Joanie's Blue Crab Cafe

I was coming from Naples and my friend was coming from Miami.  We needed a place for lunch midway between.  The problem is that only the Everglades are there.  I did some research and found that there is one restaurant out there, namely Joanie's Blue Crab Cafe in Ochopee. 

The reviews are very good.  So, why not give it a try?

It sure has character.

 

As it turned out, Joanie's is surprisingly good.

Water Symposium

Water is hugely important to everyone's health and wellbeing.  But it feels even more central down here in Southwest Florida.  Restoring the Everglades.  Hurricanes.  Droughts.  Red Tides.  Algae blooms.  Fishing.  Beaches and tourism.  Providing fresh water to a rapidly growing population.  It goes on and on.

I attended a symposium about water.  One of the more interesting presenters was Dr. Barry Rosen, a scholar and professor at Florida Gulf Coast University. 

Dr. Rosen is a phycologist, i.e., one who studies algae.  Last year he published a scholarly book about identifying freshwater algae, featuring numerous color microphotographs to aid in classification, including those of harmful algal blooms.

 

Dr. Rosen says "I'm all about algae, photo documenting common and rare forms in high resolution, full color images to assist the next generation of phycologists with better tools for their identification. Harmful algal bloom research too."

Fort Myers Art Show

  The recent Fort Myers Art Show was very crowded and I had been doing several other things that day. So I rushed through it.  These colorful birdhouses were near the exit.  I liked them.

This artist did very intricate pencil drawings.

Very odd, very unusual.

Jennie

 Jennie is a Dominican.  She grew up in central Florida, where her family chased storms, doing hurricane repair work.  Her mother remarried and moved to Michigan and Jennie followed her.

In Michigan and now in Naples, Jennie sells real estate and fixes up deteriorated properties and flips them.

Chalk Art

Fort Myers held an art show last weekend.  Off to the side, high school kids worked on chalk art. 

Bad Bunny!  It was just a few days before the Super Bowl.  About a quarter of the Lee County population is Hispanic or Latino, so this was not surprising.

I should have stopped to ask these students what the orange birds symbolize.

Riverdale High School is at the far eastern edge of Fort Myers and Lehigh is even further into the agricultural and rural inland part of the county.  Citrus has been the economic heart of this part of Southwest Florida for decades.  No doubt some of these kids come from farmworker families.

Birds featured prominently.  If I were smarter or better attuned to today's youth or perhaps Hispanic culture, I might have been able to decode some of the meanings.

Valentine's Day

I visited Iceland's northern city of Akureyri a few years ago.  The heart sculpture in the center of town usually has someone posing and someone else photographing.  

Happy Valentine's Day!

Medical Applications and Innovations in AI

 I attended a most informative talk about new hospital technologies that incorporate artificial intelligence. 

The principal speaker was Dr. Bryan Murphey, President of the NCH Medical group.  (NCH is Naples Comprehensive Health, the new name for Naples Community Health, the biggest hospital system in Collier County.)  

Dr. Murphey explained a dozen to 15 new AI-based devices in regular use at NCH.  He also talked about the difficulty of recovering the costs of these processes, since government funding and insurance funding don't yet have codes medical personnel can bill when using these systems.

Dr. Ronald Riner is head of a major cardiology practice that relies on many new AI-based technologies.  

Dr. Riner introduced Dr. Murphey, addressed several of the new systems, and added additional insights to complement Dr. Murphey's talk.