How Much Memory?

My new (last January which is some time in computer-years) MacBook Pro came with 1 GB of memory. So far I haven't used all of it. However, I have gotten my first digital camera and the applications to work with pictures and design my sites do gobble up memory. The MenuMeters telltales in the menubar are now at 668 used and 356MB in the green. It is plenty but I am not really doing much of anything except writing this.

Another GB is waiting for me at the mail drop at the hospital to be picked up tomorrow and (with luck) easily installed. Buy more is always the by-word for computers. My iBook G3 is still happily humming on its maximum 640MB, the MacBook Pro can fit 3GB. One source for IBM memory as well as Apple and other manufacturers is called, amazingly, The Memory Store.

Sadly (or not) I am an application junkie who wants to have every app that might one day be of necessity hanging around, up-to-date and ready for action. All too often I do need them. Even the little freeware apps that make digital life so much easier -- iResize, QuickSilver, SpeedFreak, Vienna -- and the big apps like Skype, Lightroom, iPhoto and even the great browser, Firefox, which sometimes decides to soak up a big chunk of memory.

Technology
Computers

The Medical Solution

This trip to the States has, as always, been focused on medical care. Mexico may not have broad broadband, cheap electricity, discount stores and gadgets galore but it does have fresher food, more courtesy, more color and an abundance of beauty. It is a cheaper place to live than is the US.

However, it is medical care, hospitals, emergency services, medical education and respect for nurses where the United States shines. Sure, we desperately need better medical coverage by the government, financial oversight and an equal opportunity for all to share in the exceptional care, but we do have exceptional care.

My trips over the past 5 or 6 years, since a cardiac emergency brought me here by air ambulance, have relied on the services primarily of Baptist Hospital and its CardioVascular Institute. There could be some question if it is as good as I think it is except that it is 13 years since physicians promised me 1 year, 3 years or, possibly, 5 years with congestive heart failure. When I came into Miami from Mexico in the year 2000 it was in what is called "last stage" CHF, in constant and great chest pain. I am opposed to heart transplantation for myself so that limited the alternatives. Baptist has taken good care of me over the years.

One of the reasons is that it is a magnet hospital for nurses. An institution that works hard to provide more than just a job. They help staff with child care, provide shuttle buses to the parking lots and, most of all, provide respect to employees. Nursing care is based on team approaches and is carefully supervised for goals and results. After working many years as a freelance photographer for a statewide trade association for hospital administrators I have some knowledge of the field (surprising how much an intelligent photographer can learn while smiling and keeping his mouth shut).

The complexities of running such an institution (totally opposite from the horrors of the NY State Psychiatric Hospital where I worked for years prior to becoming a photographer) have some help from modern digital services -- software and hardware. One benefit is healthcare management software that allows medical team leaders/supervisors to monitor and assist their team members to meet goals for patient care.

Baptist has also been named one of the most wired workplaces as well as one of the 100 best places to work. Each employee seems to have a communicator, cell phone, computer terminal, etc. When I had serious troubles in a cardiac recovery room after a cardiac catheterization to replace an arterial stent, the nurse responded immediately to my call, sang out that her patient showed ( whatever, since I had my mind on staying alive) and the charge nurse iimmediately called my cardiologist by cell or communicator and orders were immediately given, steps taken and the doctor was shortly by my side (Dr. Efrain Gonzalez of Miami Arrhythmia). Here I still am so the system of keeping staff content and loyal to an institution works.

Internet
Health
Medicine
Technology

The Continuing Internet Home Hunt

My house for sale in Bacalar, Mexico. ©Howard Dratch, 2007

For this expatriate considering repatriation or relocation south of the border, the hunt that continues to obsess me is not just for a house or condo or apartment but for the very concept of where home lies. Can I afford to live in this expensive and, often, tense country that is, above all, my country?

Should I join the expatriate, urban homesteaders in Yucatan where I would have to pay cash and renovate but would end with colonial elegance of tile floors and courtyards? Where I will have servants to care for me and, hopefully, about me as I do now or in the States where I will have robot servants -- dishwashers, microwaves, HDTV, mortgages, car mortgages and the ability to go most anywhere (with exceptions since I will probably live around Miami) and speak English.

It will boil down to money and credit and the big decision about the level of tension that my heart will survive. America is tense and scared -- for good reason. The weight of its heavy expense is a constant tension for those of us who are not rolling in the money that surrounds many Americans.

I have fixated on Miami because of my faith in some ofhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif my physicians and of the care I receive at Baptist Hospital. I feel my health will be best served by being near BHSSF. However, there is more of America than just Southern Florida.



A Seacoast Realty home for sale in Richlands, NC.

Tonight I took a virtual side-trip to the Wilmington, North Carolina area to look over some of the offerings there. My wife and I had stopped on a tour of the southern coast before we ended up in Mexico because it had history, culture, beauty and the sea. The housing stock in its historic center was impressive in its homely beauty. Wilmington NC real estate too, is not cheap -- except perhaps when compared to other American coastal areas.

Returning Slowly To Life

Photo ©Howard Dratch, 2007. Glass-wall reflection from Miami Art Museum courtyard.

There has been a hiatus from blogging that has been unavoidable. This trip to the US was to undergo medical testing and procedures here with the latest equipment and techniques. Two of the three were just that. Cataract surgery that was reasonably painless, clean, successful and is healing well. Then there was a nuclear stress test done in two parts that returned pretty good results without threats of further surgery or impending crises. The chest X-ray was digital (astounding quality able to be transmitted to any doctor or facility with an Internet connection almost instantly. The blood test probably cost 10 times the one in Mexico and was probably more than 10 times as complete and accurate (not to mention clean).

Then there was surgery which was promised to be ambulatory -- enter at 10AM, cut at 2PM and leave by late afternoon. The surgeon, a referral from a doctor to whom I had been referred, has not earned my undying respect. I had to spend the night in the hospital which pleased me immensely considering the great pain I was in and the problems that arose about 3AM (that is when problems like to arise). Having the great nursing staff of Baptist Hospital of Miami instantly with me, gentle, competent and reassuring made the difference between a night of panic and fear or ambulances and just their help and compassion. The nursing profession is found best at magnet hospitals like Baptist where nurses are given respect and benefits they deserve. Luckily my cardiologist, Efrain Gonzalez, had insisted that the surgery be performed at Baptist rather than Doctors' Hospital where the surgeon is based in order that the Cardio-Vascular Institute and Dr. Gonzalez be close by and to guarantee the best nursing care.

I am recuperating very, very slowly. My movement is severely limited, the pain great and I feel at least 80 years old as I shuffle along.

I continue to look at condo complexes to rent or buy into either around Miami or, perhaps, near Fort Myers/Naples. I am still refusing to consider the idea of "55+" communities, "retirement communities". I think it is bad enough that I am old, the rest of the world needn't be. I like to see a variety of people, ages, sexes, income ranges, education, colors, ethnicity. That is the nature of the world. Just shopping for golf courses, golf equipment like Callaway Golf would not be enough. I need to swim my laps, read my books, blog my blogs, and sometimes talk to people of all sorts.

Health
Medicine
Technology

Water Lilly Tryptich And JigSaw Puzzles

I will be writing a review -- no, more of a travel article -- on the show I so enjoyed at the Miami Art Museum yesterday. One piece in the show called "Power of Ten" made up of gifts of art works to the museum on its 10th anniversary ( May 4 to October 28) that pleased, entertained and amused me was Waterlillies (After Monet) by Vik Muniz (2002).

As I entered that gallery a tri-fold wall with three largish, framed works greeted me. I thought for a moment that they were small copies of the famous Monet work I had so often been entranced by at the MOMA in New York. But then after a moment I realized that they are not paintings but assemblages of cut paper that somehow come off with the feeling of the painting, not copying it just imparting a bit of its flavor.

It was only 1996 when MAM began collecting works rather than just exhibiting those curated by other institutions. Miami, after all, is a brash, new city. "Culture", after all, in Florida is usually the newest roller coaster at the amusement park shaped like a mouse or owned by a beer brewery. Miami is now stepping up toward more international stature and looking to show itself off as more that a mouse heaven for the kindergarten set.

There is, in this work by Sr. Muniz, some of the feeling of a jigsaw puzzle assembled by an artist to mirror but not copy a famous painting. It works. It is successful. Coupled with the Tamayo show it is a fine way to spend and afternoon.

Throw Some Glass Into The Fire

Again I headed for Miami's Design District to see what Miami deems its culture. After yesterday's excellent (if misdirected visit to MAM) visit to see the Tamayo show I thought the worse to happen would be that I stumbled onto another interesting corner of the city. I even had my new MetroDade Visitor Pass. For $19 there is unlimited mass transit fares for a consecutive 7 day period. Good thing since the day turned into a hot, wild goose chase.

In a totally non-pedestrian city like those of Florida one must make detailed plans, carry directions, exact addresses and a transit map. Otherwise a rental car or taxi (exorbitantly expensive in a spread-out city) is a necessity. I found the performing arts center, the Carnival Arena but the Design District always seems further away than I thought. It somehow did not seem worth any more bother. Perhaps another week or another visit. Maybe it would be fun to live there and push myself back into producing some works again. Maybe I would like to play at designing my interior spaces rather than just throwing some stuff together and then covering it with junk, pictures, files and books. Total chaos is the stuff of anti-design.



I did find a new substance for those with gas log heaters and outdoor grills. It is called fire glass and replaces the fake logs I always snickered at with colorful glass which then flames. It comes in myriad colors and is a fascinating thought for the pyromaniac in me.

Snailmail The Elegant Way

Mailbox available at Seattle Luxe. com.

Recently the thought of re-decorating my world whether a new house in Mexico or a condo or apartment around Miami has been piquing my interest. I do not look forward to changing my life (or maybe I do) but some facets will be fun. Today I set out to visit Miami's new Design District and look around as a possible place to live.


PeopleMover in Downtown Miami. ©Howard Dratch, 2007.

I never got there. I did get to ride the MetroMover -- an elevated people mover that circles the Downtown, Brickell and Design areas. I rode the wrong one, returned back to my starting point and decided to visit the Miami Art Museum where I truly enjoyed a show of Ruffino Tamayo's paintings and a fine video installation from the MOMA in New York. I plan an article for Blogcritics Magazine on the shows. Miami is hardly a hotbed of culture but is doing its best to improve the selection of shows, galleries, performing arts and other un-southern activities.



Miami Art Museum and Leger sculpture. ©Howard Dratch, 2007.

Here in the US, in Miami I am receiving some snail mail but the existence of Skype, broadband and my email accounts has made a great change in the way we run our lives. Still, when I set up shop -- a homestead -- mailboxes will still be expected. It may as well be interesting.

Arts
Culture
Technology

Universities in the News and as Alma Mater

Old Penn from replay photos.com

I have an article today in Blogcritics Magazine about University of Florida cops viciously attacking a student and shooting him for asking a heated question of Senator Kerry. It is a frightening story of police turned violent and totally out of control.

The fault is theirs but, in the end, is the fault of an institution and administration that has obviously abdicated its responsibility to ethics, morality, academic freedom and the American rule of law. Sadly, many Americans of whom many are young do not vaguely understand the concept of freedom of speech, assembly, expression and assembly. They do not understand the very basic nature of the American ideal. It seems that they have come to believe that police have the power to do anything they wish to whomever they please. It is a dangerous situation for our nation. It may be worse than those WWII fascist sympathizers who believed that making the trains run on time was more important than liberty. Now it is "security" that has taken precedence over any protection of constitutional guarantees.

At the University of Florida its graduates and students will hopefully be deluging the administration with the call for massive changes in its "security forces" from aggressive and hateful violence against students to protection of them. They will hopefully be calling for an investigation of an administration that has fostered an atmosphere of repression and violence. The faculty -- who have not reacted in a properly outraged wave against violence and repression -- also need to be investigated for their lack of leadership.

The University of Florida may not be an alma mater its 21st century students will look back on with love, respect or wistful memories as do many alumni of other schools.

One company specializing in campus photographs, murals, framed images and other memorabilia offers Penn State football images. Happily, since I am not interested in football, they offer images of more scenic and academic parts of the Penn State campus and of other schools even including the U. of Miami around the corner from me.

I just recently visited my alma mater with all the love and nostalgia that such a visit should engender and posted a picture of the lovely formal garden at Blithewood where my wife and I were married. That is the way in which college experiences should be remembered. The U. of Florida like Virginia Tech may be put in a different category.

Education

Florida University Declares War On Students

What did they do to my country while I was gone. Florida and its sub-standard university system has never shown much favor for freedom, education or liberty but has now declared war against students. The University of Florida has obviously hired and trained its wannabe cops to shoot students on any pretext. They are now visually proven as a newly violent form of thought police.

OK. Perhaps after all the headlines and investigations the University of Florida might (hopefully after paying the multi-million dollar fine it so richly desreves) agree to allow its students to actually ask questions. In other educational institutions this has been allowed for some time, but this is Florida. The young man is lucky the southern cops hadn't brought their dogs, riot guns and water cannon to control people who ask questions in public. Perhaps not.

Those students who did not go to a Florida state university just for the famed partying, fraternity hazings, semi-professional teams playing with their balls and liberal alcoholism, should now begin searching for decent educational institutions where they may be safe from the bubba thought police.

Roses Trigger Memories

Photos © Howard Dratch, 2007

Visiting the garden at Blithewood where I was married I encountered a memory-laden rose. It was perfumed with old memories, sweet memories, sadness and joy.

The formal garden at Blithewood, now the Jerome Levy Institute for Economics of Bard College, was originally designed by Andrew Jackson Downing in the mid-19th c. and has been continued through a number of mansions on the Hudson River estate. In the 1950s the property was given to Bard College and was used as a womens' dorm for many years. It is one of the gems of the Hudson River Valley.



Flowers
Gardens

Food, Gardens & Life

Walking in the growing and surprisingly affluent and energetic city of White Plains, New York I was impressed with America's incredible surfeit of both things -- a world of cell-phoned kids and ostentatiously driven adults -- and foods. Some of the foods, the variety and super-sized portions may explain the growing stature of my people -- in a negative sense. That "large coke" I ordered somewhere wasn't the large coke of my youth. It was a small, paper barrel with a good part of a gallong of the soda pop.

On the other hand was this great Japanese fruit and vegetable market in White Plains near Mamaroneck Avenue that had a magnificent salad bar with fruits, salads and entrees by the pound, Asian and Latino foods and dark chocolate bars not to be missed -- dark chocolate, reduced sugar bars of great taste (yes, I was weak and had one) and flowers outside to brighten the bleak, urban feel of the urban Northeast.

The concept of a garden of life -- of nutrients, whole foods and organic foods has not been ignored in this community where affluence is the order of the day.

Food
Whole Foods
Health

Finding Christmas Gifts Takes Time, Needs Time

The increasingly early advertising blitzes for national holidays -- Advertising Christmas when Halloween isn't yet here, for instance -- would be annoying except for those gifts that require not only thought and very personal feelings but time to prepare.

Christmas gift ideas is one method to strike real emotion in the recipients of gifts. Personal and created gifts that cannot have come from anyone else and mean something very special to the people to whom they are given. Canvas on Demand takes digital (like my wondrous new Nikon D40X) images as well as traditional and turns them into canvases with many variations.

Possibilities are endless and they offer a 100% guarantee. Pictures can be colorized or turned into sepia, manipulated, restored, cropped, texturized and other manners of making a highly personal presentation.

Ensconced In A Sublet In Miami

The train returned me from New York still kicking but a little weakly from the traveling. Two long rail trips in a week was pushing my reserves. Now there will be a month in Miami to have cataract surgery, an ambulatory surgery and cardiac tests (hopefully no more heart surgery).

A month in a somewhat strange city in a country in which I have not lived for nine years. A month in a hotel would be prohibitive and claustrophobic. Hotel alternatives of suite hotels and corporate rates for "extended stays" are also highly expensive. A week, two weeks, a month are the kind of durations too long for a hotel, too short for a real sublet or rental.

I joined Sublet.com as I did last year and again sublet a short-term apartment. It should be better. Expensive but less so than hotels, larger ( a 1 bedroom with a terrace, some green space and a relatively decent pool. It is in Dadeland in the southern part of Miami which is a new satellite city attempting to create a "village" atmosphere where shops, banks, businesses, office towers, and public transport are within walking distance. Large, luxury condo/office/shop towers are going up in a location that includes two Marriotts, a Ramada, the MetroRail station, bus nexus and strip shopping.



My apartment is in a large complex of 2 story condos across a canal from the Dadeland Mall, an upscale mall of Gaps and Sharper Images, Saks and Macy's and the other stores that flank such places. So far it seems both nice enough and a way for me to experience living in an apartment-sized space and in a more urban, American environment to see if I can someday decide where I would like to live after I sell my large house.

I also noticed a similar, vacation-styled rental lead for Pigeon Forge cabin rental in Tennessee near Gatlinburg which includes access to a heated pool (Tennessee is "up north" for some of us -- and north enough to enjoy magnificent fall colors). The Great Smoky Mountain National Park and Dolly Wood are also nearby. My wife and I had stayed in the area during treks from New York to Mexico and returning and were impressed with the natural beauty of the region.

The log cabins appear to include a great deal of luxury at less-than-luxurious prices. There are 1 bedroom, 1 bath to 4 bedroom, 3 bath cabins. This is not roughing it.

Travel
Miami
Vacation Rentals
Smoky Mountains

The Account Of A 21st Century Train Journey

Please click over to the posts I have recently made on Blogcritics Magazine and on my own blog, 7 Color Lagoon about the continuing saga of my travels in this exotic nation of America. In this segment I describe the trip on the Silver Meteor, an Amtrak rail journey, from Miami to New York.

Rail travel is old but could become a growing alternative to the chaos of air travel in the post 9/11 world.

Travel
Amtrak
Trains
Miami
New York

Dressing In America

I am back in the US, back in New York. The rules are changed from Miami. I had to treat myself to a new navy blazer -- the first in a decade -- and a (horrors) tie. US rules are different than Mexico and New York is different yet from Miami -- far more formal and far chillier.

Shopping is the American exercise and shopping I have done and will do for my 6 weeks in my very own country. However age, illness and overpowering boredom are cutting into my shopping sprees. The new blazer was bought at a Gentlemen's Wearhouse in Miami with no comparisons nor shopping and tired me enough. "Hi", said I, "Please show me your navy blazers." They had one of good material and it fit. I wandered out and looked in one other store and said "Great." My 12 year old one that had been used for working in as a photographer -- pockets loaded with lenses and film, shoulder weighted with my equipment bag -- it has seen better days. I may even find other uses for it than going out with my in-laws to New York places whose "informality" means heavy formality to me after ten years of Mexican living without blazer, suit, dress shirts or ties.



Buffet at a club in New York. ©Howard Dratch, 2007 Nikon D40X

Other shopping for clothes may now be shifted to the Internet in order to cut down on time wasted and energy spent. One such venue for wholesale clothing even offers the backpack I was searching for the return train trip to lessen the weight and hassle of the computer case plus camera bag plus little bag for medications and personal items for shaving and tooth-brushing.

New York
Travel
Shopping

The Great Amtrak Trek

Having landed by ship in Miami and finished my appointments there, I journeyed via Amtrak's Silver Meteor from Miami to New York's Penn Station and splurged to treat myself to a roomette. The roomette, expensive as they are, was a great difference from a previous trip years ago from Rhinebeck, NY to Tampa, FL in coach.

I am working on an article for Blogcritics Magazine and my blog, 7 Color Lagoon. The trip was pleasant enough (and necessary as I cannot fly) to report on to my readers. It is also interesting that passenger use of Amtrak is up 6% this year -- perhaps as air travel becomes more complex and chaotic.



From the Metro North train from Penn Station to Westchester at the end of the journey. Harlem is also still here.

It is the first time I have been in New York in 9 or so years. It is still here. Taxi drivers are still obnoxious. Grand Central is still a challenge but the first class (for sleeper car passengers) in Penn Station is probably more pleasant than most first class lounges for air passengers. Plush, clean, A/C, business center, red cap service... It is a jewel in the problems that still remain for rail travel. Amtrak is on the right track (pardon the pun) but has some way yet to go.

Travel
Amtrak
Trains
Miami
New York


Stay tuned for the saga of the On The Road journey On The Railroad -- a combination of Kerouac and Woody Guthrie.

Visiting In An 1814 Farmhouse In New York

For the moment I am visiting relatives in a more rural area of suburban New York. They have a lovely restored and remodeled 1814 farmhouse and I am reveling in the softer northern light of fall in the Northeast, the trees just beginning to consider turning colors for our entertainment and their house with its formal dining room and huge farm-styled kitchen with wood-burning stove for warmth, casual dining table and exposed, hand-hewn beams.

Home and Living.com is another resource for an extensive collection of dining room furniture as well as other home furnishings.

Bed and Breakfast Guide For Texas

Photo © Beringer-Dratch of Texas capitol

We traveled some in Texas in the early years of visiting Mexico by Bronco. There were great things to see, fine food -- especially shrimp and Chinese-Vietnamese cuisine. We stayed for a while in Galveston and on South Padre Island but my favorite spot over-all was Austin with its university, good bookstores, great light to shoot the classic state house, and both Mexican and Chinese-Vietnamese restaurants.

I came across a site that acts as a guide and referral to the best of the Texas bed and breakfast inns in the state. There are three in Austin. The site leads to guides for the U.S. and some other countries. The choices in Austin and Galveston are worth a look if you are traveling or planning events. Galveston suffers pollution from the petroleum industry but is an overlooked, charming and friendly stop. The B and B there offers a pool and reasonable prices.