Sunday Morning Coming Down

Last night I fell asleep and the the wall air conditioner was left on.  And it ran and ran, on and on.  I don't like making the electric company rich, and I've been in Florida long enough that a setting at 78 degrees is more or less comfortable.  Others in my house feel differently and it is always an issue. Waking early it was cold in my room and even colder in the living room.  So cool that dew had formed on the windows.  I turned the window unit off.  The dew point in Miami was 75, the ac unit had done yeoman's work. The Weather Service has a statistic regarding heating and cooling.  65 degree is the magical number and if the average temperature for the day is 65 there will be little need for heating or cooling on that day. A lot of people in Miami use air conditioning year round.  In November the mean average temperature in Miami will hopefully drop to 75 degrees, at my house the windows will open, the electric bill will plummet and if i...

A party at a club in Miami was interrupted by gunfire as 15 were shot on Sunday Morning.  Witnesses reported that dozens of rounds were fired at a storefront club called The Spot. The victims were between the ages of 11 and 25. Police were interviewing the young people after the shooting that took place shortly after 1:00 am. The Spot is a nightclub located at 6400 NW 7 Avenue. Club shootings are not unheard of and as of Monday Morning there were thankfully no deaths. This is way too Miami Vice, but the victims seem really young this time around.

Prairie Meadows Race Track is located near Des Moines, Iowa and at this time of year cowboys race their quarter horses.  Friday and Saturday they run at night and on Sunday they run in the afternoon.  I'm very glad I found this race track because the races are almost always done by 10:30pm.  When I got into quarter horse racing after they came back to Hialeah Park I was sort of stuck on night races from Los Alamitos in Cypress, California and they did not start until about 10:00 pm.  It made for a very long night. The first race at PRM was an 870 yard race.  A long race for the quarters. I had downloaded the form and was busily handicapping the races and listening to John Hernandez go over his picks for the evening.  John works at Hialeah after his Iowa gig is over writing for the track. He sort of "casually" mentions that $15,000 has been bet in the show pool on Gun Powder Kid. Immediately, I check the pools and there is less than $100 has been bet on ...

Derek Jeter played twenty years for the New York Yankees and if you were, are, or ever been a Yankee fan he will always be known as the "Captain". Baseball was at one time "America's Game", it's been replaced by football, but through good fortune and something almost mythical in the sporting realm, #2 is right up there with #3 (Gehrig)   #4 (Ruth) and  #6 (Mantle) when it comes to Yankee uniform numbers. Playing twenty years for any one team is almost unheard of these days.  Having a twenty year career in baseball happens but is becoming rare. Jeter, living in New York, handsome, unmarried, rich, and a celebrity made the gossip columns but his life has been scandal free.  It's been reported that girl friends receive gift baskets with baseball memorabilia suitable for framing.  I'd say this would hardly be news, I've never dated any sports figures but I've known somebody that got to the White House and he was happy to grab anything from ...

Hard to believe the Miami Vice, the TV Show is 30 years old. If you lived in Miami during the 1980's, there were a lot of changes going on and Miami Vice was a catylist for all the changes.  The music, the fast editing and colors, all complemented the influx of drugs, refugees, and a new feeling for South Beach. In 1981, TIME Magazine had a cover about Miami being Paradise Lost.  Tourism was losing steam, there were some heavily publicized murders of tourists, and crime in the Sunshine State was being fed by drugs, imports, exports, and local sales.  The Mariel Boatlift was a complicating factor, and there were other problems caused by rapid and almost uncontrolled growth in the area But the Sun and Fun Capital of the U.S.A. if not the World rallied.  Art Deco, Crockett and Tubbs, and a resurgent University of Miami Football, and nice winter weather brought Miami and The Beaches Back

The Rockefeller Brothers Fund announced it was divesting themselves from the worst of the fossil fuels, tar sands and coal. The Charleston Gazette reports the following:   After John D. Rockefeller founded Standard Oil in 1870, the company quickly became the world’s largest oil refiner and a major source of the family’s future wealth. ExxonMobil is Standard Oil’s largest successor today. Standard Oil also began other companies, including Chevron and Amoco. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is an heir of the Rockefeller family but has never been part of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Andrew Beckner, a spokesman for Rockefeller, said Tuesday, “He is not going to comment. He has nothing to do with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. It is a foundation, not an investment fund. He has no money invested in the fund and is not involved in any of the decision-making” The Rockefeller Brothers Fund was founded in 1940. - See more at: http://www.wvgazette.com/article/20140923/GZ01/14092969...

Today I read a post from a Peace Corp volunteer that was recalled from Liberia as the result of the Ebola epidemic.  His host mother has died from the disease and the host father is sick as well.  The host family has children that are being taken care of by other family members. The Peace Corp volunteer is the nephew of a high school classmate, we were neighbors when I lived in Bensenville, Illinois over forty years ago.  He was to teach Biology/Animal Science but that was cut short by the Ebola outbreak/epidemic. When he was evacuated, it was done for his safety and in bureaucratic speak out of an abundance of caution.  At the time, reading an earlier post Dane was not a happy camper about being removed from something he had spent a great deal of effort preparing for. A few days ago President Obama announced that 3,000 troops to West Africa to ramp up the fight against Ebola.  This fight is very important and needs to be taken seriously. Dane's blog is ...