FPL: The Saga Continues

Florida Light & Power (FPL) came by today to install a new meter. These new meters will allow FPL to read the meter over the City-wide Wi-Fi system that Hollywood implemented a couple of years ago. So now, our taxes are paying for a remote system for not only the city to read our water meters, but now private business to use it to read our electric meters.

You think that is saving us money? Not hardly. Electricity rates are going up. I guess it is to pay for all those new meters and to pay for the Wi-Fi systems to read it in places where there is no city-wide Wi-Fi systems. I guess now, there are also more jobs lost as meter readers lose jobs in a job market that is now topping 20%.

Isn't it rich.

Today's Person of Interest

Casimir Funk (1884–1967) was a Poland-born U.S. biochemist. He showed that a number of diseases, including scurvy, rickets, beriberi, and pellagra, were each caused by the deficiency of a particular dietary component. He coined the term vitamins for the chemicals concerned.

The Forgotten Holiday

Today is Flag Day.

Flag Day is what I call the forgotten holiday. For the most part, there are no sales, school is over for the summer, so no child in the country has been looking forward to a break in classes. You can ask an average American what day is Flag Day and I would say most would just give you a blank stare. Of course, you could also ask people "What day does New Year's Day fall on?" and you would get the same 'deer caught in the headlights' look.

How sad.

I remember growing up in Fredericksburg, VA and how the streets downtown on National Holidays were lined with Old Glory to celebrate our strength and unity. These flags were not these piss-ant flags you can keep in your pocket or purse or that you see on auto antennas, but they were full-sized flags on metal poles that were place in specially concreted holes on the edge of the sidewalks. A slight breeze would whip hundreds of flags to engulf the sidewalk with Red, White & Blue that would swell the pride in even the hardest of hearts.

When the need for national pride couldn't be more important as now, what a wonderful day to display pride in our flag: A warm (if not downright hot) summer's day to celebrate the freedoms that we as US citizens enjoy. This day should also signal the time to stop and hear the battle cry for fighting in unity; to engage and solve the problems that we as a country now face.

With two wars, financial and job-front problems, the BP disaster in the gulf, the oil spill in Utah, the storms and flash floods that have killed so many this past weekend, the desperate need for national pride has never been so essential to get these and other emergencies taken care of.

We can do it. We've done it before. Through meticulous preparation and using American ingenuity and perseverance, Old Glory will lead the way as we will continue our legacy of problem solving, innovation, prosperity and good will.

Fighting the fb habit

I didn't realize it had been so long since I've blogged. Why?

Well ....

I have found that Facebook (fb) is very addicting ... to the point where too much time on fb is causing much distraction when trying to get important things done around the house and other important goals that I'm trying to reach.

Realizing this, I've decided to take a break for a few weeks to break myself from going to fb for 2+ hours at a time for four to five times a day; And instead get other things done.

I'm calling it my "Summer Break from fb" and will only last a couple of weeks, but long enough to break that habit of reaching for the mouse and logging into fb when I really need to be doing something important.

I need to learn NOT to use fb as a procrastination tool, but as a connection to family and friends, both old and new.