Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Progress


Now I remember what the picture was for. I wanted to show you how the pros photograph stuff. They showed up yesterday morning at the museum about the time I did--9:30. By the time I left around 1, they had photographed 10 pieces of art for the website. Karen told me they had 20 more to go! She has to move each piece with white gloves and supervise the whole shebang. Because it is a small museum the curator has to wear many hats.

Now for this new picture. Locals often bemoan the fact that Disney ever discovered our area. The fact is that we are looking more, and more, like LA every day without good roads. Growth has spread far and wide with little planning for the proper infrastructure. Unfortunately, the majority of the jobs in our area do not pay big money, thus the further from the epicenter they move to find lower costs. The bottom line is that we are having growing pains with no solutions in sight.

However every cloud has a silver lining, ours is shopping! This is the new IKEA which I learned from the commissioner on Sunday is opening November 14. Hurray! I have no idea if I'll ever buy much there, but it's there if I want to. This will be the first IKEA to open in Florida. It is so huge, apparently they are going to have three whole houses inside furnished!!!

The area where this is built used to be terrible. About five years ago some developer bought all this land and turned the area into a shopper's paradise. The fact that it is only 5.5 miles from our house is awesome. The best part is that although we have to travel through a sketchy area it is all residential for the most part so no traffic to speak of. The mall that this sits next to has a Dior, Gucci, Bloomingdales, Neiman Marcus, LaCoste, Anthropologie, Crate & Barrel, Cartier, Channel, Burberry, and the list goes on. As well across the street is a Target, Marshalls, Home Depot, Ethan Allen....again, more stores than I can imagine. A Last Call (Neiman Marcus outlet) opened a few weeks ago at the revamped outlet mall. I haven't even covered all those stores--it's crazy. When you are one of the tourist capital's of the country you've got to have lots of shopping for the spenders.

Olga, our CPA, helped me this morning with my sales tax stuff. I have to pay quarterly and this stuff is daunting. She'll get me through it at first, hopefully I can take it from there.

I've forgotten to mention that Bruce is in the midst of a Federal jury thing; I hardly know what to call it. Here's the deal--he has to be available for TWO WEEKS! Every day he calls at 12:30 to see if they need him. The instructions state that men are to wear a coat and tie. Additionally, NO electronic devices or cell phones allowed. What, pray tell, are the folks supposed to do all day if they don't get called? The pay is $40/day. When you are a traveling man like our Bruce this proves to be quite a pain. So far they've not needed him so he flew up to Ohio this morning and will return tonight. He made a three hour site visit to make sure the contractor is where they should be. This sounds kinda crazy doesn't it? Well, If the contractor gets behind it is a huge misery for all concerned. Bruce knows exactly what should be completed at each stage of a job. It is a seriously hard job. I must say that Bruce is extraordinary at it.

Huge thunder and lightening now--I've probably written more than you want to read anyway so I'll turn off the computer now. School tonight.

3 comments:

Amaya said...

Wow! I can see why Bruce's jury duty would be frustrating with his schedule. For his sake, I hope they won't need him at all though.

e said...

2 weeks on call. Wow. And a suit. Yep, them's the feds. Cal Superior Court requires you to be on call for only a week.

Anonymous said...

Hey Gail, I live in that "sketchy" area!

I will give you a tip for Ikea; do not buy the salty licorice fish. I love licorice and I must say this is like no other licorice, it is the worst taste I have ever experienced. The gooseberry jam is excellent though. The chocolates tend to be too sweet. The muesli is very good. If you just want to buy food turn left as you go through the entrance, otherwise you will be walking for miles.

Jim

So This is Springtime