The FIT campus (link opens pdf map) also has a botanical garden with many plants typical of Central and Coastal Florida. An interesting walk.

Limited parking in the lot closest to the Library (North lot off Babcock) for visitors.

Mexican Yarn Painting

In a previous time, the ice cubes had to be made in the freezer section of the refrigerator.  A metal pan held held metal dividers that had to be warmed or shifted with a lever  to separate the rectangular prisms from the separators in the tray.  When plastic became popular, a plastic tray made “cubes” with trapezoidal faces.  These trays ejected the ice everywhere but into the glass you were trying to fill.

Back even farther, chunks of ice were broken from the same block of ice that cooled the food in the ice box.  An ice pick was poked at the ice until a chunk came off.  The block of ice likely came from an ice plant where ammonia refrigerant cooled a couple of gallons of water in each mold to make thousands of blocks every day.

Even farther back and maybe still today where it is more economical than not, ice was sawn from surface of a lake or even a purpose-built pond. Hauled and stored in an ice-house with sawdust packed between the blocks to keep them from sticking and to insulate.

Just some thoughts on a day when the temperature is 97 or so.  A bit of a breeze make it tolerable.  And ice water makes it enjoyable.

With rivers, there are many ways to look at them. The towboat captain looks at them as a highway with traffic, dangerous curves, rough spots, narrow lanes. The fisherman looks at them as a place to find a quiet out of the way spot to anchor, sit or stand and try to fool the fish. The Corp of Engineers looks at a river as something to be controlled. And the river looks back and thinks to itself “What a foolish idea”.

The farmer looks at the river and hopes that it comes up and refreshes that bottom land and then goes back in the banks and quietly flows away soon enough that he has time to plant, wait, and harvest before frost comes again. The River Street resident hopes that it does not come up at all.

Heraclitus said “You can never step in the same river twice”. So it is with the passage of the Health Care Bill the country is immutably changed.

Change for the better and change for the worse. The net result remains to be seen. For some it will be a blessing. For some it causes difficulty. For others just the change will be painful as the comfort of the old-same-thing is replaced by the new-same-thing.

Changed it is. Get used to it.

Nuf said.