Florida (again)

We just came back from our second Florida Vacation since Christmas. This time we spent 5 days at Siesta Key, in the Sarasota area.

We really enjoyed the soft white sand beach, a world class beach; very wide and spacious.

My daughter and I made some sand sculptures, a big lizard and a butterfly decorated with seashells. Lots of people walking by were very impressed, and my daughter was quite proud of making them with her Daddy. It was cool to see them still there after a couple of days.

We spent a lot of time on the beach, with rented beach chairs and umbrellas. I got sunburned.

We also spent 2 days at the Magic Kingdom in Disneyworld, a first for me and my daughter. It was a good experience, mostly because the weather was great and it was not as crowded as I expected. We saw the parade and the fireworks, and went on a bunch of rides. Surprisingly enough, my 6 year old girls' favorite ride was the Speedway, where you get to drive cars around a track. You cans teer but a metal rod keeps them on track. She loved it and wanted to go back several times.

Disney is really all about illusion. MK seems like a really big place, but we took the steam train around the perimeter it only lasted about 10 minutes, with 3 stops. The place is architected such that you cannot see very far between the different areas, so it is hard to get much perspective, but the train ride reveals that it is quite a bit smaller than you would think.

All in all a good trip, and a great break from work and the snow.

Bobby Fischer

Chess grand master Bobby Fischer is dead. I remember this guy's shenanigans from the early 70's when he had those legendary matches with Boris Spassky.

In the last 30 years he seems to have turned into a complete nutcase, violating the US ban on trade with Yugoslavia during the Bosnia war, getting arrested for travelling on a revoked passport, and much more.

His life really illustrates the stereotype of a tortured genius. If the guy wasn't a chess grand master he would just be considered a lunatic.

File renaming

For some reason I find myself having to rename/retag large numbers of files a lot. I always used to use DOS command lines but I found a nice shareware utility that does everything I need.

Its called FlashRenamer.
It has dozens of options, can modify timestamps, alter case, change attributes etc. And it is very fast. I lowercased over 3000 files in just a few seconds.

Always nice to find a useful utility!

Bosses

I read recently that the #1 reason by far that people look for a new job is their boss (followed by salary and growth potential).

It seems like companies would really want to take notice of this. Replacing employees is expensive, and a lot of institutional knowledge walks out the door when someone leaves.

What do people want from a boss? What are bosses doing wrong that is enough to drive people away from a job?

Good bosses can make good employees more satisfied. Unless of course you want people to leave, and I guess many companies do...

Countrywide Financial

Looks like Bank Of America is buying the remains of Countrywide Financial, one of the big losers in the subprime fiasco.

I really hope the housing market turns around. A lot of people have lost a lot of equity value in their homes through no fault of their own. Long term homeowners are not speculators, and yet all have suffered due to the bad decisons of banks and lenders out for quick profits.

Is it time for stricter government regulation of this industry? The lending industry in all its forms seems determined to prove it can screw up whatever freedom and de-regulation it is given.

Credit Cards

I read the other day that credit card companies are quietly changing the terms of the cardholders agreements.

They are changing their ability to drastically increase interest rates even in the event of a single late payment on an otherwise perfect payer.

They do not have to inform the customer, they just jack up the rate to 20, 25 or even 30%. So your rate could go from 9% to 25% if your payment is just one day late, just one time.

Credit card issuers are mostly banks, and banks are hurting from the subprime mortgage disaster, so they are looking to screw their customers as a way to shore up profits.

Vacation

We just got back from a week in Vero Beach, Florida. We flew into Orlando on Xmas day and the next morning we drove 90 minutes southeast to Vero Beach.

VB is definitely the most liveable city I have visited in Florida. Right on the ocean, not especially touristy. Lots of upscale retirees make real estate a bit expensive, but there are relatively few of the high-rise condos you see further south.

The weather was 80's and sunny everyday. For two of our days there Red Tide was a problem. I have heard of this kind of algae bloom, but I thought it was only a problem for fish eating, but this stuff causes respiratory problems when you get within a few hundred yards of the beach. Walking down the seaside avenue in Vero Beach you could hear everyone coughing. Would have been bad if it had lasted the whole vacation, but we only felt it for 2 days. For those days we just went to the pool at our motel.

All in all it was a great time. We had two great meals at a little hole in the wall Cuban restaurant called Felix's; wonderful roast pork, fish stuffed tostones(fried papaya) and mango cheesecake.

To top it off, the day after we came home we had a foot of snow in the driveway...