From: avdh@dazixco.ingr.com (Alain van der Heide)
Subject: Sunny Florida
Reply-To: avdh@dazixco.ingr.com
Organization: Integraph - Boulder
Date: Mon, 4 Jan 1993 18:27:37 GMT

What an exciting Xmas vacation.  I had the unalloyed pleasure of spending a
week in my in-laws condo in scenic Boca Raton, Florida.  This is a peeve.

Some might be thinking, "What is he, nuts?  Bitching about having spent a week
in Florida during the winter?"  Trust me, anyone who looks at me askance for
peeving about such a thing has probably never visited south Florida, and
almost certainly never lived there.  I lived in Florida for 12 years.  I now
live in Colorado, and the thought of moving back to Boca Raton is enough to
make me twitch.

There are many things right about the good ol' USA, but there are many things
which could stand changing.  South Florida is a monument to most of the
latter.

First there's rudeness.  I grew up in the New York City area, and I've had
much better luck asking for directions there than anywhere in Dade, Broward,
or Palm Beach counties.  Many believe that New York is the rudest city in the
US.  I don't think that's true.  While there are some phenomenally nasty
people there, I think the dominant traits of the average New Yorker are an
inability to suffer fools gladly, and a tendancy to do almost everything 30%
faster than people in the rest of the country.  So, as long as you are
reasonably quick on the uptake, many New Yorkers will actually treat you like
a human.  I think there is a secret campaign in New York to round up citizens
who really and truly are nasty, and give them all one-way tickets to either
Miami, Ft. Lauderdale, or West Palm Beach, which is where I flew to.

I got off the plane, and the first thing I see is a middle aged woman,
grandrugrat in tow, walking against pedestrian traffic in the terminal,
looking back over her shoulder instead of in front.  She bumps into some
teens, who were also paying less than full attention to what obstacles might
lie in their path.  The biddy yells "Why don't you watch where the fuck you're
going!"  Very pleasant.

Then there's the atmosphere of mindless glitz and trendiness.  Someone has yet
to convey to the population the fact that the '80s are over, and conspicuous
consumption is considered A Bad Thing.  This pursuit of tackiness takes many
forms.  Clothing is one.  I must admit that because of the amusement factor,
it is an !peeve to walk around Town Center Mall in Boca, and look at some of
the bizarre getups people have gotten themselves up in.  I think with some,
the three requirements for buying an article of clothing are 1 - It must have
a designer label, 2 - It must be expensive, and 3 - It must be totally
unsuited for their physique.  Just a tip here, women:  If you're under 5'2"
and over 150 lbs, those horizontally striped tights are less than alluring.

Cars are another.  Mercedes and Porsche must ship about 50% of their US bound
production to south Florida.  Ferrari 3X8s and TR/512s are almost
commonplace.  It would take an F40 to raise eyebrows.  I have nothing against
high performance iron, but it makes no sense there.  The roads are perfectly
straight and perfectly flat.  All you need is plenty o' torque to get away
from traffic lights and several tons of AC.  You don't want an engine which
has to be wound to 5k RPM to get any power, and with the vision impaired
motorists out there in their Crown Victorias, you don't want a hyperexpensive
land rocket with blind spots the size of Wyoming.  But, such cars show that
you've got bucks, and that's the only thing that matters.

This attitude does not only extend to those who can afford the high priced
spreads.  Before we moved out, our old next door neighbors were complaining
that they didn't have any medical insurance because it was too expensive.
Well, since we moved, they still haven't gotten any insurance, but they have
traded their Buick in on a BMW.  So, if one of their two kids gets sick they
probably won't be able to pay a doctor, but they do have a Bimmer.  Makes
sense to me.  We also had another former neighbor who had a Benz, a 'vette,
and a 4x4 Ford pickup, parked in front of a house which was worth somewhat
less than the aggregate value of the rolling stock.  The mortgage was
foreclosed and he had to move out, but he still had his cars.

The glitz is one aspect of the general atmosphere of egregious fakery.  Here
are some Florida Realtor catch phrases, and what they really mean:

Waterfront - Drainage ditch or mosquito infested pond abuts one of your
property lines.

Ocean Access - The drainage ditch goes under some low brides and through some
locks, and connects to some other ditches which eventually drain into the
ocean.  If you want to take a boat to the ocean, it had better be a dingy.
Either that, or you should buy a trailer.

"At" anything - Somewhere near.  Boca Raton is on the ocean.  A house or condo
which is "At Boca Raton" is guaranteed to be close to the ocean.  Relative to
Kansas that is.

Now we come to driving.  I realize that driving peeves are frequently
overdone, but I can't avoid talking about south Florida without at least
touching on the subject.  Succintly, any weird/stupid/hostile driving behavior
you may have seen/read about/dreamed of occurs every day.  There's the typical
Cadillac/Lincoln driver's way of entering a major artery, which is to wait
until traffic is bearing down on him at 50 MPH or so, then pull out from the
driveway in a wide sweeping turn, and cross all the traffic lanes once if not
twice (in other words, if the driveway is on the right hand side of the road,
he'll pull all the way out into the left lane, and then maybe sweep back to
the right hand lane).  There's the Crown Vic/Impala drivers in the left lane
of the Interstate at 50 MPH.  There's the lost tourist who stops in the middle
of US1 to look at his map.  There's the redneck in the pickup who maintains a
safe following distance of several Angstroms from your rear bumper.  The South
Americans who don't realize that red lights mean "stop" not "stop if it's not
too much trouble."  And of course, the Brits who keep forgetting that we drive
on the right in the States.

Let's examine the things Florida is famous for: its scenic beauty and its
climate.

We are talking about a swamp with a thin strip of beach and civilization
around it.  The native trees are mostly these ugly little pines.  Most of the
palms are imported.  The beach sand is mostly a dingy brown, and compared to
be beaches of Long Island and New Jersey, it's coarse.  The areas are
esthetically pleasing are usually man-made.

For about two months of the year, the temperature is pleasant, but it's still
rather humid.  For most of the rest of the year, you are looking at daytime
temps near 90 f and relative humidity near 100%.  If you are unlucky enough to
wear a tie and jacket to work, you can count on them sticking to you from the
moment you leave your house until you enter your office.  Mildew is a way of
life.  As is rust.

With warm humid weather, you also find an interesting variety of fauna.
Mostly insectile fauna.  My mother-in-law maintains a level of cleanliness in
her kitchen which would shame any restaurant, most OR's and some IC
manufacturing clean rooms.  Yet, put your glass down on the counter to pour
yourself some juice, and you will see a trail of little sugar ants wandering
about, vainly searching for sustenence.

Don't forget the palmetto bugs.  Imagine a cockroach 3 inches long (not
counting antennae).  Now give this giant cockroach the ability to flutter
short distances, say up to about 10 feet.  Oh yeah, also give them the ability
to chew through thin plastic.  If your food is not in a can, or a totally
sealed box, it had better be in the fridge.  You can't get rid of them.  If
you have the exterminator come in once a month, you can keep them down to the
point where you'll only see one or two when you flip on the light in the
middle of the night.  You'll still find turds which are almost large enough to
have come from a rodent on your dishes and in your glasses.

Well enough of this.  As you can see, Florida is this nasty little phallic
appendage, hanging off of the US's crotch.  A veritable monument to greed,
ugliness, and stupidity (I forgot to mention that Florida, which has a much
wealthier than average population ranks 48th out of the 50 states in spending
on things like human services and education).  Castration with a nuke or ten
would not be a bad thing.

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+-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Alain van der Heide                      |  This is the way the world ends  |
| Intergraph Electronics Products          |  This is the way the world ends  |
| "The opinions expressed above are mine-  |  This is the way the world ends  |
| mineminemine, and you can't have them."  |  Not with a bang, but with a whi

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