KurtAndersonville

Trip to Buenos Aires

2012-02-09T18:11:00.000-05:00

I actually was not going to blog about this trip because I felt a little guilty that my ticket was free, but then I figured, what the hell......

So yeah I scored this plane ticket to one of the most southerly major cities in the world. My dear old Dad was kind enough to comp. me a ticket, which he obtained through his substantial business connections. He invited a few other family members too, but his rental place was plenty big for us all.

It takes about 8 hours to get here from Miami, so it's no short trip. Plus you land in a time zone that's two hours ahead of your time on the East Coast, so you will tend to stay up late, but then you will sleep late too, while here.

After a week I'm inclined to tell you that it's probably not worth the trip at market rates. You'd most certainly be better off going to Cancun or Costa Rica, if you're seeking the South American tourist experience. Plus you will get more beach time in those destinations and your dollar will go much further.

At the same time, Buenos Aires has been anything but boring and I would probably jump at the chance to stay here for a year or two, because I know that you can't get to know the true nature of a place during a one week vacation visit. If I were 25, I would make it happen, but I'm a bit over the hill and not rich or connected enough to put anything together.

So far, I am mostly enjoying the visit, except that the language barrier has kept me from making any friends, and the people are polite but not too friendly to strangers - that's the feeling I'm getting, so I'm out of luck socially, but there are plenty of sights to see.

Things that stick out: Young people make out on the street here, not just a kiss but a 15 to 20 minutes or more makeout session-something you would never see on the mean streets of home, that's for damn sure.

Another curiosity I've noticed is that 60's and 70's rock is very popular, often being played in the clubs, bars, passing cars driven by teenagers and even the drugstores and markets, so that I feel like I'm back in the 70's-not a bad thing. Plus there's hordes of beautiful women and young couples around, just like it was in the 70's back in the states. Maybe they're about three decades behind here?

There are dogs everywhere. I'm not sure what's up with that. You have to be careful not to step in fresh dog crap, which is often sitting right in the middle of the sidewalks. I've already stepped in it twice in a week.

I've never been much of a traveler, having been perennially poor ever since I graduated from college in the 80's, so this trip is a real novelty. I didn't have a clue about Buenos Aires before I got here and probably won't bother to research the place during or after my trip, so all I have to offer is the here and now....pictures and links to places I've seen.

Here is a link to my better pictures of Buenos Aires. Buenos Aires 2012. This will be updated daily and probably won't be complete for a few weeks, as I take hundreds of pictures a day and weed out the bad ones.

I will post some links here to some videos I took with my pocket camera, when I figure out how to do that. So far it's not working like it should.

Recent Pix:

Stealth photography....Check out the bikini-babe on the right.

The parks are packed, all day and well into the night

The bars and bistros do a brisk business every night...

Graffiti seems to be unchecked....

Dogs out the ass......

Swearing Off Alcohol

2012-01-30T07:57:00.000-05:00

I am definitely not drinking any more, except for the occasional beer. Saturday night's little scotch binge left me with a throbbing headache and nausea all day Sunday, so that the day was wasted with me feeling badly. Even this Monday morning I still have a slight headache.

There was a time when I was under age 25 that I could drink a fair amount of hard liquor and recover pretty quickly, but I think it just gives me brain damage now. I'll stick to energy drinks and vitamin B for my fun.

Clematis Street

2012-01-29T15:02:00.002-05:00

Went out on Clematis Street last night with 2 friends. This is the "big hangout" in West Palm Beach. I'm not a big drinker, but I had a few Glenfidditch scotch and waters early that I sure am paying for today. Shortly after 10:30 p.m. I thought I spied my Mother through a restaurant window at a table having dinner with some stranger. I walked closer to the window to take a closer look, but of course it wasn't her. I guess she's been on my mind.

Here are some pictures from my night out:

Clematis Street

"Off the Hookah"

Hookah Dance Floor

Roxy's

Clematis II

Da Boyz

Florida Pix

2012-01-24T10:31:00.001-05:00

Haven't posted here in a while. Here are the latest pix from my time in Florida:

Sunrise over Lake Okeechobee

Pair o' Sandhill Cranes

Elaborate Root System-Sewell's Point

Santa Lucia Beach

Rt. 714 Canopy Road

White Egret

Snowy Egret

Pier II Resort

Carnival-Okeechobee in Jan 2012

Rock n' Roll Carousel

Sunrise through my window....

Lake Okeechobee Fitness Trail

My Current Office

The Pier II

Homesick

2012-01-20T21:58:00.001-05:00

Photoshop Trickery

2012-01-16T18:03:00.000-05:00

Mindblowing Photoshop Trickery:

From the book, Altered Images, by Romany WG

Groundhog Day

2012-01-10T15:29:00.000-05:00

Despite my best efforts I finally ended up back working in a personal-injury chiropractic office in Florida for at least the first quarter of 2012. I think the last 4 months being out of the profession have been the most enjoyable times for me since college graduation in 1998. I can't believe I sacrificed 4 years of my life to go to college to do this. I think it was easily the most hare-brained idea I've ever had, and I've been paying for it ever since.

It hasn't helped that the economy is still in the doldrums with no spark whatsoever-this has been going on since about mid-2008. Did our parents go through this? I don't think so. When they wanted to do something, they just did it. The opportunity was there if they wanted to work hard. It didn't take that long either. Now it seems like it takes most of a lifetime to save up $10,000, which is what I will need to take another swipe at doing something else.

Florida's never been a particularly good fit for me, in fact I don't fit in here at all. I guess there's worse places I could have been called to. I'm more of a Colorado guy. I think my best place I ever lived was the Bay area around San Francisco. At least this is a small town with not-bad traffic-as opposed to the crowded and expensive Miami or West Palm Beach. So far it has been an odd experience, but not unpleasant.............

My office in Okeechobee, FL


At least they have a primo jogging/bike trail around Lake Okeechobee

There comes a time when you need a change in life and I was ready to change careers after my last chiropractic position in Tallahassee ended in August. Really, I wanted to be done with that particular business. It's not that it's difficult, it's just extremely boring. The problem is, the American dream is dead, or at least on hold until they can get rid of the current administration. Even then, I think it will take our country years to recover. Plus, it's not every day you get a job offer out of the blue at my age, especially in this shit-economy, so here I am again, just like Groundhog Day. Regardless,

Kiss My Country Ass....

2012-01-06T22:35:00.000-05:00

Road Trip

2012-01-04T07:19:00.000-05:00

I made the trip to South Florida for my latest temp. job as a chiropractor this week, this time to a little burg called Okeechobee. I lucked out and found a reasonable place to stay on the north end of the lake:

Welcome 2012

2011-12-31T13:29:00.001-05:00

Merry Xmas 2011

2011-12-24T15:07:00.001-05:00

Patio Workout

2011-12-19T11:54:00.003-05:00

My shitty public gym was closed for no apparent reason Sunday, so I took the opportunity to utilize my patio weight-equipment for only the second or third time. Since the temperature was above freezing here in Central Tennessee, it was a surprisingly good workout.

The only problem was I woke a few deadly spiders that had apparently been sleeping in the equipment- a baby Black Widow, which I noticed lowering itself by a thread off the bar next to my head during the bench-press routine, and a tiny Brown Recluse-which I found crawling up the leg of my sweat pants, both of which will wreck your day. Luckily I was not bitten. They must have anti-freeze for blood!

I gently placed the Black Widow in the bushes outside my compound, but I fear the Brown Recluse even more, so I disposed of it the best way I know of for deadly insects, folded into a section of packing tape. This way, there is no way they can come back to get you, unlike when you flush them down the toilet or squeezed and tossed into the trash can.

Rotary Curl Bar-Awesome Biceps Workout

Brown Recluse-Entombed in Packing Tape

Squat Bar-with Manta Ray Attachment

Career Changer

2011-12-18T12:32:00.000-05:00

It looks like my latest attempt to change careers has stalled, at least temporarily while I go back to my old business to replenish my bank account before I starve to death. I had been doing radon mitigation for the last three years, but I think I picked the wrong area for my little venture, as the work has been few and far between in Central Tennessee.

The profession I have been trying to escape-chiropractic personal injury in Florida, has been dependable job security at least, even if I do dislike it. Hopefully I can stomach it for a year and try again in 2013 to change careers. I think it's going to be depressing though, to be back down there.

I will keep you posted.

Personal-Injury Chiropractic

Electronic Junk

2011-12-15T22:53:00.000-05:00

Be careful which electronic gadgets you invest in these days.

I have noticed some recent failures of some normally dependable types of electronic gadgets of mine. I bought these at Best Buy and I'm thinking it might now be a good idea to start buying the gadget-failure insurance they always offer at checkout. This is not your Grandfather's Walkman or transistor radio that still works fine to this day. I guess the standards have dropped to shit-level quality and everything is eventually a throwaway in short order.

$42.00 + tax, and it craps out after 6 months. Of course the receipt was nowhere to be found.

My Sansa Clip 4 gb .mp3 player, ($49.99) conked out after less than a year. I dug my 3 year-old 2 gb Sansa out of a drawer. It still works fine, but this one is junk.

Geek Squad USB stick ($12.99) stopped working in under a year. Luckily I had backed it up to a external hard-drive

2005 80 gb Western Digital Hard Drive ($100), loaded with data, not recognized by Windows 7 machines

Buyer beware...........

Suburban Waste

2011-12-10T09:31:00.001-05:00

Growing up in the suburbs it seems like many of us didn't gain any marketable skills, like our country and city counterparts. City kids become street smart, and are good at networking, negotiating and people skills. Country kids are good with their hands, and can rebuild engines, skin-out a buck and live off the land. Suburban kids get good it seems, at going to parties and recreational drug use, hanging out at the mall and building their presence on the social networking sites, which usually translates into long-term unemployment if Daddy doesn't get them a job out of college.

I found myself living in Tennessee for some reason, in 2008. I had started a radon mitigation business outside Nashville, despite knowing nobody and having no local connections. It's not the first time I have done this. I've had no roots since my parents had moved out of my beloved Valley Forge, PA when I was away at college in the 1980's. As a result I have yet to find a place to live I'm comfortable with, and I never settled down.

Anyways, I was talked into buying a small townhouse instead of renting for this particular venture, by a well-meaning relative, due to an $8,000 tax credit, inexplicably offered by the government at the time. Turns out I was just in time for the real estate crash and a long recessionary period, so my little investment has dropped in value, by about $10,000 so far.

Oh and that $8,000 I received as incentive? Well I get a bill for that amount, around tax time. Turns out it has to be paid back eventually, in installments-a little detail they left out when I was purchasing this place. Oh and if they find out you moved and this is not your primary residence, the whole amount is due at the next tax-time. Well I don't want to live here any longer. So now I usually have two housing payments every month, this one and the amount I pay another home owner for rent near wherever I happen to be working. I should have known. Every time I have followed other people's business advice instead of my own infallible gut instincts, from business school in the 80's to this real estate fiasco, it has set me back years, if not decades, financially.

-Just in time for the decline-

The radon business dried up after the "thousand year floods" in Tennessee in May of 2010, so I ended up back in Florida working at personal injury clinics through about August of this year, when my Mom passed away unexpectedly. I got so depressed I couldn't show up for work and lost my job. So I found myself back up in Tennessee for a few months at my little "vacation home", pushing radon again.

Being able to make friends easily, I got to know a few of the locals through the gym and the church.
There's this old man who lives down the road a ways, out in the country. He's been kind of lost because his wife made him get rid of all his farm animals after he injured his knees, or maybe it's just degeneration from old age-I'm not quite sure.

He was lamenting his "good ole days" in his "junk shop", where he could do welding, drilling, wood working, cutting steel, bodywork on trucks, and just about anything else it takes to live the country life:

True 'Bama Fans

Log-Rolling Tool

Drill Press for drilling through steel plate

Cross-Cut saw for wood work

Heavy-duty vise

Space heater, for winter projects

Heavy-duty jack

Walter shows how to shape steel implements

Anvil for shaping horse shoes

Circular saw for wood

Old truck springs

Walter and Friend

In Your Face-Book

2011-12-08T14:40:00.002-05:00

It seems like Facebook is one giant pissing-contest and that about sums it up.

When Facebook first came out I joined immediately, always being an early adopter as far as new technology is concerned, as long as it doesn't involve any major expenditures. I thought that it might be good for my little internet business ventures that usually needed all the help they could get to generate any money or, at least, profits. Before too long, I picked up the majority of my class it seems from my high school days onto my "friends" list.

It's pretty amazing that I was found, because I usually go out of my way to stay out of touch with childhood friends, due to a very disappointing career, or lack thereof. I think I maybe signed up one "friend" from my high school town, and they must have had everybody from that time period on their list and it just got me connected. Now my high school crowd is the last group I ever expected to hear from again, that's for sure. I mean the majority of these people had had normal lives, stayed in their hometown, married and had kids, had decent jobs and careers-the whole nine yards.

Myself on the other hand, have lived a strange life, with no permanent address, poor career choices and decisions, resulting in my missing out on a lot of the good things that small town life has to offer. So my Facebooking with my entire high school is a constant reminder of this, which is no fun at all.

I was lucky to graduate from high school-barely, spending the majority of my energies in wrestling and being worn out all the time from excessive weight-loss and brutal after-school practices five months of the school year. All I managed to do was stunt my physical growth and kill my GPA.

What a stupid waste of time it was, seriously. I still have Mr. Beckman to thank, the accounting teacher who gave me the gift of a passing grade, for my graduating from high school. I know I could ace that course now, but that was then. I was awkward and shy the majority of my school years anyway. I actually hated school and was hugely relieved to be done with it.

I eventually lost touch with everybody from the class of '78 for 3 decades or so, after my parents sealed my fate by moving far away from my old neighborhood while I was away at college. We didn't have the technology of the internet to make arrangements to stay in touch at that particular period in time, so if you didn't live near everyone, you were pretty much permanently out of the picture.

Hooking back up with everybody from high school 3 decades later, even if only virtually, was the last thing I ever expected to happen. I think it would have been a really good thing if I had more to show for my time away, but it's kind of embarrassing the way it stands.

So here I am back in with all my high school people and it's getting weird now, after the initial novelty has worn off, because they all have kids and they're always putting pictures up of Suzie at the prom or whatever, but when I post pictures of my brother's kids or anything fun or interesting, they're kind of ignoring it. I don't know if they're jealous or what....it's apparently a huge pissing contest.

Anyways I was thinking of signing up for another Facebook page, under a different name, and try to start over with people from my more recent life history, while still keeping the other one active, just to not offend all my old friends by disappearing into the web-osphere. I'm currently trying to plan it properly and come up with a name.....

Sleigh Ride

2011-12-07T09:02:00.001-05:00

Orlando Thanksgiving Pix

2011-11-30T23:01:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving in Orlando this year. Actually I thought this might be cancelled due to my Mom's untimely passing, but the show went on.......

Our Street

Tennis Camp

Thanksgiving Dinner

Mom's empty chair...

Super Target!

Captain Morgan-Boy

Hi Marilyn!

The Kissimmee Carnival

Giant Swingset Ride

The Roadhouse Truck

Kissimmee Carnival Lake

Swingset Ride, 300 ft drop

Panning for Gold

Classic Cars

Beauty Heads

Evil Wizard Gift Shop

A Little Head

Young Love....

Mannequin Babe

Magic Kingdom Entrance

Lucky Kids

The line to get in line.

Slut's up doc?

Captain Jack Sparrow

Crazy Kids!

Kids liked Jack Sparrow-Lookalike

KId-Central

Tropical Boat-Ride

Goofy

Space Mountain Ride

Logan Planking in line at Space Mountain

Round and Round....

Ibis

Cinder-Freakin'-Rella

Walt Disney Himself

Me, "Planking" on a Disney Trash-Can

Futurama

Magic Kingdom

City Hall

The End-Good Night

Camera Upgrade

2011-11-20T17:12:00.000-05:00

I live for taking photos, but I am afraid to buy a new camera to replace my 2008 Sony H3 due to the rapid advances in technology going on. I think if I can last 'till April or May of 2012 I may have to take the plunge, but it's going to be tough.

Update: (Jan 11, 2012) I will probably go with the promised Canon G1X (see below), unless I decide to go pro, in which case I will go with the X-Pro1 (also below).

Cameras of interest:

Fujifilm X-S1

Canon Powershot G1X

Samsung MV800

Cameras I would buy right now if I won the Powerball:

Canon 1Dx

Sony Alpha 77

Pentax K5

Sony NEX-7

Samsung NX-200

Fujifilm X-Pro1

Uncle Bob.....

2011-11-19T13:26:00.000-05:00

I have been taking these Photoshop courses online, for my website design business and I was toying with the clone-stamp tool, thickening the hair on my head, in a recent photo taken of myself lifting weights on the patio. The hair looks pretty piss-poor actually. I obviously haven't perfected creating hair yet. Here it is:

"Uncle Bob"

Then on a whim I decided to de-colorify and add a film-grain effect to make the picture look really old. I then uploaded it to my Facebook page and wrote that it was a picture of my "Uncle Bob" back in '73, but it's actually me. Nobody seems to have caught on yet. I thought it was pretty funny.............

Paranormal Activity

2011-11-15T21:05:00.001-05:00

I have noticed some strange goings on in the past few months, ever since my Mother died unexpectedly. Nothing major, just a little thing with watches and clocks. I know, it could be my imagination, right? But it's still bizarre. Check this out.......

First, I had traveled back to my parent's house to help Dad clean up and maybe snag a few of Mom's possessions before the rest of the relatives showed up and everything of any value disappeared. It still took me a week to get there, involving an 18 hour road-trip, and I had heard Dad had already tossed out or gave away a bunch of her stuff already. God only knows what had already disappeared, but it's not like I can store a bunch of stuff anyway.

I just wanted a few minor things to keep her memory alive. Most important to me was getting her recipe book, because she had been a legendary Italian cook. Maybe I could get my girlfriend to cook something for me out of the book sometime, or learn how to cook some things.

The first couple days I picked up some nice crystal glassware from her collection and some costume jewelry, and some old sketches and paintings from her art-school days. Okay nice, but I could not find the recipe book, anywhere.

The second to the last day I was there, I got lucky and stumbled upon her main recipe book and her recipe box in the back of the pantry next to the fridge. I had been in the act of pillaging some baker's chocolate off the top shelf, something I used to do when Mom was around too.

I knew it was her main recipe book because it was tattered and beat up, and stuffed with notes yellow with age, and hand-written notes on many of the pages. The recipe box too, was packed with old recipe cards and notes. This is it! I had found the mother lode, so to speak.

Back in the day, it seemed like my Mom was always in the kitchen, and if I touched anything or tried to remove anything she would throw a fit. It was her territory and she let me know it. This thought crossed my mind as I fished out the big find from the back of the pantry. Mom would so not be letting me take this......as I carried my haul in my hot little hands back to the guest cottage and stuffed it in my suitcase, feeling like a bandit.

I then went back to the main house, through Mom's kitchen again and upstairs to catch a football game on the tv with Dad, who was passed out in an easy chair. Downstairs the kitchen was dark and quiet at around 8:45. Around 8:50 I heard the oven buzzer-timer go off...........even though nobody had used the stove that day or even that week. In fact, nobody else was in the house. I went downstairs into the darkened kitchen and shut the timer off. It is an eighties-era stove, with the analog timer on the upper part. I then went back upstairs, woke Dad up and asked him, "did you set the oven timer?" "No" he said, with a strange look on his face, then went back to sleep.

Mom's recipe book from 1958

Okay, so that was weird. The timer went off...........so what. Probably nothing to it. Maybe it goes off every day at that time, but it's analog. It has to be reset...........

Before I left Dad asked me if I wanted to trade my 12 year-old Toyota 4Runner for Mom's 10 year-old Toyota Sequoia. Shitty gas mileage, but a huge vehicle; so I said okay!

Then, after I had left town and gone back down South in Mom's car, I noticed that my cheap but normally reliable Armitron digital watch started beeping every hour at 8 minutes after the hour. It wasn't at exactly 8 minutes either, it was more like 8 minutes and 50-51 seconds...."beep". Every hour, all night, all day. I couldn't shut it off, couldn't change it. The alarm signal was turned off. The hourly signal was turned off. So I figured, "Cheap watch. Must be finally breaking down."

Armitron Watch - Beeping at :08 after....

So this morning I tossed the Armitron in a drawer, with a number of other old watches, because I can't throw these things out for some reason. I then put on a newer watch, one I hadn't had the chance to wear yet. It's a tough G-Shock that will probably serve me well anyways, because I'm hard on watches. It had been sitting in a basket on my desk for a few weeks now.

It's a beauty, with big digital numbers and an armored, square face. I headed out in my Mom's truck, headed to the grocery store. I went there, got some things, headed home. On the way back, I heard a beep. I looked at my shiny new watch........8 minutes after the hour.

New G-Shock - Same Problem

New Weight Bench

2011-11-11T21:13:00.000-05:00

I hate going to the gym. No, I don't mean I hate working out, I just hate going to the public membership gym-you know, the one that's packed most nights? I used to like going to the gym, but this is a weird town, kinda' small, a lot of college kids, and the young people don't have any manners and they don't put the weights away.

Leg Press Machine, as I often find it.......

Bunch of dickheads don't put their weights away. What is up with that?

So, having the day off today I went on a hunt for a decent weight bench I could add to my backyard squat rack, so that I might actually be able to get a decent workout from my backyard setup and sometimes skip that awful trip to the shitty public gym............

It's amazing how few choices there are in decent weight benches out there. I finally found one on sale at Dicks, for $112.00, but I needed a ratchet wrench to put it together. I finally found one at Home Depot, a kit, for around $19.00. I don't have a pre-picture, 'cuz I didn't expect to be smashing the fuck out of it with a rubber mallet, but I do have a post picture of the remains.

So I get the bench home in the box in parts, and I proceed to begin to put it together, but first I have to get the new ratchet set out of the plastic kit-box. I then discover, after about 15 minutes of trying, that there is no apparent way to actually open the kit to get the proper size ratchet piece out to fit to the new wrench. So I attempt to open this thing up, by totally muscling it apart, but my hand slips and I cut my thumb on the thing. I then lost my temper and smashed it to smithereens with a rubber mallet:

My solution for hard-to-open packages

Blood on the new Husky wrench from my sliced thumb

Current state of my Husky wrench kit

Still, the bench was completely assembled.

Take that, punk-ass Husky wrench kit!

Secret Service Secrets

2011-11-11T09:48:00.000-05:00

Impeach Judges

2011-11-09T11:20:00.002-05:00

November - Week 2

2011-11-08T08:45:00.000-05:00

"... the last thing the power establishment wants is a conscious, informed public capable of critical thinking, this is why a continuously fraudulent zeitgeist output via religion, the mass media and the educational system exists. It is in their interest to keep you distracted in a naive bubble and they are doing a damn good job of it ..." Peter Joseph, Director of the film, "Zeitgeist: The Movie"