Passover greetings from a bucket of matzoh ball soup. Yes, one more holiday our melting pot family of Christian, Jewish, and Russian Whatever celebrates.
The soup actually didn’t turn out as good as it usually does (how do you ruin matzoh ball soup?), but the turkey was actually much better than it looks.
I’m back….after a stressful trip to take care of some visa stuff for Pig…and I am incredibly tired. Needless to say, I’ve never been so cold in Florida - I’ve been on Habitat for Humanity trips in January to Ft. Myers, and for goodness sake I was born in Boca Raton….so I never expected to see people walking around in winter coats during the end 0f March in Miami.
I do love cold weather, but when I travel to Florida with a bag of snorkeling gear, I have some expectations. I lasted about 10 minutes on Key Biscayne and then hid on the shore under a long sleeve shirt, sweater, and towel shielding my head from the fierce wind that was pummeling me with painful bits of sand. There were all of two people swimming in the choppy but tempting azure waters of South beach, so we just settled for walks there.
Maimi did indeed have many surprises for us beyond the crazy weather. Its Italian consulate annoyed us with random closing times, and downtown’s homeless issues were rather scary. I’m used to Atlanta and its homeless crowd, but I guess I just know where to go and how to handle them? Or our bums have southern hospitality? These bums were mean! It seemed downtown Miami was filled with half-constructed luxuriy high-rises and vacant lots filled with the homeless. We relied cometplely on public transporation - no car and saved money by not using taxis - so we got a pretty good feel for the urban atmosphere. On a brighter note, it is possible to get around Miami by public transport any time of day - something not so feasible with MARTA. They have the free Metro Mover (this weird bus/monorail thing), which we called the bum express after being harassed countless times. They have a pretty good bus system with some night routes, if you don’t mind the homeless brushing their hair on you, and it connects to their simple above ground subway, which connects to longer distance trains.
So Miami Beach is a lovely place, and thankfully there were average looking people in addition to the toned and large breasted. Downtown, however, has an eerie emptiness. We stayed at the Hilton, thanks to a $56/nite deal from Hotwire, and though the room was great, the outside was not. Each morning, fresh bum juice awaited us on the sidewalks, and the walk to the buses had a lovely aroma.
Anyway, we aren’t calling this a vacation, because we had business to take care of, and the weather sucked terribly. A real vacation would involve a hotel on Miami Beach district and a few taxi rides here and there. We had to spend a bunch of time inland in Coral Gables, so downtown was an ideal spot for this reason only. Passing through Little Havana for cafecitos was the highlite of that part.
I have more adventures to post about, hopefully I’ll get to that before the quarter starts again on Monday. I took plent of pictures on my little dinky camera, as I was too worried to take the big Nikon out until the last day. Anyway, a MARTA train never seemed so glamourous as it did after my flight in…
As the pressure builds this quarter, I find myself looking at this little guy…his roundness just seems to have a soothing effect. I keep him on my desktop at all times, maybe he can bring you some peace as well.
Originally uploaded by ian.greenleaf
Christmas has just been depressing the hell out of me lately, but it’ll soon be over (the holiday that is - don’t worry, the x-actos are too dull from last quarter for this). A shame, I know, especially since I am religious and it is an important time, but I don’t need another trigger - so spare me the guilt. Why celebrate it? I guess for my mum, tradition, to have some sort of celebratory day during this crazy work-aholic period of my life. So, since no one in the family reads my blog, I can at least have some release here.
But nonetheless, happy holidays to those who enjoy it, and enjoy the fact that you are enjoying it! I hope I can be back at that point some day, and for now I will look forward to Novy Gode next week.
Happy birthday Mr. Pig! A new toy to replace that wife who’s always too busy doing homework!
Pig & friends at Dave & Busters before he got Time Crisis 4 for PS3. Now he can play at home, complete with gun, so no need for D&B…hopefully this will save this money somewhere down the road…
squirrels.
Educational yet passionate clip on this courageous and historical event.
It seems that the hard drive from my old PC has had itself a barb-b-q party, perhaps grilling up some of those HoMade hotdogs in the pic below. I’ll admit, I had been neglecting the bugger a bit since the my mac got permantly adhered to my lap, but it had its uses…like one massive storage unit for stuff I had yet to find another place for…like 3 years of music collecting. Yes, aside from a small selection stored on my MP3 player, and a few of those circular plastic things (CDs?), I had been storing a library full of a ga-jillion different music files. And now, gone.
While some irreplacable photos and other files are now gone too, I can at least try to start filling my music void. Despite a good amount of names, there are still many, many musicians out there that I know I won’t be able to remember, those in my unsorted catagories and from countries and underground nooks that rarely see the light of day. Sad as I am about that, I’m moving forward to try and re-find them, as well as take suggestions for new finds.
So, for anyone out there who has some suggestions for the eclectic, offbeat, and just plain cheesy musical styles, pass it on (I did loose my dear collection of bad early 90’s booty mixes). It’s pretty quiet here right now…
As a stick shift driver, I consider myself pretty talented that I can steer, shift and talk at the same time. I know there are dangers to cellphones and driving, and I thought I’d heard them all before. But low and behold, here is yet another way that cellphones can be dangerous when mixed with cars.
I saw this on the front page of Yahoo today. Looks like someone is trying to oust the Dramatic Prairie Dog of his internet fame. Well, the video on Yahoo wasn’t all that exceptional, only endearing to squirrel fans, whereas dramatic prairie dog had some sinister suspense to it for everyone.
If you want to see some fame-worthy squirrels, check out this video.
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