Category: Travel

Categories
History Life Music Travel

Saturday Night Retro

The month of November is chock-full of anniversaries for me. 28 years ago in 1980 me and my family moved from one side of Washington D.C. (Maryland) to the other side (Virginia). Our lives changed for the better on the opposite side of the Potomac River. 23 years ago in 1985 I moved out of the country for the first time ever courtesy of the USAF. That anniversary was actually last weekend. I flew from D.C. to London England, and then I took British Rail westward from London to Swindon. I took a taxi from Swindon to my new home at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire. I did all of that just 5 months removed from my 18TH birthday.

I lived in the U.K. for some 105 fun-filled weeks. In fact this weekend is the 21ST anniversary of my departure from the U.K. – and U.S. homecoming. I would eventually arrive at – Homestead Florida !

I haven’t been back to the U.K. ever since I left, but you can bet that I will return some day for a visit. I enjoyed the time of my young life for two years over there, and I surely did ‘Live It Up’.

Here’s Australian super group Mental As Anything. They’ve been together for the past 32 years, and in 1985, 1986, and 1987 they scored the biggest worldwide pop smash of their entire career with this uplifting track that you may just remember from the ‘Crocodile Dundee’ movie. Check it out:  

Categories
Holidays Travel

Saturday Morning Shenanigans

Pinch-hitting this morning for ‘The Major’s Walk-A-Thon’ – which has been postponed until a later date (possibly during Thanksgiving Week in Allen Texas) – it’s the return of the ‘Saturday Morning Shenanigans’.

Recently (during the week leading up to the 4TH Of July) me and my brother went to San Antonio Texas for 4 days and 3 nights. He actually went there on business, and I tagged along for fun. While he was working for his company at an expo at the Convention Center I was hanging out on the River Walk. Back on the 2ND of July I posted a special on-location edition of ‘The Major’s Walk-A-Thon’ from the River Walk. It was a lot of fun, and I’m looking forward to returning there soon.

We had an interesting southward view from our off-the-River-Walk hotel room. Straight out in the background was the 750-foot Tower Of The Americas. It was actually dwarfed by a much shorter hotel that was obviously closer to our hotel than the tower. Oh yeah – there was one other major object within our view from our hotel room – the mother of all Denny’s signs that was so MASSIVE and so bright (at night) that we could have used its light by itself to read a book from inside our room. It instantly became the running gag of our entire vacation there. My brother recalled a classic 1996 episode of ‘Seinfeld’ entitled ‘The Chicken Roaster’ in which Kramer is bothered by a MASSIVE red neon Kenny Rogers Roasters sign that beams directly into his apartment (and of course hijinks ensue).

San Antonio Texas - Hotel Room View - Looking South
San Antonio Texas - Hotel Room View - Looking South
Denny's - Zoomed-In Sign
Zoomed-In Sign
Categories
Driving Travel

Monday Night Countdown

This past Summer when gas prices shot past $4 per gallon I told everyone that listened to me that gas prices had peaked, and that they would plummet by as much as a dollar per gallon before Thanksgiving. Everyone laughed at me. As it turns out I was only half right. Gas prices have actually dropped by more than 50% in many locations, and we’re now getting nearly two gallons of gas for the same price as a single gallon cost just 4 to 5 months ago. In fact gas prices are now at their lowest levels since the Spring of 2005 !

Florida is currently 25TH in the nation (right in the middle) as far as gas prices are concerned, but the Miami area is actually the 28TH most expensive metro area in the nation to buy gas.

Here are the TOP 5 metro areas in the U.S. where gas is the cheapest:

5.  Wichita Kansas – $1.985 – Never been there. I’ve never set food in Kansas.

4.  Corpus Christi Texas – $1.974 – I’d like to visit this place. I think I’d like it.

3.  Kansas City Missouri – $1.937 – Never been there. I’ve seen it on “Cops” a lot.

2.  Des Moines Iowa – $1.936 – Never been there. What’s there ?

1.  Tulsa Oklahoma – $1.932 – Never been there. Been to Oklahoma City though.

Source: GasBuddy.com

Categories
Commerce Health Politics Travel Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

1.  TODAY will go down in South Florida history as one of the coldest October days EVER !  We officially dropped down to 57°F at Homestead Air Reserve Base this morning, and we’ve been stuck in the 60s all day long. Tomorrow morning when we wake up we could have howling wind chills deep down into the 40s !

2.  Homestead was shivering (I love that phrase), and everywhere you looked you saw adults, children, and pets alike all bundled up in thick winter clothes that usually only see the light of day about a dozen days a year. Those people over there in the tee-shirts, shorts, and flip-flops ?  Those are what we like to refer to here in Homestead as ‘snowbirds’ – also known as Canadian tourists.

3.  My 7TH cold in 12 months is officially in the history books, or as I like to refer to as my very public history books – this blog. This cold seemed longer and harsher than a lot of the previous ones, so it was not my ‘Lucky 7TH Cold’. I’ll be flying back from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, so that’s only 32 more days until I get my 8TH cold in 13 months !

4.  Last Friday was Election Day in my living room. I voted via absentee ballot. I put it in the mail on Saturday morning. I just checked online with the Miami-Dade County Elections Department, and they have indeed received it as of this past Monday. One week from tonight we should find out who our next President Of The United States is. Whoever it is I will stand behind him and support him as he takes on a mountain of problems. I have very strong political views. They are so strong that I keep them to myself (most of the time) because they would offend and shock most people I know – including many of my close personal friends.

5.  Let me tell you something about a company by the name of ALLSOP with headquarters in Washington State, Ireland, and Shanghai China. I recently bought a ‘Metal Art CPU Caddy’ which is basically a little metal cart for my computer to fit in. The cart has 4 wheels, but one of the wheels was defective in that it was missing a bolt so I couldn’t attach it to the bottom of the cart. The cart was useless. I sent a short and simple E-Mail to the company on a Friday afternoon, and they sent me a personalized response back the following Monday morning. I replied to that response later that same day, and the next morning they shipped a replacement wheel to me via first class mail. I received it a few days later, and my CPU caddy is now in business fulfilling its mission !  In this modern era of widespread poor to non-existent customer service from retail companies I was totally ecstatic to discover a company that still does business the old-fashioned way no matter how big and universal they are. They cater to their customers who buy their products. You just don’t see that very much nowadays. THANKS ALLSOP !

Those are my thoughts for this Tuesday night. Thank You So Much for taking the time to read them.