back after 2 years

Driving along the I-4 here in Orlando, listening to NPR, I heard the announcer mention "so and so blogs at blblabla.com" and suddenly it hit me! He blogs! I blog! Why don't I blog again? I recall a few people (ok, my daughters and wife) telling me they liked my bloggy babble, so I'm resuming after almost two years.

Comparisons are always fun. And as I'm spending a lot of time down Florida way since we bought our lovely condo down here (check it out and contact me if interested in renting for the rock bottom price of $500 a week), I am often given to comparisons between Yanks and Canucks and between the different ways things run here and there.

Banking: American banking is way behind. First of all, banks don't have nearly as many branches scattered through the city as they do back home. Even major banks, like Chase or Bank of America only serve select neighborhoods ("neighbourhoods" in Canadian)and are hard to find. Also (!!!) you can't deposit money through ATM's; or, if you can, I haven't discovered how yet. Certainly my bank doesn't supply envelopes for it and the machine doesn't allow for it at the two branches I tried. Lastly, I have not yet seen a bank that has an open branch on Saturday; at least not here in Orlando. My bank back home operates limited Saturday hours which is great!

Nutrition: Americans have huge asses. They love their starches, their carbies and, probably, their penicillin infused hamburger meat. It's truly incredible and very sad, how many fat people strut around the streets (forget streets, I mean malls) here. And I mean grossly obese. Then there are their stick-skinny counterparts, usually observed jogging at breakneck tempos. Very little in between. Stick people and Brobdingnagians.

Booze: I don't drink, except the odd beer or glass of white wine with lunch but I LOVE the ease with which one can obtain booze in every 7/11 here. I cannot describe to you how much it fills me with a sense of freedom to be able to walk over to my local corner 7/11 and buy a six pack (for $7, natch!) any time of day and night. Last time I attempted an alcohol purchase at home, it was around 4pm on Friday and I wanted a glass of red wine to go with the pasta I was cooking. It had just started to rain and by the time I got back home from the GOVERNMENT liquor (Canadian: "liquour") store, it was 5 o'clock and I had endured an hour in rush hour traffic, compounded by construction and a torrential downpour. Why? Because the nearest GOVERNMENT store happens to be 3 miles (5 km in Canadian) from my frigging house. Why anyone on God's good earth would support this system is totally beyond me.

This blogging thingie is fun. I'll continue soon!