The celebrations following the death of Osama Bin Laden, and especially some of the vitriol from media commentators reminded me of the piece of prose written in 1624 by John Donne:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece
of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by
the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as
well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were; any man’s
death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and
therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for
thee.
From Twitter: @physicus retweeted @doclorraine pointing to an amazing little sound generator at iNudge. Select instruments, click on a few squares and in a couple of minutes you get something like this (click the small play button in the bottom right hand corner). Very clever, and a fun way to waste a few minutes.
Blogging can be a solitary experience, but I’ve found that critical input can come from the most unexpected places. Snickers (to my right) casts a critical eye over my post in her role as editor, whilst Twinkle proof reads the posts. It can be difficult to discern their feedback, but they like to give it nonetheless.
What is the fascination with looking at things that are way beyond one’s purchasing ability? We spent the afternoon with a couple of hundred other people gawking (snooping?) around properties in Royal Palm Yacht and Country Club, “the most sought after location in Boca Raton”. Every year, most of the properties for sale are subject to a grand free-for-all open house event. This year, 44 properties ranging from $765,000 to $9.75m were thrown open.
At the lower price, the expectation is that the new owner will drive a bulldozer straight through the front wall and erect something new. At the high end – well, who cares? 8000 sq ft under air, 6 bedrooms, 8.1 baths (what is 0.1 of a bathroom?). The guest wing (yes, wing) is bigger than our house. His and her bathrooms each several hundred square feet in size. You could live in the house for a year and never bump into the other residents.
The surprising (and pleasing) thing was that after seeing eight or so properties all listed at over $4m we decided that despite their high ceilings, Sub Zero fridges and opulent furnishings we rather prefer our little home. It might not have a club room with a billiard table and triple flat panel TV arrangement, but it doesn’t have a $100k per year property tax either.
Hello? Hello? Is this thing on? Right. Let’s get started.
Here we go then. Yet another of the teeming multitude of blogs exploding across the interweb. These musings will be infrequent, somewhat random in subject matter, and aimed at no-one in particular.
Being British but living in the good old U S of A is a source of interest for some, irrelevant to others and offensive to a rare few. It does accord me insights into the daily life of a good number of people which I find by turns surprising, funny, depressing, mundane but almost always significantly different to life in the UK.
Posts will cover my work life (at Hitachi Data Systems), the work-related web site I created (www.sabausers.org), technology (especially iPhone apps), my life in South Florida, and whatever else happens across my path.
Blogging can be a solitary experience, but I’ve found that critical input can come from the most unexpected places. Snickers (to my right) casts a critical eye over my post in her role as editor, whilst Twinkle proof reads the posts. It can be difficult to discern their feedback, but they like to give it nonetheless.
What is the fascination with looking at things that are way beyond one’s purchasing ability? We spent the afternoon with a couple of hundred other people gawking (snooping?) around properties in