POETS IN PARADISE

Hotel in Miami; 75 degrees, clear

Working the east coastline, the rest of this week. My bride sits at the condo, alone for the first time. Hopefully, these past few months have prepared her to deal with the mild separation this job brings along. The Florida house is a go. All contracts have been signed and initialed. The sellers, after signing the house away, are now concerned about getting out in three weeks. They don't have a plan or a house to go to. Don't you think they would have thought that out before agreeing to a closing date only 3 weeks away?

I tried to give notice to my condo landlord today and he was a complete RICHARD about it. I typed up a simple little 30 day notice to vacant (I'm on a month to month). I bought it to his office and was told he was in a meeting. I left it there for him with my fax number and asked him to acknowledge it and fax it to me. He didn't. After a few hours, I called him but he never returned my call. At about 6PM I printed another copy and drove to his house and asked him to sign it. HE REFUSED! He told me he didn't have a chance to review it yet and he would have to get back with me. What the hell is there to review? I lived there 4 months on a m2m lease and I'm giving 30 days notice. I later emailed him and ripped him for being so rude. I told him that he better not fail to return my deposit or I would involve the courts or the tax collector. You see in this State, landlords who rent for less than a six month lease must pay a 12% bed tax to the county. To fail to do so is a criminal offense, carrying fines and jail. Hmmm....you wanna f^ck with the tenants? I'll send our rental agreement and my cancelled checks to the tax man. Wasn't it Mel Gibson who once screamed in a movie, "Give me back my deposit!" Okay, maybe that was give me back my son, but you get the picture.

Remember how earlier in the blog I wrote of our plan to downsize....live small....reduce expenses? Well we got to talking and we think we can apply that logic to our next boat, as well. I had been looking at boats priced less than 20k but I have now found one priced at 6k! The old guy who owns her has had her for the past 11 years. He has kept her dry docked for most of that time, save for the occassional trip up the ICW. He is now tired of paying the monthly moorage bills, so he's put her up for sale. He says she needs nothing mechanically. Twin Merc 4 cylinders, with Alpha I drives. Planes out at 2300 RPM; cruises at 20 knots, tops out at 30. She has a 9'10" beam, which is not bad for a 27 foot LOA. She's a 1982 Sea Ray 255 Sedan Bridge. I plan on seeing her next weekend, but he sent me 14 photos to review. I think as long as the motors and drives are good and so long as she doesn't leak profusly on sea trial, we could be happy with a boat like this. We could restore her back to a classic, really. There's lots of interior wood that is in good condition and could be brought back to shine. I love the flying bridge. It has a small galley, head and shower, even air conditioning that supposedly works while on shore power. I already went into the Sea Ray achives and found the original brochure from '82. This was a hell of a nice yacht back then. Anyway, I will leave you with a couple of pictures of her.