cranes by the pool

Passive television consumption over here doesn't provide any updates on the UK. There was a picture of a London street and a couple of policemen, captioned London and a sentence about an IED discovery. That's about it.

Instead, the news here is either Trump related or local. As well as several shootings there have been numerous car crashes. I've seen the aftermath of more crashes here in a few weeks than in a couple of years back at home. The speed limits are generally lower, but there's a mix of speeders and stressed family motorists that seem to make for a particularly dangerous mix.

I've noticed a few roads that I prefer not to use, particularly in the evening because of flagrant speeders. I'm used to US driving/right on red/4-way stops/school bus protocol/the under and overtaking mentality and so on, but the lack of defensive driving and non-existent merge courtesy requires adjustment.

I've had a few emails from various groups about the state of Brexit. Nothing seems to have changed except the deadline is closer. Maybe the Tories will somehow shove it through, although I assume they are probably lying by omission about the next several years of renegotiating everything. A new feeding frenzy, with some revised players. Bad for all normal folk.

A different feeding frenzy around here was after the grass had been cut. A couple of 4 feet tall sandhill cranes took a shine to the area just outside the lanai of the pool. It's one of my tick box items, to be by the pool when there's cranes, herons or egrets around.

finally flipped?

We were over here for the original run-up to the Presidential elections and it is notable how much airtime that took on US TV channels.

It's still the same, with almost no other news on the main channels and the evenings filled with analysis of the latest speech or alleged wrongdoing of the so-called President.

It's reached a level that warfare has a term for: containment theory. When the situation is so complicated that no-one can understand all of the moving parts.

Individual pundits know about their piece of the jigsaw. There's the Cohen trial and even whether Trump was considering a pardon in return for loyalty? We know that didn't happen.

There's Manafort, who looks more grimy by the day in TV reports. Now trying to dodge a 24-year jail sentence because the investigation wasn't supposed to uncover his particular line of mis-deed.

We get the liars in court, the ever-increasing supply of pay-off cheques. There's the inflation of net worth of that man to help secure bank loans. I'm sure I could get a better loan if I added $4 billion to my apparent wealth.

Then there's the stuff that hasn't really surfaced. Mueller's investigations into Russia. The role of Felix Sater on the same floor of Trump Tower as Trump.

We've just had the rambling two hour speech by Trump to his supporters. The Washington Post counted 109 falsehoods in the speech. The so-called President is starting to use obscenities (mild by UK standards) to pep up his run at the next election. I can imagine the new red hats already.

In other news we saw this Mercedes wagon flip over and burst into controlled flames. Metaphor time again?

red shoulders

I've spent a part of the day lazing in the pool, looking towards the blue skies. A few fluffy clouds and every so often a hawk or two, wheeling through the sky.

I've decided they are red shouldered hawks. They seem to have the right plumage and should be a relatively common, yet interesting, raptor around these parts.

I've seen them dive too, fast but controlled. One of them swooped in for some close contact with something at a house a couple of doors along. Interesting that as it did so a chorus of smaller birds could be heard.

I've no idea of the outcome, although I suspect it was bad news for one of the lesser inhabitants.

The floating in the sunshine means that I've also adopted similar red shoulders, although I've been using the SPF30.

the smoking check isn't the main game, which is much bigger

Being in the USA, it was compelling to watch some of the House Oversight Committee questioning of Cohen yesterday, although there were several aspects that presented curiously to a Brit.

The most obvious point was that this wasn't the main game. Cohen has another set of hearings in Southern Circuit New York which will be where he reveals more about his role as a fixer and threatener for Trump. Cohen managed his delivery with a theatrical accuracy during the whole proceedings.

It gave the Representatives that interrogated him a chance to vent their displeasure, but Cohen was still able to rebuff most of what was thrown at him. He's already admitted to being a liar, cheating taxes and so on, so the mainly Republicans making accusations about this were at least partly wasting their time.

Clear that their reason for this is to try to show the general public that Cohen can't be trusted.

It's another part of a Trump gameplay. Like having a big whiteboard with placards displayed in the open hearing. Extreme showboating. Astonishing.

Trump used Cohen as a fixer for 10 years. They had offices on the same floor. Cohen knew Trumos coded way to issue orders. Nothing direct. The fixing included paying off women, but also a multitude of threats to many people who Trump didn't like, or didn't want to pay or for any other reasons.

A classic move would be to avoid the final payment on a construction deal. A nice round third of the contract value, perhaps?

A quick look at Trump's asset statement from 2013 is itself quite revealing, showing an additional $4 billion of Brand Value added to the statements. That's an amount that inflates apparent value for attraction of new loans.

Cohen will save the best stuff for the New York hearings, where he could also negotiate a Section 35 partial pardon from the three year sentence he currently faces.

Cohen is certainly a slippery operator, but on this situation seems to be taking the view to bury the president in a hail of allegations. Trump will call it Fake News, many Republican voters won't even care. Cohen may get a reduced sentence and then will sell book rights, movie rights and beyond.

Hakuna Mutata

This time I decided to try using the iPhone for some wildlife pictures. Completely unplanned, I thought there would be new challenges because of the need to somehow zoom without any optical glass assistance.

Above is a young giraffe, although my pictures of a rhinoceros were blurred and unfit to publish,

Still, here's a dozy lion and the profile of a lioness. Easier to take these, because the creatures were not moving about. Here's another one, although it does show that the iPhone's zoom is maybe not suited to this kind of task.

Well, I may not have achieved pictures of all of the big game specified, but I somehow didn't expect my little iPhone to shine at this particular task.

Still, no worries, as they say. It's our problem-free philosophy; Hakuna Matata.

one small step

A fun trip to NASA today. It's years since I was last here, but I still have the tee shirt. This time it was interesting to see how much the private sector has added to the activities around the complex.

There was the inevitable SPACEX presence, which is the Elon Musk initiative and gets plenty of news about its progress.

Here's a picture I took from their main launch facility, which is the updated old launch pad used by the main NASA missions to the moon and for the space shuttle. The concrete blast trenches were big enough to contain the power from a Saturn 5 rocket, so this is seriously rugged construction.

Towards the main entrance to NASA, there's also a couple of blue buildings. Blue Origin. That's the Jeff Bezos project. Not quite Amazon, it is by the Amazon founder and is actively using the Cape Canaveral side of the launch site. That's the part still under USAF control, rather than NASA.

Not so much to see, but still plenty happening.

The big events of the past are well featured inside NASA's halls in this still live facility. Last time I visited here the space shuttle was still active and we saw one on its way to the launch facility.

Now my picture shows Atlantis is in a museum. It has clocked about 126 million miles on 33 separate missions spread over 26 years. Impressive stuff and it is the real deal.

That is just scratching the surface of this impressive site. We shouldn't forget the moon landing or the many other incredible advances through the technology of space missions. Here's my photo of the giant leap and, yes, I've added a polo shirt to my collection.

ybor the cigar city

Time to visit Ybor City just northeast of downtown Tampa (itself once nick-named as Cigar-City).

Ybor was founded in the 1880s by Vicente Martinez-Ybor and other cigar manufacturers and was populated by thousands of immigrants, mainly from Cuba, Spain, and Italy.

There's still a mixed vibe of Cuban-Italian-Spanish and a few cigar stores still hand-rolling some of their products.

The city was unique in the American south as a successful town almost entirely populated and owned by immigrants.

The neighbourhood had features unusual among contemporary communities in the south, most notably its multi-ethnic and multi-racial population and their many mutual aid societies.

The post depression decline in cigar sales created a corresponding slide for Ybor until the 1980s, when an influx of artists began a slow process of gentrification.

We've visited before and the area around 7th Avenue has continued its development into a bohemian night club and entertainment district with many old buildings were renovated for new uses, although this time I noticed a few had indeed emptied again.

Things don't really kick off here until well into the evening, after the last bus has passed through the centre of the district.

a day at the beach

February. Not the most obvious month to hit the beach but thoroughly enjoyable and a chance to relax in the sunshine.

It's not too crowded either, looking out into the Gulf of Mexico. We've enough space to build new castles and to make plans for other parts of this journey.

The family WhatsApp group may get more of the overtly holiday snap pictures, and it is but a small indulgence to show the white-sanded beaches here in the hot sunshine. I know that something is missing though?

Yes, a palm tree.

cross town - so hard to get through to you

We've been using an OnStar satellite navigation system for part of the time.

It doesn't seem to like a British accent.

As an example, I was asking it to go to one of the four or five biggest locations around here and it offered me a selection which didn't include the place at all, but did mention a yoghurt shop about 300 miles away.

It's hilarious if it gets behind the conversation too and will just keep saying the same thing over and over again.

The system doesn't actually provide any maps, just the turn instructions. I suppose it could be so that I'd opt to get the expensive additional satnav option added to the car rental. It would be less expensive to pop into Walmart or somewhere similar to just buy one.

I'd be furious if I'd bought a car with one of these things expecting hot to work.

In another example, the same voice satnav took me around three sides of a lengthy square to reach a destination.

I can't help wondering how the system's finance works. Did the yoghurt shop pay to get mentioned? Is google or someone paying g to get the tracking information?

I've mainly switched it off now, although the 7 inch screen in the middle of the dashboard looks somewhat untidy with a scrappy partial menu related to radio stations on it.

There's no overt design aesthetic. Someone should be ashamed.

I'm instead using my own knowledge and navigation, which seems dramatically better than this particular high-tech voice operated system. I'll get the blame if we get lost, so it might as well really be my fault rather than a piece of not so well-designed technology.

Luau interlude

Ever onward, this time to a Luau. It's years since I attended one and has been on the revisit list for quite some time.

Plenty of dancing and some Samoan flaming spears as well.

My pictures from this are somewhat impressionistic. It took me some time to figure out how to capture live performance with a DSLR and I think I'll have to relearn the approach with an iPhone, although currently I think it may be towards the limits of what is do-able.

alligator swamp without metaphors

There we were, heading along the river, past the alligator swamp just as the wind changed. We could see the rain approaching along the water, turning a flat surface into one boiling with raindrops.

Most sought shelter, but I pulled on a cagoule and stayed out in the weather, so different from the sun scorch an hour earlier. The rain shower didn't last more than a few minutes with a resultant pleasant cooling which lasted for the next couple of hours.

say cheese

News from Blighty seems bitter at the moment. It's as if both the main political duopoly are in a new turmoil and about to suffer defections related to the power politics of party first thinking.

I decided it might be more useful to study this cheese spread wrapper until things settle down. Notice the use of 'cheese flavoured' in the description, rather than 'cheese based' or similar.

There's also an extensive reference to Worcestershire sauce in the list of ingredients. Maybe they are hinting at a Welsh Rarebit vibe?

It appears that the genetic engineering highlighted on the pack don't quite achieve the same result as the old fashioned way to make cheese. Presumably the manufacturing is speedier doing things this way.

We tasted it. Nope. No discernible cheese flavour, more one of a sharpness, maybe a bitterness - which links back to my opening thought.

The quest for a decent cheese around this area will continue.