Clickable of the cheap canopy, taken yesterday AM just before the legs were painted green
That narrow parking area between the security wall and the garage is wind-protected in its way.
The slope of the bricked-over slab is just so: that with two feet planted in the shrub area on the left,
the other two legs set on the pavers.
If we were to have a tropical storm of 60mph or more, it =might= move: might un-velcro the top or tip it over.
It weights, as said, nearly nothing.
For twenty years or more here, I've begged Ern: I want a car canopy. I could have paid for a custom-installed,
code-legal permanent installation. "NO!" said Ernie, who was just sure it would be visible from the street,
and thinks that canopies are low-rent looking. Well, back then it would have cost, because this is Miami,
the city of avaricious, corrupt code inspectors and codes atop of codes (windstorm resistance is a big one),
to have Thomas Awning build-in a four post canopy of, say 12 feet wide on anchored, PIPE legs, would have cost
at least a couple of grand. And "NO" said Ernie, because he was "sure" it would be see-able from the street to the right of the wall.
All these years I've suffered having my cars outside, getting plastered with sticky, thin tropical flower-leaves and bug crap and sun fade...
This thing is "good enough" and it's INVISIBLE from the street, after all.
These days we have no money. Property taxes are due soon. Can any of you outside of, say, NYC, imagine that Miami charges our less-than half acre
nearly 20 grand just for annual taxes? The house next door is from 1951, is a small 'ranch house' of the era. Late buddy Ray, built that house himself,
just after the Korean War, and his nearly two acres cost, then 15 grand, and the house, 15 grand.
Our lot, in 72, an unsaleable property then was the former back yard of the 30's house next door: lot cost 20 grand.
Their property taxes, next door, Ray's family, and they are working class people: about thirty grand.
Point: property values in this area have skyrocketed and people are getting squeezed out by the costs.
Our Dear City does this: they have a small squad of turban headed Singhs who do nothing but drive about and look for "violations".
Used to be, if you put lawn cuttings out for pick-up on, say, Tuesday, for Friday pickup, you would possibly get an advisement.
Now they change the rules, at will, and do not advise homeowners. This town is so corrupt.
When Ray next door was dying, and his family tore out some interior junk and made a trash pile, they should have called for a "special pickup".
They did not know of Mr. Singh (they all have the same name). I neatened up that pile, and being a caretaker for absent Ray's property,
I added to that pile, five, flattened UPS boxes. Result: A five hundred dollar fine for US, for "public dumping". The kangaroo court judge also fined Ray, 92, 500 bucks. We all appeared at the code hearing rooms. The waiting room was filled with people who had been identically fined.
One man, a small building landlord, moaned "FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS, they are fining me because...some tenant of mine apparently discarded a =letter= of mine about rent, into a neighbor's trash pile." Singh sifts through trash piles. If you put out your lawn clippings one day before pickup: a minimum of $75 fine. If you put out a scrap of plywood: $500 fine. IF a vandal or other, puts a letter of yours, from your trash can, atop some neighbor's trash pile: $500 fine for "public dumping"; an ordinance made many years ago to dissuade nighttime dumpers of washing machines and dead cars, from dumping crap in front of your home. It's a racket, pure and simple.
Ray did not speak to the "judge" that day of our mutual hearing; Larissa did. The "judge" was accompanied behind his folding table, by the city code manager, I forget his name. Multi-thousand dollar shiny gray silk suit, is what he is, with an unctious smile.
Ray hobbled in. Larissa, his sole kin/granddaughter had done all the homework, and protested, most politely.
You hear and meet her in " Ernie Rides Again " at YT. That "judge" relented to our tales of woe: "Well, we can do this; cut the fines in half,
so you each pay today $250." And as all of the other Miami victims left, each one heading to the fine collection window, I heard the same story:
"He cut it in half to $250". The small landlord guy was apoplectic: "$250 because some stranger crumpled and tossed a mere form letter with my name,
and put it to someone's trash pile!" My pal, Ray, was ailing. It was the last time I'd see my best pal. His spirit was crushed. Ninety two.
How are you bearing up, Ray? Tired. Resigning... "I'm ready to go." One month later, he dies in his sleep.
Thank, you, 
Mr. Singh!
-----
These jerks could now come and fine me five grand, or whatever, for that canopy.
I will sue the city if that happens The canopy is clearly not windstorm proof, but exactly of the nature of a lawn furniture umbrella.
$42 vs. probably two or three grand for a "real" canopy.
I hope to meet Mr. Singh again. I will denounce him and his suited buddies and tell them to suck my ass.
And I will get them out of work, pronto. I know how to work the media now. Miami sucks, but is beautiful in other ways.
It is a shame that the City has stolen property rights from citizens. So much corruption and wasted public works money:
the new thing is to install traffic circles all over the area, from the small streets of Coral Gables, to all over the City of Miami:
slows traffic, cost probably 200 grand for the average circle. And they won't even make the curbings white, for visibility, but gray like the faded asphalt.
Reflective dots? Absent or half-missing, rubbed off by car and truck tires. I crashed into the curbing of a useless, new circle a few months ago, on the bike. And when that circle was new about two years ago,coming home very late in a taxi, for my car battery had died,
the taxi driver did not know about the new circle on Hardie. "SWERVE" I said at the last second, for he did not see it coming.
He barely missed the invisible thing. The curbings around these "speed reducers" are now
blackened with the tire sidewall rubber
of many errant cars. And
no-one seems to know the right of way rule. CRASHES occur now, more, at the Hardie Road circles, than before the circles were installed.
Anywho: I got a canopy
of sorts. It is too short to cover the full length of my tiny car.
It cost 50 bucks, if I include the cost of the can of spray paint that greened its four legs.
I can zip off the cover in five minutes and fold the frame down to golf-bag size.
WHEN Mr. Singh comes, as he may, and lies like melted butter, "you are in code violation",
I may just violate his body with a brick. Just may. No. I won't do that. But, inasmuch as the "legal system" here is nothing but a citizen-confounding
morass of "legal" fun-house mirrors, all set to shatter and kill you, I take now, a new attitude: effo them all: the mayor here is a velvet voiced crook,
and his chief aide, Ariola, a thug in a suit.
The canopy will be so useful to move about the courtyard when I want to pull weeds without being in the direct sun.
I know now how to make a lift-stick and just pick up the thing with two hands and walk it about the courtyard as needed;
it being only on the order of twenty pounds weight. I fear only tornadoes (hardly happen here) and Singhs; more the former than the latter.
Singhs are constantly combing trash piles looking for even a letter from some yahoo, addressed to some home other than that of the pile it belongs in.
IF a night time dumper puts a washing machine in your pile, had better call the po-po and make them come out and cost money and make a report.
Then when Singh fines YOU for public dumping (you did not), you can tell him to suck your Bic, lit.
