If you live in Florida, you’ve been barraged by claims from government officials- police, firefighters, Sheriffs (even the grandstanding Grady Judd) telling you that if Amendment 3 passes, they will have to cut vital services because your local government is so lean, there is nothing left to cut.
Until you actually look behind the curtain. In 2024, Hillsboro county spent over $200,000 buying a Steinway piano for its performing arts center. The county-run venue hosts a continuous rotation of community events, local theater productions, and school showcases. I’m sure there is a real need for a quarter million dollar piano for elementary school dance recitals.
The April 5, 2024, inaugural concert featuring this piano was a collaborative showcase by Tampa-area music professors from the University of South Florida and the University of Tampa. In other words, these college grifters wanted an expensive piano and got you the taxpayer to pay for it. Suckers.
Because the facility maxes out at a 354-seat capacity, ticket revenue from low-cost community events (which often cost around $15 to $20 per ticket) cannot cover the facility’s day-to-day operations. Instead, NTPAC operates explicitly as a publicly subsidized civic infrastructure under the Hillsborough County Parks and Recreation department. So when you are forking out your $5000 annual property tax payment under threat of losing police, fire, and school services, remember you are doing so because some community college music professor needs to have a quarter million dollar piano so he can play it at a middle school dance recital.
I tried to find a the full length version of this speech on youtube, but no luck.
The Republicans have put up a DEI ticket for Governor- a Black Candidate with a criminal history of drugs and credit card fraud, along with his Cuban Running mate who decides that winning the Spanish vote is the path to victory. This is the ticket they decided to run with over the Green Beret.
Note that I don’t have a problem with him because he is Cuban- I have a problem with those who move here and demand that we change to suit them. So if you refuse to speak English or want things just like they were in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, or wherever you are from, GTFOH.
Yeah. I’m about to vote for a third party candidate. I will have to do some research to see which one isn’t a complete asshole.
To orient you: On the grounds of the fire academy, the classrooms were in th5 buildings in the lower right corner. The building labeled “2966” was the burn building. Three stories tall, it’s where we did all of our practice fires. The building just above the word “Central” was set up for climbing, rappelling, and ladder drills. The field just below it and to the left was where we practiced natural gas and vehicle fires. The large building just below the pond had a fire station and some dark mazes in it.
There were field sessions and classroom sessions. Classroom sessions were where we learned regulations, fire theory, and which NFPA chapter regulated what activity. I remember the fire academy was divided into two sections- the first section lasted about 3 months, and we did about 1/3 field work and 2/3 classroom. Session two was flipped- another three months of about 80% field work.
We began every field day in the fire academy the same way:
We would line up in ranks on the pavement in front of that fire station with our gear on the ground in front of us. The chief instructor would walk in and yell “GO!” and you would have 60 seconds to get all of your gear on properly. Then the drills would start.
I went to the academy on a schedule that saw us doing field sessions all through the summer. That was brutal. You learn not to eat breakfast or lunch. All we would have for breakfast and lunch was gallon jugs of Gatoraide. I swear I was drinking two to three gallons of that stuff every single day I was in school. The instructors used to tell us that, if we did eat, we should eat something colorful so our vomit would be entertaining. They called it our art project. I think I threw up in training at least once a month. You try not to get it on you or your teammates, wipe your mouth, and keep going. For God’s sake don’t throw up while you have an SCBA mask on.
Half of the field days in session two was always us doing the “Big Three.” You would put on an airpack for time and score, then pull an uncharged hose from the hose bed about 200 feet, charge it, then use the water stream to knock down three cones that were 50 feet away. Then move over to pick up and carry a 100 pound ladder through an obstacle course and raise it against that ladder drill building. All in full gear, all for time, and all of it with the instructors grading everything.
You could lose points:
If you forgot to sing out that both of the pressure gauges on the SCBA were within 100 psi of each other
Didn’t call out that you had checked that the dogs on the ladder were both locked, points off
staggered on your feet when water pressure was applied, points off.
Face shield on your helmet not all the way down, points off
If either end of the ladder touched anything it wasn’t supposed to (the ground, a cone, another student), you guessed it…
There seemed to be an endless list of things that got points deducted.
We did hundreds of drills that included:
crawling through pitch black mazes that went up and down stairs, had ropes in them set up to entangle you, dolls and mannequins hidden in them you had to find, sometimes with choke points so small that in order to make it through you had to take the tank off your back while keeping the mask on, pass the tank through first, then put it back on after clearing the choke point.
raising a 30 foot ladder to completely vertical, fellow students holding it there with ropes while you climbed up one side, went over the top, then climbed back down the other side.
Rappelling from the third floor to the ground, then learning to rappel from the third floor in to the second floor window, tie a harness on to another student, attach them to your gear, then out that window with them to the ground.
We ran the combat challenge once a month
And of course we put out fires: Basement fires, car fires, gas fires, you name it, we learned to put it out. It was an incredibly fun and rewarding experience. We did everything you could think of that a basic firefighter would do. Practiced with axes, saws, pike poles, air chisels, crowbars, you name it.
Even training like this was dangerous. Several firefighter candidates have been killed in training. One in Miami died from heat stress. Another in Orlando after falling from the ladder building was giving her class a thumbs up as they took her to the hospital. Her aorta ruptured after she got to the ED, and she died right there. It’s a dangerous business.
At the end of all of that training, a state examiner came and tested our skills. First a written exam, followed by “the Big Three,” then 5 random skills and an oral quiz about HAZMAT procedures. My class started with 30 people. Of them 24 graduated, and 22 of us passed the state exam.
As far as I know, all but two of us is now retired, and those two are now chief level officers.
For the most part, the women didn’t do as well. There were 5 women in my class. Two didn’t get certified. Of the three who did, one was a beast. She was a Native American and I swear her Indian name had to be Kicks Lots of Ass. That woman was a true warrior who didn’t know what the word quit meant. She was also the oldest one of us. I can’t imagine going through that class as a 40 year old.
One of the guys who didn’t pass was a heartthrob. Women loved him, he was a good looking guy who had abs that looked like he did sit-ups in his sleep. Strong as an ox and could run laps for days. He was a nice guy, but he was dumb as a post. He was so good looking that he was the one the local news channel did a story on how hard it was to become a firefighter. So why did he fail?
I spent 4 hours the day before the state test trying to teach him the eight knots you had to know to pass the state test. In that four hours, I managed to get him to tie one of them correctly on a consistent basis: a bowline. (Some of the others were clove hitch, figure eight, figure eight on a bight, chimney knot, sheep shank, sheet bend, I can’t remember what the eighth was, it’s been 30 years) Anyhow, as luck would have it, the knot he was asked to tie by the examiner was the one knot he had been able to master- the bowline.
He got it wrong and failed the exam.
That fire academy no longer exists. It shut down, and a chapter of central Florida history came to a close. 48 years of teaching young recruits to become firefighters. Three classes a year most years, usually 20-30 per class. Thousands of firefighters began their careers there.
Everyone seems to enjoy the inside information from the fire department. So here is a brief series about what the fire department in Florida is like. Of course details vary by department, and we aren’t like departments up north, where the department pays your way through the academy. (unless you are a minority or a woman- see below)
Licensure
Firefighting is a pretty popular career. To become a firefighter in Florida, the law says you have to be licensed by the state. There are two ways to do that-
Go through the fire academy, which takes from 4-6 months (depending on how many hours you go per week). When I went, we trained three nights per week for 4 hours each, and 8 hours on Saturday. It took 6 months. About 80% of those who began my class went on to pass the licensing exam.
Or, if you can prove you were a certified firefighter from another state, you could challenge the exam. Most who do this don’t pass, mostly because they don’t understand the little things the examiners are looking for.
That licensing exam is a beast. First, a written test, followed by a practical exam. The practical exam is things like knot tying, hazardous materials awareness, and the “big three.” There are many small places where you can lose points, and missing more than a few of them means you fail. Passing says you have passed “minimum standards” to work as a firefighter in Florida. The journey is just beginning.
Once you complete that hurdle, you have to become either an EMT-Basic, or a Paramedic. It isnt’ required by law, but I don’t know of a single fire department that hires firefighters who aren’t also certified in one of these. EMT takes 1-3 months, and Paramedic takes 6 months to a year, depending on how many hours per week your school holds class. Then of course, there is the obligatory licensing exam.
There are a few departments who will hire EMTs and Medics without fire certifications, but they can’t fight fire, and get A LOT less money. Some other departments will hire paramedics and then put them through the fire academy, medic school is more demanding than the fire academy.
Many applicants will work for an ambulance company somewhere while waiting to be hired. The pay is not very good (Taco Bell pays more than EMTs make driving an ambulance), and spending too long at one of these companies (more than 2 years or so) gets you labeled as unhirable. Departments just assume there is something wrong with you.
Hiring Process
So now you are a certified firefighter. How do you get a job? You look for fire departments that are hiring. Some departments are better than others. Each has different pay and benefit structures. Some are better at their jobs or better equipped than others. You really should research a department before you apply.
Some departments have additional requirements. Some require that you be certified as a HAZMAT Technician, some hire paramedics only, some require that you be a certified Emergency Vehicle Operator. It varies by department. Generally, the more certs a department requires, the more it pays, the better it is to work there, and the more competitive the hiring process.
Some departments don’t get enough qualified minority applicants, so they will hire a limited number of uncertified people. The competition is fierce for these spots. One department I know of got applicants from all over the USA for these spots. If selected, those departments pay you to attend the schools to get your certification. Some departments play it shady to increase minority applications for those programs- one even ran the ads for it only in Spanish and only in the Spanish only newspapers in the area.
When my old department would have an opening, we would get about 200 applications for each open position. Departments like Boca Raton and Orlando have very high starting pay and great benefits. As a result, they get the pick of the best, and will get up to a thousand applicants for each open position. There had to be a way to filter out the lazy and stupid. There are numerous ways to do that.
We had a written exam, as most departments do. Of those who took the exam, the top 25% were invited to return for the practical exam. The practical exam can be as simple as a combat challenge, or a more complex one. Here is the combat challenge, which looks easy, but certainly is not:
You have to finish that in less than 8 minutes to even be considered, many can’t finish at all. My best time is 3 minutes and 42 seconds, and that is a good time. The stuff you see them using in that video is full weight firefighting equipment. These guys in the video are some of the fastest in the world at that drill. In fact, the world record is 1:14.76, so the guy in that video is only about 3 seconds from a world record.
That firefighting gear is heavy and hot. It’s like exercising while wearing a 40 pound sleeping bag.
Those rolled up hoses at the beginning on the stairs? the one he carries is about 70 pounds. The roll he hoists with a rope is about 50 pounds. Those gloves are slick, and they make that hoist a challenge
Your feet have to touch every step on the way down.
That metal beam on the sled that he’s hitting and driving with a sledge? It weighs 150 pounds
That charged hose he’s dragging weighs about 170 pounds with the water in it
The dummy he’s carrying weighs about 200 pounds.
These exercises are designed to wear you down, upper and lower body, as well as cardio. It’s difficult. As I said, many people can’t do it. When I did my personal best of 3:42, I almost passed out at the end. I had to have people help me get my gear off because my arms refused to work and I was seeing stars, which before that point I thought was a myth.
Some departments have you crawl through mazes in the dark, with the mazes being very nearly to small to fit through. Other departments have medical scenarios. The end result is the same- the department generates a hiring list that narrows down those hundreds of applicants to a ranked list of perhaps 20 or 30 recruits, and the department hires from that list. The people who tend to be at the top of one department’s list tend to be at the top of everyone’s list, so most departments only consider their lists valid for six months before retesting to generate another list.
When an applicant is offered the job, they are background tested. Those requirements vary. All will exclude people with felonies. Some departments will exclude anyone with a misdemeanor, or require waivers. My department was no criminal convictions ever, and no traffic tickets in the past 36 months.
When I was hired, I tested for three different fire departments:
In the first, I was #7 on the selectee list. They hired numbers 1-5, number 14, and number 19. Why did they skip? Number 14 was a paramedic, and number 19 was a woman. There are very, very few women firefighters. Quotas, don’t you know.
The second one, I don’t know why I didn’t get it.
I was hired by the third department- there were two of us hired that year. It was the first time in 2 years they had hired anyone, and the other firefighter hired with me was a woman.
Yeah, being a woman, a minority, or a paramedic makes it much easier to get hired. If you can manage to be all three, you can pretty much have your choice of any department you want. White EMTs without experience? Your odds are about 1 in 400 of getting hired by the time you consider schooling and the hiring process. Some don’t make it through training, and many people go through the licensure process and never get hired before their firefighting license expires. They will never get hired. Like sperm, they die off before ever becoming what they could have been.
Hired
From there, you are hired as a probationary firefighter. There is a training program for most departments, then you make it on to a crew. Once you report to the crew, there is still more training before you can operate on your own, and before you can get off probation. Your crew and the training officers decide if you make it all the way through your probation. That’s a future post.
This is why I fight to keep this blog from going too far down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole. When Charlie Kirk was murdered, there is footage of one of his bodyguards pushing a button on a device attached to another body guard.
🚨 New video footage shows Brian Harpole turning a device that is attached to Dan Flood. This occurs at the end of Harpole’s movement.
At first glance, it appears he is steadying Dan, but at the end of the motion you can clearly see Harpole pressing a button. pic.twitter.com/Sfp2TCIdoa
It’s not a mystery- that button is a programmable button that public safety agencies use as an emergency button. It’s used for that because it’s very easy to find quickly by feel, since it’s at the base of the antenna. I carried a radio with one of those buttons for DECADES, but some Internet rando has cracked an entire conspiracy by watching a Youtube video.
In my department, when pushed it switched your radio back to channel one, set off an alarm at every 911 dispatcher’s console, and opened your microphone for 30 seconds. It doesn’t have to do that, however. If I were a bodyguard, I would have it alert my backup team, or summon a driver, or any number of things.
I posited that, and was immediately shot down as not knowing what I am talking about.
How is that incorrect? That's what the button is for.
One of the ways governments engage in disinformation is through the discrediting of movements by mimicking the movement, but doing it so far in the extreme as to make its adherents look like idiots who are one theory away from a new suit whose sleeves tie in the back.
That’s why I require evidence before screaming about Israel. I’m tired of the stupidity and I just don’t want this blog to become a version of Stormfront. With that being said, I do support the free exchange of ideas, but it’s a fine line that needs to be walked. If you have evidence of Israeli involvement or even Jewish involvement, post a link to it, and I don’t have a problem publishing it. However, come on here with vague innuendo or a game of six degrees from Jews, and I will toss it in the trash.
Posting a link to your own blog, or to some other antisemitic blog that posts innuendo without evidence isn’t evidence. Anyone can have a website, as this blog has proven time and time again.
The weather was nice, but I managed to avoid having to clean out the garage by doing some work in the attic. I pulled fiber optic lines thorough the attic to replace the ethernet lines that ran between switches in my home network. That fiber optic line is a great improvement- the traffic bandwidth from one switch to the other and from the main switch to the server is now 10 gig per second, four times as fast as the old lines. The only bottlenecks left are the speed of the devices themselves (my laptop’s router tops out a about 600 mbps) and the internet speed. Rumor has it we are getting a multi-gig fiber optic line in the next year or so, and I am ready for that.
The lines themselves were tough to run. There was a boundary across one of the trusses in the attic made of fiber board. I tried drilling a pilot hole and putting a camera through it, but there was insulation behind it, then another fiberglass boundary, and after that, there was an air conditioning duct. I gave up on that route, and finally managed to route through a wall. The project got done, but took nearly all weekend. My thighs and knees are now painful from all of the crouched over walking from one truss to the other. Getting older means stuff that used to be easy are now more painful. I spent some time in the hot tub, but my legs aren’t quite finished complaining yet.
two of the nurses who work there got ten overtime shifts between them, complete with $500 per day bonus money. Each of those bonus shifts is costing the company $800 to $1000 more than a PRN nurse (me) working that same shift. I asked why I wasn’t scheduled and was told it’s because we “are fully staffed, so there is nothing left for you as a PRN.”
Yeah, one of the nurses who is getting 60 hours a week and multiple bonuses was working with me a few days ago. The manager walked in and said she needed him to come with her to setup for some PR event that was happening the next day. They got in his car and left the ED for 3 hours. While they were gone, the nurse and I who were left had to deal with 14 patients between us, because our third nurse was off doing whatever. Once they returned, she immediately left for the day.
Suspicious. I wonder what kind of “help” he was off giving her. Before anyone says anything, no I am not interested in getting ahead like that. I’m married and I have actual ethics.
I promised a review of statewide races, so let’s start with the easy ones: The proposed Amendments to the state constitution:
Amendment 1
This would increase the state reserve fund from $5 billion now, to about $12.5 billion. The amendment proposes adding $750 million a year to the fund until the new amount is reached, meaning paying into it for the next 10 years, at least. I’m voting no. In general, I am voting no on every single resolution that involves the government getting more money.
Amendment 2
An amendment to the State Constitution to exempt tangible personal property for land that is classified for agricultural and the land from ad valorem taxation. Normally, as I said this would be a yes for me. This one is a bit trickier than that. Developers in the state already use the “agricultural” classification to get bigger tax breaks. They put a cow or two on the land, never actually farm it, but reap the tax benefits.
Colloquially known as the “Rent-A-Cow” loophole, this strategy allows land speculators and builders to slash their property taxes by up to 97% on prime commercial or residential land. They do this by leasing the land to cattle ranchers or putting a few cows on it to maintain a “bona fide” agricultural status right up until they pave it over for subdivisions.
Historically, Disney famously used this loophole for decades, keeping a small herd of cattle on undeveloped portions of its theme park empire to save millions in property taxes. I’m voting no, mostly because I am opposed to special carve outs designed to help one set of people at the expense of another.
Amendment 3:
This one increases the homestead exemption in a staged manner from its current $50,000 to $150,000 in the first year, and $250,000 in the second. I’m voting yes on this one.
Plague Monk says the sailors on the USS Lincoln were served moldy food. I want to set the record straight. The source of that “fact” was a story published by USA Today. Take a look:
That picture is a crop from this photo:
A few things that are important to note: Navy ships don’t have cinderblock walls. They don’t have drop ceilings in the enlisted mess (some officer messes do and the chief’s mess does, but this isn’t the officer mess, the tables are wrong). There is no bullseye on any of the walls. Note how the only two people visible in this photo aren’t wearing military uniforms. This isn’t from the USS Lincoln. It’s fake news ragebaiting bullshit.
In the Navy, the commanding officer and the embarked admiral get the best food. On a carrier, they don’t eat with the officers. He has a private mess, and he can’t eat in the wardroom without permission for reasons I will soon explain.
Next down are the chief petty officers (E7 through E9). They get great food. For example, the rest of the crew gets Corn Flakes, Rice Krispies, and Special K. The chiefs get Frosted Flakes, Froot Loops, and Apple Jacks. I used to find reasons to sneak own there and pilfer cereal from the Chief’s storeroom. One of my favorite tricks was to pull the fuses on the lights to their storeroom and show up to fix it with a tool bag. Once I wasn’t being watched, I would stuff the bag with all the food I could fit in it. Here is a pic of the Chief’s chow line. Note the food looks great, and they eat on real plates. There is also a battle lantern and a first aid kit on the bulkhead:
The officers are paid BAS, and pay for their food out of their own funds via payroll deduction. That’s why the CO and Admiral can’t eat there. It isn’t their food, that food belongs to the officers.
Here is the chow line for enlisted sailors (E6 and below). Note the woman getting fed. Does she look hungry or malnourished? This is how food is served on Navy ships- a line, and they give you as much or as little as you want. If there is an actual plate looking empty, that is because the person getting the food didn’t ask for more. Note the plate, electrical boxes, and piping and ductwork in this photo.
Here is the dining area. Note the plates again. There isn’t a divided plate in sight. Any photo you see where the Lincoln food is supposedly on divided trays is fake. See the bulkheads? Piping, wiring, no drop ceiling. Look at the light fixtures. Those are sealed against water, because it’s a ship. As an Navy electrician, I repaired thousands of those in my 6 years of service- the ones pictured are authentic. There is an officer in this photo wearing a flight suit. He is a Captain, likely the Commander of the Air Group (CAG), because this dinner is for a Mother’s day celebration.
This is what Navy ships look like, and any photo that doesn’t look like this is a fake.
The Republicans have control of the White House, the Senate, the House, and on most things, they are getting SCOTUS decisions. They STILL can’t or won’t do shit. Is “at least we aren’t doing anything, but the dems will” the entire campaign? TPUSA would have made a difference, but I don’t know if they are going to recover from Kirk’s murder.
Traditionally, the party in power takes a hit during midterms. If the party is power does nothing, and let’s admit the truth, they haven’t done anything, then the party in power will lose big. The people in the center who will vote for the party who is best for them will go, “Why did I vote for these Republicans again after they never did the job I elected them to do? You Republicans told me you would fix Biden’s shitty economy, but you actually made things worse.”
For those reasons, the upcoming elections are going to be horrific. All the Republicans had to do was fulfill the promises they made just two years ago, but they have done nothing. Whatever goodwill they earned because Biden was demented is gone.
As for me, when sample ballots come out, I will decide race by race which candidate has earned my vote. My number one criteria is, and always has been, gun rights. They are a great metric, as a person who is opposed to gun rights isn’t going to be all that favorable to rights in general.
State Sen. Ileana Garcia (District 36) is the sole Republican who voted against Florida’s 2023 permitless carry bill and is running for reelection in 2026. District 36 is northern Seminole county, including Sanford, Lake Mary, and Longwood.
I don’t live in Seminole County, but that’s something to think about if you do.
As soon as I research the sample ballot I got, I will post my thoughts on the statewide races.
The start of Autumn is defined as the transitional season of the year, occurring between summer and winter. It features an equal number of daylight hours and an end to the hot days of summer. I also know that autumn begins on the autumnal equinox (which was September 22 this year) and ends on the winter solstice. However, I don’t think most of us look at it that way.
It’s the cooler days that mark the end of summer, and in Florida our summers are long, hot, and feature afternoon thunderstorms. Autumn sees an end to that. Here in Florida, the weather is still what we would call warm, and most of the rest of the nation would call hot and humid, but at least it is punctuated by the occasional cold front, or at least what we call a cold front but is mostly just a brief respite from summer’s heat. You can usually tell late autumn because the color changes to the license plates.
For those reasons, I have my own definition of the beginning of autumn. Here in Sector Ocho, autumn is marked by the first time two consecutive days following the summer solstice where the temperature drops below 70 degrees Fahrenheit (that’s 24c to those of you in countries using the metric system).
I have a personal weather station in my backyard that I use as my official measuring station because I don’t believe Florida’s numbers. My weather station is one of these. It’s located in my backyard in the middle of a clearing with the nearest block to wind (a tree) being at least 50 feet away. The low this morning was 61, the day before was 68. Autumn is upon us.
Anyway, the first day of autumn has arrived, and it was this morning, Saturday September 26.
What really marks the end of summer is the lower humidity. You see, the low temperature can’t go any lower than the dew point, a measure of humidity. At that point, any further energy lost from the atmosphere is spent condensing water vapor, not reducing the temperature. Cold fronts that make it this far south serve to bring in cooler, less humid air, which permits the temperature to drop down to the now lower dewpoint. If you have ever been in Central Florida during the summer, you know that the air is so humid down here, it feels like you can cut it with a knife. It actually feels THICK as you inhale it, like you are breathing in air made of jello.
The dew point temperature is the temperature at which the air can no longer hold all of its water vapor, and some of the water vapor must condense into liquid water. At 100% relative humidity, the dew point temperature and the air temperature are the same, and clouds or fog can begin to form, and you find everything outside is covered in dew. While relative humidity is a relative measure of how humid it is, the dew point temperature is an absolute measure of how much water vapor is in the air (how humid it is). In very warm, humid conditions, the dew point temperature can reach 75 to 77 degrees F, but rarely exceeds 80 degrees. Except here. There were more than a few days this summer where our dewpoint was over 80 degreesF. The highest I saw this summer was a dewpoint of 84 degrees. This morning’s dew point was 60.9 degrees.
Autumn in Florida is when dewpoints get below 70 for longer and longer periods of time, making the air FEEL cooler, even if the thermometer doesn’t show it. Dew point is the best indicator of comfort in a hot climate. Once the dew point of the air exceeds 66 degrees Fahrenheit or so, the air begins to feel hot and uncomfortably stuffy. The reason for this is that your perspiration cannot evaporate to cool you off.
Here in Florida, there are 4 seasons:
Hot: March through May F’ing Hot (Also known as Hurricane season, and in Orlando, tourist season): June through mid September Still Hot: Mid September through Mid November Snow Bird: Mid November through February
Autumn is, and always has been, my favorite season. Mostly because it marks an end to the insanely high temperatures of summer. You can finally go outside and do things. On the down side, that means I am going to have to clean the garage this weekend.
I still remember watching my mother put up those expanding paper fall decorations as the cooler breezes of fall pushed through the house.
The remainder of this year will be warm to hot, with occasional short cooler spells where the mercury ‘only’ makes it to 80 degrees or so. They are forecasting a late, but colder than normal winter. Let’s see how accurate that is.
