Good Education, Good Price, Cool Digs

One of the best educational deals around is located in downtown St Augustine. It's called Flagler College - a 4 year liberal arts school of about 3000 students. Aside from being surrounded by history, great amenities & perfect beaches & parks - it comes with a reasonable price tag - $19 grand a year including room & board. It's also a highly rated school according to U S News & World Report, among others. These are just a few pictures which hopefully show the school's more unique features.




The school was built by Henry Flagler as a hotel - where big-wigs like presidents & Thomas Edison stayed. It was the 1st hotel with electric lights - but that's another story. The fountain (payin' attention?) is surrounded by 12 frogs & the part in the middle represents a sword plunged into the earth. It works like a fountain & a sun dial.


This is part of the courtyard - there's a blend of architectural design throughout. Moorish, Roman, Spanish - all tied together.




This view is from a courtyard across the street - trying to show the roof & the dramatic towers from a short distance.




Ho-Hum, just the ceiling art. Every school should have domes & gold painted ceilings.






If you turned right, from the courtyard where the overall shot of the main building was taken, & walked 50 yards - this is where you would end up. One of many cool shopping & dining locations. It's a pretty clean town dontcha think?




If you said this looked like Tiffany Glass - You would be right - 30 million dollars worth - & this is in the dining room that the students use.




See - Toldja. Imagine kids eating pizza & corndogs surrounded by such expensive art. The chairs in the picture are mostly reproductions of the originals - though there are some 100+ year old chairs (valued at $22K each) mixed in with the fake $2k chairs. There's a secret about how to figure out the difference between the two types. Visit St A & I'll let you in on the mystery of which ones are "the cheap seats".

My Therapy

My daytime career is fun, demanding, self-satisfying, stressful, hilarious, aggravating, plenty of freedom, tightly scheduled, big bucks, tough budgets, way up, way down, spectacular, frustrating. It's a roller-coaster & I've been on that ride for 30 years as of this month - 41 if you count the days when I worked for my dad (a builder) beginning at the ripe old age of 11. I love what I do but sometimes it's nice to get a break.



Sooooo, when I get stressed out - I go to therapy. (We can drive on our beach, which is pretty cool - I think.)




It's free, quiet, & relaxing, especially at the end of a long day on the roller coaster.

Chubby Hubby

Last week I was pulling some weeds in one of the beds & heard myself huffin' & puffin' - I'd only been working at it for 15 minutes. I stood & muttered aloud that "I feel like I'm in the worst shape of my whole life." Later I started complaining that my shirts felt tighter. Did they shrink?

God Bless my wonderful wife - she encourages, never nags or lectures me about my health or the need to exercise more & maybe lose a few pounds. She does a great job taking care of my sorry a$$.

I've been buried for a few weeks, & we've had lots of out of town company. Hey food is a social thing right? It's a comfort thing when dealing with stress - right?

So last night I went into a full blown panic. I went out to the garage to puff a stogie & watch something on TV. (Most of my TV watching takes place in the garage while I'm smokin'.) Normally I hit the switch on the garage door opener & waltz over to my work bench, flip on the idiot box, light up & park my rear end on a bar stool for a bit & chill out. Last night it was raining pretty hard & all kinds of frogs were jumping inside - little green thumb sized buggers. Now they don't bother me, actually they're pretty cool, but they end up dying & I have to go around collecting their little cadavers. I hit the remote & shut the garage door & went back to whatever I was watching.

Ten minutes later I'd had enough & headed into the house. I'm walking behind Deb's Durango & my gut is getting stuck between the SUV & the "hurricane rated" garage door. I was freakin' out & when my escape was complete I rushed inside & declared "That's It! I'm goin on a diet & I'm gettin' in better shape. Deb was pleased & I was pissed.

A couple hours passed & I decided to finish the stogie that was waiting patiently in the workbench ashtray & walked down the hallway to the garage. I was about to hit the open button for the garage door and let every frog in St Johns County join me for a few soothing puffs when I noticed that the front bumper of the Durango was nearly 2 feet away from the storage cabinets (the ones I usually bump). No wonder I couldn't fit between the car & the door! I think Deb parked that way on purpose.

Amazingly, I feel much thinner today. Think I'll go buy some Oreos.

A Coupla Things Guys Should Never Do

#1 - Guys should never pick out small appliances for home. Today we decided it was time for a new coffee maker. What I wanted was the kind that could grind & brew. We had one & it was really great, but I broke it about a year ago. (Lesson 1(a) - Stay out of the kitchen so appliances won't get broken.) In the end, passed on the expensive gadgetry & went with a reasonably priced, space aged looking, functional appliance. (We'll just use the separate, but less convenient grinder) I made one big mistake - bought a black one. If you look at the picture of our kitchen - all of our appliances & cabinets are white. Uh... Ok ... But I can't return this one - the box & the packaging has been destroyed. So much for focusing on functionality. Guess we'll have to see if they make the one we bought in the right color.

Oh yeah... #2 - Never ever take or try to decipher phone messages for your wife - Let them go to voicemail & ignore 'em.

It's What We Do

Both of my boys are in the construction business, like me, like my dad & like my great grandfather. Both of MY grandfathers were mechanics so they screwed up the link in the family history just a bit.

The other day, oldest son Mike emailed me a few pictures of a project he's doing at the state capital in Pennsylvania. It's a pretty cool job, a major repair to prevent further damage to the historic building itself as well as the protection of the priceless murals inside. I was very impressed, but then, I'm always extremely proud of my boys anyway & love them both like crazy. Here's one from Mike.



So, I got to thinkin'. Maybe I could do a blog post about what THEY do. So I emailed younger son Chris, asking him to send me some pics of one of his projects. Here's what I got from that chucklehead.





It seems that about 2 weeks ago, Chris' company had a problem on a project (on the outskirts of Philly) which resulted in a 'little' fire (20 engine companies responded) that wiped out a couple of buildings & damaged some others that were already completed. It just figures that he would send me THOSE pics instead of something displaying fancy millwork or funky multi-tiered ceilings, but then, like me, & my father before - my boys are a coupla smart alecks that just happen to build things.

Oh geez.... I just realized, I included only one of Mike's pics & two of Chris'. Now Mike's gonna be mad at me & Chris will think he's the favorite. Uh Oh... Sorry Mike.

Creative Insults

Thought I would post these - since I'm in a bit of a grumpy, soggy kind of mood during these rainy & windy days.

These insults are from an era when cleverness with words was still valued, before a great portion of the English language got boiled down to 4-letter words.
From David Spiselman

The exchange between Churchill & Lady Astor: She said, "If you were my husband I'd give you poison," and he said, "If you were my wife, I'd drink it."

A member of Parliament to Disraeli: "Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease." "That depends, Sir," said Disraeli, "whether I embrace your policies or your mistress."

"He had delusions of adequacy."
Walter Kerr

"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
Winston Churchill

"A modest little person, with much to be modest about."
Winston Churchill

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure." Clarence Darrow

"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway). [Side note from JaxPop - I've never been a Faulkner fan but have enjoyed Hemingway]

"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"
Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner) [You tell 'im Ernie]

"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."
Moses Hadas [Sounds a bit like a literary agent]

"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."
Abraham Lincoln [2nd favorite]

"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
Mark Twain [My favorite]

"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."
Oscar Wilde

"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend.... if you have one."
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second... if there is one."
Winston Churchill, in response.

"I feel so miserable without you; it's almost like having you here."
Stephen Bishop

"He is a self-made man and worships his creator."
John Bright

"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
Irvin S. Cobb

"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."
Samuel Johnson

"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."
Paul Keating

"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure."
Jack E. Leonard

"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt."
Robert Redford

"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
Mae West

"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
Oscar Wilde

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination."
Andrew Lang

"He has Van Gogh's ear for music."
Billy Wilder

"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
Groucho Marx

No Rain Dances Please

I can't believe it's been 5 weeks since my last post. Well, there are a few good reasons (excuses) for this.

1st of all, I'm involved in a 'mission nearly impossible' kind of project. One with a ridiculous schedule & a contract that includes penalty clauses if deadlines aren't met - In the meantime, we've lost 14 out of 40 work days due to rain.

2nd - I spent a couple of days in the hospital in late July. I'm OK, don't remember the first day. Home in time for my birthday which everyone forgot - as usual (except for Deb). Why is that I wonder?

3rd - Polishing (again) a manuscript. It's amazing how there's always something to tweak, especially when trying to show rather than tell. I've been doing an exhaustive line by line word by word final critique with modifications.

4th - We're struggling through tropical storm Fay - & we have relatives from Pennsylvania visiting all week - they've been stuck indoors for a couple of days now. Started with a rainy day Tuesday. The TS hit St Augustine Wednesday - & stalled off the coast. Day 1 - about 12" of sideways rain in 9 hours. Day 2 it started to move a bit - 4" of rain. Day 3 - The back edge of the storm so we're going to get another 6" - to go with the high winds. The storm is slow moving so as it spins - we keep getting nailed over & over again. Lots of flooding, bridges closed, power outages, & nuts trying to surf.

Hopefully things will settle a bit in September - though I hear there's a good chance for a rather large hurricane in our not so distant future.