As has become a recent tradition here on my site, I start with a little history lesson about the year of 1882, keeping pace with my blog post numbers. According to Wikipedia: “On, August 3 – The U.S. Congress passes the 1882 Immigration Act. August 5 – Standard Oil of New Jersey is established. September 4 – Thomas Edison starts the U.S.’s first commercial electrical power plant, lighting one square mile of lower Manhattan.” Thomas Edison has become a frequent source of innovative ideas in this era, some developed in his winter home in nearby Ft. Myers, Florida. He would continue churning out patents for the next 48 years before his death in 1931.

I bought our tickets for the ferry (Key West Express) from Fort Myers to Key West, as we make plans for traveling there in first quarter of 2022. We need to earn a few more Marriott points before booking our lodging for a few nights. We’ll then use the Vacation Club to celebrate our 21st anniversary on Florida’s Singer Island. Marriott stays will also be part of our summer drive to Mackinac’s Grand Hotel, with overnight stops in Petoskey, Cleveland, Canton, and Hilton Head, with more yet to schedule. We’ll end the year at Marriott’s Kaui Lagoons – Kalanipu’u to celebrate an early Christmas. 

We had a WISH-TV reunion yesterday with two other couples at the Streamsong Golf Resort in Central Florida. It’s a unique location on 16,000 acres, hiding decades of strip mining activity. Streamsong was developed  by The Mosaic Company, “the world’s leading producer and marketer of phosphate-based crop nutrients…” There is some ecological controversy surrounding the company, but at least they’ve created a beautiful, world-class site for golfers featuring some of the top courses on the globe. We had lunch and enjoyed each other’s company, leaving our clubs behind. 

We’ll update our landscaping plan with a Zoom call this afternoon before suffering through what will likely be a disappointing evening of IU basketball at Wisconsin. After 18 straight losses in Madison, it’s hard to be optimistic, even through this year’s team has proven to be improved. IU’s 13-point opening BIG victory over Nebraska was overshadowed by a Michigan rout of the same team last night 102-67. Other IU opponents, after close games with us, also experienced decisive losses to ranked teams. Syracuse lost by 14 to Villanova, while Kansas clubbed St. John’s 95-75. This is a strong indication that the team is far from Top 25 status and still simply of average BIG talent. We’ll know more tonight! Ugh!

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