To do list for this weekend...

- Get a haircut and beard trim.
- While everyone is out of the office: Bring down office network, setup machine accounts, reconfigure the routers, bridge IP's, initiate IPSec, supervise the contractor doing the ethernet drops and help him certify the cabling..
- Go to Target for a pair of beach trunks and flip flops

Ive been doing a fair imitation of Shaggy for the last 2 months, so the haircut was mandatory. (Even if I were shaving my head bald, I wouldnt trust myself to give me a haircut.. trust me on this.)

Now here is the catch - if Im in a strange town, getting a haircut is not a simple process.

My choices are immediately circumscribed (?) by my racial ancestry.

I cant simply find the nearest salon/chain cuttery in a mall.

"We dont cut black hair." is what it comes down to.

(Sidebar: Its not usually prejudice - its just that many folk of non-afro heritage have not had much experience cutting black hair. However, we wont get into the other reasons...)

I have to find a black (or caribbean hispanic - if it comes to it) barber.

Even in multi-racial and multi-cultural areas, Ive still gotta search.

Gay salons are often surprisingly adept, so they are also a choice in a pinch.. but since attitude and hipness costs money, theyre way down on my list.

The routine is to go to the 'black' part of town and find me a barbershop - nevermind finding a good barbershop.
Its potluck, which is why I hate doing it.

I let instinct be my guide.. and in the South one goes to the railroad tracks, and *literally* crosses over to the 'other side of' to find the black areas.

The technique hasnt failed me yet.

I made a left and a right, looked for likely establishments and voila.. Ive got 5 to choose from.

Heh, as my eeny-meeny-miney-moe luck would have it - I got a Jamaican barber.

When I got up from the chair, his hairstylist looked at the neat coiffe and said.. "Damn, you look good."

Yeah, not too shabby.

I'll go back if Im still here in South Florida for the next haircut.

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Network stuff.. the less said the better... and flip flops and swim trunks..

Ive been so used to NOT being able to go swimming in crowded urban areas that havent bought any swimming stuff in the last 10 years.

Why am I even depriving myself here?

I dunno if I'll even use 'em after I leave.

But shit.. it wouldnt be right to not go paddle in the Atlantic.

Dude, its tropical waters. The Bahamas are directly due east of me.

Ohhh, I remember why now. Riptides, sharks, jellyfish and manmade ickies...

Still. Flipflops and trunks.

Check.

*ahem*

<-- Looks up from Hawaiian Dictionary...

*clears throat*

Hau`oli Lâ Hânau, Sun!

Grind much cake Taurus DragonWoman.

I owe you some bruk di mout Cuban. ;-)
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I dont have permission to put this up, but cubiclegirl puts it well....

wtc


"..I still think about it.


That's what I don't tell anyone.


I don't tell anyone that I still think about it every day. I still do. I don't think that I should but I do. I still tell myself to stop thinking about it. I still tell myself that it's ok to stop thinking about it.


And I don't tell anybody but I remember the signs. The signs outside and the ones inside. The font and size. The colors. The planters around the building. Watching the guy in charge of raising the flag in the mornings. I walk the concourse. I remember the soup stand. The bathrooms that were next to it. Walking up the steps up the escalator to the area with the FedEx counters and the USPS counters. .......


I think about the express bus. Dropping off and getting on. The people I sat next to. The people I streamed into the building with. The lines. The Borders Books, the flags of every country around the lobby. I remember the elevator banks and the fire command counter. I remember the elevators and how some were different than others and you had to be careful, or you'd press the wrong number. I remember how you had to check in and you had to show an id in order to get a visitor's pass.


I remember the Winter Garden and how I sat in there once with my shoes kicked off ..... I remember sitting in the Plaza on nice days eating ice creams. I remember the benches outside the Borders where I'd sit with a hot dog and a seltzer and watch the Century 21 clock across the street counting down my lunch hour. I remember running across the streets in order to go to lunch, go to the bank, go on an errand, go home. I remember sitting in the WTC Krispy Kreme and listening to "Native New Yorker". I remember overhearing a heated conversation a woman was having with Citibank....
I remember the greenmarket and the guys who would stand outside the entrances selling SuperBowl sweatshirts. I remember the Statue of Liberty and how it looked from our floor. I remember the homeless guy who sat on the steps next to the Au Bon Pain wrapped in what looked like burlap. I remember watching a Ticker Tape parade from our boardroom the day we all celebrated the Yankees and the World Series. ... I remember the plywood they had placed over some of the floor they were redoing in the concourse. ...........

I've gotten so much better about not thinking about it. Constantly.... "
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Randoms from a ferry ride...

".... and to make the Secret Sauce, just leave salad dressing out for 10 days.."
- The Simpsons

Big Macs, as Ive grown older and know what the Secret Sauce REALLY is, are a once every coupla months thing.

But McDonalds, for a limited time, are selling them for 89 cents down here (dunno bout elsewhere).

Had 'em yesterday, and *smacksmack*.. I can still taste them. Bleh.

Ooh. Egg McMuffins for 89 cents...
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Random pix to munch on




No one really believes me when I tell them about GayMart and the all-gay shopping center it sits in...















Again.. Its Dolphin FISH, not Flipper.

Hey, South Floridians have been eating DolphinFish for years. The more politically correct Mahi Mahi is only now making inroads.

Plus, call it Mahi-mahi and you can jack up the price another 20 percent...



Sweet corn pancakes with provolone cheese in the middle.
Greasy, but good.

Today's horrorscope:

Don't let financial worries limit your horizons today. You may think that you can't afford to go out and have fun, but you can if you use your imagination.
Don't fret about being a freeloader. You'll find a way to pay your share.

6:30 am
I intended to just get me an apple fritter and the Post and come back to brew my own (cheaper).. but somehow I ended up rolling by the beach, up the pricey Las Olas neighborhood and over the pink drawbridges of downtown Fort Lauderdale.

Where, joy of joys.. there was a Starbux.

I put the thought of the cost of a Starbux out of my mind, parked illegally and ran in...

"Something to eat?" asked the burly, heavily muscled barrista (barristo?).
"Nah.. Im parked illegally in front of the store."
"Well, thats a good reason not to get something to eat" he answered mildly.

The apple fritter from 7-11 (seemingly on every corner in South Florida) was all I needed.

"Ok, you can tell me.. Im spending four bux on a cup of coffee. What does Starbux put in it to make me wanna buy it."
There was a loooooooooooooooong pause, before he answered mildly..
"Love."

I was smiling as I rushed out to the car.

I was still smilling broadly as I deftly sipped, munched and shifted cruising by the beach, the golden sun rising above the sea-stiffened breeze, the hard bodies out and exercising.

People looked at me with the cup to lips, munching on fritter and singing along loudly to the growly Ja Rule bits in Mary J Blige's "Rainy Days" coming from Miami's urban teeny-bopper station.

All before 7am.

Im still smiling.
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No, I didnt bring the camera.

I'll hold on to the memory.

I am SO in the mood for ice-cream.

Not just any ice-cream.

The kinda freshly-made ice-cream that SMELLS as good as it tastes, fits into a foot long deep waffle cone (also freshly made), and butterfat isnt a dirty word.

This need wont, and cannot be sated by store-bought or 31 flavors tubba crap.

I want the stuff like Uncle Harry of Wisconsinmakes.

Knowing me, I will hunt it down.

Gotta have purpose in yer life, I always say. ;-)

""You can't shake some experiences," he said of his stint. "They're just with you for the rest of your life. There were some things I learned in the military that were so good. Like the belief I can do practically anything. I can endure beyond my own fatigue. "

"You learn that you can get scared and disoriented but they're temporary conditions that you can control."

Bob Kerry as quoted in the the New York Times

From the Sunday NY Post

Bubba TV