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2016 December

Friday, December 9, 2016

The-Coconut-Telegraph-w-CoconutsSince 2002. Published Tuesdays and Fridays
Letters to the Editor with pictures

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I have to admit that I am profoundly affected by the death of John Glenn.  Though he was not my favorite among the original seven, he is the last.  An era has passed.  If humans survive that long, in a thousand years the 60’s will not be remembered for Vietnam. hippies, drugs, or music.  The decade will be remembered as the moment humanity stepped across the threshold into space.

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The next meeting of our Big Pine Computer Club is coming up this Saturday, December 10, 10 am at the senior center.  Hope to see you there.Full Menu > Ongoing Events
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My husband and I are the Tiki Seekers, a duo, and we’ve been playing around Marathon for about a year and change. We’ve recently started appearing at Springer’s on Tuesdays – yes, the Bluegrass dudes are outside, but we’re inside, in the dining room, playing 50s, 60s, 70s and originals. You can see us on YouTube by typing in Tiki Seekers, or you can go to our FB page, Tiki Seekers. Well, that’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it!  Video
(Ed: I apologize for the brevity of today’s Coconut Telegraph as I am time zones away. I’ll return to the rock shortly and things will get back to normal. normal?) 
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“Since when is sitting on the beach and smiling at manatees a bad thing?” When you flirt with one!
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[Help Wanted] Springer’s Bar & Grill is looking for servers & bartenders. Experienced professionals with good ethic. Please apply in person at 31251 Avenue A, Big Pine Key

[Bottled Water] Is Dr. Josh Axe ever down on bottled water! He has reason to be, like the German researchers that found over 24,000 chemicals in a single bottle, or the leaching of dangerous chemicals from the bottles themselves. Link.  The usual plastic used is PET and has recycle # 1 on the bottom. Storage time and heat both dramatically increase leaching.

For water on the go, I save the 16oz bottles from Grolsch beer that i drink at Mangrove Mama’s that have a reusable stopper top that locks down like an antique Mason jar with a heavy duty wire latch. The glass is extra thick like sparkling wine bottles and the beer inside is a top quality Dutch lager for only $5 (16oz, not 12!). I then fill the empties with FKAA’s chemical slurry after running it through a 5 stage Reverse Osmosis filter with de-ionizer first (about $150 delivered from eBay takes Total Dissolved Solids from about 200ppm in BPK to zero, and lasts for years) Those Grolsch bottles are also great for ice tea, including the Long Island type (with the high alcohol content) or your favorite herbal tea. Make a big batch and store the bottles in the fridge ready to go. (BTW- you pop the Grolsch top easily by pushing with your thumbs on the wire knuckles)

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Developers have to make more affordable homes in the $1,000 range. Those type homes are called tents. If you cannot afford to live in Paradise leave it to those who can. You can always move to Boca Raton or New Orleans!
dvorak-keyboard18It amazes me that some Lower Keys residents who post to this blog know what the little figures on the keys of their keyboard mean. Remember the old saying: Give 10 monkeys typewriters and they eventually will create the Encyclopedia Britannica? Proven!
I want to be a bad guy. Do I have to wear a hoodie? I look terrible in hoodies. Does the hoodie have to be black to be a bad guy? I like grey better.
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[“Yankees”] The South had a culture all its own and Florida is still a rude useless bunch of rednecks. Mexico’s biggest fear is that southerners from the lower 48 will move into their country and reduce real estate values!
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[Christmas Eve Service] Join Us for an evening of:  Special Music, Candle Light, The Christmas Story and Christmas Carols to take place. Christmas Eve 12/24 at 8:30 p.m. at Lord of the Seas Lutheran Church, 1250 Key Deer Blvd., Big Pine Key

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[Sewers] Clarification on posts in the Tuesday edition: It was not the FKAA Deputy Executive Director & Manager of Engineering and Operations who supposedly inspected some area sewer laterals that used cheaper, non-compliant parts. It was his good buddy who has been mollycoddled with unadvertised “arranged” jobs for many years “inspecting” contractor work indirectly or directly for FKAA. Anything goes: testing has been abbreviated, most work is not even witnessed, and everything gets approved and paid. Some other FKAA inspectors actually do their job.

On testing sewers, it is not 100 psi that gravity sewers are tested at, but 100 pounds is the cumulative pressure on a 6″ sewer cleanout fitting at only 3.5 psi of test pressure. At 5 psi it is about 140 pounds trying to launch the cleanout like a Polaris missile. You do not want to have your face over the cleanout listening for leaks when lift-off occurs! You could lose your whole head. That’s the main reason why the lateral cleanouts are supposed to be solvent-welded (glued) instead of push-in gasket fittings. Also, if the plug is pulled out instead of pried out of a gasketed fitting when connecting the home’s building sewer, the whole cleanout assembly can easily be pulled off the lateral, and even some lateral pipe may be disconnected at a joint

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[“Yankees”] If it was not for the Yankees us southern inbreeds would never have knowed what soap, toilet paper, bathing, toothbrushes, hygiene, shoes, manners and intelligence was.
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Christmas, my friends, is not a date. It is a state of mind. Want to keep Christ in Christmas? Feed the hungry, cloth the naked, forgive the guilty, welcome the unwanted, care for the ill, love your enemies, and do unto others as you would have done unto you. Have a very Merry Christmas.   ~Coconuts Bar & Liquor Store, down town Big Pine Key

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We won’t be missing the ReStore. The guy who runs it treats it like it’s his personal museum. They get the stuff free, but he thinks it’s all art work, and charges accordingly. If you don’t believe this go towards the cash register. Just before you get to it look to your right. There’s the museum pieces. Then go look at the prices they have on that crap. That place was fantastic when Terri Miller ran it. If she was still there then we would miss it.
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[Help Wanted] The Cudjoe Key Blimp site has an opening for an Electronic Technician II with radar experience preferred. You must be physically fit, drug free and pass a background investigation. You will be required to work three 12 hour shifts and one 6 hour shift per week. This is a Union position and comes with a full benefits package. Please Email your Resume to DLYONS04@Harris.com

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[Sewers] Somebody mentioned inadequate treatment capacity at the new Cudjoe sewer plant. That was not conjecture. The permits prove it. Even with the assumption of 40% of metered water being used outdoors on all of the Inner Islands, and about 25% “irrigation” elsewhere, the DEP-approved collection systems connected to the plant total 1.34 million gallons per average day. The plant was designed to treat an average of only 0.94 million, and the DEP plan reviewer stated that he doubted it could properly treat 0.84 because of tank sizing. So assuming that FKAA can get it all to the plant, forget about AWT treatment. That will often not happen when everything is connected. Is it illegal to connect Big Pine? Hell yes it’s illegal, but DEP doesn’t care because their brother State agency attested on the permit that the plant has adequate capacity. And yes, that was a criminal act to knowingly, willfully make that false statement on the DEP permit applications. But don’t count on any prosecutions, because nobody in power truly cares about environment or people. It’s all about your money and where they can spend it instead of where it was intended to be spent.
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Apparently drinking a beer a day reduces the risk of stroke. If this is true, my moderate alcoholism may have saved my life. Or at least kept me from having a stoke.
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[Friday Joke] An older lady decided to give herself a big treat for her 70th birthday by staying overnight in a really nice hotel. When she checked out the next morning, the desk clerk handed her a bill for  $250.00. She demanded to know why the charge was so high.
“I agree it’s a nice hotel, but the rooms aren’t worth $250.00 for just an overnight stay! I didn’t even have  breakfast.”The clerk told her that $250.00 is the ‘standard rate’, and breakfast had been included had she wanted it. She insisted on speaking to  the Manager. The Manager appeared and, forewarned by the desk clerk, announced: “This hotel has an Olympic-sized pool and a huge conference centre which are available for use.””But I didn’t use them,” she said.”Well, they are here, and you could have,” explained the Manager. He went on to explain that she could also have seen one of the in-hotel shows for which they were so famous. “We have the best entertainers from the world over performing here,” the Manager said.

“But I didn’t go to any of those shows,” she said.

“Well, we have them, and you could have,” the Manager replied.

No matter what amenity the Manager mentioned, she replied, “But I didn’t use it!” and the Manager countered with his standard response. After several minutes’ discussion, and with the Manager still unmoved, she decided to pay, wrote a check and gave it to him. The Manager was surprised when he looked at the check.  “But madam, this check is for $50.00.”

“That’s correct I charged you $200.00 for sleeping with me,” she replied.

“But I didn’t!” exclaimed the very surprised Manager.

“Well, too bad, I was here, and you could have.”

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To whoever wrote: “R.I.P. Ann Young, She must be in the running to be canonized for putting up with “the Reverend Grab-it-all. She’s a saint and he is pure evil and a charlatan.” Anonymity will not guise your hateful soul. You know nothing about the man, or his family. Instead you choose to slander him when he has lost everything to him. I sincerely hope you rot in hell. Your words do nothing to console a grieving family. Jim Young has given so much in support of the Big Pine community. He deserves to be respected as such.
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I love the way after charges of hostile workplace, waste, fraud and abuse that The National Marine sanctuary simply relocates two top staff members so they can make somebody else’s lives uncomfortable and mismanage a different place. And after six month’s investigation they “might” have some answers “next” month. It makes you wonder just what one would have to do to get fired from these jobs. At least the review of the sanctuaries management condition plan is on track.
When did they start? you ask? Oh, that was back in 2011. More useless people with Government jobs that we can’t be rid of until they kill somebody, it seems.
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