h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sarasota, Florida – February 8, 2007

We spend several days with Mom in Tampa. She appears to be over her depression and is eating well again. A giant hotel and gambling casino has appeared next door to her house. It is owned by the Seminole Indians. The name is the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel. By coincidence, Anna Nicole Smith died today at age 39 in a hotel of the same name. Her death was reported by Chief Charlie Tiger.

We drove south to Sarasota to visit friends and play tennis. It is chilly in the morning, about 50 degrees F, but it warms nicely to 80 F. by about 10 AM.

Our friends have found an “RV Resort". It’s amazing. There are 1,500 units and about 3,000 people camped here. It is a small city about the same population as Point Barrow, Alaska.

There is a huge pool heated to 86 F. and two large Jacuzzis heated to 104 F. Other amenities include eight horseshoe pits, twelve lawn bowling lanes , sixteen shuffleboard courts , ten tennis courts, a lake for fishing and miniature sailboat races, two whiffle ball courts, a large lapidary shop, sand pit volleyball, arts and crafts, a woodworking shop and a pool hall and billiards.

They run round robins for tennis doubles every day, tennis drills and pool exercise sessions. We see white-haired people on bicycles, golf carts and electric scooters. My impression is that these are having more fun now than they did in their childhoods.

Just down the road is a large Amish fruit stand. It also offers homemade Amish ice cream, noodles and cheese. The local area has great white sand beaches, the Ringling Art Museum, a laser light show with a Pink Floyd musical score and high end shopping and dining on St. Armand’s Key.

We decide to spend at least a month here next winter. Some pictures below.

http://community.webshots.com/slideshow/557541606WsTroh?&track_pagetag=/page/album/goodtimes/roadtrips&track_action=/Owner/ActionsBox/Slideshow

Swimming pools, tennis courts, all those people in shorts and tee shirts... and Mrs Phred in long sleeves and blue jeans.

I'm wearing long sleeves and blue jeans but it's only 20F here.



Looks like a very nice place, Phred. Makes me wish it was warmer here.

Yes! Where it's always sunny and warm and Happy Hour is every day from 11 AM to midnight...

I'm beat...three hours of round robin doubles and way too many tequila sunrises...

I want a second childhood

But first I have to supervise my grandchildren's first and my mother's second. .

Only two and a half years left with the last teenager in the house (I hope). Some males (and females) don't come out of teenagerhood before way into their thirties - if ever.

*Waves to Phred and his companion*

Hi tartaronne,

Everthing in its time. My nap is over. Time to go watch the miniature sailboat races.

You haven't been diving for a while. Find a real sailboat and a nice reef.

That's good advice. I just had my regulator serviced.

There is a bargain week-long sailboat cruise out of Miami called "Blackbeard Cruises" that spends a week sailing the Bahamas. Mrs. Phred and I have done it about seven times, but not recently...they provide three meals a day, five dives a day and all the rum you care to drink as part of the cost...They do not encourage drinking until the dive day is finished...

When you do a night dive you see the most amazing things: a line of spiny lobsters on parade 80 feet down, a huge sleeping parrotfish wrapped in a cocoon of bad-tasting snot that it exudes at night, or a giant white ghost crab with one huge claw in the ancient engine room of a sunken freighter.

Once we stopped on a shallow reef about 50 feet deep, 40 miles from the nearest land at night. Mrs. Phed was my buddy. So interesting ...the feeling that something very big is lurking just outside flashlight range...she also went with me a a shark dive where the blacktips circled and gently took pieces of cutup barracuda from the end of a spear held by the dive leader...

Usually the people on the boat are fairly young, often college age. The "crossing" of the Gulf Stream can be fairly rough and ends in Bimini about 2 AM...they make available pizza and all you can drink on the way over...in the morning, usually the deck is covered with vomit that the crew hoses off...sometimes even the camera freshwater rinse barrel has been used in error...such is the enthusiasm of youth...

There are three methods of throwing up underwater...as a divemaster, I am familiar with all of these, but of course I have never been seasick...any of these can result in death if improperly executed...A sign that this has occured is that yellowtails and angelfish begin swimming near a diver's head, nipping painfully at his or her cheeks...

Unfortunately I do get seasick.....and airsick....and carsick unless I'm driving or in the frontseat. Something about the combination of movement with a lack of long-range vision. o, backseat pssengers suffer from it more than frontseat passengers. I never leave home without my trusty Dramamine.


Diving is something I am definitely going to rediscover after I retire. I think I enjoyed it more than anything I've ever done. Being landlocked is the pits, sometimes. I hope I never need to know the correct way to throw up underwater.

Second childhood.....I'm quite looking forward to it. Especially to it not being in the same geographical location as my forst one.

All those young children... makes me want to stand in middle of it all, examine my hands, whip out a pocket mirror and gape at my face, wiggle my joints, and then start jumping and shrieking, "It Worked! It worked!" and maybe offer to peddle some pills after... Ignore me. I'm a nasty con man at heart.

Just remember to throw in some '50s jargon, Leo. That'll draw 'em in!



MWAHAHAHAAAA!

How sharper than a serpent's tooth is an ungrateful co-author...Yes, Leo, I knew that picture of the fat old ladies in the pool would draw your attention...and comments...

It's astounding how quickly the time between 20 and 65 passes. In between, if you're lucky, you get a walk on part in the war, maybe some diving, a nude body-painting party or two, children, some thrills, grandchildren, and a rich career...Remember me when you look back...

I really liked this Sarasota retirement haven because of:
1. The really hot and friendly doubles tennis matches that run fron 9 to 3 every day....
2. Warm February weather
3. $4 "belly buster" one pound hot dog baskets.
4. $2.50 Tequila Sunrises
5. Heated pools and jacuzzis...
6. The lapiadary shop...

The heated pool and the lapiadary shop sounds good to me. I love rocks.

Oh, and watch it about fat old ladies! OK?

I have two small rounded Scottish rocks by my bedside...I picked them up on a dark, dismal, foggy, cold beach on an island in Scotland where they spent the last million years...Every night when they go to sleep I hear them wonder about their luck in winning the lottery for a Florida vacation...

A few years ago, I was in charge of IT for a network with 500 people, mostly women..

I decided to insert a DOS program called "Murphy's Law" into the login script to keep them amused.

You logged in and got a funny saying like "An officer with a map is the most dangerous thing in a combat zone"

One day the program chose to say, "other things being equal, fat people use more soap".

I got a steady stream of offended people in my office all day and quickly removed the program from the login script...I got more much better reviews by quoting Emily Dickinson or loggin on as Zen_Master and delivering Zen stories where the pupil was beaten with a club...

"Toilets generally flush in the key of E-flat."

And the connection sound in Danish telephones gives you an A