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January 11, 2007

If you live in Brevard, as many of my readers do, and are looking for great places to find free internet wireless access, a good place to start is this page in Brevard Directory. Some Palm Bay residents have pointed out that even the new Starbucks in Palm Bay is not offering wireless access yet. That sure is a mystery to me. Even the Wendy’s at Palm Bay Road and Babcock has free wireless access, although the service there is a little weak since the access point is buried in the manager’s office.

Posted in: Community
January 08, 2007

For those who write me and wonder if I’m related to Duke or Lynn Salberg, the answer is no. At least not in anyway that I can figure out. Maybe if we went back hundreds of years to the middle ages, our ancestors might have all been huddling in the same ship that crossed the Atlantic or something.

I’m part of the Salberg clan that moved to the Melbourne area in 1973, from Miami. We lived here until about 1980 when my dad took a job with Aramco in Saudi Arabia. Then in 1990, we returned (just as Saddam was about to launch SCUD missiles into our hometown) to Melbourne. And we’ve pretty much been here ever since. Of course, our extended family also moved here in the late 1970’s.

Posted in: Community
January 04, 2007

If you’ve been thinking about the new year and some of those resolutions you’ve made, and if you live in the Brevard County area, what about considering your spiritual walk? If you are a Christian or read the Bible for inspiration, I can’t think of a better way to start the year out right then to attend a Search for Significance Seminar.

My friend, Jean LeStourgeon, is leading one in the South Brevard area from January 22 through January 25, 2007 from 5:30pm to 9:00pm each night. Jean is an excellent counselor and a very compassionate woman. She has great insight into things, so if you’ve had a tough 2006, this would be a great way to get your head and heart on the right path. Soon, 2007 will begin its stranglehold on your schedule, right about the time you start seeing Valentine’s Day cards in Walmart.

Posted in: Community & Christianity
January 01, 2007

If you live in Palm Bay and enjoy using Google Earth, you may have noticed that the resolution quality of much of Palm Bay and south Melbourne wasn’t that great - until now. Now, you have the same quality resolution of other major cities. It looks as if most of the newer satellite photos of Brevard were taken after the hurricanes of 2004, so you’ll see lots of blue tarps on roofs as you look around. It gives you a good sense of the kind of damage people experienced.

 

Technorati Tags: Palm Bay - Google Earth

Posted in: Community
November 20, 2006

Vital Friends: The People You Can't Afford to Live Without

I’ve just finished reading Tom Rath’s Vital Friends: The People You Can’t Afford to Live Without. I have not read his prior bestselling “How Full is Your Bucket?”, but I found Vital Friends to be a remarkably informative book.

Posted in: Community
October 17, 2006

My home from my youngest days has been Melbourne, Florida. One of the earliest memories I have is the downtown library, its tall stacks of books, the groaning of the shelves under the weight of its contents, the small children’s section, the wooden card catalog with its smooth cornered drawers and cards typed with the occasional smudged printing from the librarian’s Selectric. Story day was the best, and the two man-made lakes outside were the wonder of every child. We brought our last crumbled piece of bread with the plastic wrapper that held the original loaf - throwing it to the ducks and the geese as they surrounded us. We’d walk with mommy around the lake, crossing over the little wooden bridge that was between the two lakes. The sun shone every day we were at the library and a trip home with armfuls of books was our just reward for being quiet.

Posted in: Community & Short Stories
July 31, 2006

Sometimes, when you are down and out, between jobs, just trying to get by, you might be tempted to take a job that you otherwise would not have considered. I’ve seen engineers working at Walgreens. I’ve seen mortgage brokers working as roofers. No matter how bad it gets though, there are some jobs you should never consider.

Most people will automatically make wild claims that they would never do certain things for money - bank robbery, for example. Or prostitution. But, those are personal moral choices that people make because they lead to an undesireable lifestyle which, along with the potential criminal penalties, most people do not want to venture into.

Posted in: Community & Culture
July 08, 2006

Techdirt pointed out that, according to Network World, the internet is partly to blame for our lack of close friends these days. It is an interesting study that was done that shows that although people might have hundreds of friends on social networks like MySpace and Friendster, they have fewer close friends then ever.

Close friends are defined as someone who you can talk about “important matters”. I suppose that varies from person to person, but it still rings true to me that people are definitely more scatter-brained and less-focused than I can ever remember.

Posted in: Community
May 29, 2006

Just wanted to post this real quick as a sort of public thank you while I was thinking about it. I’m sure there are many other major thank you’s, but wanted to make these known.

Posted in: Community & Family
May 28, 2006

Yesterday, I buried my son Obadiah Malachi. He was stillborn on May 21. It has been the most heart-wrenching experience of my life. I feel very much like writing and writing and just getting it all out, yet at the same time feel like doing nothing. But I have to write and here seems as appropriate as anywhere else. I really never handwrite anything anyway, so a journal wouldn’t work for me. My thoughts always come faster than I can write, but I type pretty fast so it is easier to keep up with myself.

Posted in: Community & Family
May 17, 2006

Our local paper did not cover this and I heard about this only after receiving an email from a friend about it. Here was his email:

Dear Brevard County Commission,

The arrest of Walter Pine at a commission meeting has come to my attention. It is documented in the video clips below.

I am ashamed of three members of my county commission, Helen Voltz, Ron Pritchard, and Jackie Colon. Sue Carlson was not there and Truman Scarborough tried to be reasonable but couldn’t even get a second.

Posted in: Community
May 05, 2006

We’ve learned the hard way that the two main types of people are loyal and non-loyal. It can be hard to know up front which type of person someone is, so I’m working to devise a series of tests to be posted here later.

Within the loyal camp, there are two main types: Obsessively Loyal (The Stalker), and Just Plain Loyal (The Faithful Friend). The Stalker is obsessed with you as a person, may mention you as a “close friend” when you are not, may find ways to insert him or herself into every aspect of your life, even though you’ve made very little overture to that person, if at all, other than to be pleasant or polite. The Stalker may place the importance of “being with you” over and above normal daily functions like showering, or paying bills on time.

Posted in: Community
April 09, 2006

We like to go to big truck shows as often as possible. The two main ones around Brevard County each year are at Satellite Beach (sponsored by the city I believe) and at the DeGroodt Library in Palm Bay (sponsored by the library). On April 22, from 11am to 2pm, will be “Big Truck Day 2006″ at DeGroodt (at the corner of Minton and Malabar roads). Unfortunately, we might not be able to make it this year. They always have lots of cool trucks for children to climb into and pretend to drive. Here is a picture of the children at last year’s show.

Technorati : children, truck show

Posted in: Community
April 02, 2006

Just read in Florida Today that only 214,715 Brevardians have public library cards. I’m guessing that the only other kind would be library cards for the universities (FIT, BCC, UCF, etc). I’m shocked that more of you don’t use the library.

We have one library card to use for our whole family to keep things simple, so even if other families do the same, maybe that number might get as high as 45 or 50%. And you really can’t count the college “library cards” anyway, since you are required to have one - it acts as your student ID on some campuses. Almost every student is dragged through some insipid class (usually Comm I) which “teaches” them how to use the library - how to find books, how to use your library card, how to use the cataloging system… ugh. When I was forced to go, there were a substantial number of students who were actually absorbing this “new” information. What were they doing for the 13 years of government subsidized education? Do I even want to know?

Posted in: Community
March 14, 2006

For a thousand reasons that I’ll never be able to explain here, I started a forum called discussmarriage.com. I happen to know that there is going to be some interesting discussion going on, but some folks needed a forum, so I created one. There’s probably some other websites on the internet about marriage, dating, and divorce, but I don’t really know where they are - so I just made my own. Plus, mine will be hopefully, a little deeper than those other sites. But as I find them, I’ll link to them on discussmarriage.com so as they say, “All’s fair in love and war”. I have no idea what that means.

Posted in: Website Design & Community