Just Before I Put This Thing To Bed For A While

Just before I take off until the first of March, which by the way, will be close to my 1 year blog anniversary, I wanted to leave you with some soothing pictures of my adventures to Miami, specifically, Coral Gables, Florida.

The first picture is of my hotel – Hotel Place St. Michel ( pronounced like the female name Michelle ). Very lovely place, as you will see. I highly recommend it when you go to visit. Very small, but very quaint and reminiscent of all the old world charm you would see in France.

As you enter you see the barreled roof. The nice you gentleman there is Pierre, I believe he is the the bartender and a Frenchman, no joke. Most of the owners and “higher” employees were French. That explains the very good food. I even met a nice lady from Montreal wintering in Miami at Pierre’s bar.

And this is the front desk. Very nice .

If you look to the right in the front desk picture you see stairs that lead up to the rooms. I was on the 3rd floor in 304. It would be the third window from the left in the first picture. There was an elevator, but you had to have an operator to control it and it wasn’t worth it for 3 flights.

So up the stairs you go and this is the landing or hallway on the third floor. I wish I had a good picture of the doors as they were a beautiful cherry stained mahogany and solid as a brick. The door knobs did not turn. You had to have a key to open and shut the doors. Love it, loved it, loved it!
You notice in the hallway many beautiful antiques. They were everywhere and usually adorned with fresh cut tropical flowers.

So on to the room, with more antiques and more charm. The room seemed small, but very adequate. They even had high speed wireless internet access. A nice convenience for the business traveler.

On Wednesday night, I think, my Floridian guides, actually a native Detroitan and a native Floridian, took me to Bayside to souvenir shop. Gagan and DD were wonderful hosts and helped me understand Florida, or as I’ve come to know it as, New Cuba.

It freaked me out to see blonde haired-blue eyed people all speaking very fluent Spanish. If you are from Texas, that just about turns your world upside down. People who speak fluent Spanish in Texas as all very dark haired and dark skinned and brown eyed. I still have a hard time thinking about it.

So bayside was beautiful. All touristy and stuff. There was lots there. I got all my tshirts and stuffed animals and snow globes so I could pay the extra $25 for my luggage being too heavy.

In this second picture, the white building in front of the two tall buildings under construction is the American Airlines Arena. Not to be confused with Dallas’ American Airlines Center. The AAA is the house that Shaq plays in. Dallas actually played Miami on Monday night in Dallas.

And that’s all I have to say. I’ll be back around the first of March posting again, but this time to http://thunderfish.blogspot.com. I’ll leave a notice to change your links to it so that no one gets left behind.

I’ll be reading and studying and working hard. Don’t get in too much trouble.

~Jef

What would you think …

If I never did another post again?

While The Mice Is Away

While Jef is in Miami, he asked me to write a hot political commentary with the subject being “America”. I’m not used to this kind of “hot”, but I said ok. Quite the wiley task master the old man is, isn’t he? However, I did my best, if you agree or not, I hope to hear from you soon.

With Jef’s blessing,

Girl Next Door, Texas

——-~~`oo&oo`~~——–

“We’re walking real proud and talking real proud again
In America Did Ya,
Ya never did think that we’d ever get together again.”
“In America”
Charlie Daniels

America is an awesome country, right? Of course, and I’m as red-blooded as they get, however, our country is weak. “Huh,” you utter? Yes, we’re weak. We’re weak because we’ve not been made to be strong. We’ve attrophied in our complacency into second place.

Before you turn this post off as an artery draining liberal-heart post, I’ll show you why we are weak and what we need to do to get the U.S. strong again, without using the words Democrat, Republican or The Bible.

America was a young country in the 1800’s. There was land, a new opportunity and plenty of time to develop. Fresh off the heals of a devastating conflict our country had to push on. Most of it’s young leadership lay dead on it’s own soil. Impoverished and new from victory. Freed and at the same time enslaved to ideas it couldn’t support. But we lacked nothing when it came to ingenuity and determination.

America was one thing, if nothing else, innovative. If it wasn’t for inventions like the cotton gin, the light bulb, or automobiles, I doubt we would ever be where we are today. We would sit in darkness, mending our own clothes and traveliing no more than the the train could take us.

And that’s clue number 1, America has lost it’s innovative edge. There was a time when major innovations came out of this country. We rarely hear that any more. The news frequently starts with, “This news from Japan,” or “This just in from Germany.”

Sure we have the market on research, but what do we produce that’s new and innovative. You have to admit, there was a time when we made new things like crazy and they were good things. Things that added vavlue to life all over the world.

Why can’t we get 100 MPG out of an SUV? We hear that tired old phrase from our parents, “We put a man on the moon, we should be able to do this.” Ya, well, what have you done for me lately? I don’t see a Mars colony. And I definitely don’t see any more men on the moon. I don’t see cures for cancer. I don’t see third world countries with obesity problems.

What have we done? Nothing. That’s what. We’ve sat in our laziness. We’ve wallowed in our stagnation.

What has happened since the late 40’s is that we’ve never really had a mojor crisis to live through. Instead we’ve worked to make our lives easier. Easier to the point we can sit in our easy chairs and run our business, do our shopping, order our food brought to us and pay our bills. What’s work about that?

We haven’t had to live through major conflicts, economic devastation or prolonged periods of sacrafice. Those things bring out character and innovation. It’s only when we choose the hard road do we, as Americans, have a chance to prolong the life of our great nation.

I don’t wish famine, pestilence or death upon any nation, especially ours, but when have you ever accomplished anything without work, sacrifice or effort? When will we as a nation, join together and knock out the punch list of things we have to do without infighting and bitterness

If not soon, then when? When will be as a nation observe lost ideals such as common sense, sacrifice and unity? Are these foreign concepts?

Will we, as a nation, ever be great again without these values?

Souperbowl

I gave this organization a little plug in Thundersports this week. It’s a group that collects money for local food pantries. Most of the time the donation is only a dollar. With the recent hurricanes many food pantries are below normal. So instead of the extra bag of chips, buy a can or two of canned goods and keep the extra dollar and donate it to Souperbowl of Caring.

Off Again

I’m off to training … again. It doesn’t seem that anyone offers training in town around here. I get to travel at least one or two more times this year. H is up to speed on dog feeding and A has her hands full with 3 kids.

So I am getting shipped off for another week to sunny Florida. I’m not a beach person and I’m not a warm weather person. I know that flies in a lot of people’s faces, but I like a nice 70-75 degrees. Warmer is too hot and colder is better for short periods of time.

So while I’m off, I’vesomeone to guest post for me. How interesting … this should be a fun week.

I’m hoping to not only meet the Golden girls, but also Ricky Ricardo. He was suave … Rico!

Most of my time is going to be spent studying without a car. But if someone can suggest some good local cuisine, I would REALLY appreciate it.

You kids behave while I’m gone.

A Tag From ShyRocket

ShyRocket ( I like to call him Rocket ) tagged me on a good topic and I thought I’d play along. If you want to play along feel free, just put in the comments that you are participating so we can all share.

List eight attributes of the perfect partner.

• Confident – The one trait we should all look for.
• Funny – Lots of people think they are, but why spend life with someone who isn’t?
• Team Player – Marriage is a team sport, never marry a singles tennis champion.
• Companion – Everyone needs to enjoy sharing things together.
• Presence – This is hard to explain, but someone who knows how to act in all situations given they have #1 confidence
• SMART – Or as Homer Simpson said, “I am so smart. S.M.R.T. doh!” Brains are sexy in women!
• Nun/Hooker – Sure is nice to be with someone who is a lady and a tramp in the correct setting.
• Easy On The Eyes – Gotta like to roll over and see her face EVERY MORNING!

You know if you have these you are probably a P 31 Woman! Anyone guess what I am talking about?