Category: Travel

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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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Food Internet People Politics Sports Television Travel Weather

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

Why wait until tonight what I can do right now – at 9 AM on a Tuesday morning. That’s right – it’s a special Tuesday morning edition of the ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts’.

You think a girl named Fay is on my mind ?

1.  Tropical Storm Fay passed several hundred miles to our south late on Sunday night, and she passed about 75 miles to our west early this (Tuesday) morning. She made two landfalls – at Key West yesterday (Monday) afternoon and south of Naples early this (Tuesday) morning. She’s now taking an inland route through Florida northward along I-75, eastward along I-4 over to Daytona Beach, northward along I-95 up to Jacksonville, and then she’ll meander westward along I-10 over to Tallahassee and Panama City Beach between now and the weekend.

2.  Since she’ll be spending the next 5 or so days over the state of Florida before she dissipates we’ll be feeling the effects of her for the remainder of this week via gusty west winds out of the Everglades, and torrential downpours at anytime – especially with the heating of the day during the afternoon hours. We could see temperatures soar into the lower-to-middle-90s because of Tropical Storm Fay. Expect lots of sunshine in-between the tropical monsoons.

3.  Homestead has received just a little over 4 inches of rain out of Fay. That’s less rain than we’ve received on selected days during this rainy season thus far. Gusts of minimal tropical storm force (40 MPH or greater) were also felt here at times.

4.  I took a planned day off from work on Friday, I worked for 4 hours on Saturday (a rarity), I worked for 6 hours on Monday when I didn’t have to (since the base was theoretically closed), and today is another day off from work. I can’t wait to return to a more normal routine back at work tomorrow (Wednesday). I actually enjoy working at my job.

5.  How do you spot a survivor of Hurricane Andrew here in Homestead ?  He’s (She’s) the one that tends to overreact to all tropical systems that come within 1,000 miles of Homestead. Common sense is generally not a player during these overreactions. As a survivor of Hurricane Andrew I am not of the norm down here. It’s because I am a weather forecaster. I just don’t play one on TV !

6.  This morning on ‘The Early Show‘ on CBS-TV the ‘Happy Days’ gang had a LIVE reunion up in Milwaukee Wisconsin as they prepared for the unveiling of a statue of The Fonz. It was cool to see Fonzie, Potsie, Ralph, Joanie, and Mr. and Mrs. C back together again. I watched them every Tuesday night at 8 PM for 11 seasons back in the day. It’s one of the greatest television shows of my lifetime !

7.  Pastor Rick Warren did a fantastic job interviewing Senator John McCain and Senator Barack Obama this past Saturday night from his church. He was on ‘Larry King Live !‘ last night.

8.  If you do a Yahoo search on John McCain and Barack Obama then you may find that there are some 322,000,000 results for Obama – and 233,000,000 results for McCain. If you Google Obama then you’ll get 56,000,000 results compared with 40,800,000 results for McCain. So in conclusion Obama has a 58% to 42% lead on both Yahoo and Google.

9.  My Washington Redskins are undefeated at 3-0 in the preseason. Backup quarterbacks (veteran) Todd Collins and (rookie) Colt Brennan are looking impressive – even moreso than starting quarterback Jason Campbell. Is there a quarterback controversy brewing in the nation’s capitol ?

10.  I think that today may be a Domino’s day. It’s been a long time since Domino’s delivered to me. Once upon a time I used to have pizza delivered to me once – perhaps even twice per week. Nowadays it’s more like 6 times a year !  I still enjoy pizza today as much as I did back in the day. I just don’t eat it as much anymore. I’ve got 30 minutes. Where’s my Lipitor ?

Have a great Tuesday everyone !  ENJOY the rest of it.

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Blogging Commerce Computers Driving Food Holidays People Politics Shopping Sports Television Travel

Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts

CBS has ‘60 Minutes‘, FOX has ‘American Idol‘, ABC has ‘Dancing With The Stars‘, NBC has ‘America’s Got Talent‘, and I’ve got your ‘Tuesday Night Grab Bag O’ Thoughts. Let us pray:

1.  I wish that actors and musicians – particularly those on the far-left-wing – would act and play music rather than try to convince me that President George W. Bush is Satan, Senator John McCain is his identical evil twin, and Senator Barack Obama is God. The actors and the musicians certainly don’t represent me, and they don’t even represent a majority of this country. They are the loud and obtrusive minority.

2.  I ate Lunch today at Panda Express, and a portion of my Lunch consisted of a bowl of orange chicken. As I ate the orange chicken I was dreaming about the new Homestead Pavilion shopping and dining complex that will open up in just a couple of months. There – That should rack-up another 450 views to this blog !  😀

3.  The sparkling new Chevron gas station / convenience store / car wash is now open for business (finally !) at the northeast corner of Campbell Drive and Speedway Boulevard (NE 8TH St. & NE 43RD Ave.) in Homestead. Regular gas went on sale this morning for $3.93 per gallon.

4.  Why does every soccer-mom mini-van (SUV) in front of me always have at least two tires that are near flat ?  If they kept their tires properly inflated then their gas mileage would probably increase by at least 5 MPG. If they drove a regular car instead then they could probably double their current gas mileage.

5.  I may buy a hot new computer system this Saturday morning at either Best Buy or Circuit City, and it may just be a lightning-fast desktop computer system in lieu of a moderately-fast laptop. Either way it’s gonna be an HP Pavilion with at least 4 or 5 GB of RAM and a 500 to 750 GB hard drive.

6.  Publix Hot & Spicy Wings are neither hot nor spicy – and that’s why I like them. I wouldn’t eat them if they were indeed hot and spicy.

7.  It was great to see my ‘new-look’ Washington Redskins in action this past Sunday night. Before the game I had never heard of Colt Brennan. Now I want him to be our new starting quarterback !  Sure he’s not your conventional quarterback, but isn’t that what they said about Tom Brady and Kurt Warner ?

8.  When I saw Coach Joe Bugel by the sidelines during Sunday night’s game I nearly fell out of my chair. I thought for sure that he had retired along with Coach Joe Gibbs. Apparently he’s running the running game this season while Jim Zorn spearheads the passing game. I like that plan !

9.  I’m flying to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex for Thanksgiving Week again this year, and I’m already booked to go non-stop direct on American Airlines. It’ll be the most expensive round-trip flight for me ever !

10.  It’s almost time to vote again aqui en Miami-Dade County. I know this because today my (old-fashioned) mailbox was stuffed solid with campaign literature from various cats that are running for District 9 School Board, Group 19 Circuit Court Judge, State Committeeman, and Senator. I’m not voting for anyone in any of these positions.

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Holidays Travel

Getting From Here To There By The Numbers

I’ll be spending the Thanksgiving week with my family over near Dallas Texas at my brother‘s and sister’s-in-law house. According to Mapquest it’s 1,368.87 miles from my home to their home (exact addresses utilized). Mapquest estimated the time to drive that at 21 hours and 11 minutes. In order to drive that number of miles in that estimated time I would have to drive an average of 64.6 MPH. That won’t happen. I typically use a base average of 60 MPH when I estimate how long it will take for me to drive from here to there on long road trips. It takes into account my average highway speeds as well as various stops along the way for gas, food, drink, bathroom, etcetra. So at 60 MPH it would take me nearly 23 hours to drive from Homestead Florida to Allen Texas – minus an hour for the time difference – so that’s 22 hours. That would be a two-day event – and not half on one day and half on the next day either. I don’t think that I would want to drive 11 hours in one day and then 11 hours the next day, but I think that I could drive perhaps 15 or 16 hours on the first day and then the remaining 6 or 7 hours on the second day. That would create an overnight hotel stay somewhere in Louisiana on the way over, and near Lake City Florida on the way back home.

How much would the 2,737.74 mile round-trip cost in gas alone ?  I estimate that gas will actually drop down to the $3.50 per gallon level by Thanksgiving week. So at 30 MPG that’s a little more than 91 gallons for a total cost of not quite $320.

Round-trip airfare between Miami and Dallas will cost more than that. In fact I checked earlier today, and had I booked the round-trip flight that I really wanted it would have cost me over $600 !  Right. I’ll wait a bit until that drops down into the $400s. I don’t book my airfare based on the lowest round-trip cost on the cheapest airline. I book it based on the exact flight that I want. I just wait for the cost of that specific flight to drop down to a reasonable level. Airfares fluctuate daily, so I’ll be monitoring it regularly.

I’ll probably fly to Dallas for Thanksgiving week, but some day I will drive the miles. When I do that I’ll take my time and explore places along the way. There are a lot of cool things for me to see between here and there !