They're Just Some Cuts And Bruises

I scanned this off of a little 2x3 inch print that I have tucked in front of the glass of a small mirror on the wall above my computer.

I think it will be three years in January since my son Jonathan did this lovely "portrait" of his dad. It'll be three years in January that this happened.

The occasion was that my crazy next door neighbor who never pulls a permit for anything had a well drilling truck pulled into his yard and I asked the driller if he'd pulled a permit. Rather than answering me he ran out into the street where I was standing and attacked me, knocking me to the ground and I ended up looking like this. Eventually some neighbors pulled him off of me.

The down side of the experience is that now I know I can live through something like this, and I get a bit confrontational at times with young punks who insist on blasting their car stereos as loud as possible. First I politely ask them to turn it down and usually get a reply of "Why should I! What are you gonna do about it?" I offer them my face, saying "I never throw the first punch. You hit me first!" at this point I'm about a foot away from them. "...and then I'm going to beat the shit out of you!" I guess the idea of a grizzled old guy showing no fear makes them think twice. They always just drive away as their buddies laugh at them. So far I've never been hit.

So yesterday my neighbor is outside. He must have had a mirrored wall in the house that he was tired of because he had all these 2x6 foot sections of mirror that he was tossing over his wood plank fence into the narrow space between it and the old chainlink fence seperating our yards. The mirrors were shattering, making a mess that wasn't visible from his side of the solid wood fence but certainly was from my side through the chain link. I got pissed BIG TIME! I suggested that he could squeeze in between the two fences and pick up every big or little piece of broken mirror that was there and to DO IT NOW. He did.

Well, I didn't get a picture of my grin yesterday so I'm using this old shot again.

Actually it makes me wonder. Should I run for mayor in the upcoming May city election? Can you envision "Elect Al Kaplan" signs all over North Miami featuring this photo? It sure would get some publicity!

Looking At The House Next Door, The Rules Aren't Made For Him

It's against the law to obstruct the sidewalk by parking across it but my nextdoor neighbor for the past two or three years thinks it's fine for him to do it. Everybody else parks on the grass between the sidewalk and the road. Not him! Even when we had strict watering restrictions during the recent drought he had his sprinklers going for hours every day.

He also thinks that it's OK for him to build without permits and build things that don't meet code. I'm on the city's Board of Adjustment and the city attorney says that I'm required tio report these transgressions. Things like building a too tall fence with no permit, raising roosters to awaken the neighborhood, hiring a well drilling company to put a well in his front yard with no permit (and the contractor beat the crap out of me when he saw me standing in the street photographing the scene!), putting in that circular drive with no permit, the list goes on. He even tried to get me to split the cost of cutting down a mature live oak tree, a protected species, on the property line.

His recently planted a ficus hedge along the chain link fence on the property line. I checked with the city. They said that first I should politely tell him that it'd be OK with me for him to go on my property to trim my side of his hedge. If he said "no" I'd be free to spray a defoliant (weed killer) on my side. This, of course, would kill the entire hedge. Last week I saw him outside trimming his side and told him that he could come in my yard to trim my side. He started cursing and screaming at me at the top of his lungs! He said it was my side and I should trim it. I told him how I planned on "trimming" it. He started coming towards me, holding the power trimmer. I retreated into my house.

I think his problem stems from the fact that he bought the house near the peak of "the real estate bubble", put a bunch of money into fixing up the house, stuck a For Sale sign out front, and the real estate market crashed. I doubt that he can sell the place without adding a hundred thousand dollars of his own money into paying off the mortgage and construction loans. The house won't bring anywhere near the money he's put into it, not in today's market. In the meantime he's paying fines and double permit fees to the city and lots of parking tickets to the county. The police chief says that he also has a neighbor like that. It's good to know that I'm not alone!

Any good news? Yup! It hasn't reached this neighborhood yet but all over South Florida something called "white fly" is infecting and killing off all the ficus trees and hedges. The infection gets under the bark. Spraying won't kill it.

Fencing With Chain Link ~ The Crash

(Photo not yet available)

Life is just so exciting when you hear first a crash then the sound of what seems to be a truck dumping a load of scrap metal on your front lawn. All I wanted to do was enjoy my coffee and first cigarette of the day but instead I was running to the front door to see what was happening. By the time I got on the porch what was happening had happened. The chain link fabric was pulled out into the middle of the street, one end still attatched to the remaining standing posts, but long sections of the top rail and several posts were scattered about. Deep ruts crossed my lawn.

Well, I thought, as I dialed the North Miami Police, at least they missed hitting my truck by about ten feet as the veered off the road and they'd managed to stop before they would have crashed into my house. My neighbor from across the street pulled up before the police officer arrived. It seems that Mike was outside and saw the crash and he managed to follow the vehicle, a small black pick-up truck, long enough to get the tag number. The cop's onboard computer thing in her police car ran the tag. It was one of five cars registered at that address, but it wasn't registered to a black pick-up truck. Oh well, I have part of a black bumper as a souvenier, and a bunch of 4X6 color prints of the mess. The insurance adjuster comes tomorrow.

On another track, I'm looking into buying a new computer. Together with the new scanner I'm expecting to have a more exciting blog in the near future.

Al Kaplan For North Miami Mayor

It's odd but the little strip mall has a Starbucks at its southern end, which is within the city limits of North Miami. A few store north and across a narrow alley is the City of North Miami Beach. One itty bitty strip mall, two cities. Just about everybody at Starbucks knows me and I'll talk with just about anybody and everybody. So I'm talking. To anybody and everybody! It's probably well past the time for just talking. Yup, time has run out for sure. The 13th hour has arrived!

For the past few years I've also been talking with everybody and anybody around city hall about "The Fence Issue" and getting nowhere. Today the deputy city manager, Dennis Kelley, came by my house. He agreed that the neighbor's fence was taller than he is. It's taller than his six feet for sure. Six feet maximum is what the code allows, and my contention is that at the time the fence was constructed the code said five feet. Even if the code was changed afterwards the fence should have been made to conform when I first complained. I'm also contending that it should have come in front of the Board of Adjustment for a variance, even if it was after the code was changed, bacause it's still overheight and it was constructed before the change.

Well, it seems that Clarence Patterson, our city manager, thinks that the fence is just fine as it is. That's great. An appointed official gets to make law? That's not the way I read the city charter. We have an elected council and an elected mayor. THEY make the rules and THEY hire and fire the city manager. For at least two years now people have been encouraging me to run for mayor. I still have that photograph of my bruised, cut, and bloody face courtesy of my neighbor's contractor. Well the cuts and bruising are courtesy of the contractor. My son Jonathan took the photo. What folks are telling me is that picture would make for a fantastic campaign poster. It would make for a great T-shirt. It would grab attention as the cover of a campaign brochure. It would probably get coverage in the Miami Herald and on TV as well. I'll even insist on using it as my official portrait to hang in city hall along with all the other portraits of North Miami mayors.

Yesterday I had lunch with the guy who made up the last "Al Kaplan T-shirt" a couple of years ago. Stay tuned...