct is usually a good one to run with… but far better is taking that instinct and tempering it with logic and a little thought if the time and brainpower is available.

Having a gut feeling is like a security blanket for me… probably much like that of being very opinionated. There are some things that I have no intuition for, and those things create in me a small sense of confusion… not really discomfort, but it does set off a desire to research facts about whatever it is that is eluding my gizzard. I think that’s part of why I like a lot of esoteric trivia… looking into something that I don’t have the first inkling about.

The other night, when Danny and I went out and about, we were driving through the rich area of Deerfield by the beach, looking for a place to eat. With Rose Red on my mind these last few days, I queried him about his feelings about an afterlife… anything ranging from the existence of souls, haunted houses, or reincarnation… something that he and I have never really discussed much. His response was a little disconcerting to me… along the lines of “I don’t know, and I prefer not to think about it”. I didn’t quite know what to make of that reply. It was honest, anyway. I suspect that he doesn’t like to think about it because he might think that it may reflect on his faith, somehow. That said though, had us change discussion topics to something else.

I don’t get how that mindset works, though. How do you opt not to think about something? Is it like changing the topic of conversation? If I don’t know something, I like to ponder it at least a little bit, do a little research and form an opinion or hypothesis if possible. I can’t say as there’s any topic that I’m not wanting to learn more about, in some way.

listening to old episodes of the shadow radio program… blue coal had a special “trial offer” of just one ton of coal for your furnace.

How long did a ton of coal last back then, in an average-sized coal-burning home? a week? a month? I really haven’t got a clue, being an adult Floridian in the 21st century.

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but it’s spelled doughnuts! not donuts!

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Happy Birthday, ly!

This morning’s walk was pleasant… stopped at the grove and got some OJ for the return trip home. I’ll miss Mack’s being so nearby… I’d wager that there’s some little mom & pop place where I can get juice or a bagel in the morning within walking distance of my next place… there always is.

I should know tonight if the place by my brother’s is mine. Odds are really good that I’ll get it… I’d say… 80% or greater?

They’re taking out the carpet, and tiling it… I think it’s just a question of lighting a fire under ’em to get it done in time for me to move in.

I woke craving those little chocolate-covered doughnuts… I haven’t had ’em in years, but something set that off….I suspect that I’ll have to buy a little roll of them the next time I pass a gas station or a 7-11… or at least a real doughnut somewhere else. Maybe even the gigantic Entenmann’s version… but if I do that, I’ll need milk too.

So, of course I had to look this up, circa 1978(?)