Well I got thrown a curve. My computer got fried. Since I have another lap top at home I didn’t want to buy another one. The Android phone and my ITouch were okay for email but not for uploading photos into a site like you reading. Typing on the latter two is a labour. So I thought now is the time to purchase and IPad. Worst mistake ever.

A lot of hype but a dead end as a real full service computer. It limits what you do and any software is Apple only. As a fore instance I simply wanted to use another browser like Firefox and not Apple’s Safari. Not possible. Want to upload pictures from the IPad to the Internet can’t do. It will not allow it because you have to have Adobe’s Flash player. It won’t allow you to upload it and on and on. It’s nothing but an IPhone or ITouch on steroids. I already have an ITouch with everything an IPad has to offer. Caveat Emptor.

Today is Thursday and we again had breakfast at Flo’s on Los Olas. I had lox and cream cheese on a bagel with all the other good stuff like red onions and capers. Elizabeth had a Western Omelet on toast. She could only eat half since it was so big. Great breakfast, great ambiance and great service again. I didn’t realize how sprawling the restaurant was until I went to the washroom. To get there I passed through two other rooms and each one had 10 to 12 tables in them. On the wall of one of the rooms were pictures of Marilyn Monroe. They covered the wall 12 high by 20 wide, pictures of her from different times in her life. When she was Norma Rae looking like Rosie the Riveter. Early cheesecake photos with a fresh young face. Pictures from Playboy. The famous white skirt photo with her dress blown up by the subway grate.

When I came back out there was a 70 year old hippie sitting there in his entire splendor. He had on a squat porcupine straw hat with small Christmas bulbs and shiny strings. A face that had his life etched on it. A knock off Tommy Bahama shirt with well worn edges on his collar. Around his neck it looked like six Hawaiian Christmas Lays. Rumpled shorts, running shoes now gray that were once white and no socks. Oh and add large round female type sun glasses. I wanted to take a picture of this native Floridian for my Autobahn collection of rare birds but was embarrassed to ask. Not to worry since each day I have run into 2 or 3 of them and I have a telephoto lenses.

For lunch we met up with Ellen Eisen. She was in Florida at a hotel on Los Olas Blvd a day before taking a cruise out of Pt Everglades. We met her at the hotel lobby and started off down the street. We hadn’t gone 10 yards when I ran into my great friend Howard Reinneger and his lady Darlene having lunch in front of the hotel. Talk about your 6 degrees of separation. They too were leaving the following day on a cruise. They asked us to join them for lunch which we did ignoring the weighty calories hiding in what we ate.

That evening we met up again with Ellen and another couple from Toronto Jeff and Linda Engle. I suggested we go to a crab shack called the Rustic Inn. It is located on the west side of the Ft Lauderdale airport on a canal. It has been there since 1955 when it was still a swamp in the area. Unless you know a local or read some article by an adventuresome foodie you would never find the place.

The big deal is the garlic crab or Alaskan crab, or blue crab, or golden crab or Dungee crab, and the odd item for the land lubber like chicken or ribs. The whole place is well rustic. Large tables with groups of 6, 8, 10 or more. Before the meal they come and put a plastic bib around your neck so you look like a kid waiting for your Pabulum. Then they bring the crabs in bowls smothered with garlic cause. You are given a small wood mallet to crack the outer shell. The secret to smashing the shell is to hit mallet on its edge so the blow will more effectively crack the shell. The sound at certain times when everyone is eating is like a carpenter’s union hall with hammer beats reverberating.

Before the meal the P.A. would announce someone’s birthday and everyone would hammer their tables with their mallets to salute the individual. Something along the lines at a wedding when you tinkle the glasses to salute the bride and groom who then dutifully kiss to show their ardent love. At the end of the meal the table is a battle zone with pieces of shells, wet table covering, greasy glasses, wet buttered hands, crumpled serviettes in short a mess. There is no etiquette book to cover how you could properly eat crab by smashing it to uncover its meat. Only one more item would finish this Floridian Saturnalia and that was key lime pie to die for.

Time to go home but I told all assembled to go to the washroom and wash up. I didn’t want my new van’s interior greased up with butter from their hands. We got in the van I played music from my ITouch from the 50’s stuff like Bleu Suede Shoes, Wake up Little Susie, Blueberry Hill, Keep walking and more. We all sang along like were on a high school date in the 50’s. Ah welcome back to not the future but the past.

This page has been typed at a Fed Ex workstation so the news will get out.