Category: Food

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Food Health Shopping

The Major’s Walk-A-Thon – Summertime Special

This ‘Summertime Special’ edition of ‘The Major’s Walk-A-Thon’ comes to you from The Falls Shopping Center in South Miami-Dade County Florida:

1.  Yesterday was my birthday, so that only means one thing today – it was time for my regularly-scheduled annual eye exam. (My eye doctor has his office adjacent to LensCrafters at The Falls.)

2.  If you’re not getting an annual eye exam then you must be mad crazy like that. It doesn’t matter if you’ve had 20/20 eyesight for your entire life (which is extremely rare). What you don’t know about your eyes could hurt you in the future. It doesn’t take very long for a thorough eye exam, and it’s very painless. Don’t be a wimp. Go and get your eyes checked for Goodness sake !  😯

3.  My least favourite part of the eye exam is also painless, and it brings back hazy memories of the 1980s and 1990s. It’s when my eye doctor dillates my pupils so that they are MASSIVE !  He puts these drops into my eyes, and then within 30 minutes everything gets very blurry and my eyes become extremely sensitive to sunlight (or simple daylight for that matter). Once the pupils are GIGANTIC he checks them for various diseases. As I type this exactly 4 hours after he initially put those drops into my eyes to begin the dillation process my pupils are still much larger than normal, but my eyesight and sensitivity to light has slowly returned back to normal again.

4.  During the peak of the MASSIVE pupils I continued a longtime annual tradition by running – not walking from LensCrafters over to T.G.I. Friday’s to consume a MASSIVE Lunch to complement my MASSIVE pupils. I received excellent customer service from my waiter, and the food was absolutely scrumptious. I adored the ‘Parmesan-Crusted Chicken’. It’s ‘a sautéed chicken breast basted with Caesar dressing – then finished with a Parmesan-crust topping.’ It’s ‘served with three-cheese tortellini tossed in spinach alfredo sauce and a side of our fresh tomato salad.’ Oh yeah for dessert I dug an ENORMOUS chunk of the legendary ‘Vanilla Bean Cheesecake’. I didn’t regret it pal !

5.  In addition to the eye exam and the Lunch I also did a fair amount of walking all around The Falls Shopping Center (a few times around). That makes it a valid ‘Walk-A-Thon’. I’ve been visiting The Falls longer than any other shopping mall here in South Florida – over 20 years. When it all comes down to it The Falls provides the most pleasant (and most natural) shopping environment of any shopping mall that I know of. They don’t have very many stores that I’m a fan of, and their longtime movie theatre which was once state-of-the-art (back in 1990) is now totally obsolete. But it just feels right to walk around that shopping mall at a nice slow pace and glance into the stores to see what I’m not buying. If I lived within the surrounding neighbourhoods then I’d probably be mall-walking around The Falls every week – even in the heart of the summertime. That place is so cool !

Categories
Food Health

Beef O’ Brady’s: It’s What’s For Lunch

TODAY at 11 AM if you were looking for me then you had to look no further than the Homestead area (just outside of the city limits) Beef O’ Brady’s location. I ADORE that place !  I eat there about once or twice a month, but I should eat there much more often than that because the food is hot and delicious, they have a large menu selection of food available, you get big portions of everything, and customer service is excellent and fast. You pay a wee bit more than other places, but it’s all worth it. The ambience is near-perfect as far as I’m concerned. It’s neither too big and noisy of a joint nor is it too small and uneventful. It’s the perfect size, and I always feel welcome and comfortable there – even when I eat there solo.

I enjoyed a half-pound cheeseburger and curly fries today – two foods that I rarely eat nowadays ever since my MASSIVE heart attack several years ago (just kidding). Where’s my Lipitor ?  Oh yeah – I already took it for today. I’m obedient like that.

Catch me at Beef O’ Brady’s again next week my friends !

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Annoyances Blogging Bugs Commerce Food God Life People Shopping Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

You waited 168 hours for this ?  Let’s see if it was all worth it.

1.  Last week was the biggest week in history for this blog. Nowadays we are averaging more than double the amount of unique hits to this blog in a typical Monday to Sunday week than we were less than 3 months ago. Today (Tuesday) became the biggest Tuesday ever in the history of this blog before I even turned on my computer this afternoon !  THANK YOU FRIENDS !

2.  Speaking of friends Pastor Travis called me ‘clueless’ in his blog today, and it’s the nicest complement I’ve received all day. I’ll accept the complement because I did a much better job late last night before I went to sleep talking all about Trav to God. Trav is one of the most sensible persons that I have ever met in my entire life / Life.

3.  Paul – There’s no need to be jealous. The person that was going to take me out to Lunch for my birthday today fell ill and had to postpone it, so I ended up eating ‘grocery store grub’ from Publix. Actually it was rather decent tasty – chicken tenders, macaroni and cheese, and juicy corn. YUM !

4.  Yesterday (Monday) I went to Panda Express (spur-of-the-moment decision) for Lunch and I received poor service. As usual they had little to no selection of foods available to choose from for the various entrees. I completed and submitted a survey online stating my dissatisfaction with their Lunch service and product. We’ll see if it gets any better in future visits. If the customer service and the food selection doesn’t improve then I’ll just stop going there.

5.  Speaking of the Atlanta Bread Company in Homestead I have received no follow-up communication from Corporate Headquarters in Smyrna Georgia as of yet – more than 80 hours after the fact. Apparently they have no Assimilation / Follow-Up Director.

6.  I was extremely shy as a kid. I didn’t talk a lot. The reason why is because when I did talk nobody was listening and nobody cared to listen. I pretty much lived through a sad and miserable childhood. My little brother was one of the first persons in my entire life that actually listened to what I had to say and was genuinely interested. If it weren’t for my little brother then I may not be here today.

7.  One of the highlights of my day is looking out my personal hurricane-proof window at work that faces due east and watching the sun rise above the horizon. I adore the daylight. I adore chasing it. It’s morning again !

8.  I spent close to 45 minutes at Office Max yesterday and I only spent $8.75 (including tax). The fact of the matter is that I could have spent 3 hours browsing around in that store and $500 or more on quality office merchandise. But I showed real restraint in there. I’m a member of the Christian Conservative Coalition. Yeah – I’m one of those wackos – and PROUD of it !

9.  When Staples opens its doors for business later this year over at the MASSIVE new Homestead Pavilion shopping, dining, and entertainment complex I may hang out there like I own the place !  I’m crazy about office supplies like that.

10.  Exactly 5 months ago this morning – on January 03RD 2008 – Homestead was shivering just a few degrees above the freezing mark. It was in the 30s outside for 8 hours, and in the 40s for an additional 8 hours. It was our coldest morning in nearly 12 years !  I just wanted to remind you of that now that we’re clearly in the bug-infested hot and humid summertime rainy season.

Categories
Blogging Food

Blatant Promotion

TOMORROW on the big blog I’ll have your ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’. It’s the most spontaneous blog entry of the entire week. I have absolutely no clue what I plan to blog about – until I actually sit down here at my ancient laptop and let my fingers do the talking. It could be lame, obvious, sensible, surprising, controversial, shocking, or horrifying !  Be sure to grab your crew and send them on over to this blog tomorrow afternoon at around 4 PM for this weekly escapade through my brain.

I’m being taken out to Lunch for my birthday tomorrow at the White Lion Cafe. It’s Homestead’s finest restaurant, and perhaps the only joint in town that can qualify as ‘fine dining’. I’ll probably definitely have a few words to say about my culinary experience on tomorrow’s ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’, so consider yourself warned. Don’t miss it. You won’t regret it pal. Keep it real.