Things I miss about Jacksonville...

I'm in Florida right now, Jacksonville actually, on vacation. Someone asked me yesterday what I noticed about the US when I came back, what struck me the most. And I have to say that it was the awful smell of the fast food court at the Atlanta airport. Ugh. And people eat that stuff. Another thing I've noticed is the huge portions at restaurants. I used to think that Sliders' servings were a touch on the small side. Now, I think they're huge! I ordered crab cakes for dinner, and couldn't finished my plate.

I've been working on relaxing, trying to remember how to do that, how not to work, how not to check email all the time. So I've been hanging out at Jacksonville Beach, enjoying a walk down to the pier and back each morning. Enjoying the sunshine (with lots of sunscreen!) and the warm weather. I've noticed a few differences since I was last here -- there are fewer for sale signs, less traffic on A1A/3rd St., parking still available on a Friday evening in Atlantic Beach.

But I also realized that there are things I miss about Jacksonville...
1) Sliders restaurant in Atlantic Beach
2) Walks on the beach
3) My friends and family
4) The weather!!!
5) 5 Guys burgers
6) The greenery and trees
7) Watching the clouds gather every afternoon
8) The humidity (yes, the humidity)

Photos will be posted in a couple of weeks when I return.

Hurricane Watch, Amazon Kindle, Olympics, and Other Observations

So, we're stuck in a hotel. There's a tropical storm hovering over us. We've been watching the Olympics. I've been reading.

Fortunately the electricity is still on, but since I've just written that, it will undoubtedly go out at any moment. That's ok, we have our water and our canned, non-perishable food to get us through a day or two. We've been in a hotel now for almost a week, with another week or more to go depending on how things work out. Things to do -- find laundry services that will not exhaust my daily laundry per diem. Fortunately we're in a place with a microwave and refrigerator so we've been able to go to the store and get a few things so we don't have to eat restaurant food all the time.

Yes, I know, some folks eat out at restaurants all the time, but I find that as I get older, restaurant food doesn't sit so well with me. Some places I get a stomach ache, and some I just end up with that over-full greasy feeling. So having the option of going to the store is really, really nice. It isn't home cooking, but it's better than fast food or over-priced entrees on a daily basis.

We've been watching the Olympics. Go Trinis!! Anyway, we're limited to the channels that the hotel has, which is pretty much the basic network and cable channels. I enjoy watching the Olympics. I admire the athletes so much -- the time, energy, and effort they put into their sport of choice to get to this level is quite impressive. That being said, why is it that every time a US athlete fails to get the gold, the interviewer puts them on the spot and punches them in the stomach figuratively? Ok, you've spent months, years of your life working so hard to get to this point, and something happens and you don't make the final, and to get back to the locker room, you have to pass the NBC interviewer, who is going to ask you some of the most insensitive questions I've ever heard. And in addition to watching these incredibly uncomfortable and insenstive interviews, why is it that the network has to show you every single fall or stumble from every single camera angle available? I know the gymnast fell off the apparatus, I don't need to see it from every single angle, the left, the right, from above, from below, from 45 degrees to the side. She fell. We saw it the first time. We don't need a gazillion replays. Please, move on.

When we're not watching the Olympics and I'm not working, I've been reading. I splurged on an Amazon Kindle and am thoroughly enjoying it. I've had a few issues where it hasn't been that responsive and I've had to re-set it. But I have a 2 GB SD Card in there, and room for many, many books. It's actually almost too easy to flip between books because now I don't have to get up and physically go to one of the piles of books I used to have sitting around the room. Now, I just press the home button, and select one of the many other books available to me.

Anyway, it's now raining, the wind is still blowing, and we're stuck here for a while longer.

Tropical Storm Fay

High tide -- the water is all the way up to the dunes, at the foot of this wooden walkway.


Low tide, where there's still some beach. This is more normal at high tide.


Even the surfers with surfboards didn't stay in for long today.

View From a Hotel Room Window - Jacksonville Beach, FL, August 2008

Hurricane watch

Still windy, but not unbearably. Ocean now not so inviting -- yesterday some surfers were taking advantage of the increased wave sizes (i.e., greater than 6 inches). But now it's white and rough. Some rain, but nothing like the torrential downpours they're talking about. Schools closed.

My first hurricane...

TS Fay -- my first Florida hurricane experience.

We picked up water today, and some food. But our food storage options are limited since we're stuck in a hotel for now. For now we're watching the palm trees blowing in the breeze. If it gets up to Cat 2 strength, we'll probably head inland.

View From a Hotel Room Window - Miami, FL - July 2008

Key West, Florida

Mile 0 marker for US 1, Key West.



Rooster at Blue Heaven restaurant, Key West.

Smathers Beach, Key West, Florida

These are photos from our trip to Key West last summer. This is Smathers Beach, one of the public beaches in Key West.

Key West, Florida

View from the Turtle Kraals restaurant in Key West.


Interior courtyard of the Turtle Kraals restaurant where they hold turtle races.


Church in Key West.

Ocean Club Happy Hour

Why we moved to the beach!!

We've been going to the Ocean Club for happy hour on Fridays now for a few weeks. The bartender now recognizes us and has our drinks ready for us as we get to the bar. It's right on the beach in Jacksonville Beach, just immediately south of the pier (which costs a $1 to enter, by the way). They have two for one specials and it's just so nice to be able to be in a casual place and enjoy the weather. We enjoy the people watching -- some folks walks dogs, some folks walk dogs much bigger than they are, some swagger, some skateboard, and some ride some amazingly interesting bikes.

When gazing to the east (towards the ocean) -- yes, I know, for a West Coaster, it's hard to "re-orient" myself and accept that the sun rises in the ocean and sets over land, everything inside the covered area is just a silhouette. The bartender said he recognized us by the way we walk because everything he sees is a silhouette/outline.

Clearwater, Florida

Clearwater Beach, Florida -- beautiful white sand beach on the Gulf of Mexico. Clear water, no waves. Sand is soft, but very, very bright on the eyes.

The previous day we went to Ft DeSoto Park beach, part of the Pinellas County park system, and has one of the highest rated beaches of white sand according to the signs at the beach. To get to the actual beach, we had to wade through a lagoon (and the water was cold!). The weather was lovely, not too hot. But the water still wasn't very warm and the waves weren't very big.

Mile marker along the Gulf Cities, going from Clearwater south to St Pete Beach, the barrier islands off of Clearwater and St Petersburg. There's a trolley system that goes all along Gulf Blvd with stops along the 25 miles.

Pelicans at Johns Pass, Madeira Beach. We stopped at Johns Pass and had lunch at the Friendly Fisherman, then wandered along the boardwalk. The usual touristy kitsch was available for purchase.

St Petersburg, Florida

Pelicans at St Petersburg, Florida, near the pier, by the Art Museum.

Sea horse on the ground on the foot of the pier at St Petersburg, Florida.

Boats in Tampa Bay, view from the end of St Petersburg Pier.

We went to St Petersburg, Florida this weekend, staying at the Pier Hotel near downtown. It's an older hotel, and it's big selling point is a lovely veranda on which we sipped wine during afternoon/evening happy hour. The rooms were decent sized, but the bathrooms were tiny. And there was no view except for the backside of another building from our room. And the walls with the connecting doors were a bit thin, we could hear a lot more of our next door neighbors' conversation than we really wanted.

Another great selling point was the fact that there was so much within walking distance -- the art and history museums (which I hope to get to the next time we go to St Pete), the pier, Central Avenue (first Friday of the month is a huge street party), and lots of restaurants and shops.

For dinner on Friday, we ate at the Central Avenue Oyster Bar. I had the crab cakes and enjoyed them. There was clearly recognizable crab meat in them, and they weren't mushy. They had just enough spice for flavor (in other words, they weren't too hot for me!). Carlon had the bourbon salmon. Dinner started with a caesar salad. And was accompanied by bread served with olive oil drizzled over grated parmesan cheese. Sides were fresh vegetables (broccoli, yellow squash, green beans) and mashed potatoes. The vegetables were clearly fresh, although the broccoli was a tad overcooked. The potatoes were bland. Service was good.

Sweating season has arrived...

Here in northeast Florida, there are two seasons -- sweating and non-sweating. Sweating season has officially arrived. This means that I sweat in my sleep. I sweat when I walk outside. I sweat when I breathe. I'm completely soaked before I start my beach walk in the morning.

I also know that I'm getting pretty acclimated to the weather. While, yes, sweating season might have arrived, up until this week, it was too cold to go outside most of the time without a sweater in my opinion. And yet, there would be people on the beach in bikinis or shorts while I was shivering and wondering how fast can I get back to the car and turn the heater on.

Now, my goal is to hold off on turning on the air conditioner until May. So wish me luck...

Life at the beach...

Well, we've moved. And we're practically unpacked. Except for the kitchen. So we've been eating out for most of the past week. I think we've eaten out for dinner more in the past week than we have for the entire previous year. It just seems that home cooked meals taste better than restaurant food.

Anyway, we went for happy hour at Ocean Club in Jacksonville Beach on Friday after cleaning up and packing up the last bits of detritus in the old apartment. The drinks were two for one during happy hour. They were okay. But the people watching was amazing!!! It appears that Jacksonville Beach is becoming a slight spring destination. Nothing on the order of Daytona, Miami, Destin, or the redneck riviera they keep mentioning on the news. But there were plenty of young folks strutting their stuff to keep me entertained for hours. I find it interesting how men's clothes are getting bigger and baggier while women's clothes are getting smaller and smaller. Some of the guys were wearing many layers of clothes while the girls were wearing the skimpiest and tightest bikinis they could apparently find in the children's department. One guy's pants even fell down while he was walking because he stopped holding his pants up momentarily to hold his girlfriend's hand. Fortunately he was wearing glow in the dark blue boxer briefs with basketball shorts over those, so he was still fully clothed (sort of) with his pants around his ankles.

Overall, though, my one observation: Plumber's butt is not attractive on anyone. Period.

Driving the back roads of Florida...

I had to go to Gainesville the other day for work. The route to Gainesville from Jacksonville is not straightforward. There is no highway, freeway or other direct route from Jacksonville to Gainesville. I did take I-10 part way, to avoid some of the streets on the westside that I always see in the news with shootings and other crime scenes. Plus, Mapquest recommended I-295 to I-10, so that's the way I went.

Anyway, once I got on the road, it was a straight shot, for the most part, to the office. But I did notice a few things:

1) people inch through red lights. I'll be the first car in my lane at a stop light, stopped because it's red. Yet the person next to me will start inching forward. And they don't wait until the light's about to turn green. They'll start doing this even if the light just turned red. Anyway, I'm stopped at a light, and this guy in the left lane started inching through, and finally he just went all the way through the red light, even though the folks in the left turn lane had a green arrow. They just honked at him as he went through the intersection.

2) they have speed trap warning billboards saying warning, speed trap ahead

3) there were lane realignment ahead signs on I-10, and I saw them and expected that there would be a decent change to the lanes ahead. Nope, the lanes shifted about a foot from the existing lane lines. In California, if they have one of those signs, it usually means a 45 degree angle change, dips and bumps over temporary construction stuff, and a lane not quite big enough for big rigs that runs right next to those white concrete dividers.

4) signage is lacking -- I noticed, or maybe I didn't notice, there was no sign indicating which was the north direction and which the south. See, there are no mountains or other large direction indicators out in Florida, so sometimes, especially at night, it's difficult for me to tell what direction something is, particularly if there's no sign saying which way is north and which is south. So I came to an intersection and had to guess, because it wasn't a straightforward intersection, I had to turn right and go over some railroad tracks and then cut back over to catch the road, and I never saw a sign that said go right for south and left for north.

CA v FL electricity woes

I just saw a news story that says that in Florida when it gets cold, people use more electricity, so they're working hard to make sure that there's enough electricity so everyone can use their heaters tomorrow.

In California, it's summer where the electricity demand soars.

Just another one of those differences I've noticed between California and my new home state. As long as there are no rolling blackouts tomorrow! It's very, very cold outside.

EO Inn, Orlando

For work, I've gone down to Orlando a few times. And yes, there is a non-entertainment Orlando, a real-world city outside the Disney-fied entertainment world. So I've stayed at the EO Inn, which is just down the street from the office. It's a small boutique hotel and spa, and if I arrive after about 5 or 6 pm, I have to call the number posted and get the code to open the box outside the door. I think I've actually seen a front desk person maybe two or three times total out of about a half dozen visits. But I love the decor, and the location is perfect. If I'm tired and just want a light dinner, there's a Panera Bread on the first floor of the building.

On one of my Orlando jaunts, I got a room upgrade to a corner room on the top floor. It was great. Too bad I was only there for one night.

This is the bathroom to this room -- his and hers sinks on either side of the bathtub. By the way, they have great shampoos and soaps and lotions. Some places have mediocre and cheap stuff, but this place has the good stuff.

This is the room at the foot of the bed -- two comfy chairs, a desk overlooking the Eola Lake. A great place to plug in the laptop and work. There's also a door opening out onto the balcony, which stretches down the length of the building.










This is the view from the window, overlooking Lake Eola.

Soccer Trip - Miami

We went to Miami in summer for the 2007 ConCaCaf Gold Cup soccer tournament. We watched Canada and Guadeloupe, and Haiti and Costa Rica, in the Orange Bowl, which is now no longer in use apparently. Unfortunately Trinidad & Tobago played in Los Angeles, so we didn't see them play this time. It was an interesting experience. The first game, Canada and Guadeloupe, didn't have that many people watching. But Haiti and Costa Rica had a lot more people show up. I didn't understand a whole lot of the various shouting going on since I speak neither French nor Spanish. And there was definitely a fair amount of exuberance on behalf of the spectators, but not as much as seen on some televised matches in other countries where things fly and entire sections of the stands do something in concert.

In amongst the soccer games we went to, we did some beach and restaurant exploration. And some pool-side reading. All-in-all, a lovely Miami experience.

Miami Carnival Weekend

We went to Miami the first weekend in October for Miami Carnival. These are photos of the view from the hotel room. (I really should start keeping track of which hotel these views from a hotel room are taken from.)

The entire reason for going was to attend all the Miami Carnival functions. We arrived Thursday night. There was some show going on in some arena, but due to the fact that I'm getting older and can't handle going out late at night after working all day, then driving for 5 hours, I opted out of that event. The next night was the White Party, which has been previously been held at the Deauville on Miami Beach. This year it was at a hall out by some medical center that the cab driver had never heard of and couldn't find despite an address and a map. Then, the performers didn't start performing until about 3:30 a.m. We arrived around midnight expecting that the show would start about 1 or 2, based on previous experience. But no, nothing until 3:30 in the morning. And the first performer left a lot to be desired. We finally gave up about 4 in the morning and headed back to the hotel.

Saturday night was another set of performances with food and drink booths. This is usually held at the FIU Campus (the one with the hospitality school). But, no, not this year. This year they moved it to a race course. And as one of my brothers-in-law pointed out, I shouldn't even have expected decent food since the venue was a race course. But despite the fact that the food was merely ok when it was even available, the music was good. And it was a first for me, I've never been to an outdoor concert in the rain.

The final Carnival activity was to be a parade on Sunday. But we decided against going. First of all, there were two parades -- one in Broward County, one in Miami-Dade County. At the same time on the same day. And the fliers for both events listed the same performers. We figured that even though time works differently in Miami than in other parts of the world, the performers we wanted to see would be at the other parade (one of the laws of my world). And it turns out that there was a shooting at one of the events. So we were very pleased that we'd decided that instead of going to the parade, that we'd take a nice long walk along the boardwalk and have dinner in Miami Beach.