Florida, August 2007
After July
August 1-8, 2007
Paying unusual attention to our ceilings. OK, I didn't leave the house today! It was raining.
PS: My friend, Paul, went to law school just a short distance from where this disaster took place.
PPS: From Paul:
On this map, the arrow is the law school. The 35W bridge is what hit the water. I lived across the river, on 10th Avenue and 7th. You can see 10th Avenue on the map; I lived in the block that's labeled "Marcy Park".
I went to law school every day over the parallel Cedar Avenue Bridge, which you can see still standing in the photo, but if I was going anywhere else farther away, I took the Interstate 35W bridge. (Actually, back then, the still standing bridge was called the "10th Avenue Bridge.")
Yikes!
Watcharee suffered a case of home sickness today. This was cured by a visit to Namfon's video and DVD shop. The cure: Bangkok soap opera images.
Reader, J.C. of Salem, MA writes: "Doesn't Fort Lauderdale have anything more substantive than the Elbo Room, near naked girls on the beach and lots of big yachts?"
OK, J.C., THOCBDC hears you. Though other readers will probably be bored by this, THOCBDC will give you a two day tour of Fort Lauderdale's 'historic' areas.
Today we look at the site of the Cooley massacre. This bit of land, located on a bend in the New River, was once the home of the Cooley family. In January, 1836, the Cooley family was murdered by a band of Seminole Indians; this was the start of the Second Seminole War.
Today it is a park; small, but really pretty.
The second and final tour of Fort Lauderdale's ancient origins begins and ends with a cluster of four buildings on the New River. OK, none of them are really very old (1904 is the oldest; 1949 the youngest).
Hmmm ... 1926 is the year our house was built. I wonder if we are entitled to a memorial marker? Can I give tours?
PS: My friend Dan, from Shanghai and Taipei sent this new toilet visual brochure.
PPS: Beats Old Fort Lauderdale:
The Oriental Market on Route 441 (Between Oakland Park Boulevard and Commercial Boulevard) is a food oasis for the several thousand Southeast Asians who live in Broward County. Besides offering imported food and drink from Vietnam, Thailand, China and Korea, its storefront windows lend themselves to advertisements in native tongues. Clustered around the market are a number of other businesses that offer goods and services to people who come to shop for food: video shops, restaurants, et al.
Did you look at the YouTube production that THOCBDC posted yesterday? (*) OK, so the Bangkok markets in this video are far more colorful and useful for the on-street diner ... but The Oriental Market, despite its tameness, does allow our Thai wives to bring soi food into our farang kitchen.
(*) Don't you love the way the music and the street scenes are so synched in this YouTube video?
PS: Check here tomorrow to see what Watcharee did with her purchases.
PPS: The bad side of Nana.
PPPS: Nana entrance at night:
Thanks to Jon for spotting this.
BANGKOK, Thailand — Thai police officers who break rules will be forced to wear hot pink armbands featuring "Hello Kitty," the Japanese icon of cute, as a mark of shame, a senior officer said Monday.
Police officers caught littering, parking in a prohibited area, or arriving late — among other misdemeanors — will be forced to stay in the division office and wear the armband all day, said Police Col. Pongpat Chayaphan. The officers won't wear the armband in public.
The striking armband features Hello Kitty sitting atop two hearts.
"Simple warnings no longer work. This new twist is expected to make them feel guilt and shame and prevent them from repeating the offense, no matter how minor," said Pongpat, acting chief of the Crime Suppression Division in Bangkok.
"(Hello) Kitty is a cute icon for young girls. It's not something macho police officers want covering their biceps," Pongpat said.
He said police caught breaking the law will be subject the same fines and penalties as any other members of the public.
"We want to make sure that we do not condone small offenses," Pongpat said, adding that the CSD believed that getting tough on pettymisdemeanors would lead to fewer cases of more serious offenses including abuse of power and mistreatment of the public by police officers.
Hello Kitty, invented by Sanrio Co. in 1974, has been popular for years with children and young women. The celebrity cat adorns everything from diamond-studded jewelry, Fender guitars and digital cameras to lunch boxes, T-shirts and stationery.
Another all girl meal came out of yesterday's shopping trip to The Oriental Market. Starting at 6 O'clock and working clockwise: Yod, Kig, Pen, Ta and Watcharee.
Vol. CLVI ... No. 54,028 started a new era (well, format) at The New York Times. The broadsheet just became a little less broad. In keeping with a national trend, this morning's NYT was shrunk in width from 13 1/2 inches to just a foot. (Hey, why can't it go metric? And, why can't the US go metric all the way? Is it because it is too French?) [*]
[*] Speaking of the French, did you see where W's new French friend, Sarkozy, had a hiss fit with some reporters while boating in New Hampshire at the start of his August American vacation?
PS: I guess every father probably has a little sympathy with Rudi on this one. Anyone who has had a teenager knows that at that age he is an idiot in the eyes of his kid. Hmmm ... I wonder how many voters there are that have teenage kids? This from the AP:
WASHINGTON: The daughter of Republican hopeful Rudy Giuliani has signaled she is backing Democrat Barack Obama for president in the 2008 race.
According to her Facebook profile, Giuliani's 17-year-old daughter, Caroline, belonged to Democrat Barack Obama's Facebook group "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)."
It took almost two years to clean up after Hurricane Wilma, but now it is done.
Here is how it looked right after Wilma.
PS: Do you recognize this girl?
PPS: Sandra wrote about this tattoo:
Alf-
"Hello Kenni" photo follows. My old man printed off multi. tattoo removal products from the Internet. I suggested just drawing a line through each name and keeping it as a sign in sheet. He was not amused.
xoxo,
Sandra
Next: Part II
