Mayfair Hotel & Spa completes fall renovation

To contact us Click HERE

The Mayfair Hotel & Spa has had a major upgrade. This is from their press release: 

The Mayfair Hotel & Spa is unveiling a new look this fall with an all-suite renovation, debuting fresh, vibrant rooms along with upgrades to both the Jurlique Spa and rooftop deck, named Above Mayfair Pool Lounge. Officially re-launching on September 21, the iconic 179-room boutique South Florida property will feature enhanced guest experiences and amenities to complement the picturesque Asian gardens and sanctuary. 

 “The Mayfair is an iconic South Florida hotel with an incredible and storied history,” says Saun Lightbourne, Executive Director of Sales and Marketing for Mayfair Hotel & Spa. “In an effort to return to its former glory, the hotel upgrades highlight the unique ambience and character of the property. We are inviting our guests and South Florida locals to experience the new energy and rediscover the Mayfair in the heart of Coconut Grove.”

The Mayfair Pool Lounge has undergone a makeover to enhance the vibrancy of the property. The 15,000-square-foot space features a bar area comprised of a floating cabana roof and planks of teakwood while a serpentine bench built into the parapet wraps around a fire pit. Eight private cabanas gaze over the pool, each offering unparalleled panoramic views of the Miami skyline. Setting the mood for a relaxed vacation, staycation or night out on the town, Above Mayfair combines the energy of South Florida with the refreshing atmosphere of Coconut Grove.

Exuding leisure and relaxation at every turn, the Jurlique Spa creates a tranquil getaway in a bustling city. Jurlique’s 4,500-square-foot space offers new bedding, cosmetic technology, comfortable lounges and amenities. New menu highlights include the rejuvenating Tangerine Mimosa Massage and Skin Balancing Facial leaving skin radiating. 

Spartico Restaurant, the casual Roman-Centric Trattoria by celebrity chef Jonathan Eismann, is set to re-open in October 2012. Situated within the hotel, Spartico is a casual, pizza-centric spot that uses only the highest quality products to create dishes with great flavors at reasonable prices.

For more information and reservations, visit mayfairhotelandspa.com or call 305.441.0000. For news and updates, visit Mayfair Hotel & Spa on Facebook and on Twitter @Mayfair_Miami or @SparticoGrove. 

It's a slow moving September, which is a good thing

To contact us Click HERE
It's very quiet in the Grove these days, for lack of a story today, I was going to re-run something from the past, which I may end up doing one of these days soon. Fall is here (as of yesterday), so things should be kicking in, but I don't really see much going on.

I hear that Snow Days is no more and that is a shame since that was one thing that set us apart from other areas. That was always fun. Grovetoberfest and the Pumpkin Patch are coming up this month and next month, but it almost looks as if the Grove has sworn off events, but not really because the last big even was the Great Grove Bed Race which was earlier this month.

Usually September flies by, but for some reason, this month has stalled, which, I think is a good thing, because who wants their life to fly by? It's hard to believe that the Bed Race was this month, it feels like it was so long ago and we still have a week to go in this month! Love it. Slow September.

I'm off to the gym and then to Buena Vista Deli in Midtown, to meet some friends for breakfast. I've been branching out of the Grove a lot lately, to enjoy other things. I was at Roaster n' Toasters, across from Dadeland, yesterday, which is next to the old Borders Books, which will become Trader Joe's soon.

When I brought up Trader Joe's the other day, I wasn't trying to put down the Pinecrest location meaning that the Grove was better. I just know that for years, there were serious talks with Traders Joe's about coming to the Grove. I was asked to not say anything by those involved in the talks and I just don't understand how that ball was dropped on that. That's all. We never seem to close the deal around here when it comes to things like that, but the good news is that once the door is open in the county, who knows where Trader Joe's could end up next. Oh, and the Grove location was possibly part of the big project in Village West where the Publix may or may not go, so either way, there was no way Joe's was going to end up there anytime soon since the ground has not even been broken yet in that area.

Look where you're baby stepping

To contact us Click HERE

When you're starting out from scratch, it's hard to predict what you're going to need. I just moved into a new apartment, and my kitchen cupboards are empty because I've decided that I'm not going to even try to predict what I might need in the future. The way I intend to re-acquire the supplies I'll need is by doing stuff.

I mean, sure, there's cooking oil, salt, and pepper. But for a little more exotic Chinese cooking, I'll need some sesame oil or star anise. Beyond the basics that I'm certain I'm going to actually use, it's impossible to predict what other odds and ends I will personally end up using. And soliciting advice from others in the past hasn't been good for me: what works for other people often does not work for me.

For me, the only way I have been able to know — with certainty — what I'll need is to actually start trying to do things. If I'm trying to figure out which ingredients I'll need to cook a meal, I just start trying to cook. If anything is missing, its absence becomes readily apparent.

These are kind of like kitchen use cases, if we're going to resort to software development parlance. It's like I'm going agile, or adopting Test Driven Development with my cooking processes. I could theoretically start out with nothing at all — to illustrate the method theoretically, I actually should start from nothing. I would soon find that I need a cutting board, a knife, and whatever ingredients my recipe calls for. For a basic meal I would also find that cooking oil, salt, and pepper come in handy.

After cooking a basic meal, I know with confidence that I have everything I need to cook — wait for it — a basic meal. That common use case is taken care of and I can cook basic meals in the future with confidence. Now, what if I were to go ethnic? I'd soon run into some cases where I'd need to stop and get some more ingredients.

The idea is that, after a while, I would eventually be able to confidently prepare a broad range of meals. This confidence is rooted in the knowledge that I have verified that I have everything needed — by actually having done it in the past.

Of course, it's possible to carry out this kind of method to absurd extremes. If you know for sure you're going to need it, then make a note and take care of it. Be reasonable in what decisions you leave for later and which ones you can make now. In the cooking example, it's great for didactic purposes to start from scratch, but in practice it's dumb not to have the basics like cooking oil or a cutting board.

What about when developing software? You can leave scalability concerns for later if you're just starting to write a web application, but no matter what, you are going to need a machine and a relational database. (If you're writing something, like an offload server, because it needs to be scalable, then you damn well better take scalability into account.) To maintain your sanity, it might even help to sketch out a data model. Take baby steps, but know where each step will end. Don't be content with merely knowing that your foot will be in the air and then end up somewhere on the ground at some point. After all, this nebulous "goal" can just as easily be achieved by tripping and falling.

Small business owners: don't be a jerk

To contact us Click HERE

My girlfriend Sophia is an assistant manager at Abercrombie and Fitch, and is thus bombarded with more than her fair share of rude customers. One story she told me this week was about a woman who went ballistic after asking to try on one of the mannequins' jackets and being told no.

Now, people are just crazy, and Sophia has told me many stories like this before. What was so different this time?

Well, the crazy lady played the business owner card: if it were her store, she would have gladly taken the jackets off the display mannequins. This know-it-all "business owner" then proceeded to hound Sophia for her full name and pressed her for her employee ID so she could file a formal complaint, and refused to go through the normal channels.

It is precisely this self-serving arrogance and provincial, narrow-minded ignorance that keeps small business owners from being taken seriously. As a former small business owner myself, I know that the burden is heavy: you've got to worry about employees, customers and growing your business. On top of that, you have the responsibility to make sure any legal paperwork is in order and that taxes are taken care of. But just because you're able to handle this does not mean that you know all there is to know, and that your way of doing things is the only way.

In response to this growing sense of self-importance, here are three things to keep in mind. (I use these reminders to keep myself in check, too.)

a) Rules and processes have a place, even if you choose to forgo them. As a small business owner, you can get by with fewer rules and processes in place. In fact, in most cases you do much better when you're flexible. But larger businesses have a much harder time being flexible; it's not impossible, just much harder. They have to manage everything more strictly in order to hold together the larger whole. A little sloppiness in your store can be passed off as "charming." In a national chain where customers expect extreme tidiness and consistency, that sloppiness is not charm. It is chaotic, and it is poor business.

b) Not everyone enjoys the same latitude to call the shots as you do. You may be your own boss, but most people have someone else to answer to. I've found that being a business owner, seeing the bigger picture, and having the power to remedy things has turbocharged my ability to take the initiative, even after going back to working for someone else. Still, despite having passion for my line of work and understanding its larger implications, I have much less scope to make important decisions. In large companies, even CEOs don't wield absolute power, because they have a board of directors and shareholders to please.

c) You are not special, so don't expect special treatment. A couple of years ago, I received a parking ticket by mistake. I knew that I had moved my car in time, and so I decided that I would write in to contest it. One of my co-owners suggested that I take a tough stance and mention that I was a business owner — as if that had anything to do with my guilt or innocence. I mentioned it anyway, thinking that a little reminder about my contribution to the community wouldn't hurt. Still, I didn't want to rely on that mostly irrelevant fact, so I put much more effort into stating the facts of the case. I drew a diagram of where I had parked, when I had moved my car, when I had been ticketed, and why it was a mistake. In the end I got the ticket waived, but I have a good hunch it had more to do with stating the facts than mentioning that I was a "business owner."

My automobile's cooling system and its plastic parts

To contact us Click HERE

I've learned a lot about my car's cooling system over the past couple of weeks. There's nothing like the prospect of a melted engine to focus the mind. Typically, I would be content to leave it to the mechanic, but the cooling system has many moving parts, and I'm the one who sees firsthand all the symptoms when driving it in various situations.

At the very least, anyone in my position would have to take careful note of which circumstances triggered certain events. Such diagnostic tips can help the mechanic narrow things down so that he won't charge you as much for diagnosing the problem. Ideally, we'd also prefer that he fix everything that's wrong with a component as vital as the cooling system.

I've had to watch the reading on the temperature sensor, for one. The key is to never let the needle hit the red zone at the top of the temperature gauge. If it does, your engine's head gasket and other crucial parts are in critical danger of melting, distorting, or breaking. The repairs for those problems are much more expensive than those to the cooling system.

When I went to the mechanic this morning, I took in various observations that would help him narrow down the problem and know where to look. I noticed that the fans were going full speed because of the higher running temperature, so I told him that the fans were extremely loud after a short drive. From various sources online, I made sure to observe any difference between city driving and high speed freeway driving, but there was none, so this meant there was one less option to consider.

With the cooling system in my car, things have been failing left and right in a sort of chain reaction as the increased running temperature of the car's engine puts a lot of parts under extra stress. Whatever parts failed and needed replacing were just worn out and should have been replaced long ago. Rubber rings had become as hard as plastic. One plastic pipe had become so brittle from age that it broke off; I had to re-fasten the hose clamp just to keep the engine running cool enough to drive to the mechanic. Metal parts such as the thermostat housing and the water pump showed signs of corrosion; in the case of the thermostat, it wouldn't open to let coolant flow as it should.

The mechanic told me some interesting tidbits while we were ruminating aloud on the absurdity of car makers — including Daimler and BMW — using so many plastic parts all over the cooling system. According to him, the move towards plastic parts is justified by lower cost of materials and making the car lighter so the engine doesn't have to pull as much weight. One thing he observed was the increasing failure rate of newer cars — and he said it wasn't unusual for people with new cars still under warranty to come to his shop with worn out plastic parts.

Suffice it to say, that made me very hesitant about paying a premium for a newer model Mercedes-Benz or a BMW. If I end up buying a new car soon, it may well be a Hyundai, a Honda, or a Toyota. If everyone's using plastic parts, I may as well pay less.

In any case, I'm surprised that my old car has lasted this long, considering the long distances I drive on a regular basis. It's a 1996 Mercedes-Benz C220. I've been very fortunate to have the car running within its prescribed temperature limits, despite all the hand-wringing and pulling over to the side of the road, fraught with worry.

It's a slow moving September, which is a good thing

To contact us Click HERE
It's very quiet in the Grove these days, for lack of a story today, I was going to re-run something from the past, which I may end up doing one of these days soon. Fall is here (as of yesterday), so things should be kicking in, but I don't really see much going on.

I hear that Snow Days is no more and that is a shame since that was one thing that set us apart from other areas. That was always fun. Grovetoberfest and the Pumpkin Patch are coming up this month and next month, but it almost looks as if the Grove has sworn off events, but not really because the last big even was the Great Grove Bed Race which was earlier this month.

Usually September flies by, but for some reason, this month has stalled, which, I think is a good thing, because who wants their life to fly by? It's hard to believe that the Bed Race was this month, it feels like it was so long ago and we still have a week to go in this month! Love it. Slow September.

I'm off to the gym and then to Buena Vista Deli in Midtown, to meet some friends for breakfast. I've been branching out of the Grove a lot lately, to enjoy other things. I was at Roaster n' Toasters, across from Dadeland, yesterday, which is next to the old Borders Books, which will become Trader Joe's soon.

When I brought up Trader Joe's the other day, I wasn't trying to put down the Pinecrest location meaning that the Grove was better. I just know that for years, there were serious talks with Traders Joe's about coming to the Grove. I was asked to not say anything by those involved in the talks and I just don't understand how that ball was dropped on that. That's all. We never seem to close the deal around here when it comes to things like that, but the good news is that once the door is open in the county, who knows where Trader Joe's could end up next. Oh, and the Grove location was possibly part of the big project in Village West where the Publix may or may not go, so either way, there was no way Joe's was going to end up there anytime soon since the ground has not even been broken yet in that area.

Look where you're baby stepping

To contact us Click HERE

When you're starting out from scratch, it's hard to predict what you're going to need. I just moved into a new apartment, and my kitchen cupboards are empty because I've decided that I'm not going to even try to predict what I might need in the future. The way I intend to re-acquire the supplies I'll need is by doing stuff.

I mean, sure, there's cooking oil, salt, and pepper. But for a little more exotic Chinese cooking, I'll need some sesame oil or star anise. Beyond the basics that I'm certain I'm going to actually use, it's impossible to predict what other odds and ends I will personally end up using. And soliciting advice from others in the past hasn't been good for me: what works for other people often does not work for me.

For me, the only way I have been able to know — with certainty — what I'll need is to actually start trying to do things. If I'm trying to figure out which ingredients I'll need to cook a meal, I just start trying to cook. If anything is missing, its absence becomes readily apparent.

These are kind of like kitchen use cases, if we're going to resort to software development parlance. It's like I'm going agile, or adopting Test Driven Development with my cooking processes. I could theoretically start out with nothing at all — to illustrate the method theoretically, I actually should start from nothing. I would soon find that I need a cutting board, a knife, and whatever ingredients my recipe calls for. For a basic meal I would also find that cooking oil, salt, and pepper come in handy.

After cooking a basic meal, I know with confidence that I have everything I need to cook — wait for it — a basic meal. That common use case is taken care of and I can cook basic meals in the future with confidence. Now, what if I were to go ethnic? I'd soon run into some cases where I'd need to stop and get some more ingredients.

The idea is that, after a while, I would eventually be able to confidently prepare a broad range of meals. This confidence is rooted in the knowledge that I have verified that I have everything needed — by actually having done it in the past.

Of course, it's possible to carry out this kind of method to absurd extremes. If you know for sure you're going to need it, then make a note and take care of it. Be reasonable in what decisions you leave for later and which ones you can make now. In the cooking example, it's great for didactic purposes to start from scratch, but in practice it's dumb not to have the basics like cooking oil or a cutting board.

What about when developing software? You can leave scalability concerns for later if you're just starting to write a web application, but no matter what, you are going to need a machine and a relational database. (If you're writing something, like an offload server, because it needs to be scalable, then you damn well better take scalability into account.) To maintain your sanity, it might even help to sketch out a data model. Take baby steps, but know where each step will end. Don't be content with merely knowing that your foot will be in the air and then end up somewhere on the ground at some point. After all, this nebulous "goal" can just as easily be achieved by tripping and falling.

Small business owners: don't be a jerk

To contact us Click HERE

My girlfriend Sophia is an assistant manager at Abercrombie and Fitch, and is thus bombarded with more than her fair share of rude customers. One story she told me this week was about a woman who went ballistic after asking to try on one of the mannequins' jackets and being told no.

Now, people are just crazy, and Sophia has told me many stories like this before. What was so different this time?

Well, the crazy lady played the business owner card: if it were her store, she would have gladly taken the jackets off the display mannequins. This know-it-all "business owner" then proceeded to hound Sophia for her full name and pressed her for her employee ID so she could file a formal complaint, and refused to go through the normal channels.

It is precisely this self-serving arrogance and provincial, narrow-minded ignorance that keeps small business owners from being taken seriously. As a former small business owner myself, I know that the burden is heavy: you've got to worry about employees, customers and growing your business. On top of that, you have the responsibility to make sure any legal paperwork is in order and that taxes are taken care of. But just because you're able to handle this does not mean that you know all there is to know, and that your way of doing things is the only way.

In response to this growing sense of self-importance, here are three things to keep in mind. (I use these reminders to keep myself in check, too.)

a) Rules and processes have a place, even if you choose to forgo them. As a small business owner, you can get by with fewer rules and processes in place. In fact, in most cases you do much better when you're flexible. But larger businesses have a much harder time being flexible; it's not impossible, just much harder. They have to manage everything more strictly in order to hold together the larger whole. A little sloppiness in your store can be passed off as "charming." In a national chain where customers expect extreme tidiness and consistency, that sloppiness is not charm. It is chaotic, and it is poor business.

b) Not everyone enjoys the same latitude to call the shots as you do. You may be your own boss, but most people have someone else to answer to. I've found that being a business owner, seeing the bigger picture, and having the power to remedy things has turbocharged my ability to take the initiative, even after going back to working for someone else. Still, despite having passion for my line of work and understanding its larger implications, I have much less scope to make important decisions. In large companies, even CEOs don't wield absolute power, because they have a board of directors and shareholders to please.

c) You are not special, so don't expect special treatment. A couple of years ago, I received a parking ticket by mistake. I knew that I had moved my car in time, and so I decided that I would write in to contest it. One of my co-owners suggested that I take a tough stance and mention that I was a business owner — as if that had anything to do with my guilt or innocence. I mentioned it anyway, thinking that a little reminder about my contribution to the community wouldn't hurt. Still, I didn't want to rely on that mostly irrelevant fact, so I put much more effort into stating the facts of the case. I drew a diagram of where I had parked, when I had moved my car, when I had been ticketed, and why it was a mistake. In the end I got the ticket waived, but I have a good hunch it had more to do with stating the facts than mentioning that I was a "business owner."

My automobile's cooling system and its plastic parts

To contact us Click HERE

I've learned a lot about my car's cooling system over the past couple of weeks. There's nothing like the prospect of a melted engine to focus the mind. Typically, I would be content to leave it to the mechanic, but the cooling system has many moving parts, and I'm the one who sees firsthand all the symptoms when driving it in various situations.

At the very least, anyone in my position would have to take careful note of which circumstances triggered certain events. Such diagnostic tips can help the mechanic narrow things down so that he won't charge you as much for diagnosing the problem. Ideally, we'd also prefer that he fix everything that's wrong with a component as vital as the cooling system.

I've had to watch the reading on the temperature sensor, for one. The key is to never let the needle hit the red zone at the top of the temperature gauge. If it does, your engine's head gasket and other crucial parts are in critical danger of melting, distorting, or breaking. The repairs for those problems are much more expensive than those to the cooling system.

When I went to the mechanic this morning, I took in various observations that would help him narrow down the problem and know where to look. I noticed that the fans were going full speed because of the higher running temperature, so I told him that the fans were extremely loud after a short drive. From various sources online, I made sure to observe any difference between city driving and high speed freeway driving, but there was none, so this meant there was one less option to consider.

With the cooling system in my car, things have been failing left and right in a sort of chain reaction as the increased running temperature of the car's engine puts a lot of parts under extra stress. Whatever parts failed and needed replacing were just worn out and should have been replaced long ago. Rubber rings had become as hard as plastic. One plastic pipe had become so brittle from age that it broke off; I had to re-fasten the hose clamp just to keep the engine running cool enough to drive to the mechanic. Metal parts such as the thermostat housing and the water pump showed signs of corrosion; in the case of the thermostat, it wouldn't open to let coolant flow as it should.

The mechanic told me some interesting tidbits while we were ruminating aloud on the absurdity of car makers — including Daimler and BMW — using so many plastic parts all over the cooling system. According to him, the move towards plastic parts is justified by lower cost of materials and making the car lighter so the engine doesn't have to pull as much weight. One thing he observed was the increasing failure rate of newer cars — and he said it wasn't unusual for people with new cars still under warranty to come to his shop with worn out plastic parts.

Suffice it to say, that made me very hesitant about paying a premium for a newer model Mercedes-Benz or a BMW. If I end up buying a new car soon, it may well be a Hyundai, a Honda, or a Toyota. If everyone's using plastic parts, I may as well pay less.

In any case, I'm surprised that my old car has lasted this long, considering the long distances I drive on a regular basis. It's a 1996 Mercedes-Benz C220. I've been very fortunate to have the car running within its prescribed temperature limits, despite all the hand-wringing and pulling over to the side of the road, fraught with worry.

Women's Fitness

To contact us Click HERE
Choosing Women's Fitness Apparel


Fitness Clothing worn during physical activity should be as important as practice sessions. Therefore, you should be able to choose the right workout clothes. Clothes do not fit you properly can make a difference in your workout performance. Every time you start to lose weight during exercise, then you should look for new clothes for exercise.


You may want to feel good and look good but are comfortable more or equally important. There are many choices and varieties in clothing provided by the fashion industry. There are also many brand fashion and design industries to choose from. When choosing the type of workout clothes to buy, consider the following.


Comfortable workout clothes to avoid tight clothing. The material must be of good quality, flexible and gives you room to move and breathe freely. The material must be permeable to air, especially if you are involved in high-impact training that makes you sweat allot. Choose clothing that is specifically meant for exercise activities that you participate in.

TEDx Coconut Grove is at Ransom on Friday

To contact us Click HERE

Nelson Dellis, speaker

After months of planning, TedX Coconut Grove is happening this Friday, September 28 at the Lewis Family Auditorium at Ransom Everglades. The program is from noon to 9 pm. 

TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group.

Speakers include Nelson Dellis, a memory champion and Alzheimers activist. He has developed a passion for memory training and has noticeably improved his memory.

Producer and Musican Emilio Estefan is also a spearker, also Thelma Gibson, Nurse and activist; physician Joe Greer will speak, he is founder of Camillus House. Best selling author and trail attorney James Grippando will speak and the list goes on. 

The Introd to TEDx is at noon and then speakers will begin starting with Greg Cooper, a Ransom teacher who teaches US History and US Government. They will go on until 6 pm, when there is a dinner break, from 6 to 7:30 pm. Then the speakers will go on from then until 9 pm. There are four sessions with the dinner break in between.

You can see the full list of speakers and schedule and purchase tickets here. They are close to selling out, so there will be no onsite sales. Adults are $50 and students $10. This includes admission to all four sessions and includes dinner, which is provided by many local restaurants.

For more info: info@TEDxCoconutGrove.org

Ransom Everglades is located at 3575 Main Highway. 

Kids casting call for "Cinderella" at Conservatory

To contact us Click HERE

This Saturday,September 29, The Miami Conservatory of Music is hosting an Open House and Casting Call for "Cinderella" from 1 to 2:30 pm at the Recital Hall next to the Improv (2911 Grand Ave). Emphasis is on both, singing and acting. Keep in mind, this is an acting class, there is a fee to join.

They need young people. There's a fee to participate, and kids will be taught acting, singing and dancing by veteran performers. The play will debut in April. Rehearsals are on Saturdays at the Conservatory. This is ideal for young aspiring actors who could use a Broadway Show credit on their resumes.

The casting call is for all roles. Everything from Cinderella to the evil stepsisters and the handsome prince! The Conservatory is licensed to produce Disney events and plays. Info at http://www.miamiconservatoryofmusic.com/ or 305-442-2283.

Look where you're baby stepping

To contact us Click HERE

When you're starting out from scratch, it's hard to predict what you're going to need. I just moved into a new apartment, and my kitchen cupboards are empty because I've decided that I'm not going to even try to predict what I might need in the future. The way I intend to re-acquire the supplies I'll need is by doing stuff.

I mean, sure, there's cooking oil, salt, and pepper. But for a little more exotic Chinese cooking, I'll need some sesame oil or star anise. Beyond the basics that I'm certain I'm going to actually use, it's impossible to predict what other odds and ends I will personally end up using. And soliciting advice from others in the past hasn't been good for me: what works for other people often does not work for me.

For me, the only way I have been able to know — with certainty — what I'll need is to actually start trying to do things. If I'm trying to figure out which ingredients I'll need to cook a meal, I just start trying to cook. If anything is missing, its absence becomes readily apparent.

These are kind of like kitchen use cases, if we're going to resort to software development parlance. It's like I'm going agile, or adopting Test Driven Development with my cooking processes. I could theoretically start out with nothing at all — to illustrate the method theoretically, I actually should start from nothing. I would soon find that I need a cutting board, a knife, and whatever ingredients my recipe calls for. For a basic meal I would also find that cooking oil, salt, and pepper come in handy.

After cooking a basic meal, I know with confidence that I have everything I need to cook — wait for it — a basic meal. That common use case is taken care of and I can cook basic meals in the future with confidence. Now, what if I were to go ethnic? I'd soon run into some cases where I'd need to stop and get some more ingredients.

The idea is that, after a while, I would eventually be able to confidently prepare a broad range of meals. This confidence is rooted in the knowledge that I have verified that I have everything needed — by actually having done it in the past.

Of course, it's possible to carry out this kind of method to absurd extremes. If you know for sure you're going to need it, then make a note and take care of it. Be reasonable in what decisions you leave for later and which ones you can make now. In the cooking example, it's great for didactic purposes to start from scratch, but in practice it's dumb not to have the basics like cooking oil or a cutting board.

What about when developing software? You can leave scalability concerns for later if you're just starting to write a web application, but no matter what, you are going to need a machine and a relational database. (If you're writing something, like an offload server, because it needs to be scalable, then you damn well better take scalability into account.) To maintain your sanity, it might even help to sketch out a data model. Take baby steps, but know where each step will end. Don't be content with merely knowing that your foot will be in the air and then end up somewhere on the ground at some point. After all, this nebulous "goal" can just as easily be achieved by tripping and falling.

Small business owners: don't be a jerk

To contact us Click HERE

My girlfriend Sophia is an assistant manager at Abercrombie and Fitch, and is thus bombarded with more than her fair share of rude customers. One story she told me this week was about a woman who went ballistic after asking to try on one of the mannequins' jackets and being told no.

Now, people are just crazy, and Sophia has told me many stories like this before. What was so different this time?

Well, the crazy lady played the business owner card: if it were her store, she would have gladly taken the jackets off the display mannequins. This know-it-all "business owner" then proceeded to hound Sophia for her full name and pressed her for her employee ID so she could file a formal complaint, and refused to go through the normal channels.

It is precisely this self-serving arrogance and provincial, narrow-minded ignorance that keeps small business owners from being taken seriously. As a former small business owner myself, I know that the burden is heavy: you've got to worry about employees, customers and growing your business. On top of that, you have the responsibility to make sure any legal paperwork is in order and that taxes are taken care of. But just because you're able to handle this does not mean that you know all there is to know, and that your way of doing things is the only way.

In response to this growing sense of self-importance, here are three things to keep in mind. (I use these reminders to keep myself in check, too.)

a) Rules and processes have a place, even if you choose to forgo them. As a small business owner, you can get by with fewer rules and processes in place. In fact, in most cases you do much better when you're flexible. But larger businesses have a much harder time being flexible; it's not impossible, just much harder. They have to manage everything more strictly in order to hold together the larger whole. A little sloppiness in your store can be passed off as "charming." In a national chain where customers expect extreme tidiness and consistency, that sloppiness is not charm. It is chaotic, and it is poor business.

b) Not everyone enjoys the same latitude to call the shots as you do. You may be your own boss, but most people have someone else to answer to. I've found that being a business owner, seeing the bigger picture, and having the power to remedy things has turbocharged my ability to take the initiative, even after going back to working for someone else. Still, despite having passion for my line of work and understanding its larger implications, I have much less scope to make important decisions. In large companies, even CEOs don't wield absolute power, because they have a board of directors and shareholders to please.

c) You are not special, so don't expect special treatment. A couple of years ago, I received a parking ticket by mistake. I knew that I had moved my car in time, and so I decided that I would write in to contest it. One of my co-owners suggested that I take a tough stance and mention that I was a business owner — as if that had anything to do with my guilt or innocence. I mentioned it anyway, thinking that a little reminder about my contribution to the community wouldn't hurt. Still, I didn't want to rely on that mostly irrelevant fact, so I put much more effort into stating the facts of the case. I drew a diagram of where I had parked, when I had moved my car, when I had been ticketed, and why it was a mistake. In the end I got the ticket waived, but I have a good hunch it had more to do with stating the facts than mentioning that I was a "business owner."

My automobile's cooling system and its plastic parts

To contact us Click HERE

I've learned a lot about my car's cooling system over the past couple of weeks. There's nothing like the prospect of a melted engine to focus the mind. Typically, I would be content to leave it to the mechanic, but the cooling system has many moving parts, and I'm the one who sees firsthand all the symptoms when driving it in various situations.

At the very least, anyone in my position would have to take careful note of which circumstances triggered certain events. Such diagnostic tips can help the mechanic narrow things down so that he won't charge you as much for diagnosing the problem. Ideally, we'd also prefer that he fix everything that's wrong with a component as vital as the cooling system.

I've had to watch the reading on the temperature sensor, for one. The key is to never let the needle hit the red zone at the top of the temperature gauge. If it does, your engine's head gasket and other crucial parts are in critical danger of melting, distorting, or breaking. The repairs for those problems are much more expensive than those to the cooling system.

When I went to the mechanic this morning, I took in various observations that would help him narrow down the problem and know where to look. I noticed that the fans were going full speed because of the higher running temperature, so I told him that the fans were extremely loud after a short drive. From various sources online, I made sure to observe any difference between city driving and high speed freeway driving, but there was none, so this meant there was one less option to consider.

With the cooling system in my car, things have been failing left and right in a sort of chain reaction as the increased running temperature of the car's engine puts a lot of parts under extra stress. Whatever parts failed and needed replacing were just worn out and should have been replaced long ago. Rubber rings had become as hard as plastic. One plastic pipe had become so brittle from age that it broke off; I had to re-fasten the hose clamp just to keep the engine running cool enough to drive to the mechanic. Metal parts such as the thermostat housing and the water pump showed signs of corrosion; in the case of the thermostat, it wouldn't open to let coolant flow as it should.

The mechanic told me some interesting tidbits while we were ruminating aloud on the absurdity of car makers — including Daimler and BMW — using so many plastic parts all over the cooling system. According to him, the move towards plastic parts is justified by lower cost of materials and making the car lighter so the engine doesn't have to pull as much weight. One thing he observed was the increasing failure rate of newer cars — and he said it wasn't unusual for people with new cars still under warranty to come to his shop with worn out plastic parts.

Suffice it to say, that made me very hesitant about paying a premium for a newer model Mercedes-Benz or a BMW. If I end up buying a new car soon, it may well be a Hyundai, a Honda, or a Toyota. If everyone's using plastic parts, I may as well pay less.

In any case, I'm surprised that my old car has lasted this long, considering the long distances I drive on a regular basis. It's a 1996 Mercedes-Benz C220. I've been very fortunate to have the car running within its prescribed temperature limits, despite all the hand-wringing and pulling over to the side of the road, fraught with worry.

Solo exhibit of Tony Mendoza at Rodez Gallery

To contact us Click HERE

Pregnant Birds

In Celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month Rodez Art Gallery presents a Solo Exhibit of Tony Mendoza’s Idioms Series.
Tony is known for his whimsical and colorful work celebrating life in Miami’s Little Havana.  In this series, he has applied his distinctive vision to literally portraying the imagery of common Spanish and English language idioms. Discovering in the process that what is said in everyday conversations can inspire truly humorous, compelling and surrealistic illustrations.

Faceless

In his colorful work Tony pokes fun at life.  He sees humor in all things, thus compelling the viewer of his artwork to take matters-at-hand a little less seriously.  His creations have the ability of making people forget their headlong race against time, obliging them to stop, observe, smile and yes, to even laugh out loud.

The vernissage will be held on Saturday, October 6, during Coconut Grove Gallery Walk from 7 to 10 pm.

Gallery hours are Monday through Thursday, 11:00 am to 7:00 pm and Friday and Saturday, Noon to 10:00 pm.

The Rodez Gallery is at CocoWalk, 3015 Grand Avenue, suite 237. Tel: 786-467-7111.

The Devil's Daughter getting Married

Gone fishing

To contact us Click HERE
I have decided to end the Grapevine, but maybe not totally end it, I don't know yet. What I am doing is stopping daily publication for now, only because I feel that I have other things I need to do and I believe that you physically have to shut one door to have another door open. I want to immerse myself into the cartooning world and so that is what I am going to do. I plan on traveling often, my first trip is to New York for the New York Comic Con, where I can mix and mingle and pick up tricks from other cartoonists. I need to promote myself and my comic, Tomversation, full time. While I bought a 4-day pass, I was also given a press pass, so I will be covering the event for publication, maybe for the Huffington Post.

I could keep the Grapevine up and running, but not on a daily basis, but I feel that would be doing it in a half-assed way. I don't want to do that. I have tried hiring photographers and writers but it doesn't seem to work. So rather than run the thing into the ground, I will take this break, most likely it will be final, but I am a Gemini and I change my mind often, so maybe I'll start it up again in a few months, we'll see. There are almost 9000 stories here believe it or not, all done in the 7.5 years we've been up and running, so you can always go back into the archives and have a laugh or two if you feel like it.

I won't be going far though because I will still have my presence in other publications as I always have like at the Huffington Post, The Miami Herald, the Examiner, Salon.com and other places, including Tomversation.com where I have my daily comic strip, but also, I have a blog there. If you look at that page, you'll notice the cartoon is at the top and the blog below it, so even if you don't want to read the cartoon, you can always follow me through the blog, where I talk about personal things, social media and cartooning.

I will be in town, I'm not disappearing. I'll be at the Pumpkin Patch this weekend and Grovetoberfest and the Gallery Walk, next month, I am just not just publishing the news on these pages.

I will keep the Grapevine Twitter feed @grovegrapevine going and the Facebook fan page (http://www.Facebook/coconutgrovegrapevine) so that I can post photos and event notices and things like that whenever I have them, so I won't totally be out of the loop. That is where I'll probably post the Grovetoberfest photos or the Pumpkin Patch photos. I'll sometimes just post random photos, I posted one of amazing clouds and the sunset last night and it got over 100 likes, so people seem to enjoy that.

And if that isn't enough, you can personally follow me on Twitter at @Tomversation or at Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Tomversation. It's a fan page, so you don't have to ask to be a friend, you can just follow any time you feel like.

Yes, I'm all over the place, but I have been all these years, you just may not have known it because it flows very seamlessly. I just post various things in the various publications, pages, and sites that pertain to those sites and subjects. I also have Instagram, Pinterest and Tumblr, I guess you can eventually find those sites if you look.

I never realized how busy I was before, I run a full time business on top of all this and for many years was on every committee in town, for six years I was even my condo's president. But now it's time for me to take time off from a lot of this and go off and do new things. Again, if you care to keep up with me personally or with Grove events or whatever, you can do it all via the social media sites listed above and when I have stories published in other publications, I'll share the links on the social media sites so you can read me if you feel like it.

Until my next tweet . . . 

Look where you're baby stepping

To contact us Click HERE

When you're starting out from scratch, it's hard to predict what you're going to need. I just moved into a new apartment, and my kitchen cupboards are empty because I've decided that I'm not going to even try to predict what I might need in the future. The way I intend to re-acquire the supplies I'll need is by doing stuff.

I mean, sure, there's cooking oil, salt, and pepper. But for a little more exotic Chinese cooking, I'll need some sesame oil or star anise. Beyond the basics that I'm certain I'm going to actually use, it's impossible to predict what other odds and ends I will personally end up using. And soliciting advice from others in the past hasn't been good for me: what works for other people often does not work for me.

For me, the only way I have been able to know — with certainty — what I'll need is to actually start trying to do things. If I'm trying to figure out which ingredients I'll need to cook a meal, I just start trying to cook. If anything is missing, its absence becomes readily apparent.

These are kind of like kitchen use cases, if we're going to resort to software development parlance. It's like I'm going agile, or adopting Test Driven Development with my cooking processes. I could theoretically start out with nothing at all — to illustrate the method theoretically, I actually should start from nothing. I would soon find that I need a cutting board, a knife, and whatever ingredients my recipe calls for. For a basic meal I would also find that cooking oil, salt, and pepper come in handy.

After cooking a basic meal, I know with confidence that I have everything I need to cook — wait for it — a basic meal. That common use case is taken care of and I can cook basic meals in the future with confidence. Now, what if I were to go ethnic? I'd soon run into some cases where I'd need to stop and get some more ingredients.

The idea is that, after a while, I would eventually be able to confidently prepare a broad range of meals. This confidence is rooted in the knowledge that I have verified that I have everything needed — by actually having done it in the past.

Of course, it's possible to carry out this kind of method to absurd extremes. If you know for sure you're going to need it, then make a note and take care of it. Be reasonable in what decisions you leave for later and which ones you can make now. In the cooking example, it's great for didactic purposes to start from scratch, but in practice it's dumb not to have the basics like cooking oil or a cutting board.

What about when developing software? You can leave scalability concerns for later if you're just starting to write a web application, but no matter what, you are going to need a machine and a relational database. (If you're writing something, like an offload server, because it needs to be scalable, then you damn well better take scalability into account.) To maintain your sanity, it might even help to sketch out a data model. Take baby steps, but know where each step will end. Don't be content with merely knowing that your foot will be in the air and then end up somewhere on the ground at some point. After all, this nebulous "goal" can just as easily be achieved by tripping and falling.

Small business owners: don't be a jerk

To contact us Click HERE

My girlfriend Sophia is an assistant manager at Abercrombie and Fitch, and is thus bombarded with more than her fair share of rude customers. One story she told me this week was about a woman who went ballistic after asking to try on one of the mannequins' jackets and being told no.

Now, people are just crazy, and Sophia has told me many stories like this before. What was so different this time?

Well, the crazy lady played the business owner card: if it were her store, she would have gladly taken the jackets off the display mannequins. This know-it-all "business owner" then proceeded to hound Sophia for her full name and pressed her for her employee ID so she could file a formal complaint, and refused to go through the normal channels.

It is precisely this self-serving arrogance and provincial, narrow-minded ignorance that keeps small business owners from being taken seriously. As a former small business owner myself, I know that the burden is heavy: you've got to worry about employees, customers and growing your business. On top of that, you have the responsibility to make sure any legal paperwork is in order and that taxes are taken care of. But just because you're able to handle this does not mean that you know all there is to know, and that your way of doing things is the only way.

In response to this growing sense of self-importance, here are three things to keep in mind. (I use these reminders to keep myself in check, too.)

a) Rules and processes have a place, even if you choose to forgo them. As a small business owner, you can get by with fewer rules and processes in place. In fact, in most cases you do much better when you're flexible. But larger businesses have a much harder time being flexible; it's not impossible, just much harder. They have to manage everything more strictly in order to hold together the larger whole. A little sloppiness in your store can be passed off as "charming." In a national chain where customers expect extreme tidiness and consistency, that sloppiness is not charm. It is chaotic, and it is poor business.

b) Not everyone enjoys the same latitude to call the shots as you do. You may be your own boss, but most people have someone else to answer to. I've found that being a business owner, seeing the bigger picture, and having the power to remedy things has turbocharged my ability to take the initiative, even after going back to working for someone else. Still, despite having passion for my line of work and understanding its larger implications, I have much less scope to make important decisions. In large companies, even CEOs don't wield absolute power, because they have a board of directors and shareholders to please.

c) You are not special, so don't expect special treatment. A couple of years ago, I received a parking ticket by mistake. I knew that I had moved my car in time, and so I decided that I would write in to contest it. One of my co-owners suggested that I take a tough stance and mention that I was a business owner — as if that had anything to do with my guilt or innocence. I mentioned it anyway, thinking that a little reminder about my contribution to the community wouldn't hurt. Still, I didn't want to rely on that mostly irrelevant fact, so I put much more effort into stating the facts of the case. I drew a diagram of where I had parked, when I had moved my car, when I had been ticketed, and why it was a mistake. In the end I got the ticket waived, but I have a good hunch it had more to do with stating the facts than mentioning that I was a "business owner."

My automobile's cooling system and its plastic parts

To contact us Click HERE

I've learned a lot about my car's cooling system over the past couple of weeks. There's nothing like the prospect of a melted engine to focus the mind. Typically, I would be content to leave it to the mechanic, but the cooling system has many moving parts, and I'm the one who sees firsthand all the symptoms when driving it in various situations.

At the very least, anyone in my position would have to take careful note of which circumstances triggered certain events. Such diagnostic tips can help the mechanic narrow things down so that he won't charge you as much for diagnosing the problem. Ideally, we'd also prefer that he fix everything that's wrong with a component as vital as the cooling system.

I've had to watch the reading on the temperature sensor, for one. The key is to never let the needle hit the red zone at the top of the temperature gauge. If it does, your engine's head gasket and other crucial parts are in critical danger of melting, distorting, or breaking. The repairs for those problems are much more expensive than those to the cooling system.

When I went to the mechanic this morning, I took in various observations that would help him narrow down the problem and know where to look. I noticed that the fans were going full speed because of the higher running temperature, so I told him that the fans were extremely loud after a short drive. From various sources online, I made sure to observe any difference between city driving and high speed freeway driving, but there was none, so this meant there was one less option to consider.

With the cooling system in my car, things have been failing left and right in a sort of chain reaction as the increased running temperature of the car's engine puts a lot of parts under extra stress. Whatever parts failed and needed replacing were just worn out and should have been replaced long ago. Rubber rings had become as hard as plastic. One plastic pipe had become so brittle from age that it broke off; I had to re-fasten the hose clamp just to keep the engine running cool enough to drive to the mechanic. Metal parts such as the thermostat housing and the water pump showed signs of corrosion; in the case of the thermostat, it wouldn't open to let coolant flow as it should.

The mechanic told me some interesting tidbits while we were ruminating aloud on the absurdity of car makers — including Daimler and BMW — using so many plastic parts all over the cooling system. According to him, the move towards plastic parts is justified by lower cost of materials and making the car lighter so the engine doesn't have to pull as much weight. One thing he observed was the increasing failure rate of newer cars — and he said it wasn't unusual for people with new cars still under warranty to come to his shop with worn out plastic parts.

Suffice it to say, that made me very hesitant about paying a premium for a newer model Mercedes-Benz or a BMW. If I end up buying a new car soon, it may well be a Hyundai, a Honda, or a Toyota. If everyone's using plastic parts, I may as well pay less.

In any case, I'm surprised that my old car has lasted this long, considering the long distances I drive on a regular basis. It's a 1996 Mercedes-Benz C220. I've been very fortunate to have the car running within its prescribed temperature limits, despite all the hand-wringing and pulling over to the side of the road, fraught with worry.

The falling leaves

To contact us Click HERE
I'm going up north in the next week and that made me think of fall leaves. How about if we truck in lots of fall leaves, dump them in Peacock Park and let people jump around in them and play in them for a fee? Or even for free? It's sort of like Snow Days, but with leaves, it could be called "A Taste of Fall."

I heard that Snow Days won't be back this year but that Fete de la Musique, is coming back. I'm not quite sure why we can't have it all. Snow Days is a popular fun thing. I am told that there's only so much money to spread around by the BID these days and I feel they made a bad choice in choosing one event over the other.

Let's bring families to the Grove at Christmas time. I understand Fete is culture and it may be great to have all sorts of musicians all over town performing, but if it's the difference between Snow Days or the  Fete de la Musique, I would choose Snow Days. Add more snow, make it a bit larger, but keep the popular tradition!

Remember that Cirque du Grove which we had on July 4th weekend for a couple of years? There was a night time fire show and a daytime acrobatic show, right out on the streets, all for free. Well we didn't have that this year because the money went to the Fete de la Musique, which again, was fine but the Cirque brought more people and was different, exotic and something we could claim as our own.

I don't get it. But where the BID is concerned I never get it.

Look where you're baby stepping

To contact us Click HERE

When you're starting out from scratch, it's hard to predict what you're going to need. I just moved into a new apartment, and my kitchen cupboards are empty because I've decided that I'm not going to even try to predict what I might need in the future. The way I intend to re-acquire the supplies I'll need is by doing stuff.

I mean, sure, there's cooking oil, salt, and pepper. But for a little more exotic Chinese cooking, I'll need some sesame oil or star anise. Beyond the basics that I'm certain I'm going to actually use, it's impossible to predict what other odds and ends I will personally end up using. And soliciting advice from others in the past hasn't been good for me: what works for other people often does not work for me.

For me, the only way I have been able to know — with certainty — what I'll need is to actually start trying to do things. If I'm trying to figure out which ingredients I'll need to cook a meal, I just start trying to cook. If anything is missing, its absence becomes readily apparent.

These are kind of like kitchen use cases, if we're going to resort to software development parlance. It's like I'm going agile, or adopting Test Driven Development with my cooking processes. I could theoretically start out with nothing at all — to illustrate the method theoretically, I actually should start from nothing. I would soon find that I need a cutting board, a knife, and whatever ingredients my recipe calls for. For a basic meal I would also find that cooking oil, salt, and pepper come in handy.

After cooking a basic meal, I know with confidence that I have everything I need to cook — wait for it — a basic meal. That common use case is taken care of and I can cook basic meals in the future with confidence. Now, what if I were to go ethnic? I'd soon run into some cases where I'd need to stop and get some more ingredients.

The idea is that, after a while, I would eventually be able to confidently prepare a broad range of meals. This confidence is rooted in the knowledge that I have verified that I have everything needed — by actually having done it in the past.

Of course, it's possible to carry out this kind of method to absurd extremes. If you know for sure you're going to need it, then make a note and take care of it. Be reasonable in what decisions you leave for later and which ones you can make now. In the cooking example, it's great for didactic purposes to start from scratch, but in practice it's dumb not to have the basics like cooking oil or a cutting board.

What about when developing software? You can leave scalability concerns for later if you're just starting to write a web application, but no matter what, you are going to need a machine and a relational database. (If you're writing something, like an offload server, because it needs to be scalable, then you damn well better take scalability into account.) To maintain your sanity, it might even help to sketch out a data model. Take baby steps, but know where each step will end. Don't be content with merely knowing that your foot will be in the air and then end up somewhere on the ground at some point. After all, this nebulous "goal" can just as easily be achieved by tripping and falling.

Small business owners: don't be a jerk

To contact us Click HERE

My girlfriend Sophia is an assistant manager at Abercrombie and Fitch, and is thus bombarded with more than her fair share of rude customers. One story she told me this week was about a woman who went ballistic after asking to try on one of the mannequins' jackets and being told no.

Now, people are just crazy, and Sophia has told me many stories like this before. What was so different this time?

Well, the crazy lady played the business owner card: if it were her store, she would have gladly taken the jackets off the display mannequins. This know-it-all "business owner" then proceeded to hound Sophia for her full name and pressed her for her employee ID so she could file a formal complaint, and refused to go through the normal channels.

It is precisely this self-serving arrogance and provincial, narrow-minded ignorance that keeps small business owners from being taken seriously. As a former small business owner myself, I know that the burden is heavy: you've got to worry about employees, customers and growing your business. On top of that, you have the responsibility to make sure any legal paperwork is in order and that taxes are taken care of. But just because you're able to handle this does not mean that you know all there is to know, and that your way of doing things is the only way.

In response to this growing sense of self-importance, here are three things to keep in mind. (I use these reminders to keep myself in check, too.)

a) Rules and processes have a place, even if you choose to forgo them. As a small business owner, you can get by with fewer rules and processes in place. In fact, in most cases you do much better when you're flexible. But larger businesses have a much harder time being flexible; it's not impossible, just much harder. They have to manage everything more strictly in order to hold together the larger whole. A little sloppiness in your store can be passed off as "charming." In a national chain where customers expect extreme tidiness and consistency, that sloppiness is not charm. It is chaotic, and it is poor business.

b) Not everyone enjoys the same latitude to call the shots as you do. You may be your own boss, but most people have someone else to answer to. I've found that being a business owner, seeing the bigger picture, and having the power to remedy things has turbocharged my ability to take the initiative, even after going back to working for someone else. Still, despite having passion for my line of work and understanding its larger implications, I have much less scope to make important decisions. In large companies, even CEOs don't wield absolute power, because they have a board of directors and shareholders to please.

c) You are not special, so don't expect special treatment. A couple of years ago, I received a parking ticket by mistake. I knew that I had moved my car in time, and so I decided that I would write in to contest it. One of my co-owners suggested that I take a tough stance and mention that I was a business owner — as if that had anything to do with my guilt or innocence. I mentioned it anyway, thinking that a little reminder about my contribution to the community wouldn't hurt. Still, I didn't want to rely on that mostly irrelevant fact, so I put much more effort into stating the facts of the case. I drew a diagram of where I had parked, when I had moved my car, when I had been ticketed, and why it was a mistake. In the end I got the ticket waived, but I have a good hunch it had more to do with stating the facts than mentioning that I was a "business owner."

My automobile's cooling system and its plastic parts

To contact us Click HERE

I've learned a lot about my car's cooling system over the past couple of weeks. There's nothing like the prospect of a melted engine to focus the mind. Typically, I would be content to leave it to the mechanic, but the cooling system has many moving parts, and I'm the one who sees firsthand all the symptoms when driving it in various situations.

At the very least, anyone in my position would have to take careful note of which circumstances triggered certain events. Such diagnostic tips can help the mechanic narrow things down so that he won't charge you as much for diagnosing the problem. Ideally, we'd also prefer that he fix everything that's wrong with a component as vital as the cooling system.

I've had to watch the reading on the temperature sensor, for one. The key is to never let the needle hit the red zone at the top of the temperature gauge. If it does, your engine's head gasket and other crucial parts are in critical danger of melting, distorting, or breaking. The repairs for those problems are much more expensive than those to the cooling system.

When I went to the mechanic this morning, I took in various observations that would help him narrow down the problem and know where to look. I noticed that the fans were going full speed because of the higher running temperature, so I told him that the fans were extremely loud after a short drive. From various sources online, I made sure to observe any difference between city driving and high speed freeway driving, but there was none, so this meant there was one less option to consider.

With the cooling system in my car, things have been failing left and right in a sort of chain reaction as the increased running temperature of the car's engine puts a lot of parts under extra stress. Whatever parts failed and needed replacing were just worn out and should have been replaced long ago. Rubber rings had become as hard as plastic. One plastic pipe had become so brittle from age that it broke off; I had to re-fasten the hose clamp just to keep the engine running cool enough to drive to the mechanic. Metal parts such as the thermostat housing and the water pump showed signs of corrosion; in the case of the thermostat, it wouldn't open to let coolant flow as it should.

The mechanic told me some interesting tidbits while we were ruminating aloud on the absurdity of car makers — including Daimler and BMW — using so many plastic parts all over the cooling system. According to him, the move towards plastic parts is justified by lower cost of materials and making the car lighter so the engine doesn't have to pull as much weight. One thing he observed was the increasing failure rate of newer cars — and he said it wasn't unusual for people with new cars still under warranty to come to his shop with worn out plastic parts.

Suffice it to say, that made me very hesitant about paying a premium for a newer model Mercedes-Benz or a BMW. If I end up buying a new car soon, it may well be a Hyundai, a Honda, or a Toyota. If everyone's using plastic parts, I may as well pay less.

In any case, I'm surprised that my old car has lasted this long, considering the long distances I drive on a regular basis. It's a 1996 Mercedes-Benz C220. I've been very fortunate to have the car running within its prescribed temperature limits, despite all the hand-wringing and pulling over to the side of the road, fraught with worry.

Women's Fitness

To contact us Click HERE
Choosing Women's Fitness Apparel


Fitness Clothing worn during physical activity should be as important as practice sessions. Therefore, you should be able to choose the right workout clothes. Clothes do not fit you properly can make a difference in your workout performance. Every time you start to lose weight during exercise, then you should look for new clothes for exercise.


You may want to feel good and look good but are comfortable more or equally important. There are many choices and varieties in clothing provided by the fashion industry. There are also many brand fashion and design industries to choose from. When choosing the type of workout clothes to buy, consider the following.


Comfortable workout clothes to avoid tight clothing. The material must be of good quality, flexible and gives you room to move and breathe freely. The material must be permeable to air, especially if you are involved in high-impact training that makes you sweat allot. Choose clothing that is specifically meant for exercise activities that you participate in.

The more things change . . .

To contact us Click HERE
The more things change, the more they stay the same in that they constantly change.

I met a man and his wife last month, they stopped me on the street to tell me they live in North Carolina, but read the Grapevine every day. They originally were from the Grove, in fact, the man told me that his grandfather was one of the first homesteaders of the Grove. He opened the Kress 5 & 10 in 1933 and they owned and still manage buildings and stores in the Grove.

The man was telling me all about the Grove back in the day, which was well before his time, but I guess his grandfather and parents told him of the way it was. He told me that the area all near the 5 & 10, which is where Jaguar, the restaurant is now, was pine trees, he said it was all one big pine forest in that area, from the post office on down the block.

I have friends whose family has been in the Grove since 1931 and they tell me about having goats and chickens in the yard off of 32nd Avenue, which was basically farmland then.

The man who stopped to talk was a bit upset about the streetscape plan and the trees being removed and replaced he wasn't crazy about that and he enjoyed the fact that I would write against it in the Grapevine, but it made me think, didn't his grandfather have to remove the pine forest to put in the 5 & 10 store? And all those buildings he owns in the Grove, wasn't that the same? Didn't they have to take down trees to put them in?

I didn't tell him that, but it's interesting to think that the world did go on, even though his family removed that pine forest, and I guess we'll go no with the new smaller trees installed around the Grove. The guy promised to send me some old photos of the pine forest and what it looked like on Grand Avenue back in the 1930s. I hope he still does. That would be interesting to see.

The only wine event you need to attend this week

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It's amazing to think that the best wine tasting in town is at El Carajo, the gas station!

It's time for their monthly Wine Flight Dinner called, "Fall into Pinot." It's Wednesday, September 26 from 6 to 8 pm. If you don't do any other wine event in the Grove this week, and why would you? this is the one to attend. Go here and you won't need to attend any of the other copycats.

On the menu:

- Course 1 -
Rockerfeller Mussels baked with Spinach & Cheese
Franz Keller Pinot Blanc ‘10

- Course 2 -
Mushroom Salad in a Wine Demi-Glace
Remoissenet Pere & Fils Bourgogne ‘09

- Course 3 -
Parmesan Veal Scallopini
Crū Vineyard Montage ‘09

- Course 4 -
Dr. Pepper Lacquered Duck over Sweet Potato Mash
Domaine Serene '09

- Dessert –
Brie Baked Dates
Vin Santo del Chianti '07

This casual, yet elegant dinner includes several off-the-menu courses paired with great wines, each expertly chosen to enhance every plate. Local wine educator Barry Alberts will be floating around the dining room discussing and answering all your questions about the night’s wines. 

This fantastic menu was prepared by Luis Barbosa (Head Chef) and Micheal Cespedes (Wine Steward).

El Carajo is at 2465 SW 17 Avenue.
Cost: $60 per person Tax & Gratuity not included
Please RSVP at least one day in advance at: 305.856.2424.