First we had a water main break so our water was off for most of the day. They still have to come back and fix it tomorrow, so the water will be turned off again in the morning. To top things off, our electricity went out about 6:30 during a big thunderstorm. It came back on for a few minutes, but stayed off until almost 11:30. When it went out, I was in the middle of doing a full backup of my Linux box.
Local
Eat Locally, Think Globally
I read about the 100 Mile Diet on Newsvine and it sounds interesting. When the average North American sits down to eat, each ingredient has typically traveled at least 1,500 miles from farm to plate. That’s a total disconnection from where our food is coming from.
Rising fuel prices are raising food prices (along with almost everything else) and they’ll continue to go up in the future, so it’s important for us to start using more local produce and depending less on food transported long distances.
Officials say terror suspects lacked the means to match ambitions
These guys sound more like a lone group of bumbling kooks than an organized terrorist cell. They’re probably harmless, but kooks can be dangerous no matter how inept they are.
First storm of the season
Tropical Storm Alberto formed over the weekend and it’s expected to strengthen into a category 1 hurricane soon. It’s expected to hit the gulf coast but will probably bring us some rain here.
Hurricane Season
Today is the official first day of the hurricane season and it started out with a bang. I woke up at around 6AM to a big thunderstorm, which lasted a few hours. Around 10AM our power went out and stayed out until a little after 12PM.
Local teen dies after being wounded in Tel Aviv
On April 17, Daniel Wultz of Weston captured international attention after he and his father, Tuly, were injured during a Passover trip to Israel. Tuly Wultz was dining with his devout son on the patio of the kosher Mayor’s Falafel when a suicide bomber, thought to be a member of the Islamic Jihad, blew up a bag of explosives and nails. Ten people were killed and about 60 were hurt.
After many surgeries, more prayers and an immeasurable amount of hope, Daniel died Sunday, a month after shrapnel tore through his body.
Members of Daniel Wultz’s tightknit school and religious community were shocked to learn of the 16-year-old’s death. Family and friends visited the young basketball player and asked for prayers on Web sites as his condition first seemed to improve, then deteriorated. They shuddered when he lost part of a leg and gasped when he lost his life, a victim of a terrorist act.
“Daniel really put up a fight because he really wanted to live,” said Debbie Gober, vice president of Daniel’s high school, David Posnack Hebrew Day School. “This was a tragedy. It’s not the news you want to hear on Mother’s Day.” (excerpted from Sun-Sentinel story)
This cycle of violence needs to stop. We don’t need more attacks in retaliation. Instead we need peace talks & negotiation. Both sides have the right to coexist and need to acknowledge that. Although Israel has done plenty to provoke the Palestinians by displacing them from their land and not allowing them to live as full members of society, it doesn’t give them the right to kill innocent people.
I hear the same intense hatred coming from both sides and as long as they keep their intolerant attitude this will never change. Violence solves nothing. There needs to be peace talks to clear the air and work out their differences. They have no choice but to learn to get along. The Palestinians need to be allowed to live as full-fledged members of Israeli society with the right to work and live wherever they want and in return they need to stop suicide attacks on innocent people.
Sudden Storm
We had a sudden heavy rainstorm this afternoon. After the rain stopped, I found most of the plants in my garden knocked down & flattened. A little before 6PM we lost power for about 20 minutes.
Annual Meeting
My condo had the annual meeting tonight. I’m on the board for the second year, although we didn’t have to vote since we only had 7 candidates and there are 7 board members. We did have to vote for or against reserves, as we do every year. Since we don’t currently have reserves, if that changed, our maintenance would go up by about $100 a month. Like most years, we didn’t have enough votes for a quorum, so we had to start knocking on doors to get people to vote. We finally made it & the vote was against reserves.
Not again
Yet another tropical depression has formed and it’s expected to develop into tropical storm Gamma, the 24th named storm this season. Thankfully it looks like it probably won’t affect us.
We only have a little more than two weeks left in this hurricane season and it’s been a pretty wild one. I don’t want to go through another season like this and they expect the next few years to be more of the same. I’m just about ready to leave Florida rather than go through it again.
Getting back to normal
Life is slowly getting back to normal after Wilma. My entire complex now has power and many traffic signals at major intersections are now working, but a lot are still out so driving can still be a bit of a challenge. The grocery stores are fully stocked so we can now buy food, and there are no more lines at gas stations.