Category: Travel

Home Sweet Homestead

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date May 9, 2019

I’m back from vacation ! My 6-day / 590-mile / 14-county Florida road-trip has come to a close. My trek started in deep South Miami-Dade County (where my home is), and it continued northward through Broward, Palm Beach, Hendry, Glades, Highlands, and Polk Counties, westward into Hillsborough County (Tampa), southward through Manatee, Sarasota, Charlotte, Lee, and Collier Counties, and then back into Miami-Dade County. I also came within a few feet of touching (mainland) Monroe County for a second.

It was a fun trip. I saw a couple of current movies, I did a little bit of shopping (didn’t buy anything), I ate a lot of good food, I walked over 60,000 steps (to burn-off that good food), I did a lot of sightseeing, I visited some historical museums and animal-based tourist attractions, I went to two Christian music concerts, and I spent a lot of time at the beach.

I saw and I did things that I had never seen or done before in my life. This was a classic vacation. I get to spend the near future reminiscing about the times I enjoyed via the 140+ photos and 1 video I captured during all of the fun.

The 1 video I captured is a spectacular 3½-minute video of this past Tuesday night’s sunset on Venice Beach Florida. The video captures the 3 minutes leading up to the sun dropping below the horizon at sea as well as the 30 seconds right after that moment. I intended to post that video in its entirety here on my blog, but I realized that I can’t upload videos on here with my current WordPress plan. The video is also about 1:10 too long for Twitter, so I’ll have to figure out how to trim it down to 2:20 for Twitter.

In the meantime here’s Monday night’s sunset at 8:05 PM EDT on Venice Beach.

Sunset

From the rising of the sun to the place where it sets – the name of the LORD is to be praised. (Psalm 113:3 NIV)

1980s Holidays Music Radio Travel

My Top 5 Hits RETRO – SPECIAL

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date March 15, 2019

Every Friday night I post the Top 5 of one of my classic hit music charts based on personal preference and influenced by radio airplay from either 10, 20, or 30 years ago (rotating each week). But not this week. This week it’s a SPECIAL #RETRO:

We’re just about 24 hours away from Saint Patrick’s Day on March 17TH. It’s the day when most people of Irish descent (like myself) observe and celebrate by wearing green, and eating green foods, and drinking green liquids, and talking Irish-like. I’m not that crazy. I just wear green. When I was a kid in school (many years ago) if you didn’t wear green on Saint Patrick’s Day then you were likely to get pinched over and over again by someone wearing a lot of green. That pretty much made everyone Irish for a day.

My family had a Manx cat named Fluffy for over 17 years. She was a brown cat, but sometimes when the light (or the sun) hit her fur just right she looked greenish. This much is certain: Fluffy loved me more than any other human. When I wasn’t around she looked for me. During her final few years she “came back to life” whenever I came home to visit her.

I lived away from Fluffy in the south of England for exactly 2 years and 1 week from November 1985 to November 1987. I served in the United States Air Force at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire. Saint Patrick’s Day was a big thing in England back then. I imagine it still is. I know it’s even bigger in Ireland and Northern Ireland. I never got to visit either nation while I was so close by in England. I saw a lot of England during those two years when I was 18, 19, and 20 years old. I also visited Scotland, Wales, The Netherlands, Belgium, and France. One day in the future I’ll make it to Ireland – maybe even the Isle Of Man – home of the Manx cat.

Back on my Top 50 personal hit music chart for the week ending Sunday March 29TH 1987 an unsuspecting Irish ditty about a great ship made its debut at # 47. It was a collaboration featuring The Pogues and The Dubliners titled “The Irish Rover”. They actually performed that song LIVE on BBC’s “Top Of The Pops”. They kicked-off the show that week. The following week it skyrocketed 40 notches on my chart from # 47 to # 7. It peaked at # 4 the week after that. It was a Top 10 U.K. pop smash, and a # 1 smash in Ireland. Here’s a video of a TV broadcast where the two bands joined forces and performed it LIVE before a studio audience:

It’s halftime. I’ll be back on Sunday and Monday with two more blog posts for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Have fun. Make memories that will last a lifetime.

Tags Irish

Driving Movies Music Travel

Jury Duty

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date March 14, 2019

Yesterday I had jury duty up in downtown Miami. It was my first jury duty in almost 6 years. I was part of the manic Miami morning rush hour yesterday. It took me about an hour and 20 minutes to drive 30 miles. That was rather reasonable. Traffic was heavy (as expected), and I actually gave myself up to 2 hours to drive that 30 miles. If I had left 20 or more minutes later – I probably would’ve needed all 2 hours.

In the large jury pool room I pretty much read the current issue of a magazine that I brought with me (AAA Living), and I spent quality time on social media on my old iPad Mini connected to the unstable / unsecure public WiFi. Oh yeah – and I also glanced up at the TVs that were playing continuous family-friendly (and forgettable) romantic dramedy movies – a couple of which starred Diane Keaton. Isn’t that the only type of movie she plays in nowadays ?

A lot of people got selected for various trials by jury, but I was not one of them. At the end of the day I received my certificate of participation, and my civic duty was done for the year.

Happy π Day my friends. This entry kicks-off a fresh new weekend of blog posts. Tomorrow night I’m going #RETRO (as I usually do on Friday nights), but this week I’m not revisiting 2009, 1999, or 1989. In honor of Saint Patrick’s Day in a few days I’ll be celebrating the most Irish song to ever crack my Top 5, and I’ll share a little story behind the song.

Travel

Me & My Nieces

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date March 7, 2019

Happy Thursday my friends ! Let’s kickoff a fresh new weekend of blogging.

Chris – We don’t see enough pictures of you on your own blog !

That’s true, and you won’t find many pictures of me on my Flickr either because all of those photos are marked as private along with all photos of my family (immediate and extended).

Every so often I’ll tweet a photo of me. I’ve never been able to perfect the “selfie”, so any photo of me was taken by someone else.

So here’s a rare online photo of me and my nieces. This was taken last April (2018) here in South Florida in front of the Miami Seaquarium before we entered the park for a day of fun with the aquatic animals. I absolutely love this photo. It’s one of the best ones of me recently, and my nieces are extra lovable and huggable in it. That’s “Petite” next to me. She was almost 5 then. Next to her is “Tiny”. She had just turned 8 then. Oh yeah – and I was almost 51. We look good !

Chris, Peyton, & Taylor