Category: Travel

Monday Night Countdown

Bright and early this Wednesday morning I’ll be jumping aboard the Miami-Dade Metrorail system for the first time in perhaps a decade.

Here are the TOP 5 things I’m looking forward to about that:

5. I get the coolest non-Google Street View view of overly-congested Useless-One (South Dixie Parking Lot) – from about 25 feet up in the air.

4. I’m on a never-ending fact-finding mission to see if any new and exciting shopping center districts are currently under construction or open for business along Useless-One. Hey – it’s how I discovered The Shops At Sunset Place (my former playground) back in 1999 !

3. I’m yearning to know if that train is still leaving on Track 5 … for Anaheim, Azusa, and Cuc … amonga. (This is an old radio reference to ‘The Jack Benny Program’ circa 1949. If you have no clue what this means then you are simply a young buck. Get it ? – Buck ? – Buck Benny ? – Oh never mind.)

2. I enjoy visiting the only place on Earth that accepts as fare every single U.S. dollar coin ever minted since the Declaration Of Independence was ratified.

1. I don’t have to deal with three very scary Expressways that always make me nervous and sweat – the Don Shula, the Palmetto, and the Dolphin. I’ve had many near-death experiences on all three of these highways over the past 20 years.

Driving History Life Music Radio Travel

Saturday Night Retro

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date January 10, 2009

1989 – I started off the year in January by buying a brand new car for the first time in my entire life. I was tired of riding my 10-speed bike all over Homestead Air Force Base, so I bought a bright and shiny new red 1989 Geo Spectrum. It would go on to become my longest-tenure car. I had it for over 8 years – driving it for 96,745 miles. Since the purchase of that first car exactly 20 years ago this weekend I’ve driven just over 230,000 miles ! That’s an overall average of exactly 11,500 miles per year – just below the national driving average.

I bought that car when I was 21-years-old and living in one of the many dormitories on base. That car gave me the freedom that I wanted at the time to explore the South Florida all around me. It took me through 8 crazy years of my life – through the remainder of my turbulent 20s. It took me on countless road trips up north. It sat idle for a couple of months while I was in Saudi Arabia during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. It survived the Category 4 hurricane winds of Andrew on the morning of August 24TH 1992. It moved me back up to the Washington D.C. area a week after the hurricane destroyed Homestead, and it returned me back to (Central) Florida about 6 months later. It eventually brought me back down to Homestead and the air base in March of 1994. It moved a lot of my possessions to my current home here in Homestead in June of 1995 – including my little feline buddy Boots.

What a cool little car that was – chock-full of a lot of great memories of my life at the time. No other Saturn since then has even come close.

This song reminds me so much of that year of 1989. I bought it on cassette single (that was the hot music medium at the time), and I played it over and over again. This is one of those few songs that I consider to be a pivotal theme song of the autobiographical soundtrack of my life. It’s from the legendary rock band Poco. They’ve been in existence as a group for the past 40 years – virtually my entire life ! Here’s their huge pop radio smash from 1989 – “Call It Love”:

Animals Blogging Driving God Holidays Travel

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date January 6, 2009
3 Comments on Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

It’s an all-new year of thoughts. Let’s roll !

1. The Twelve Days And Nights Of Christmas ended yesterday, and today is Epiphany. I learned all about this Christian holiday way back in 1974 and 1975 in Catholic School. Most people I know have never heard of it.

2. From my parking space at home to my parking space at work the length is exactly 7.2 miles by road. That’s 11.6 kilometers for the rest of the world. At the dangerous intersection of Speedway Boulevard and North Canal Drive I am exactly halfway to work – or halfway to home.

3. In just 32 days I’ll be on a luxurious Carnival cruise sailing across the Great Gulf Of Mexico. It’ll be my first cruise in nearly 15 months since I sailed across the Great Atlantic Ocean from Rome Italy to Miami Florida. This blog will actually go on hiatus during that upcoming vacation. A continuous streak of 445 days in a row with at least one blog entry posted per day will come to an abrupt end.

4. Last Presidents Day Weekend I went on a short little road trip over to the southwest coast of Florida. I had contemplated visiting Cypress Gardens for this Presidents Day Weekend, but alas they have shut down yet again due to poor business. They do plan to reopen again this Spring as a smaller park – minus all of the amusement park rides and all of the zoo animals.

5. Speaking of zoo animals I plan to visit Miami Metro Zoo on a future Saturday morning real soon to do a special ‘on-location’ edition of ‘The Major’s Walk-A-Thon’. I like to check up on the animals over there every few years or so – when the weather is cooler outside no doubt.

Those are my thoughts on this Epiphany. I thank you for your time !

History Home Life Music Television Travel

Saturday Night Retro

Last Saturday night on the ‘Retro’ I presented to you for your review the 1996 smash “1979” from The Smashing Pumpkins. This week I take you back to 1979. It was exactly 30 years ago, and it closed out a crazy decade of decadence.

I entered 1979 as an 11½-year-old 6TH grader at Magnolia Elementary School in Lanham Maryland – located right in the middle of my neighbourhood at the time. Later in the year in September I moved on to Robert H. Goddard Junior High School several miles away. I was also a Boy Scout at the time. We had meetings weekly, and we went on hiking and camping trips monthly – mostly up to the mountains of Maryland, Virginia, and West Virginia. They were ancient history editions of ‘The Major’s Walk-A-Thon’ ! 😀

During my spare time (after school and on weekends) I enjoyed riding my bike up and down Red Wing Lane, Wood Thrush Drive, Nightingale Drive, Kingfisher Lane, Wren Lane, and Brae Brooke Drive. I can see recent images of all of those roads (and my old house of over 5½-years) right now online via the use of Google Street View. My old neighbourhood has aged quite a bit over the past 30 years – and so have I. Back then it was brand new (built from around 1973 to 1975). That’s how I remember it. It doesn’t look like that anymore.

On the hit music radio stations nationwide disco music was still alive and kicking – at least during the first-half of 1979. It started dying out during that Summer. Here’s one of the last big disco hits of the era. It managed to sneak up the Billboard HOT 100 to # 11 in September of 1979. It’s Bonnie Pointer making a LIVE July 1979 appearance on ‘The Midnight Special’ on a Friday night on NBC-TV. Here’s her disco smash “Heaven Must Have Sent You”. Check out the way that we used to control the dance floor back then !