Richard the Iguana

Iguanas are coming out like crazy down here in Fort Lauderdale. The heat and by us having a pool, it seem like they love our home. Not sure what we can do to stop this invasion but they are coming by large umbers each day. They also have some bad manners, and leave their waste everywhere they wish. Here is an example of the big Papa of them all; we call him Richard from Richard and Liz night of the iguanas. If you know what we can do to keep this population down let us know.

DJIBOUTI Africa. Where my nephew Danny is deployed

The French Territory of the Afars and the Issas became Djibouti in 1977. Hassan Gouled APTIDON installed an authoritarian one-party state and proceeded to serve as president until 1999. Unrest among the Afars minority during the 1990s led to a civil war that ended in 2001 following the conclusion of a peace accord between Afar rebels and the Issa-dominated government. Djibouti's first multi-party presidential elections in 1999 resulted in the election of Ismail Omar GUELLEH. Djibouti occupies a very strategic geographic location at the mouth of the Red Sea and serves as an important transshipment location for goods entering and leaving the east African highlands. The present leadership favors close ties to France, which maintains a significant military presence in the country, but has also developed increasingly stronger ties with the United States in recent years. Djibouti currently hosts the only United States military base in sub-Saharan Africa and is a front-line state in the global war on terrorism

Thursday movie day!

Thursday I went to the movies. Not a big week for the cinema. First I enjoyed the Constant Gardner very much. Well acted and with enough trauma and suspense to keep you interested the entire time. I suggest spending the time to see it.
Then I walked into the Transporter 2 full of action and wonderful car chase seen. The end was evident and the acting just enough to keep you in your seat. Miami never looked better; shots of the city downtown at night were amazing. If you leave in the area is worth seeing the pretty city in the big screen.
Then I went to see the underclassman. A young detective son of a dead detective, which is trying to do a good job as a young policeman. He is put in a high school situation were he discover the principal of the school involved in a drug trade for expensive cars ring. The ring is made of students that are forced to do the stealing of the cars for protection from the principal not telling their parents, that the kids have done stuff that would cause their suspension from their expensive high school..

Started getting my Social Security Check this month

Today I stared getting my Social Security check.  What a wonderful thing.  The only surprise was that my pension check dropped $300.00 since I started getting my Social Security benefit.  I looked back at my original statements from my pension and sure enough after my SSN benefit starts my pension goes down for that amount.  I am only writing about it to let people know that although the joy of getting more money it has a down side to it when getting a corporate pension.  I am very happy with my SSN benefit it does help the monthly cash flow, but the lost of the $300.00 does hurt in the budget side of things.  I am glad that we did not buy the Condo for investment, one less thing to worry about.
I am also very glad that things are starting to turn around in New Orleans, and that people are starting to realized that the first responders were pretty much locked down from coming into the area.  The major and the Governor of Louisiana will have to answer many questions and the laws better start getting change very soon.  All of the Supreme Court decisions for the State will have to be revisited in case of disasters like Katrina, let’s hope that Katrina is the worst we get, I am so worry about WMD’s in our big cities.  

Ocean Grove Beach at early evening! 

Catherine and Bill blowing their candles.

Catherine gets a star named after her. 

CAtherine and daughter Lisa 

Catherine with her sisters Mariane and Patty 

Catherine's wedding party 

Here is Catherine in Point Placent Beach NJ. She celebrated her 75th birthday today September 3rd. Her son and daughter Russ and Lisa assembeled all of her friends and family for a wonderful dinner. More pictures from the event will follow. We had a great time and very body present really loved the food and party atmosphere. Thanks Russ and Lisa for a great party.

Dinner at the Metedeconk River Yacht Club

Charlie and Helen asked us for dinner at their Yacht Club in NJ. The Metedeconk River Yacht Club. The yacht clubs just build a new Club house. The members get together on Friday for a Cookout dinner by one of the member families. We had a very nice pasta and chicken dinner, with a nice salad, cake, and Coffee. The bar was going pretty strong all evening with very well priced drinks. We really enjoyed ourselves. The O’Neil’s invited us for dinner and we meet our good friends Pat and Adele at the dinner table.

Help has arrive in New Orleans!

Here I am in Sunny NJ and New Orleans is in chaos. I hear that the President is now arriving in the affected area. I can just imagine how he must feel about the failure of the response of FEMA and the local officials in the affected areas. Why in America, the land of plenty, can be in this horrific conditions.
The New Orleans City managers really let us down. How did they thought that poor people like the ones on the 9th ward could have gotten in their cars and leave their homes. They do not have cars, they have nothing, they do not trust officials, and they have very little education. How did they expect them to think in a preventive manner, so they could start evacuating the area as ordered by the officials? It seems to me that bull horns, buses, army trucks, and armed National Guard soldiers going from apartment to apartment taking the people away from their homes to safety. How could they think that the Dome could hold all the people in the poor section of the city? What did they expect from them, once they found themselves without water, food, power, and facilities for human necessities and health care. Unrest, lost of tempers, looting, lawless is expected after 24 hours lack of what is basic needs of human comfort. We here in America can not imagine lack of these comforts even if you are poor. New Orleans on the 5th day is now receiving the desperate help that they should have received much earlier. Thank God of that.
LetÂ’s hope that today things begin to start working like it is expected in America. I am sure that AmericaÂ’s generosity will engage into action and started demonstrating to our enemies that we are going to make it. I do hope we will rebuild New Orleans with much better levees.

We gather again!

Each time I come up to NJ I meet a group of friends that worked at Sea-Land Service during the 70 and 80’s. We are all very good friends that worked in the same department for many years. Many of us travel extensively throughout the world. Our friendship has lasted many ups and downs during the years of upheavals that the company when through during the Reynolds tobacco, CSX. Maersk take overs.
Many of us are already retired from the company and have moved on to other business, consultants. Printing company etc.
We normally get together for drinks and food. We talk about old times, laugh a lot, swap information about our families. Our old company really fermented wonderful relationships that we all treasure to this day. These two pictures will show you our group. I really love each one in this picture.

Arrival Ocean Grove, NJ

We arrived at 11:30 PM from Atlantic City. We took Spirit Air from Fort Lauderdale. The flight was a good one and we arrive early. It has been a very sad day, hearing the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As I mentioned earlier we were very lucky with that storm. If it had developed further away in the Caribbean Sea we would have had a higher category. The weather here is a little wet but very nice compare Florida, the evenings are much cooler. It is very nice here in our Condo. Tomorrow we are getting new blinds for all the windows and a new sofa. We are getting the Condo ready for winter rental.

Katrina aftermath

We dodge one big bullet this time with Katrina in Fort Lauderdale. Even though we suffer 3 days without electricity we really did not have too much damage in our home. It took us 5 solid hours to clear all the debris from the yard and clean the pool of some of the leave. We spend one night at a friends home in Boca Raton, second night at another friends condo here in Fort Lauderdale. The first night we stayed home thinking that the lights were returning soon. Well that was pretty horrible, the temperature got to 86 degrees in the room, making pretty uncomfortable for sleeping. It is horrible how spoiled we are. I am originally from Cuban and I bet I have sleep in hotter conditions, but never complaint; here I am now a grown man and can not handle the least bit of discomfort when it comes to heat. One thing about this experience without power has been my tremendous fun for reading that has emerged from this lack of power. I have read two books and can not stop reading the third. I had missed TV but not as bad as I had thought I would. It was also fun to be away from the computer a bit. Gave you guys a rest from all this shit I write. Tuesday we go to New Jersey again for some family stuff. Looking forward to our visit our condo in Ocean Grove. Will report from there later.

After effects of Hurracane Katrina at our home in Fort Lauderdale 

This building is fantastic. If you ever in Bilbao you will not miss it. it is by the river and it shines like crazy when the sun hits it. Guggenheim Museum is managing it there. When we were there a collection of Calder's mobiles were being exposed. They were many and various in size. Exceptional place to show art.
Museum in Bilbao Spain

Window in a little town of Pal in Spain. This little town was completely restored. It is a 12th century town that looks like new. All the electrical wiring is underground

My Nephew Danny. He is going to Africa soon to defend us over there. It appears that many insurgents go there for training. We all wish him good luck and speeding return to us. He is a Marine reserves, and we will miss him a lot.