Went to Gainesville, FL this past week-end… Left on Friday morning, at about 9:30 and, after hitting UGLY traffic just south of Macon, GA, made is there at about 6:30 PM… Had a very busy couple of days… Cooked, ate, drank; went to Leah’s Business Fraternity picnic; hung out with Alex; installed Leah’s TV (hanging it from the wall); did Leah’s taxes; made a good paella and ate some more… Very busy! Made it back home Monday afternoon at about 5:30… It was time to rest.
An old friend, with whom I had a special relationship, passed away this past Saturday. He had lost many of his physical faculties due to strokes, but his mind remained as sharp as always; his last few years were hard on him. A very special man he was. I’ll see him on the other side…
One of our pups, Bella, the German shepherd, seems not to be doing well. She’s always had a very healthy appetite and, as of the later part of last week, she has not been too eager to eat and has not finished her rations… The rest of her behaviors appear consistent and normal, no changes, but we are keeping a close eye on her…
Baseball is here… YES! I’ll get to watch sports on TV again. This season will be a little different, though, and here’s why: I was born to a family of NY Yankee fans, and so I follow that tradition. During the ‘70s, I was also a fan of the Cincinnati Reds (Dave Concepción, from Venezuela, was the short stop of the Big Red Machine) but that faded when the “Machine” was no longer. Then, since they came to the league in 1993, I’ve been a fan of the Florida Marlins, and enjoyed tremendously when they won their 1st World Series in ’97 against the Cleveland Indians, and then again in 2003 when they beat the Yankees (yes, I rooted for the Marlins!). But now, they changed their colors, they changed their location (moved to Miami) and they changed their name (renamed themselves the Miami Marlins). I’ve come to the conclusion there is no link left between the Marlins and me; I’m no longer a fan; ripped the membership card into pieces and sent it in! I’ll be a fully fledged Yankee fan again. In the National League, the closest team is the Atlanta Braves but, for the life of me, I cannot stand them! They seem to be, since the 80s, a group of pompous underachievers, wannabes, which have never amounted to anything, and disappointed everyone (I think they won their division like 13 or 23 or 33 times in a row – who cares? - and were able to win only one World Series in the last 30 years)! So, I’m looking at maybe the Cardinals or the Dodgers…
This is the first and only comment I will make about the Martin shooting by Zimmerman in Sanford, FL. There are still many facts that, for whatever reasons, have not been revealed, but this much is clear to me: Zimmerman could have walked away; he didn’t have to follow Martin; he could have listened to the dispatcher who told him not to follow Martin. If you’re so worried about a suspicious person that you feel the need to call the police on them, and they - the police, tell you to stop following them, you stop following them, for God’s sake, and you wait for the police to come and do their job (that’s why you called them in the first place, right?). I bet you, today, Zimmerman wishes he had walked away and waited… Had he shown self-discipline, stopped and walked away as told, and let the police do their jobs, a 17-year-old boy may not have lost his life, and he may not have lost his, as he knew it…
The new intersection between Baker Mountain Rd./284 and Highway 111 is finally open, although one of the ramps (Baker Mountain Rd. to South 111) is still provisional… And I am quite disappointed! They replaced one intersection that had good visibility with two intersections with poor visibility; they replaced one stop intersection with two stop intersections; they replaced a flashing yellow warning light (which you could see miles away) with nothing. All this after several months of work and several million dollars of expenditures… Now, is there more traffic in that intersection than in Sparta, on 111 and the Wal-Mart street? Or the one on 111 and McDonald’s? I don’t think so; however, they solved their issue with a strobe red light (a few thousands instead of a few millions)… Don’t understand it at all!
Finally, I would be remiss not to mentioned that a day like today, 44 yeas ago, Martin Luther King was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, TN. As a tribute to him, and paying respect to his legacy, ponder this...
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" - MLK
Keep dreaming, my friends…
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