Category: Florida

Rich People in Massachusetts live like Poor People in Florida

by philg

I woke up in my friend’s $2.5 million house in Brookline, Maskachusetts in which the warmest room was 60 degrees (April 11) and stepped out into the slightly-above-freezing overcast weather to see powerlines and a 32-year-old Volvo (note the cheap chain-link fence in the background, which would never be able to get HOA approval in Florida!).

My epiphany for the day: rich people in Massachusetts share many lifestyle aspects with poor people in Florida. A partial list:

  • live in dilapidated substandard old poorly-insulated housing
  • drive cars more than five years old
  • sit on old worn-out furniture
  • probably don’t have cleaners
  • can’t afford to get repairs made to their houses (high costs relative to income)
  • no HOA to answer to
  • suffer from climate-induced discomfort due to (a) unwillingness or inability to pay for heating to 72 in the winter, (b) an entire lack of AC or unwillingness or inability to pay for cooling down to 74 in the summer
  • regular power interruptions due to above-ground powerlines
  • walking distance to marijuana store (medical-only in Florida, typically in grungy neighborhoods)
  • shop in a CVS or Target where everyday items are locked up and security guards roam the store
  • likely to vote Democrat
  • wait on lines

Note that poor people in Massachusetts often, at least in some ways, live more like rich people in Florida:

  • enjoy modern well-insulated buildings (built or gut-rehabbed recently with taxpayer money)
  • heat and cool to comfortable temps all year (heat included in the free rent and A/C affordable due to compact apartment size and good insulation (also, a lot of stuff is affordable when one doesn’t pay rent))
  • reliable underground power
  • perfect condition plumbing, electricity, and HVAC (public housing is professionally maintained and there is no cost for services)

Here’s a CVS nestled among the $2-4 million houses:

Even the $2.89 Suave shampoo is too precious to be left in the open.

A mini-Target next to Boston University ($100,000/year):

The streetscape:

Within a few steps of my friend’s expensive house, a marijuana store and ads for marijuana delivery:

After the kids have learned about the importance of marijuana, they can do a longer walk to the TimeOut Market and learn that Spring is Queer and also one should wear a mask while ordering:

Wait on lines? Here are the self-described smartest people in the U.S. waiting 1.5-2 hours because they apparently can’t figure out how to brew coffee at home:

How about the “Vote Democrat” part? On a $3 million house around the corner:

And my last photos from Boston, an outdoor masker riding a bicycle, an airport masker of uncertainty gender ID, and the airport shop reminding 60-year-old married females (a group with an unfortunate tendency to vote Republican) that they can have great sex (“romance”) by suing their husbands and becoming divorced females (reliable voters for Democrats; see also Valentine’s Day Post #3 for the sexual adventures available to AARP members with the courage to sue):

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Re-roofing a Spanish-style house in Florida: concrete, clay, Brava composite, or stamped metal

by philg

Happy Hurricane Prep Season to those who celebrate (actual hurricane season is June 1-November 30th, with a peak in mid-September; due to Climate Change, there has been no increase in frequency or intensity of hurricanes since 1851 (Nature Magazine)).

Professor ChatGPT says that the concrete barrel tile roof on our Spanish Colonial Revival house will last 50-75 years:

But then it adds a little something:

Underlayment – Typically lasts 20–30 years and needs replacement before tiles fail.

So the AI thinks the “roof” lasts 75 years even if starts leaking after 20 years because tiles aren’t waterproof and the underlayment is the actual water barrier. All that you need to do to replace the failed underlayment is remove all of the tiles from the house, remove the underlayment, install new underlayment, and then put tiles on top of the underlayment… exactly as you’d be doing in a complete re-roof project.

Our roof was designed to handle a minimum of 140 mph winds, according to the 2003 permit documents, but maybe that was just the code. The tiles are adhered to the underlayment with Polyset AH-160 foam in which the “160” means it can handle 160 mph (if nailed down, tile is good only to about 120 mph (scary comparison video)).

The documents weren’t specific regarding the underlayment used. I emailed the company that built our house and got an immediate response from the owner:

It’s hard to remember 22 years ago, however the typical tile roof construction during this time frame was a 15lb. felt tin tagged dry-in, layer with a 90lb asphalt hot mop layer then the tiles applied mechanically, with mortar or foam adhesive. I suspect you will need a new roof soon.

Our neighbors have been getting new roofs installed either due to leaks or for better insurance quotes or just because everyone in Florida strives to have a house that looks new inside and out. Here are some things that I’ve learned from talking to roofers…

The only thing good about concrete is that it is cheap and it won’t break if walked on; it’s very heavy and the color gets faded by the sun and it supports ugly mold growth. You’d think that it would last forever structurally, but it doesn’t because it absorbs a huge amount of water. Concrete seems to be a “builder-grade” solution.

Clay tile has a reputation for being fragile, but it lasts forever and retains its appearance much better than concrete because mold is less likely to grow and the color of the tile is the color of the material. However, the European-made tile is much more durable than the South American-made tile (cheaper and more prevalent) and can be walked on. If you want to support river-to-the-sea liberation of Palestine (and subsequent Hamas rule over all of what used to be Israel) you can buy Verea tile from Spain. If you want the highest quality most durable tile (“it’s what Trump uses on his building,” a roofer noted), you buy Ludowici tile from Italy. For our room, the Ludowici tile would cost $16,000…. to ship from Ohio. The tile itself would be over $100,000 and take 22 weeks to create. Compare to about $30,000 for Verea tile shipped to Miami and then trucked to our neighborhood and delivered via conveyor belt to the roof. How rich are people in Palm Beach? One roofer who quoted our project said that he had about $60,000 (pre-Biden price) of Ludowici tile on his own house. A customer in Palm Beach ordered it, waited, didn’t like the color when it arrived, and ordered some other color. The tile wasn’t returnable so the customer simply gave it to the roofer.

With Verea, the tile itself will likely be 25-30% of the cost of the entire project. The clay tile can be reused when it is time to re-roof due to underlayment age/failure, but if the tile has been glued down each tile needs to be dipped in solvent and the added labor is almost the same as just buying new tile. If nailed or screwed down, the roof can handle 120 mph wind. If glued, the roof can handle 160 mph wind. Palm Beach County requires that a roofer hire an independent engineer at the end of the project to do a “pull test” on random tiles and make sure that they have sufficient uplift strength. The practical life of a clay tile roof with the highest quality dual-layer underlayment (two different variations from Polyglass; add one more “anchor” layer for breathability if there is closed cell foam underneath the roof deck) is 30-35 years, but insurance companies may demand replacement at 25 years. The tiles can’t fail, but the underlayment does.

Brava has the world’s best roofing material web site, but their roofing materials (composite barrel tiles) aren’t popular. “I’ve installed exactly one,” said a roofer. “It was for a billionaire who had a 5-year-old $500,000 slate roof on a stable and chips were falling on his horses. He wanted a roofing material that couldn’t fall apart. I don’t like the look of them, but they are rated to 211 mph if you use their screws, which I did.” Brava tiles don’t yield any improvement in roof life compared to clay because it is the underlayment that fails. Brava claims to have some “cool roof” tiles that reflect solar heat, but I’m not sure that their specs are better than conventional clay:

Here are some numbers for a Verea red clay tile:

Looks like the natural clay has better reflectance and worse emittance. The biggest drawback, I think, of the Brava tiles is that they can burn. They claim that if the right fireproof underlayment is used the tiles won’t be set on fire by a fire inside the house, I think, but it is difficult to beat a concrete or clay tile for fire resistance!

What about the big hammer of a metal roof? It is tough to see how a metal roof panel with a screw every square foot into the decking is going anywhere. It turns out that the metal roofs stamped into the shape of tiles aren’t very wind-resistant. They can handle only 120-130 mph. The standing seam metal roofs can be fantastically wind-proof (just under 200 mph for steel; just over 200 mph for aluminum), but they won’t look like Spanish barrel tile. The metal roofs have a practical life of 35-50 years before something fails (e.g., fasteners, finish (warranty of 30-35 years and after that they can be refinished for about $20,000)), but the insurance company might demand replacement at 30 years.

So… it turns out that there haven’t been significant improvements since 2003. The adhesive foam that was state-of-the-art then is state-of-the-art now. Maybe this Polyglass peel-and-stick material will last a bit longer than the “hot mop” of asphalt.

One big change for Florida is that HOAs are now limited in their ability to refuse to approve roofs that serve as hurricane protection. FL 720.3035 was amended in 2024. The updated law: “The board or any architectural, construction improvement, or other such similar committee of an association must adopt hurricane protection specifications for each structure or other improvement on a parcel governed by the association. The specifications may include the color and style of hurricane protection products and any other factor deemed relevant by the board. … For purposes of this subsection, the term “hurricane protection” includes, but is not limited to, roof systems recognized by the Florida Building Code which meet ASCE 7-22 standards…”

The law is a little ambiguous in that it says an HOA can establish some aesthetic rules and also implies that homeowners have a right to a roof that meets ASCE 7-22 standards. In our neighborhood, an online “hazard tool” says that we need a 167 mph roof, which I think means that only a metal roof or Brava would work.. On the other hand, I didn’t want to get into a huge fight with the neighborhood Karens to be the first house with a visually jarring standing seam metal roof. Due to Trump-exacerbated climate change, Palm Beach County was most recently hit by a major hurricane in 1949. If another big one arrives, I have a feeling that we will be losing some tiles whereas a Key West-style standing seam metal roof would weather the storm.

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Florida aircraft sales tax avoidance talk at Sun ‘n Fun

by philg

Happy Tax Day for those who celebrate (i.e., Americans who aren’t smart enough to have joined Mitt Romney’s Club 47).

David Brennan and Jackie Mustian, attorneys at Moffa, Sutton, & Donnini, gave a talk at Sun ‘n Fun about how people avoid owing a 6 percent sales tax when buying an aircraft that will ultimately be based in Florida. (Imagine the potential liability for an elite buying a $100 million Gulfstream!)

First, it seems unlikely that Florida is getting any real benefit from imposing this tax. The true beneficiaries are attorneys and accountants who set up schemes to avoid it. Perhaps because of that, there is no urgency among legislators to eliminate the tax, as Maskachusetts did back in 2001. Under the assumption that the tax, and the army of professionals whose job it is to avoid it, are with us forever, here’s what we learned…

A nonresident who owns a new-to-him/her/zir/them aircraft has to be careful about visiting Florida for reasons other than maintenance or flight training. If the aircraft is here for 21 days within the first six months of ownership, Florida sales tax is owed. A flight that lands at 11:55 pm and departs 10 minutes later at 12:05 am is considered to have spent two days in Florida out of the allowable 20.

A Florida resident cannot take advantage of the above exemption. If the Florida resident is the sole owner of a Maskachusetts, Delaware, or Montana LLC that owns the aircraft, the 20-day exemption might apply, but an auditor might also try to look through the LLC shell to the real owner. The Floridian ideally would keep the aircraft out of state entirely for six months and also not display an obvious intent to bring it into the state on Day 183 (maybe the Floridian is a super douche and also is looking at buying a house in Nantucket and has written to the airport there about getting on the hangar waitlist).

Where the tax advisors seem to make money is in setting up an LLC that is in the business of owning an aircraft and reselling it or its use to others. Prior to the aircraft purchase, the LLC is registered with the State of Florida to collect sales and use tax. The “real owner” then dry leases time with the aircraft from the LLC and the LLC collects and remits sales tax on the dry lease payments, e.g., $75/hour, but only for those hours flown within the State of Florida. In the speakers’ opinion, the State of Florida doesn’t have a legal basis for challenging the reasonableness of the lease rate. The state is entitled to collect tax only on the money that is actually changing hands. That said, a $10/hour dry lease rate for a $1 million aircraft could seem ridiculous. (Other states where this kind of scheme is employed have some rules about the minimum cost for the dry lease based on prevailing interest rates.)

It’s too bad that DeSantis and the Legislature haven’t cleaned this up. In my opinion, the efficient way to tax aviation is a fuel tax and if the state wants more money from aircraft owners it should simply raise the existing aviation fuel tax (FL 206.9825):

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Sun ‘n Fun 2025 report

by philg

I’ll write up a couple of in-depth items separately, but here’s an overview of my day at Sun ‘n Fun (Lakeland, Florida).

Previous visits to Sun ‘n Fun have been via (1) commercial flight from Boston and rental car from Tampa (advantage: Bern’s Steakhouse, back when you didn’t need to reserve months in advance), (2) Cirrus landing in the morning (complicated NOTAM, but not as busy as Oshkosh) and then potentially long-ish wait to depart between end of air show and 7 pm curfew, (3) minivan from our home in Jupiter, with stop at nearby Legoland. This year, I decided on a night-before flight to Bartow, Florida, a former P-51 training base (KBOW) that is 30 minutes from Lakeland, rent a car from Avis, and stay in a hotel (Florida has so much hotel capacity that prices don’t get to the insane levels that they do in Oshkosh). The mechanics of this worked out pretty well, but it is a mistake to try to leave Sun ‘n Fun by car within the first hour after the end of the air show.

For those who want to build their own planes, Sun ‘n Fun has a full slate of skills-building classes. Not sure that I would want to fly in a plane that contained my very first welds:

The airshow was loud, louder, and loudest with, admittedly, some finesse from superstar Mike Goulian. There were demonstrations of the F-35 (A and C models), the E/A-18G Growler, the F-16, and the Blue Angels (back to an all-male pilot team now that the Amazon Prime movie cameras aren’t rolling). With a smartphone, I think that the breakups are the best pictures that one can take of the Blue Angels, e.g.,

Here’s a photo taken from the control tower by a Bartow Airport employee (95B Photography on Flickr) that proves the ancient advice, “f/8 and be there”:

If you want to be a hero among progressives, you can volunteer with this Illinois-based organization (the representative was wearing an N95 mask, of course!) to exfiltrate a 15-year-old from benighted Florida to a state where his/her/zir/their genitals can be safely removed as part of gender-affirming care (abortion care is also part of the mission and the org says “hosted our very first drag show” in the 2024 annual report):

I’m not sure that the message of Elevated Access resonated with everyone at Sun ‘n Fun. There were some downright Deplorable people and planes (a couple of veterans, below):

As bad as it is to be a teenager in need of gender-affirming care stuck in Florida, the status of certified avionics is even worse. Situation summary: grim and expensive. Systems are old and clunky, e.g., the 2009 Garmin package touted in the latest -G7 Cirruses, and super expensive. There is still no reasonable upgrade path for the 4000 Avidyne-equipped -G2 Cirruses. A broker estimated that about 5 percent of these have been converted to the latest Garmin gear ($150,000 in an airframe that, pre-Biden, was only worth about $150,000) and that nobody should invest this kind of money. Considering that brokers make a commission on the total price of the plane, the advice not to do the Garmin upgrade means that it must be a stunningly terrible value. (Contrast to realtors, who always advise homeowners to do a huge amount of work prior to selling!) The Avidyne Vantage system is not certified yet. Dynon has nothing for the -G2 Cirrus.

Cirrus runs a great operation for owners at Sun ‘n Fun, including a perfect viewing location as well as air conditioning and cold drinks/snacks. I had my checkbook out to purchase a -G7, but the company refused my demand to add Blue Steel and Magnum to the color chart:

The latest and greatest Cirruses typically come with built-in oxygen for maintaining mental sharpness at high altitude. I’m wondering if this is being done all wrong. There’s a bottle built into the plane that is expensive to service and recertify. FBOs are getting into the habit of charging a fortune to top up these bottles with oxygen because their costs of labor and insurance are so high (the typical oxygen customer is a jet owner). There are some portable systems (example) that supposedly can concentrate enough oxygen up to 18,000′ to keep one pilot mentally sharp. It is rare to have more than two people on an oxygen-required flight and also fairly rare to go above 18,000′ (the limit for nasal cannulas). Maybe it would make more sense to put two of these these concentrators into the typical unpressurized airplane than a bottle-based system. I guess have a bottle supplement for those rare super high altitude flights.

V1 Hats is working on the problem of baseball cap-headset interference by thinning out the material near the ear:

I wish that it were possible to get custom designs and logos! Godzilla, at a minimum.

Here are some imports from China that made it in just under the tariff wire:

Towards the campground:

Flying out of Bartow, some ideas for decorating one’s living room ceiling and a nice museum devoted to the military’s time here:

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A visit to the HOA homeland (Coral Gables, Florida)

by philg

Coral Gables, Florida is supposedly the nation’s second planned city, after Washington, D.C., and the model for most subsequent planned communities around the country, including the HOA idea. Bubble in the Sun book: even those with the best information can’t predict a crash gives some background on the early 1920s Florida real estate boom (followed by a spectacular 1926 bust) in which Coral Gables was created.

We took the faithful Honda Odyssey down there for a two-night stay during the Palm Beach County Public Schools spring break (perhaps the first time that the valets at the Loews hotel had seen a minivan; it’s not that I merit staying at any Loews, but the Hiltons and Marriotts nearby were up to nearly the same price).

I’m sad to report that Coral Gables, the jewel of the City Beautiful movement, is not as consistently beautiful as our own MacArthur Foundation-created Abacoa and Jupiter in general. Here are the fundamental issues:

  • the commercial roads in and around residential neighborhoods don’t have a landscape buffer between the strip mall parking lots and the road (driving around the main roads of Jupiter, by contrast, one mostly sees trees, grass, flowers, and shrubs because the strip malls are hidden behind 20′-wide green margins)
  • no consistent architectural style has been imposed on commercial buildings, many of which are generic modern structures
  • no consistent architectural style has been imposed on single-family homes, either; one might see a modern house, a Spanish Colonial Revival house, a Georgian style mini-White House, etc. There aren’t any hurricane-proof standing seam metal roofs, but neither is there a lot of consistency among the tile roofs that are apparently mandated. Some are Spanish-style barrel tile. Some are flat tile. Abacoa has a variety of house styles, but each style is pinned to one neighborhood within the larger development.
  • powerlines are often above ground, unlike in newer Florida developments
  • there aren’t alleys behind the houses to hide the garages so a lot of houses “meet the street” with a big ugly garage door. Even worse, the number of cars per household is far larger than architects of the 1920s-1960s expected and the result is the landscape becomes littered with cars (maybe this will be remedied when robotaxis are everywhere and people cut back on individual car ownership)
  • quite a few streets have sidewalks on only one side

All of the above said, Coral Gables is plainly a fabulous place to live. The downtown is jammed with lively high-quality restaurants. As I texted to a friend, “It’s like Manhattan, but without the homeless, trash, Tesla torchings, and pro-Hamas demonstrations.” What can a city do when it doesn’t have to deal with the foregoing? Offer a free Uber-style service to anyone interested. While New Yorkers push each other onto the train tracks, people in Coral Gables go door to door in Tesla Xs:

What does it look like downtown?

You can’t spit in the street without hitting a Ferrari, Lamborghini, or G-Wagen (“the new Corolla”):

There are quite a few high-end kitchen shops, which is confusing because there is no way that the restaurants could survive if anyone actually uses the $300,000 dream kitchens.

Eataly is opening soon in Aventura (north side of Miami) and West Palm Beach. A competitor is being put together in Coral Gables, which is mostly interesting because it illustrates planning fallacy (“coming soon 2024” displayed on March 29, 2025):

Here are some residential streets close to downtown. A modest house here is $1-2 million.

Saturday night:

Other than “people who can afford $1-20 million for a condo or house” what kind of people are out and about? Roughly half of the conversations that we overheard were in Spanish. We saw exactly one group of people wearing hijabs. Compared to a wealthy area in highly segregated Maskachusetts there were a lot more Black people.

The Coral Gables Museum is a worthwhile stop for some history of George Merrick’s achievement.

Here’s a 1925 map:

Merrick dreamt on a vast scale, almost unimaginable to an American today (except maybe Elon Musk?). To the extent that Coral Gables today doesn’t match his 100-year-old vision it is mostly because he was too successful. Miami, population 30,000 in 1920, grew so large and wealthy that it didn’t make economic sense to build low-rise buildings in central Coral Gables.

Related:

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Harvard has the Queers for Palestine; University of Florida the NCAA basketball title

by philg

From state-sponsored NPR:

I wouldn’t normally watch a basketball game, but the public school here texted out a message advising us that school uniforms wouldn’t be required today if students wanted to wear Gators or Cougars outfits instead (I would love to see the kid brave enough to wear a Houston shirt!).

Xfinity managed to stage a TV outage in our neighborhood (first time I’d tried to use cable since the Super Bowl), promising to have service restored by tomorrow evening, but I was able to see the end of the game via streaming.

How much did this victory cost Florida taxpayers, I wondered? Politico says that the answer is $0, unlike in most states. “‘It’s an arms race’: Florida weighs how to compete in new expensive era of college sports” (November 2024):

Florida universities are searching for ways to pump more money into sports ahead of a proposed landmark NCAA settlement that would open the door for schools to directly pay athletes — and using state dollars could be on the table.

Florida has long held a bright line against putting tax dollars into college athletics. But that could change soon, as schools here and across the country grapple with revolutionary changes coming to the NCAA.

Athletic programs at Florida universities are by rule meant to be self-funded, paid for by student fees, ticket sales to events, NCAA distributions, sponsorships and donation dollars, among other sources.

Related:

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Palm Beach International Boat Show

by philg

If you’re in the market for a 150-250′ yacht, the Palm Beach International Boat Show isn’t a terrible place to spend the day (Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show might be bigger/better, I think, and there is also Miami, but both of those shows are spread among multiple locations). Palm Beach Post: “This year [2025] will feature 45 yachts measuring 150 feet or longer and 200 superyachts surpassing 80 feet in length.”

What does it look like overall? Here’s an aerial photo from 2024 (taken from the mighty Robinson R44):

Here’s my report on a day spent strolling around. I can’t show you what the elites see because peasants aren’t allowed into the superyachts. Potential customers must be vetted and accompanied by a broker (a neighbor actually is a yacht broker, but he didn’t invite me to sneak in with him and he was busy trying to close a deal on a 112′ boat for a mini-douche; he says that new boats can usually be had for 10 percent off the list price).

One take-away from the show is that Europe isn’t quite the economic basket case that it appears to be. Americans are generally too lazy/unskilled/unionized to build nice boats at competitive prices and the Bidenflood of 10+ million low-skill migrants didn’t change that. The floating examples of craftsmanship at the boat show were generally made in Poland ($1 million), Italy and China ($1-10 million), or Holland and Germany ($10-50 million).

One of the first boats that I went on, though, happened to be made in Washington State, a Ranger Tug on which I met a guy preparing to do a 1.3-year trip around The Great Loop. He said that Elon Musk’s Starlink was critical to enabling this project because he intended to continue working via Zoom during the voyage. When I mentioned this on Facebook, a loyal Democrat questioned the need for Starlink because, in his view, mobile data service would work perfectly on every mile of the journey. Apparently, all that one needs to make cell phone service 100 percent reliable in the United States is a passionate hatred of Donald Trump and Elon Musk.

Here’s what a couple’s 31-foot two-bedroom home for more than a year looks like:

(When on the Intracoastal Waterway for this trip, keep the red buoys on your left if going counter-clockwise. The “red right returning” rule is a little challenging to apply on the Intracoastal until you remember that it runs from New Jersey to Texas and, as a training captain told me, “nobody wants to return to New Jersey.”)

What if you need to do the trip in a week instead of 1.3 years? Mercury offers 600 hp V12 outboard motors and 2400-3600 hp on the transom could fulfill your need for speed:

Speaking of the transom, Wiszniewski Yachts is a Polish company, founded by an Axopar partner, whose W43 has a motorized platform behind the outboard motors. When the kids are ready to swim, the platform can be lowered into the water for easy in/out access. Here’s what the 900 hp $800,000 machine looks like from above:

One neat feature has been copied from RVs. The tables appear to be wood, but they’ve got enough steel inside that glasses with embedded magnets will stick to them even if the boat tilts 45 degrees or more.

For those of us who value a quiet boat, the Dutch company Zeelander provides a dBA measurement:

Even more quiet can be obtained with a pure battery-powered Halevai party boat (made in Louisiana and retailing for $185,000):

Note that the company sends power into the outboard half of a Mercury inboard/outboard drive system. That way, in case of damage, it can be repaired at any boatyard.

It’s a fun experience to stroll around. For a $40 lunch break and a glimpse at where the real action is occurring, duck out of the show (the same ticket on your phone gets you back in) to the Ben Hotel. This is where the brokers, lawyers, etc. hang out to negotiate and finalize transactions. Don’t park near the Ben, though! It will be about $10 to park at the Convention Center and then it is a 15-minute walk or a free shuttle bus ride to the event. In 2025, at least, there was a simultaneous art show at the Convention Center and the $35 ticket to the boat show was also accepted for the art show.

Here’s an ultimate redneck vehicle, with Yamaha engines in each pontoon (Shadow Six; $250,000):

If your taste is more refined and you want to save the planet, perhaps this $566,350 Rolls-Royce Spectre will suit:

Note that the government is watching our for us by mandating a calculation of the fuel cost/savings on the window sticker. There were Ferraris, restored Land Rovers, and classic Rolls-Royces on display as well.

It’s a fun event and downtown West Palm Beach is a fun place to hang out even when there is no event. For folks in the Northeast, Chicago, and California who are wondering how the West Palm lifestyle might be different than theirs, here’s a public bathroom inside a public parking garage (Hibiscus):

(If you don’t have kids, I think a condo or apartment in one of the gleaming new buildings in West Palm Beach might be the best place to live in Palm Beach County. Publix, culture, restaurants, an off-the-charts public library, etc. are all within an easy walk. Much of this is due to the efforts of Stephen Ross, developer of City Place and owner of the Miami Dolphins (also a Jewish enabler of the Queers for Palestine movement at the University of Michigan via his hundreds of $millions in donations to the progressive Democrat institution).)

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A drag show in Ocala, Florida

by philg

The Righteous accuse Florida of being deficient in drag shows, especially drag story time for toddlers at the public libraries. Ocala, Florida, however, is home to a permanent drag show: the pet-friendly Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing.

Here’s Wile E. Coyote’s dragster, which used “a rocket system from the NASA lunar program” and accelerated from 0-140 mph in one second. Four seconds and 352 mph in the quarter mile.

It seems that Don Garlits got his start in the 1950s in Tampa, Florida and was successful in 1957 with Swamp Rat I (8.23 seconds in the quarter mile):

Nerds will appreciate the engine room, which includes some cutaways:

For aviation enthusiasts, one of the best engines in the museum is a 2000 hp Allison V-12 from a P-40 fighter plane, purchased after WWII for $50.

The turbine engine in this 1993 Pontiac might be from an aircraft, but unfortunately few details are provided:

An adjacent building houses antique cars. Here’s an interesting example of how durable automotive paint is: a 1936 Ford with 72,000 miles (driven only during summers on Cape Cod; maybe for 25-35 years?) that has never needed repainting.

Adolf Hitler’s legacy is honored with a 1950 VW bug and a 1974 Karman Ghia:

We’re informed that our economy is inflation-free, so take $375 down to the local car dealer and ask to drive away in a new car:

After the museum, take a walk or bike ride on the 110-mile Cross Florida Greenway, built on the corpse of a Spanish canal idea from 1567 that was finally killed by Richard Nixon in 1971 partly due to efforts by Marjorie Harris Carr. To traverse the entire 110-mile trail requires a mountain bike, I think, because only about 35 miles is paved. The Florida Coast-to-Coast Trail (250 miles and 88 percent complete) is better-suited to a hybrid or road bike. It is about 50 miles south of the Greenway.

Downtown Ocala is small, but fun, and was the home of an important 1890 political movement (Ocala Demands). Unfortunately, like in most of the U.S., suburban sprawl with strip malls is how the once-walkable city grew. On the other hand, one can’t beat this vape shop’s name: Smocala.

Of course, Ocala is better-known for horse power (below) than horsepower, but I think the Don Garlits Museum of Drag Racing is worth a visit if you’re checking out The Villages.

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Florida vs. DC area school observance of Valentine’s Day

by philg

Closing out February with a reminder that this month is host to Valentine’s Day….

From our local “5th Grade Gifted Science Teacher” (Florida state law requires that public school systems offer gifted education beginning in 2nd grade):

I am writing to all parents to remind you that our class is having a Valentine Exchange this Friday. I sent home a bright pink flyer 2 weeks ago with the information and class list needed if your child wanted to participate. It is optional. I am writing because I have seen many of my students who did not show you the flyer as it is still in their yellow folder. If your child chooses to participate, he/she is required to bring one for each child in the class. Your child can also bring Valentines for friends in other classes if they choose.

Additionally, our class is having a Valentine Box Design contest. The child with the most creative box will win prizes that I have purchased. There will be a first, second and third place winner. Again, it is optional, and those children who opt out will receive a bag to place their Valentine’s.
You can send in a class treat if you would like. After we pass out the Valentines, we will be watching a movie.

Please ask for the pink flyer if you have not seen it yet. Thank you.

From a high school administrator in the Washington, DC area:

Join us February 14th for a fun Valentines event, hosted by the LGBTQ+ Allies Club. We’ll play some mini games and introduce you to the mission of the club.

What “mini games” are part of the LGBTQ+ lifestyle? A video game from “The 13 Best Queer Games to Play During Pride Month (and Beyond)” (PC Magazine)? Croquet because it is #1 in “Lawn Games Every Gay Should Know”?

Circling back to Florida, the Valentine Exchange is more 2SLGBTQQIA+-oriented than what we had growing up in Bethesda, Maryland. Kids here in Florida are required, if they want to participate at all, to bring a card for every other member of the class, regardless of gender ID, and are forbidden from writing anything personal in any card. A boy, therefore, must present other boys with cards if he is to present any girls with cards. In 1970s Bethesda, we chose which other members of the class to give cards to and wrote whatever we wanted. Each card always went to a member of the opposite sex, as far as I can remember (there were no “gender IDs” back then so “opposite sex” was a defined term).

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Which explorer called the Gulf of Mexico/America the Golfo de Florida?

by philg

Wokipedia says that the Gulf of Mexico/America was referred to at some point by at least some people as the Golfo de Florida. Here’s the cited source with, in turn, some of its citations:

Here’s the section that seems to be the basis for Wikipedia’s “other explorers”:

This seems like a good bachelor’s thesis topic a history major! Separately, if the Gulf of Mexico v. Gulf of America dispute can’t be settled amicably, my vote is for Golfo de Florida!

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