Category: Travel

Welcome To The Weekend !

It’s 3 AM on this Thursday the 23RD day of May of 2019. That’s 3 AM here in South Florida U.S.A., so 8 AM in the U.K., 9 AM in South Africa, and 7 PM in New Zealand. Welcome aboard wherever you’re reading this from.

I kickoff most new weekends of blogging on Thursday at 3 AM my time, and this weekend is no different. It’s a holiday weekend here in the States – Memorial Day Weekend. Monday is Memorial Day where we honor those military personnel who died while serving their country in a time of war. I’ll have a special tribute to our fallen heroes this Monday here on my blog. That pushes my new Top 10 personal hit music chart back a day to Tuesday. So I’ve got 5 new blog posts for you this weekend in lieu of the usual 4 – starting with this one.

I’m staying in during this long holiday weekend – not going anywhere – staying out of traffic. It’ll be a sunny, dry, and hot weekend here in South Florida, so I just want to relax and enjoy my air conditioning. I’ll do my usual Bible study on Saturday, and I’ll hopefully finish writing my next sermon that I’ll preach titled “Pray & Believe”. I also want to get started on my next sermon after that. We’ll see where God takes me this weekend. Sometimes I think I know exactly what I wish to write, and then God leads me in an entirely different direction. That’s the Holy Spirit at work. I just want to go where He guides me.

I just ate a pear a few minutes ago, and it was absolutely delicious. I then Googled the health benefits of eating pears, and I found this article. I really need to buy and eat more pears. I need all of those health benefits. The results of my recent ultrasound are in. My liver, pancreas, gallbladder, bile ducts, and right kidney were all checked-out. There were 3 “impressions” or anomalies, but nothing to be overly concerned about. My liver is normal size, and it measures 13 centimeters in length. The “impression” there was a “minimal diffuse fatty liver”. If I improve my diet, exercise more, and lose a little weight then the fat can go away. More pears !

I’ve been eating smaller lunches at my desk at work, and then after that I’ve been using the 2ND-half of my lunch hour by walking it off – basically walking around the exterior grounds of my building. My Fitbit likes that. I’ve been walking about 0.6 to 0.7 miles in a nice casual walk after eating. Nothing too strenuous. In fact once I break a sweat I walk back inside. Today my walk after eating was 15 minutes – 3 minutes “peak”, 8 minutes “cardio”, and 4 minutes “fat burn”. My average heart rate was 130 BPM, and it peaked at 145 BPM. More exercise !

I think that most of you will agree with me that blogging peaked about 15 years ago during the mid-2000s (post-AOL and pre-Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram). I started this blog in 2007 towards the end of my first year of salvation to begin a dialog online about the God I know. There’s a lot of hatred on social media today. It’s one of the main reasons why I returned to the WordPress community 16 months ago to get back into full-time blogging again. Many of you reading this blog host your own blogs. I know that because I visit them on a regular basis. Some of your blogs surely glorify our God. This is the LORD’s doing, and it is wonderful to see. Never be discouraged that you’re not getting enough visits, or likes, or comments. Keep blogging and writing about your life. Keep expanding God’s Kingdom – one blog post at a time.

1990s Driving History Life Money Music Radio Travel

My Top 5 Hits RETRO – 1999

Post author By Chris M. Day
Post date May 17, 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 this weekend (rotating each week). Here it is – for the week ending Sunday May 16TH 1999:

“The Hardest Thing” – 98°
“I Want It That Way” – The Backstreet Boys
“Livin’ La Vida Loca” – Ricky Martin
“Special” – Garbage
“That Don’t Impress Me Much” – Shania Twain

Good solid pop music back then – with Garbage being the anomaly.

I like to do this from time to time. Looking back at my checkbook register is a lot of fun. Back then I wrote a whole lot more checks than I do today. (The only checks I typically write today are my weekly tithes to my church.)

So 20 years ago this week I got paid. I got paid today too. My net pay back then was about 58.6% of what it was today. That’s good progress.

My telephone bill for a month of service 20 years ago was $52.85. Last weekend I paid $78.99. You may be thinking, “Why do you even have a telephone bill ? It’s 2019 !” There are many logical reasons why I still have an “old-school” land-line telephone. I get very few telemarketing calls on my cell phone – because I rarely give out my cell phone number. I give out my longtime land-line number instead. The telemarketers call that number. I also live deep in the heart of hurricane country. During bad storms cell phone towers lose power, get damaged, or topple over. Most of our standard telephone lines are underground and operate continuously during and after hurricanes.

I paid my Chevron bill during this week 20 years ago. Gas was cheap back then – about $1.25 per gallon. It’s more than twice that amount today, but I’m not complaining about $2.70 per gallon. I remember when it was approaching $5 per gallon. I’m planning a road-trip in about 4 months from South Florida to North Texas and back. That’s about 3,000 miles. At $2.70 per gallon and about 42 miles per gallon with my car that’s a little less than $200 in gas. I got this !

You know 1999 was not that good of a year for me – privately and professionally. It was a rather forgettable year, or I’ve just chosen to forget about that year over time. The music of yesteryear brings back those memories – good and bad. As Shania said, “That Don’t Impress Me Much”. I feel the same about 1999.

It’s halftime my friends. I’ll be back on Sunday afternoon and Monday night with two more blog posts for this weekend. Enjoy your Saturday. Go make some good memories that you’ll cherish for years to come.

Tags 1999

Animals Astronomy Bible Christian Driving Food God Health History Home Life Ministry Movies Music Nature Scripture Shopping 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