The end of the Holiday season

Huzzah! The end of the Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzas/Ramadan/new year's season has come to an end.

The lights are down and stuffed back into plastic bags (no matter that you spent $15 on new "storage" for your Christmas items, you just don't want to deal with them.. Later.. Maybe).

Zeta has finally vanished into the Atlantic darkness and once and for all we can finally say chow! To the insane 2005 hurricane season.

So after 5 months of hurricane and holiday insanity, we are finally settling down. Down to the realities of waiting for our insurance checks to come in, so we can repair most of the damage left us in the new year.

We are also waiting.. For the price hikes. The hike in home owner's insurance, the hike in power bills (22% increase as of Jan 1!), the hike in postage, the hike in taxes, and probably the hike in the phone bill as well. Goodness knows that BellSouth won't want to be left out of the increases.

So what is south Florida doing? They're leaving. Yes, all the people that have been here since air conditioning was invented are flying the coop. For sale signs crown the market. On my block alone, there are 5 houses for sale. I count these by the number of times my dog stops to water them.

The people that are leaving aren't leaving Florida, just South Florida. We've become to expensive to for the upper middle class, let alone anyone like us. It's just become insane. I live here because of my work, not for the love of hurricanes. I see the beach everyday, but once in a blue moon do I step on it.

There are thousands like me here in the south Florida. We look but don't buy in the malls (if we can pay for the gas to get there). I'm having flashes of Aspen, Colorado. Only the super rich can live there, and they ship in the help.

We're are they going to ship us from? Georgia? If you have ever driven through the state of Florida, you will notice one thing. It's BIG! It takes 6 hours to drive from my house in Fort Lauderdale to the Georgia county line. That's with one pit stop for the car.

So with the end of the holiday season and tax season beginning. I'm looking at the 6th month trend... Only 6 months until hurricane season.