This week is Bike Week in Daytona Beach, Florida. As far out as Orlando I hear the roar of the Harley Davidson motorcycles as I pass the Orlando Harley Davidson dealership off Interstate 4. It looks like a festival, with a concert stage set up and tents with vendors selling Bike Week 2006 T-shirts, leather merchandise, and beer.

I never owned a motorcycle. I just never had the interest in riding one. Several friends of mine have motorcycles, and chances are they will be at Bike Week. An old friend of mine will be there showing off the 1967 Triumph motorcycle he rebuilt. Another friend of mine who is retired will be out there on his Honda Goldwing. Harleys, Hondas, Triumphs, BMW's, Indians, Suzukis. All bikes will be out along the highway and up and down Main Street. Crotch rockets, choppers, and motorcycles with side cars and air brush artwork will travel down Highway U.S. 1, heading down to the Iron Horse Saloon in Ormond Beach.

I remember when I would go out and visit my parents in Ormond Beach during Bike Week. After I would help out with any work around the condo and we would have dinner, I would venture out to the Iron Horse Saloon or go down to Main Street in Daytona and look at all the different motorcycles. On Beach Street, motorcycles parked along the street as far as the eye can see.

And if you are into people watching, you are definitely going to see some real characters. People with short hair or long hair. Mustaches or muttonchops. And beards. Beards that have not been trimmed in years. You will see muscular people in muscle t-shirts, and people with a belly like old Saint Nick wearing a shirt that is quite not extra-large enough. And they show off that sunburned beer belly with pride. And tattoos. I remember seeing a few people that looked like the main character from "The Illustrated Man". Look at their tattoo of a woman's name, and it would come to life telling the story of a lost love and a broken heart.

Scantly clad women wearing cut off denim shorts that are a bit too short sit on motorcycles and pose for photos. And if you hear all the men cheer, that means the bikini top or halter top came off.

It is a place to be seen. To show off your "ride". It is a week when everyone decides to cut loose and have a good time. Maybe too much of a good time. On Main Street there is a biker bar called the Boot Hill Saloon. The slogan there is: "Have a beer and grab a seat. You're better off here than across the street." And as you sip your beer and gaze out the window across the street at the tombstones of the cemetery, you realize that you are better off there on your seat.
Maybe too much of a good time is not bad at all.

Now where is that bar where the women wrestle in the coleslaw?

I worked an eleven hour day today. It is 10:00 p.m. on a Sunday evening here on the east coast. As much as I would like to stay up into the night and read your blogs, I am tired. And I need sleep.

So before I go, I got to thinking about when I was a child and I would visit my grandmother. When she would put me and my cousins to bed, she would tell us, "Good night. Sleep tight. And don't let the bed bugs bite."

Does anyone ever remember a parent or a relative telling you that before you went to bed. And then you stayed up trying to figure out what a bed bug was and what they looked like?

So "Good night. Sleep tight. And don't let the bed bugs bite."

And if you see one, let me know what they look like.

Sweet Dreams

I did something stupid today. Earlier, I had mentioned my friend Ron in a recent blog. He is retired, and has been working on his retirement home. On his property, he has orange, tangerine,and grapefruit trees. He also has a banana tree, a key lime tree, and a kumquat tree. Or as he would say, a "comquat" tree.

He recently wrote me a letter telling me that he had to pick all of his fruit before a cold front came through the Ocala area. Frost warnings were in the forecast. Ron asked me if I had any recipes for banana bread, key lime pie, and any recipes for "comquat" jelly or jam.

I do not eat kumquats. I usually do not eat anything I cannot spell or pronounce. Which is not much. I had a recipe for banana bread and key lime pie, but no recipes for kumquats. I decided to go online and use the search engine for "comquats". The results of the search were for several web sites that used the word comquats for sexual references and a few particular sex acts that I am not going to describe.

Knowing this is what I did not want, I typed in the words "comquat jam" into the search engine and pressed GO.

Immediately, a response came up. Did you mean "kumquat jam"? Suddenly, I felt really stupid. I just had a Homer Simpson moment. D'OH!



After finding kumquat jam, I used the search engine to find a web site that would have a recipe. A web site came up called Food Down Under [[LINK:http://www.fooddownunder.com]].

This web site is amazing! If you like to cook, you can click on the categories provided. If you are looking for a recipe containing a particular vegetable or fruit, you can either click the food group, or the country of origin. For example, I typed in "kumquat" and I was able to get all the recipes from different countries that use kumquats. There are recipes for gator, emu, ostrich, and even kangaroo. Could you imagine going to the grocery store and asking for two pounds of marsupial?

If you are not that adventurous, there are recipes for pasta, poultry, beef, and other meats, including wild game.

I was able to find several recipes for my friend Ron. I printed them up and shipped them off in the mail along with the recipes I had from home. And if I ever get bored with what I am cooking for dinner, I know where to go.

Suddenly, I do not feel stupid after all.

But the next time I see Ron, I will tell him that it is spelled k-u-m-q-u-a-t!

I received an e-mail earlier today from my friend Wayne. He recently retired and has moved to Louisville. He has been learning how to dance and is taking up horseback riding. Another friend of mine, Ron, has retired and has moved to Ocala. He spends his time fixing up his retirement home when he is not fishing or hunting. Things to do, and all the time to do it.

I am jealous. I have five more years to go before I can retire. I think about all the things I could do with all that time. One fellow employee, Craig, already has his retirement planned out. When he retires, he is going to buy a recreational vehicle and go across the United States.

As a teenager, I was able to see quite a bit of North America. I have been to Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, the Grand Canyon, the Smokey Mountains, the Cascade Mountains, the Allegheny Mountains, and the Florida Keys. On vacation with my parents, we had seen a lot of the United States, traveling across the wheat and corn fields of Nebraska and Oklahoma into Texas. We went across the Northwestern States into Washington and down into the Redwoods of California.

There are two places that I have not seen, however. That is the East Coast states and and the New England States. On one vacation, we drove down through the New England States on our return from Canada. We did not get to spend a lot of time there. I have also not traveled to the east coast of the Carolinas or Maryland. I have not seen Delaware or New Hampshire.

Therefore, I have decided that when I retire, I will drive up the east coast on I-95 and go all the way up from Florida to the New England states. Stop for pizza in New York between stops for crabs in Maryland and lobsters in Maine.

Until then, I have things to do here. I am not retired yet, so time is precious. I have a lot to do between now and then. I want to do more writing, and take up drawing again. I would like to find a place where I can do printmaking and get back to throwing clay on a potters wheel. I like to take pictures, but I never learned to develop. A blogger wrote about touching a painting. I want to touch a canvas with my brush and use acrylics, oils and watercolors. So many things to do.

But before I do any of that, pizza sounds good about now.

I was listening to a news radio station on the way to work this morning, and there was a story about the Federal Communications Commission looking into the cable television industry. For years, cable television companies have had a monopoly on certain areas throughout a city. If you live in a neighborhood and you want cable installed, you only have one company to deal with. And you have to pay the subscription fees that the company sets. The FCC is considering making the cable industry more competitive, letting consumers have a choice of cable companies. There is also talk of a "ala carte" menu, which will let subscribers select the channels they want. If you want news, weather, and sports channels, then you could select those that appeal to you and not have to take other channels that comes in the cable package.

I never subscribed to cable for these two reasons. There are a lot of channels that I am not interested in. And I do not like having to pay a set price for many channels I do not want. If I could select a company to provide service and give me the channels I want, I would subscribe to cable.

For reception, I use an antenna to receive regular broadcasts. Most of the channels come in very clearly. With my television not working, however, it does not matter what I use for reception.

I do not watch much television. I watch the news while I have dinner, and there are a few shows that I watch in the evening. Another reason I never subscribed to cable was the fact that if I was paying for it, I would feel like I had to watch it all the time. I have to be moving around, so it is difficult for me to sit for long periods of time clicking a remote through all the channels just to see if something is on that may be of interest. I do not like to watch films on commercial television, since there is something that is always edited. I will go see the movie at the theater or rent the DVD.

I remember before cable television was available, there were only 5-6 channels available. The three networks ABC, NBC, and CBS, plus the local PBS stations. And there were always one or two independent stations that showed syndicated television shows and movies. I enjoyed watching late night television on the weekend. There was always a "creature feature" on Friday or Saturday nights, with bad special effects and acting that was even worse. So bad but so good! The public broadcasting channel would show old silent films from the 1920s. Many were classic, and much better than some of the films today.

I don not see those any more. If I am up late on the weekend, all that is on are infomercials, with some actor or actress hawking kitchen appliances that you will only use a few times before it ends up in a yard sale. Or it is exercise equipment or some get rich quick scheme. And if I am paying for cable, I am paying for watching a commercial that is a half-hour long?

When I get around to buying a new television set, I will hook it up to my antenna. If I wait for the FCC to make changes to the cable industry, it's going to be a long time.

I have my home theater system. Instead of getting cable, I'll just have my own "creature feature" and play my Vincent Price DVDs with no lights on and a big bowl of popcorn.