TRIP BACK IN TIME - COTTONWOOD,ALABAMA

LAST WEEKEND WE CELEBRATED OUR 38TH WEDDING ANNIVERSARY.

While we ate breakfast Saturday morning Pat asked me what I wanted to do to celebrate. I had been thinking long and hard about this and I said, with some trepidation, "I'm almost afraid to say because you might want to go for it." Then I told her I had been thinking that we should go back at last to Cottonwood, Alabama; back to where we got married in 1972 at a place called Sealy's Hot Mineral Springs in Cottonwood, near Dothan, Alabama.

She brightened and smiled real big and I knew we were going to do it. Finally. We had made plans a few times in recent years to go back there, even though the place was destroyed by fire several years ago. We wanted to see what remained and look across the small lake to the very place where Dave, Dana and the other nine folks who were traveling with us made a large peace sign out of pine-cones on the ground and stood around it while we exchanged our vows and rings.

But each time we made plans to go there something went awry. One time I had a heart attack and had bypass surgery. This time, after having a third heart attack,  I was six weeks post-op from having a defibrillator implanted to prevent further heart attacks. I felt great!
Within an hour we had our SUV loaded with everything we needed for two days, including our seven-month-old dachshund, Doxie and her carrier and supplies. I packed some 'road-rations' including two of my home-made super-muffins and a cooler full of healthy munchies. By 12:30 we were out the driveway and headed west. Only 300 miles to Cottonwood.

We took the road less traveled and went through Stark, Lake city, and Lulu avoiding the interstate as much as possible. Pat drove, making great time, so we wound up in Dothan by 6:00 PM. We checked in at the HoJo's express and went to Cracker Barrel for a quick but wholesome dinner. Then back to the motel and to bed so we could get an early start in the morning.

After a quick breakfast Sunday morning we headed on to Cottonwood.

When we found The Hot Springs, not named Sealy's anymore, it was a bittersweet sight. The big iron gate out front was chained and locked, the big building was a burned-out hulk and the place was deserted, overgrown. Closed for good.

With some misgivings I stepped over the fence and slowly made my way around to the rear of the burned out building. I could see the lake that we rowed across and the opposite shore where we exchanged our vows. It was still there. Still the same.
As I rounded the corner at the back of the building and walked behind it, I saw the old swimming pool, still full of water. When I got to where I could see through the weeds, I stopped short and saw that the huge pipe was still spewing out hot water exactly as it did 38 years ago. I shouted to Pat to come around and join me. Then we both stood there and watched the springwater flow with a mixed bag of emotions from joy to saddened reverie, realizing what was and what is gone.

What a rush it was to stand there watching the warm water flow and flash back on the moments we shared there with our friends and each other 38 years ago. It brought tears to our eyes. We kissed. I took a few more pictures of the place and of Pat standing there.

Then we turned and left, reversing our trip to head home, 300 miles back to St. Augustine. On the way home we stopped at two very interesting places and I'll report on those in the next post.

Sometimes things are so bad they could only get worse if someone was whining about it. You listening Joe Lieberman? ☁☂☠

MAC OR PC?

It's New Years Day 2010. I start this decade in a quandary. I'm a computer user, have been for 15 years, since I bought my IBM PS1 and learned to use a pirated copy of Powerpoint. I did a fax newsletter before we had the internet. I graduated through 3 PCs, became an internet junkie with 3 websites, dozens of YouTube videos and this blog. I have about 50 friends on Facebook, all I can keep up with on a daily basis.

Exactly 3½ years ago I listened to my son-in-law, made the big plunge and bought a Mac. A nice new iMac with that great intel dual-core drive and a Superdrive with iMovie and I was in the video editing business at last.

Everything I had been told about the Apple computers came true. Unfailing software that never crashed. Smooth, sleek hardware that operated flawlessly and all as user friendly as a TV. I thought I died and went to techno-heaven. I even talked my best friend, an artist, into buying an identical iMac 3 months after I did. We celebrated and exchanged emails with photos regularly.

All this hummed along smoothly until about three months ago when I noticed a vertical line near the center of my LCD screen. It wouldn't go away and when I called the geniuses at the Apple store they weren't much help. All that could be done would be to replace the entire screen at a cost of about $350. Or live with it. I decided I could live with it, work around it.

Then I found out that my friend the artist had a similar line on his screen. Oh no! A flaw. LCD screens that die after only 3 years! We were both really bummed out but, considering how well the computer worked... we both just overlooked it.

Then just a few weeks before Christmas two more lines appeared on my screen. At the same time my friend's iMac crashed and the geniuses said he needed a new hard drive. He opted for a local geek and paid $250. to get his hard drive replaced and all his data saved. I thought that wasn't so bad.

Then on Dec. 4, my superdrive malfunctioned and wouldn't eject a DVD I had burned. I called the geniuses at the Apple store and they said to bring it in. I did so the next day and left it overnight with the geniuses.

When I went back the next day they said they had gotten the DVD out but that my Superdrive was shot and it would cost $250. to replace it. Or I could go to Best-Buy and get an external drive for about $150.

I had to think about all this especially considering my LCD screen which now had 3 lines in it with perhaps worse to come. I brought my iMac home and bought, online, an external Super Writemaster DVD/CD burner by Kanguru. I can't get the iMac to recognize it or its software disc.

So I can't burn CDs or DVDs. I'm essentially out of business. All I can do is create videos and save them to memory sticks or post videos to YouTube.

This was something I feared would happen, having the monitor, computer and CD/DVD drive all together in one slick compact package like a laptop. If one thing dies your whole unit is out of commission.

My wonderful, infallible iMac is dying rapidly after only 3½ years. With all the extras and some added software I have invested about $2,000. in this computer and I don't know if I can afford another $2,000. every few years.

Then too I'm stuck trying to decide whether more reliable hardware with rather clumsy and very fallible software such as Windows whatever would be a better investment.

I guess I'm back to the original question; Mac or PC?

Any suggestions?

I posted the following as a comment on a friend's Facebook post about the true meaning of Christmas:

But... but, the true meaning of Christmas IS Santa and Rudolph and Tiny Tim and Bob Cratchet and Ebenezer Scrooge even. Also lotsa gifts under a richly embellished, fresh-cut pine tree and tinsel and old movies like "Miracle on 32nd St." and Bing Crosby singing "White Christmas" and cheesy cards from all our friends and relatives and stockings (of all things) filled with treats and gifties hanging from the mantle (real or faux) and a zillion lights strung all over the outside of every house and bell-ringing beggars at every door of every store and junk mail from stores you never go to and 'adorable' little Holiday programs in school gymnasiums that you have to go to 'cause you know a kid who will be crushed if you don't show up and also buy them a toy for Christmas. That's a little of what I know as the meaning of Christmas.

Merry Christmas to all. ☺☺☺☃☃♡♡

St. Augustine Street Saga II, 2-23-98

By popular request I have posted a short (10 minute) segment from my archived video documentary "St. Augustine Street Saga" on YouTube. The description follows: City of St. Augustine bans artists and performers from the historic district. Protests on the streets and at City Commission meeting. City Manager Joe Pomar crowns self "King" Joe in meeting while Ruth Hunter draws caricatures of him and Mayor Len Weeks, Roger Jolley addresses Comm:ission in protest.

Click on link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl503onlCKU to view the video, rate it, and please comment.

St. Augustine City Commission meeting of 9-14-09

The St. Augustine City Commission meeting of 9-14-09 with their hired gun, out of town attorney trying desperately to make his latest plan to ban Constitutionally protected activity in the historic Plaza de La Constitucion was like watching a spastic middle schooler build a Rube Goldberg machine while covered with honey and tormented by Africanized bees.

Nobody was buying it with even Earoil Jones pointing out how crazy it was to expect to rent six of twelve little 8'x10' spaces (cells) to street performers all of whom would be performing their own music, less than ten ft. away from other performers doing their own act, with different music, different tempo, disharmoniously trying to stand out from the others, and all while six vendors would be selling their wares to passing tourists in The Slave Market.

Could anything be less likely to succeed?

Of course no one even hopes for the program to succeed, this being all one more attempt to ban the artists and performers from the Plaza in a manner that could pass Constitutional muster, be accepted on review by an appeals court judge after the local county court Judge (probably Tinlin) approves the city's enforcement of this outlandish ordinance.

It seems that someone who has control over the SACC and their City Mismanager William B. Harris (locally known as 'Will Harass') has only one true interest and that is to write a true story about the Stinkiest little tourist trap in Florida with the craziest, quirkiest laws since the frontier towns of the old wild west.

Anyone with six hours to spend on really amusing, if confusing and contorted, municipal shenanigans should obtain a DVD copy of the recorded meeting from the City's records clerk, make a huge batch of popcorn and watch this circus. Maybe with a few cold beers to make it go down a little smoother.

Stay tuned for further developments as this farce makes its way through the inevitable battles sure to ensue.

St. Augustine City Attorney & City Manager, City Commission