Good morning, Stroock's Books weekenders and Happy Saturday.
So our new most trusted plumbing/heating/cooling company wants $723 to replace the motherboard in our AC unit. That's better than we thought. However, that unit is 12 years old. Time to replace it? That'll cost...considerably more. Lord, the money's been flying out the window lately and we just got back from an expensive vacation. The Stroock Northern Strategic Direction will need some work this summer. And there's always the unforeseen.
Notes on a vacation...South Beach.
We stayed at The Breakwater on Ocean Drive in South Beach. Due click through as the website shows one the hotel and the street and night, really capturing the area's feel. The Breakwater is a neo-classic art-deco style hotel with lots of twists and turns and nooks. The Holiday Inn this ain't. What we're saying is The Breakwater has lots of character. The room was cool and comfortable.
The streets of South Beach were filled with all kinds of people. Lots of tourists, lots of locals. One heard plenty of Spanish. The Breakwater, and South Beach in general work very hard to recreate Olde Miami. One see's a lot of black and white photos of fabulous people poolside or at the night club laughing and drinking mojitos. One also hears a lot of, heck we don't know what to call it, that Spanish language brass band music. It all sounds the same to our uninformed ear. But it's not unpleasant and ads to the vibe. There's also the steady thump of club and EDM music at night, which is not pleasant.
At night South Beach is a cacophony of light and sound and people having a good time. A wonderful breeze comes off the water. Cops are everywhere, like South Beach is cracking down on a crime wave. And we don't mean one cop walking a beat. We mean four cops riding a souped-up golf cart, every couple of blocks.
Those establishments that aren't hotels are restaurants. Hosts and hostesses wait by menu boards, greet the tourist and try coax them inside to dine. Our first night we ate outside at a pleasant Cuban restaurant. The Cuban pasta dishes are excellent, the host was friendly and attentive. We ate wonderful breakfasts at one of the Breakwater's three restaurants.
We've long lamented that we don't seem to enjoy drinking the way we used to. But at South Beach we had a beer or two even every night. Usually something lite like a Modelo or Moretti which we discovered at sidewalk Italian restaurant.
During the day those people go to the beach in far to revealing bathing suits. Those bathing suits also reveal horrible looking tattoos. Many of the men wear speedos. It's sometimes a Latin thing, it's sometimes a Euro thing, it's sometimes a well you know, thing. Which is fine.
The actual beach is wide with white sand. The water is a beautiful turquoise, punctuated by seaweed. For the record there is virtually no seaweed on the Jersey shore. One sees three or four great ships at anchor off the beach or steaming into or out of port. Which is kind of neat.
One smells a lot of weed at the beach and on the street.
Overall, the South Beach vibe is Latin and fabulous. We enjoyed South Beach very much.
On to Key Largo...
The Things.
Yesterday we finished the nuke novel story we wanted to finish yesterday. We'll try to finish another story today.
We'll have some thoughts about other Things tomorrow.
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