Category: Driving

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Commerce Driving Music Shopping Travel Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

Now Hear This. It’s On My Mind (Pure Energy):

1.  Tropical Storm Fay flooded Florida from Key West to Tallahassee, Hurricane Gustav brushed us aside this past weekend en route to the U.S. Gulf Coast, and now we’ve got Tropical Storms Hanna, Ike, and Josephine lined-up across the Atlantic. I’ve never been concerned with Hanna. She could disrupt plans further up the Atlantic coast of Florida, Georgia, and the Carolinas. Ike could be flirting with the southeastern Bahamas and the north coast of Cuba on Sunday and Monday as a Category 2 or 3 Hurricane. I’m watching Ike closely. You should too.

2.  Yesterday an 18-year relationship ended. I’m talking of course about my relationship with State Farm Insurance. They insured all 4 of my cars during this time-period. Effective yesterday morning at 12:01 AM GEICO became my automobile insurer. Hail to the gecko !

3.  Why do I not shop for clothes at Hollister ?  It’s because I’m not 18-years-old, I don’t surf the wild waves totally bodacious dude, and the strong SoCal smell of that place frankly makes me wanna sneeze !

4.  Michael Jackson recently turned 50-years-old, and he stated that ‘the best was yet to come’. I doubt it. He was cool 25-years-old. He was still cranking out the hits 15 years ago. The best came and went. It’s as clear as “Black Or White” (my all-time favourite song of his).

5.  Florida City (where all of the food is) is the fastest-growing city in Miami-Dade County this year as far as property values are concerned. In fact it’s one of only three cities in the County to show any growth at all this year amidst the current economic slowdown. Read all about it.

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Driving Travel

The Major’s Drive-A-Thon

I’m back home. Here’s a look back at my recent road-trip / vacation:

1.  From start (early Thursday morning) to finish (mid Sunday afternoon) I drove a grand total of 764 miles from here to there and then back again. That’s 372 miles on Thursday, 0 miles on Friday, 23 miles on Saturday, and 369 miles on Sunday.

2.  I filled up with gas twice on this road-trip – both times at the same exact Chevron station on North Wickam Road just off I-95 north of Melbourne. I basically filled up there on Thursday afternoon, drove 326.6 miles, and then filled up there again on this Sunday afternoon. I paid $3.679 per gallon both times. I averaged about 29 MPG on this road-trip. That’s down a bit from previous road-trips, but then again my car is middle-aged now (over 5-years-old). 

3.  Much of East-Central Florida received anywhere from a foot to two feet of rain due to Tropical Storm Fay a couple of weeks ago. It looks that way along I-95. The median and road sides are green, lucious, and overgrown with a lot of standing water all around. I’ve seen this area during brush fire season in the middle of a severe drought. What a complete turnaround from that time !

4.  My fellow drivers up and down I-95 were unusually polite during this road-trip. There were the usual suspects – such as the speeders and the tailgaters – but all-in-all it was a pleasant drive to and fro the northeast of Florida. Traffic was light to moderate during much of the trip on Thursday and on Sunday. I expected it to be much heavier due to the holiday weekend.

5.  My longtime ‘old-school’ Sunpass device that I’ve had for all of these years CRASHED at the start of my road-trip on Thursday. It worked fine for the first tollbooth north of Homestead on Florida’s Turnpike, but then it stopped working after that. It basically burned up (internally) in the hot sun. I had to use cash from that point forward. I was rocking the dedicated change lanes like it was 1999 !

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Driving Home Movies Travel

Saturday Morning Shenanigans

Here at my undisclosed location somewhere within the great state of Florida I’ve been able to go to bed early – during the 9 PM hour – and wake up late – during the 7 AM hour. I’m certainly not getting a MASSIVE 10 hours of sleep, but I am getting plenty of relaxation time whether it’s sleeping, laying in bed, or chillin’ on a chair watching television. It feels great to be on vacation, but I also can’t wait until I get back home again where all of my junk is. It’s only been about 59 hours (as I type this at 5 PM on this Saturday afternoon) since I left my junk behind, but I already miss it all. No worries though, for I’ll be back home again in less than 24 hours from now. I always appreciate Homestead once I’ve been away for awhile.

This morning I took the ‘Saturday Morning Shenanigans’ to the regional-famous Orange Park Mall (southwest of Jacksonville Florida). I saw a movie at the constantly-busy yet well-maintained AMC-24 there. There were a whole bunch of comedy movies that I wanted to see this weekend (such as “College“, “Disaster Movie“, “Hamlet 2“, “Pineapple Express“, “The Rocker“, or “Step Brothers“), but I ultimately decided on the sleeper smash of the late-summer box office season – “Tropic Thunder” – based mostly on my brother‘s glowing recommendation. I agree with him. I laughed hysterically all throughout the movie in unison with my fellow movie patrons. It was one of the most star-studded original screwball comedies I’ve seen on the big screen in awhile !

Those are my ‘Saturday Morning Shenanigans’ for this 5TH and final Saturday of August in 2008. Be sure to catch me next time – ‘At The Movies’ – for some more box office monkey business !

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Computers Driving Food Sports Television Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

1.  Category 1 Hurricane Gustav made landfall earlier this afternoon in southwestern Haiti very near that country’s capitol city. I am forecasting it to eventually intensify into an extremely dangerous Category 4 Hurricane threatening the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to Florida on Labor Day Monday and Tuesday. If you live anywhere between New Orleans and Panama City Beach then I would start preparing now. Don’t panic. Prepare.

2.  I ate a MASSIVE Lunch at this place late this morning. As usual it was a ton of great food – hot and plentiful – with excellent customer service. If you don’t know the Beef’s then you just don’t know what’s good for Lunch !

3.  I’ll be driving well over 800 miles from this Thursday morning through this Sunday afternoon. That’s the most driving that I’ll be doing in nearly 18 months – since March 2007 when I drove to and from north of Atlanta Georgia !  Back then I was paying between $2.40 and $2.70 per gallon of gas.

4.  I’m constantly watching cable television on my sparkling new desktop computer system. My favourite part of it all – pausing LIVE TV and then resuming it when I feel like it. I now know this – A 30-minute TV show recorded on my hard drive takes up 1.87 GB of space. That’s nearly one-fourth of one percent (0.25%) of my entire hard drive !

5.  I didn’t watch the Olympics at all. I got caught up on previously-recorded television shows on VHS and DVD. In addition to my 3 VHS VCRs (‘Andrew’, ‘Barney’, and ‘Charley’) I also have my DVD recorder (‘Danny’) as well as my new HP computer (‘Eddie’). I know. I’m weird. Who isn’t ?