Where is everyone living?

The other day I started to notice that there are empty houses and apartments all over the place. Where are people living?
A few years back I was looking for an apartment in the beach and everything was rented. An when one came available, you had to act fast because it would be rented within days. The other day I dropped my sister off at her beach condo and everywhere I looked there were empty homes and apartments with for rent signs. Then, later that day, while running, I’m noticing that there are several empty homes on my street too.
On the news I hear about people losing their homes. Wouldn’t these folks need to rent a place to live? How come everything is empty?
Are people just doubling up? Going to live with their parents?
Moving out of South Florida?

Operation lose 5 pounds

Yesterday: rollerbladed two miles. No snacks. I feel good about yesterday other than the fact that I stayed up way too late. Sleep is a key factor in keeping up with an aging metabolism and it is my weak point. I’m too much of a busy body and life is too exciting for sleep.
Today: speed walked 1.5 miles, ate two candies and a hersheys special dark miniature. I was desperate for a snack and the hot tea didn’t stifle the craving. I was going to run tonight too but since the hubby had to work late, that is a no go.
I’m considering having a beer and chalking this day up to a waste.
Now you see why I have such a difficult time losing weight?

I’ve been trying for two years to get this 5 pounds off

Today, as I was trying to push myself to actually run as far as I had origionally planned, I thought about why I just can’t get rid of these last five pounds. When I quit smoking almost 4 years ago, I packed on ten pounds that never came off. After having a child, I’ve collected another 5.
For two years now I’ve worked out consitsntly. I rarely ever eat out, maybe one meal a month!
I only drink alcohol once maybe twice a week, and I cut out all beverages (other than water of course) besides 2 cups of coffee a day.
There isn’t much more I can do other than go on some crazy fad diet.
I won’t do that!
I guess I’m just going to have to start working out 9 or 10 times a week rather than the 5 I do now.
Ugh. I’m determined though. I will do it.
My goal weight is just to get under 130 (I’m 134 now) but the more important thing than the number is getting this roll off my belly so I can be comfy in jeans again.
Today, 3 miles and an obstical course. But splurged with a bowl of icecream & a Dr. Pepper. Ge’ez, no wonder!

Little brothers birthday

Today is my brother’s birthday. As usual, I forgot to send a card or a gift. I did remember to call though. (and called the other siblings to remind them too) but I got this message
“the caller you are calling is not receiving calls right now”
Is that because he hasn’t paid the bill? Or is that some sort of feature?

Still learnin my ipone aps

Just trying to figure out why my last two blogs that were were written from my phone haven’t posted. Also trying to figure out how to post a pic.

Doctors, dentists offices why do their rules apply?

I’m sitting in the lobby of my new dentist office. She won’t be my dentist for long. I’ve been considering why the rules of customer service just don’t seem to apply to the medical profession. My belief is that the entire system is screwed up but I do have a little bit of power here. I can do the same thing I would do in a commercial setting, take my business elsewhere. Sure, this doc is the closest to my house and they take my insurance, but she is not the only dentist.
I don’t understand how it is considered acceptable to fine me for changing an appointment or for showing up 10 minutes late (I’ve done neither but have been told of the comsequnces twice) but the can change my appointment and make me wait for an hour with not even an apology.
That was the last visit, this one was changed (without input from me) from 11 to 11:45. Then I got a call that I could come in early….at 11 if I’d like to be seen early. I arrived at 11, got in at 11:25. Huh?

New iphone

It has been five days since my new iPhone arrived and I’m so in love. I’m writing this blog on it! It has improved my productivity so much. I’ve gotten everything on my to do list done and actually got to bed early twice this week. There are a few features the I just haven’t figured out yet, bit overall it is super easy to use.
So easy that is making me consider throwing my vista laptop out the window. Are macs this easy? If so, I totally get why mac users are such big fans.

This is for those who don’t live in Hurricane prone areas

I’m a born & raised Floridian who did a few short stints in a couple of other states (two were hurricane prone areas too!) so I’ve dealt with hurricanes all my life.  Today we were under a “tropical storm watch”. 

Let me tell you how it really goes.

A storm shows up on the radar somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic and the meteorologists start mentioning it.  As soon as it gets within 5 days away from a possible hit, they start covering little else.  They will run the little 5 second spinny shot over and over.

Once it gets within 3 days of possible landfall, they break into television shows about every 20 minutes to give you the latest coordinates.  I don’t watch much television so I’ve had a couple of storms sneak up on me (like where you find out 24 hours prior) but really, you’ve got to be under a rock to be anywhere in the POSSIBLE area that a storm might hit and not be aware of it.  Scares the tourists to death.  When I hear non-hurricane people talk about how bad they are, I point out how many other natural disasters are way worse because they don’t get the advance notice.  Tornadoes, flash floods, Tsunamis, mud slides, just to name a few.

Don’t get me wrong, I am well aware that there are thousands and thousands of hurricane victims out there and they have felt real pain, but I’m mainly talking about the majority of folks who go through these things.

Ok, so, back to the build-up.  The day prior to the storm they pretty much quit broadcasting anything other than hurricane stuff.  Here is where people go nuts.  There are three kinds of hurricane preparation:

A. The doomsday folks.  They run out and buy up gallons and gallons of bottled water, fill their gas tank and about 40 gallons extra, buy up an entire grocery cart full of canned foods, cut down half their trees and talk non-stop about how bad things are going to get.

B.  The nothings gonna happen folks.  They do nothing.  Well, they might stock up on beer.  This type usually tends to be big drinkers.  Or, if they do anything at all it would be to host a “hurricane party” during the storm and dare one another to run outside.  ( must admit, I’ve done this once or twice… actually got stuck in a bar once, police made us all spend the night)

C.  Realistic people (or hurricane veterans).  They are well aware of when hurricane season starts and ends and are pretty much ready all the time.  Now this doesn’t mean ready like group A, it means realistically ready.  They will have extra batteries and candles on hand all season, maybe even a few extra cans of food in the pantry too.  They will monitor the storm, bring in their patio furniture & potted plants, put the shutters up if necessary, fill up their car’s gas tank, make sure they have gas for the grill and stay home.  Prepared but calm.  (most of the recent storms this has been me)

I’ve been through about a dozen hurricanes and I’ve had some property damage but thankfully, I’ve never been hurt or ended up homeless.  Most times they hype them all up and they turn out to be nothing.  This is good but bad at the same time.  Good because it gets people aware and everyone knows exactly what to do.  They do enough media coverage that the rednecks at the bar sound like trained meteorologists when they talk to one another about this stuff.  Bad because when storms shift and go elsewhere or end up to be not very strong by the time they hit you, it makes people feel let down in a way.  Like they did all that hurricane prep work for nothing.  The bad part is when sensible people turn into dumb turkeys and quit getting ready.  That is when people get most hurt.

The current storm that we were threatened with has taken a turn and left us with just two days of heavy rain.  Great.  I’m happy for that.  No broken windows, downed trees or loss of power.  However, there were all kinds of idiots in my neighborhood that did nothing to prepare.  It is a shame that the insurance companies don’t refuse to pay for broken windows for homes that have hurricane shutters installed but have home-owners too lazy to close them. 

current predictions

 It is 11:20PM and this is the current projections from weather.com and I’ve taken the liberty of adding a little red X to indicate my location.   Good for me, bad for Disney.

JP’s beach bar (formerly Bu’s)- good & bad experience last night

Last night I met up with a few friends on Hollywood Beach and bar hopped a little.  We started at O’Malley’s Ocean Pub (love that place… worked there for years so it is like home to me) then wandered down to Tucan’s then JPs.  Tucan’s was fun, we got the spot right by the door which is great because it is the best place for the breeze but bad because you cannot hear your friends because the band is up your butt.  It is comical that the bass player had to move out of the way every time someone needed to come in or out of the door.  Then we went to JP’s (formerly Bu’s) to see the band Loose Cannon.

JP’s is a raunchy kind of place but can be fun sometimes.  The band was great, lots of high energy music and my girlfriend and I danced and danced.  The bar, very dissapointed.  So dissapointed that I woke up thinking about it and it still makes me angry.  The bartender was garbage and I am certain that I was severely overcharged.  My bill came to $51.00 and all I had was a couple of domestic beers.  Myself and two friends were on one tab together and we were only there for an hour and a half.  The beers are $4.00 a piece (WAY too much for a domestic in a dive bar!) so we would have had to have drunk 12.75 beers in order for it to come to that amount.  Huh? how are we supposed to have had a .75 of a beer?  Plus, my other friend bought us a round.  You have got to be kidding me to think we could have possibly drank that many beers in that amount of time.

I kick myself that I didn’t say anything about it (of course, she didn’t give me any reciept other than the slip that I sign for on the credit card) but it is all those years of being behind the bar that made me suck it up and keep quite.  Now, more “clear-headed” (aka: sober) I hate that I didn’t speak up.  I just pictured all of those drunks who would get their tabs and accuse me of over charging them when they had been sitting there for hours and hours on end pounding drinks & shots.  I couldn’t bring myself to say anything.

It is unfortunate that people do that.  They’ve now lost a customer in me.

I will never buy a beer there again.

I’ll go there if my friends go, but I will not give them my money.

What the crap? This stupid hurricane is going to ruin my plans… and it is named after me!

I’ve always thought it would be cool to have a hurricane have your name.  Well, at the beginning of the season when I saw that there was a hurricane Faye I was tickled.  I’m really Shelley Faye, but hey, this is the closest they’ve come in my lifetime.

Bummer though because we had a grand day planned for Monday (when it is supposed to hit us).  My friends and I always plan to go to the water park the day before school lets out or the day that school lets back in.  Well, Monday is the first day of school so me and all my friends took re-arranged our schedules so we could go.  It is great on those days, no kids and us adults can run around like crazy kids, no lines. 

poo.