Sunday, 12 March 2006

Hello !

    If I have my dates correct, Kathy is traveling to Boston today. She is being sent by the Agency to attend Harvard University this week. (now hear this): MY DAUGHTER IS ATTENDING HAVAHD
:-) !!

    Susan called the other night to inform us that she has accepted a new job at Variety Magazine -- with a HUGE increase in salary! That's the leading newspaper of the entertainment industry. Just last week Dan was hobknobbing with Elton John. I'm not a Hollywood junkie but, if they want to, they can set us up with Cher the next time we visit ;-)

    ERIN GO BRAGH !! I'm just getting in the mood for St Patty's Day next Friday! I have several T-shirts with various Irish themes and have started to wear them. No sense wearing them only on St Patty's Day itself. Must get the local snowbirds acclimated to the wearing of the green!

    My boat is still at the Taylor boatyard, just up the street in Cortez Village. They have scraped all the barnacles off and painted the outdrive. My mechanic has replaced the two propellers so I should be able to get back on the high seas in a day or two. He's going to do a once-over of the electrical system for me to ensure that I don't have a loose ground wire that is causing my boat's external "zincs" to get eaten up so badly (electrolysis, or something like that). I am now seriously considering selling this boat and getting a smaller one --an outboard that I can maintain myself. I've checked E-Bay and the prices for boats like mine seem to be fair, so I'll see what I have to do to post mine for sale.

    There is going to be a reunion dinner for former members of the San Vito Italy base! It will be held at the Gateway Inn on Lackland AFB in San Antonio, Texas on 28 September. We plan on attending. We love to visit San Antonio and see the Crowells, the Riverwalk, eat Tex-Mex food, etc! It's for everyone, so if any former Brindisi High School students would like to attend they will be welcome (hint hint)!

    I just spent a couple of days helping out an old friend transfer programs and files from an old Windows 98 machine to a new Dell computer running Windows XP. After some initial problems everything moved very smoothly and we got his most important programs and files moved without a hitch. I also learned that all those CD+R disks that I had been writing and discarding for the past few years were actually still useable! My computer's settings finalized the disk, so it couldn't be written to any more, even though I had used only a small portion of the available space. I need to change the settings so that it works on a "recording session" basis, enabling me to write data, read the disk on another computer (for file transfers, etc) and then allow me to write more data (add data) on the disk -- until it is actually full.

    The real estate market here in the Bradenton-Saraota area has cooled considerably in the past six months or so. The number of houses and condos now on the market has doubled or tripled since last year. Current sales are WAY down but the prices have NOT come down. The speculators that were buying at pre-construction prices and then "flipping" properties for huge profits have all disappeared, ever since the mortgage rates went up. The experts say that the buyers and sellers are staring at each other waiting for the other to "blink", but the sellers aren't backing down. There are millions of Baby Boomers who'll be looking for a place in the sun. On the other hand the developers seem to do anything they want around here (the local governments run for the hills at the slightest mention of a lawsuit), so construction is "over-booming". We've heard that two condo owners in our complex have come down $30-$40,000 from $489,000 asking prices, but that may be because developers are bulding a brand new condo complex almost next to us. Don't know what the prices will be, but if they are reasonable, then the asking prices for existing condos here in The Waterway will drop accordingly.

    Well, it's off to the Weilers' house tonight. Spaggetti dinner! Later this month, probably the 28th, we're (Gary & Pat and Dale & I) going to drive up to Homosassa to see some old friends who were in NSA's Softland Program with us (Gary & me/Barry).

Love, Dad & Mom/Barry & Dale