Travels with Fred

22 March 2025

I spent the morning packing my suitcase for the trip tomorrow. I got worried about the weight but it was around 40 lbs if my scales are accurate. Packing for a week takes a lot of thought, particularly when you are in spring weather and it’s cold at night and warm during the day. In a worse case scenario, I could purchase what I need in Jackson.

Of course, the Jackson newspaper reported that Sunday there would be 60-70 mph winds and storms. Fortunately, they arrive in the afternoon and I arrive in the morning. There’s a stop in Atlanta and then to Jackson.

Yesterday evening, Jim, Holley and I caught up over dinner at Kaluz in Plantation. This was a new experience for me and the yellowtail snapper I had was outstanding. I forget how good that fish tastes and I don’t order it enough.

Today, I’m washing clothes, finishing packing my shoulder bag full of charge cords, and closing up the house for the week.

My flight leaves at 6:30 am and my Uber arrives at 4:30 am. That means I’ll get up about 3:30 am. No sleep for me tonight. I’ll lie awake and overthink things.

Today, John and I are treating Joel to a birthday lunch at Season’s 52. It’s not quite as good food as the first time I ate there back in the 80’s but it’ll do.

On the trip, I’ll be staying with my cousin Jean and her husband Roger and visiting my niece, nephews, brother and sister-in-law. On the 27th, I’ll visit with my other side of the family cousins in Frogtown. Yes, that’s a name and no, it’s not incorporated. Let’s just say it’s a subdivision of Pulaski, MS.

Stay tuned!

20 March 2025

Note: for a perspective on John Knox Village, scroll down after this blog entry.

Movie night was great. As I was waiting for Chris and Tucker, Katy was in the yard with the twins. We got to talking and the twins began jumping from the porch to the ground (about 6 inches) and had a ball. We were joined by Nicole and it was a regular neighborhood get together. I caught up with both of them and they caught up with me.

The movie was My Cousin Vinny. We had both seen it but we agreed it was long ago. Joe Pesci and Marisa Tomei are excellent in the movie and I loved Fred Gwynne in the roll of judge. You still can’t help but think of Gwynne and his role in the Adam’s Family. Ralph Maccio played the aggrieved party.

Tucker was great last night. I work with him about the commands “Stay”, “Sit” and “Come.” Chris wants him to be exposed to me with him and the commands.

Chris, rightly so, took me to task for not walking. I promised I would do it this morning and I managed 1.4 miles. After all the walking at John Knox Village, I felt in good shape for this morning’s walk.

The walk took me by my favorite yard for flowers and I wasn’t disappointed. There’s always something new.

This is a member of the Brassicaceae family (think mustard greens). Like so many plants, it’s not native but is now used for horticultural purposes in the U.S.

There are four petals and six stamens, usually with 2 short and 4 long. The flower petals are said to be cruciform (like a cross). Most native Brassicaceae in the U.S. are spring flowers.

Remember, scroll down to see my trip to John Knox Village.

Stay tuned!

18 March 2025

I didn’t post yesterday. Things got too busy. More on that later.

Chicago will have to give up its title for Windy City. I think Fort Lauderdale can take that crown these days. We’ve had about two weeks of constant windy weather. There’s almost always a dead palm frond to pick up from around the pool.

The palms around the pool are Cabada palms and they shed their fronds unlike some palm trees that keep them on until they rot away. I like the self-shedding types since I don’t have to pay anyone to saw them off.

I’m beginning to get organized for my trip to Mississippi. I hate packing and tend to put it off until the last minute and thus overpack. The biggest pain is getting the medications ready for a week away from home. Regardless, this will be my first trip in quite a while.

I waited to post yesterday until I completed my cardiology appointment with a new cardiologist. My other one retired. Can’t say I blame him. The new one is Ethan Siev at Hollywood Memorial. It’s a very busy office with numerous physicians in that one office on the 6th floor but I was taken back early and Nurse Nancy took my information.

I’ve learned to print out all of that stuff even though it’s online. They ask you anyway. I think I like the new guy and will continue with him. I have two doctors associated with Hollywood Memorial, the cardiologist and the endocrinologist. Everyone else is Holy Cross.

Dr. Siev wants me to have another echocardiogram (it’s time) and gave me the option of doing it with Holy Cross where the others were done or have it done in office with him. I’ve opted to go with him. He can read Holy Cross reports but cannot see the images.

He also scheduled my next appointment 6 months from now and also scheduled me for a CT scan to determine my coronary calcium score. The only time it’s been done was in 2016 and it was high. He wants to see how much it has increased.

It was around 4:30 when I got back home and I started a home made beef stew (cooler weather on the way here). I got a phone call from Judith that Chris was in the emergency room at Hollywood Memorial and needed his phone charger. That makes two times I was there yesterday.

The entrance to the valet at the emergency room is misleading and, of course, I entered the wrong way. The valets were not in a hurry so it took time to give him the key fob and get the ticket. Then, the check-in for visitors took a lot of time. Finally, I got sent back to see Chris – and he wasn’t there.

Christina, his nurse, came in and told me that had trouble getting a vein for an IV and she was headed there to do it. She told me he would be back after a CAT scan – within 10 minutes. I hooked up his phone to the charger. True to her word, Chris came back in shortly. I visited a while and then headed back home – after another long wait with the valet.

I was wiped out so I ate some warm beef stew and went to bed. I dropped off to sleep immediately.

I’ll check on Judith and Chris later today but I also have another doctor’s appointment with the oncologist at 1:15 this afternoon. I slept late this morning and may even nap before the appointment.

Stay tuned!

16 March 2025

Considering I live only 4 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, I don’t get there very often. In most cases, I would be at a beachside restaurant and sometimes walk across A1A to put my feet in the sand, but that’s pretty much it. I think I did that two times this year.

That’s quite a change when I first moved here in 1985. I started with an invitation to Shark World down in the Keys which eventually became the Keys Marine Lab. From that event, I started taking students down to the lab for field trips where we would go both into Florida Bay and the Atlantic as well as snorkel in the canals leading to the Ocean.

I’m actually scuba dive certified back from the time I took students from Itawamba Junior College down to DeFuniak Springs to become scuba certified. I’ve only scuba dived once in the Florida Bay side with a student of mine looking for lobster. Almost anything you want to see you can see by snorkeling and tanks are a waste of time.

I suspect my lack of putting my feet in the Atlantic is like someone living in Orlando and not getting to Disney World or Epcot very often. Back in my younger days I would go to (then named) John U. Lloyd beach and sunbathe and then cool off in the Ocean. Then there’s Haulover Beach just south of Aventura which is the nude beach. No tan lines there. I would spend hours soaking up the rays and cooling in the Ocean.

The sun caught up with me and I’ve quit sunbathing. Instead of going into the Ocean, I jump in the pool. Besides, if I go to the Ocean, I would pay outrageous parking fees. I could get a resident pass but that’s more trouble than it’s worth for the few times I go to A1A and eat at restaurants.

Still the Ocean calls. I spent time in the Coast Guard in both the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic. I used to walk out onto the bow of the ship at night and look up to see the stars. The Milky Way was pretty obvious when you are in the middle of the Gulf.

I’ve seen both the Atlantic and Pacific but have never been in the Pacific. Too cold! I did stick a toe in one time. The best part of both regions of the Ocean are close to shore where you find more life forms. In the middle of the Atlantic, life forms are pretty rare.

To commemorate how close I live to the Ocean, I’ll jump in the pool and pretend it’s a saltwater pool and explore for marine life.

Stay tuned!

15 March 2025

Happy Birthday to my friend Jim who is 8 months older than I. I try not to let him forget it – his age, that is.

I was planning on kicking back today but forgot John was brining over BOGO from Honey Baked Ham and Nothing Bundt Cakes. He also brought over some Bun candy and some gooey brownies. Add that to my chocolate chip cookies and I have enough chocolate stash to last hurricane season starting in June. However, I doubt it will last that long.

We spent the day catching up and trying to get my new tv to work with Directv Stream app with no luck. We probably spent an hour on that.

We got into a discussion about how you used to have to change tubes in old tv sets. He came around during the age of transistors and didn’t realize old radio were tubes as well until the advent of transistors. I’m dating myself.

I’ve regaled you with the story of my brother building a home made crystal radio and having fun at my expense. I think I’ve also mentioned the tube transmitter we had in the Coast Guard aboard the CGC Reliance. It took forever to tune. You knew you were close when a window into a huge tube glowed cherry red.

When we asked for an upgrade to a transistor transmitter, the Eighth Coast Guard District laughed and said we had more up time with our transmitter than any ship in the fleet. It was far more reliable than transistor transmitters.

When our transmitter came on line, it could really put out the watts of power. We were stationed in Corpus Christi and they could hear us in Florida, the west coast of the U.S. and one time, due to atmospheric bounce, in the Indian Ocean.

High school physics in 1966 taught me a little about electronics. We studied Ohms law, series and parallel circuits. I think I remember the physics teacher passing around a tube one day and that was it. Somewhere in my high school years, transistor radios made it big because of their small size and ability to receive AM and FM.

There are a lot of things where old is better. Morse Code is an example. You can send and receive code messages much better with clearer atmospherics than any other form of communication. It’s still the most reliable form of long distance communication.

My big accomplishment today was trimming my finger nails and toe nails. I’ll add to that by taking a shower tonight and call it a day and head to bed and read a little.

Stay tuned!

14 March 2025

It’s official! Fort Lauderdale gets the most rainfall of any place in the U.S. based on cities of 100,000 population or more. According to the New York Times, we get 68.77 inches per year. As a matter of fact, Florida gets the most inches of rainfall of any state with 4 cities in the top 10.

Normally, one would think of Portland or Seattle, particularly with a coastal rainforest in the area. Based on days of measurable precipitation, Syracuse, NY is tops with 172 days with precipitation and Seattle is only number 5 and Portland is number 9.

I suspect Fort Lauderdale’s rainfall is skewed by that one major flood we had on April 12, 2023 with 25.91 inches in a 24 hour period. It certainly caused me flood damage.

I overdid it again today. I haven’t raked leaves in a while and I ended up with three large piles that needed to go into the yard waste bin. I had to take three breaks for the leaves and another break for sweeping the pavement.

After that, I could sit down for the pool filter cleaning but then it was back up hosing down the patio and watering plants and then spraying for weeds.

It’s getting to the point that I’m tired of doing all this. I could get a pool service but I would still be skimming leaves off the pool, checking chemicals in between service, and cleaning out the pump basket and skimmer. I could also get someone to do weekly yard service but I would still need to pick up the occasional palm frond, clear the patio of leaves, etc.

I’m at the point that an independent living facility is looking better and better. To be honest, I’m just tired of handling the every day joys of being a home owner. I would say it’s laziness on my part but it really isn’t. I just don’t have the energy for it any more and I don’t particularly like doing the chores any more.

At 76, life is winding down and I don’t think I want to spend the remainder or my years doing mundane things. Of course, the housing market in South Florida is not very strong right now. I see houses in the neighborhood for sale and they’ve been for sale for quite a length of time. I would need to clear a pretty good sum on the sale of the house to give me the opportunity to go into independent living.

Anyhoo, I decided the answer to everything was to bake the New York Times recipe for chocolate chip cookies. I made the dough yesterday and you are to let it rest in the fridge for 24-48 hours. I figure a chocolate chip cookies cures a myriad of ills.

Stay tuned!