Is this an orchid? I have no clue.

Tomorrow and Sunday the Morikami Museum is having an orchid show. If you haven’t been recently, this is your perfect excuse. The Morikami and its grounds are a treasure. You can become a member for a reasonable price and go as often as you like. The museum restaurant is a jewel. It is always packed, but there isn’t much of a wait. Try the Bento box. That and tea is a $15 lunch, not including tip, but it is worth it.

One of several waterfalls near the main museum.

The images are horrifying.

He talked about coming upon a Hitler Youth school where 13 and 14-year-olds marched out with rifles to oppose his unit. “They shot at you. You didn’t want to die. You shot back.”

He talked of liberating concentration camps with thousands of bodies and hundreds of survivors who were so starved they could not ingest the C-Rations that the troops carried. They had to wait for the medical corps with IVs.

He said he is disappointed that we have not found a better way to settle our differences.

Jesus H. God. Can’t we take a lesson?

This is for Shelly. Don’t really know how to spell her name. But this is a photo of her daughter on the right. Taken at a party at her house a while back.

Thought she would like to see it.

For the rest of you, this is eye candy.

If any of you are looking for a nice cabernet sauvignon, here is one I would suggest. Got it today at Crown Liquors in Palm Beach Gardens.

This Avalon cab was very drinkable. Not rough at all. I wish I could say it had an aftertaste of jingleberries or whatever the professional reviewers say, but I can’t. I’ll never get one of those silver cups on a chain around my neck.

I asked one of the four people on duty in the store to recommend a cab for around $10. The Avalon is one of two recommended. The other was a Wente that also is good.

I’m impressed with that store. Everyone seems knowledgeable about the selection and it is impressive. Not overwhelming like Total Wine, but impressive.

In Total Wine, you have to look for assistance and then you wonder how anyone could be knowledgeable about 4,000 or so products.

While finding it at Crown Liquors we walked past cabs that went for above $50 so there is plenty of upside.

They also have an impressive cheese station.

The place is on the west side of U.S. 1 north of PGA. I recommend it.

First, may I give my best wishes to the men and women who are returning from our long war in Iraq. May you have a wonderful holiday season with your families and find productive employment when you return.

My heart goes out to the men and women who are still on duty in Afghanastan. Come home soon, unhurt, and honored.

I wish all the men and women in Veterans Hopsitals across the nation a Happy New Year. I wish my wish could come true.

Remember the suffering of all those others who lost loved ones in these two wars that were never authorized by our own laws. Last count I saw was more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians. I have never seen a count for Pakistan or the other countries where we have been bombing with drones.

Their loss of a brother or a son or a daughter is no less than ours.

Finally, to my friends here at home, may your Holiday Season be bright, all your loved ones be well, and your thoughts be with all of us, everyone on the planet.

Let us all hope that we can find a better way to settle our diferences.

Newt Gingrich is such a trip.

Newt is a lot like me. He says shit just to see other people react. He isn’t serious. Even he could not see himself as President. It would reduce his income.

I would have a great time sitting down with Newt and having a beer. Any student of history who says all Arabs are alike, which is what he just about said the other day, would be so easy prey. He might as well have said that all black folk are the same, as he did just about the other day. Not taking into account that some black folk have been head of the Harvard Law Review and happen to be the actual President.

I love this guy.

Newt is a glorified high school history teacher who has found a way to go over the top in a 24/7 world that needs sound bites.

Too bad he doesn’t know any actual history.

But it is a great thing that all this can be recorded.

In 100 years, they will know how small we were. We actually took Newt seriously.

For a while.

I am here in praise of Sriracha. The photo above is a screen I have on my window. It is just for people who want a photo.

Sriracha comes in two flavors. The Chicken is HOT. The Goose is Mild.

The Chicken is for flavoring soups and stews. The Goose goes good on a tuna sandwich.

You can get it at the Fortune Cookie just east of Congress Avenue on Forest Hill. South side.

I met Sriracha on a cruise years ago. I was on the Celebrity Century and what a wonderful cruise ship it was. Teak decks. Nordic simplicity. Great food.

At the time, it was the only cruise line that had a famous chef doing the menu.

It was lunch and a crew person was sitting down the table from me. He had Sriracha and was using it liberally.

I asked if I could try it.

“How hot can you stand?” he asked.

I was younger then. I’d been to Mexico.

I said “As hot as it gets.”

Well, Sriracha is not as hot as it gets. Not by a long shot. But the Chicken is hot.

And it carries a taste of the Orient with it.

It might be an acquired taste, so if you rush out and buy a bottle, don’t blame me if it doesn’t fit your palate.

If you do like it, please leave a comment.

I wanted to save those references.

I tried to define the portion of the web page they were on – it was a blog – and save it.

What I got was a mishmash of the stuff I wanted along with the menus from the web page and other stuff. It was a mess I didn’t care to clean up.

Here is where I need some help.

It really wouldn’t be a big thing to put a box around each entry so you could identify it. Inside this box, you put a button that says take this text and send it to whoever pressed this button. The program would then check the user database, find the email from the ip address and send that section of text to the user as an email.

Obviously it would have to be included in the blogging software.

Anybody interested in this?

Oasis of the Seas

So, this is the back end of the ship. Notice, please, that it is huge.

This thing is twice as big as a Nimitz class aircraft carrier.

And, hopefully, it is the kind of ship we will build in the future instead of aircraft carriers.

It makes 6,000 people happy and kills no one.

All hail large pleasure craft.

Chrome and Firefox work with WordPress but apparently Safari does not.

So I wrote some posts that never got posted. Below are two I could retrieve.

Enjoy.