Skip to main content

Last week in 2014 - Exploring Florida

This year around Christ's birthday we decided to visit the opposite coast.   Being California residents it is a hard sell but we wanted to enjoy it with our daughter who had never been to the Sunshine state.

So we spent a week doing the usual - cover as much terrain on land or water - and soak it in along with the abundant sun.  So we began a loop around the state by starting out at the eastern shore in Fort Lauderdale just north of Miami.   It is not as busy as Miami in terms of the population or the variety of food or sand under your feet.   But offers some beachfront cruising opportunities to gawk at spendy (an informal term I use to describe items that are priced purely based on intangible worth which is mostly anything that is not-functional) items and people.

Sampled some very interesting chewy biscotti and a sort of French sounding pastry that was quite alright.  Food in any shape and form to me is not spendy - it is just nutrition in a bouquet of flavors and textures.  I say so and so it must be right.

Next day we decided to drive up north and visit the Orlando metro area.   About an hour east of the city is Cape Canaveral - home of NASA's Kennedy Space center and the only place where men (Amerians) have left this planet to roam on an extra terrestrial body aka the Moon.  It is odd that other planets have named moons while the Earth just has a Moon - kinda like calling your dog by yelling 'DOG'.  But that is okay - we were interested in refreshing some of what I had learned back in the day about achieving terminal velocity to escape the planet's pull.

While I am nowhere close to achieving it anytime soon - it was a brief respite to sit in a simulator and feel like I had left other mortals behind.  Rides were fun as was the viewing of the Space Shuttle Atlantis.  It is very big and by all means very SPENDY.

While the shuttle program as we knew it has been shut down being Spendy and all - there are private companies vying to take a slice of the space travel business (outer space).

More insights and deep thoughts from Florida in another follow up blog..including a visit to Disney's Epcot center.
STS 135 Atlantis was the last mission for this reusable aircraft - now on display at the KSC near Orlando FL
 

Couple of Herons trying to be Heroes (notice one on either side of the culvert)
 

Comments

  1. California is majority Mexican and Florida, majority Cuban.

    ReplyDelete
  2. And it has been fascinating for an Indian American to discover both....lol...while the Spaniards discovered and conquered either coast the American wars like many later annexed both to the Union.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Jims and Johns

Here is another essay on the subject of first names. As in birth names. Or names provided to an offspring at birth. While the developed world tends to shy away from the exotic like Refrigerator or Coca Cola for their new production there is a plethora of Jims and Johns and Bobs or Robs. Speaking of which I do not think there is a categoric decision point at the time of birth if a child will be hereafter called as Bob. I mean have not yet met a toddler called Bob or Rob for that matter. At some point though the parental instinct to mouth out multiple syllables runs out and they switch from calling the crawler Robert to simply Robbie to Rob. Now speaking of - it is strange that the name sounds like something you would not want Rob to do - i.e. Rob anyone. Then why call someone that? After all Rob Peter to Pay Paul is not exactly a maxim to live a young life? Is it? Perhaps Peter or Paul might want to have a say in it? Then there is this matter of going to the John. Why degrad...

But What If We're Wrong?

I attempted to read this book by author Chuck Klosterman backward to forward but it started hurting my brain so I decided to stop and do it like any other publication in the English language.  Start from page 1 and move to the right. Witty, caustic and thought provoking this is a book you want to read if you believe that the status quo might, just might be wrong. At times bordering on being contrarian about most things around us it tries to zero in on the notion of what makes anything believable and certain in our minds.  The fact that there is a fact itself is ironic.  Something analogous to the idea that you can never predict the future because there is no future. Many books and movies have tried to play on this concept - best that I recollect (I think I am) was 'The Truman Show'.  This book by Klosterman attempts to provoke the reader to at least contemplate that what they think they know may be wrong. He uses examples like concept of gravity, and how it ...

Presumptive Society

Today's world is hyper connected.  I am not so sure what it means but you hear it a lot.  It is probably hyper but not sure how connected it is.  Sugar (fermented or not) is available in many ways than before and so getting hyper is easy.  It is probably more a threat than cocaine since it is sold legally. And what is this connected stuff?  Most people I encounter seem disconnected from reality.  So going back to this assumption that we are connected there are subtle and no so subtle instances of how brands and companies and middle men try to portray someone - A linkedin profile for somebody working for X years at a place advertises to the connected network that so and so is CELEBRATING X years @ Such and Such Inc. Do we know if (s)he is celebrating or cringing?  Perhaps a better way to portray will be - So and So LASTED X years @ such & such inc. Then it exhorts the readership to go ahead and congratulate them for this lasting effe...