Fun

No actual idea what this store sells

Oh well … At least I got to play as hommer.

Lamest arcade EVR.

Courtesy of Boca.

Just a test

Last friday, we saw the Counting Crows/Maroon 5 show at the meadows, in the rain, and it didn’t disappoint; it was a great show.

The next day, I just so happened to be sitting outside a vintage clothing store, in NYC, waiting for karen, listening to the new counting crows album on my ipod, watching all the people walk by. The album cover art looks like this:

I just so happened to look up, and to the right, and saw this:

Small world!

Other highlights:
1) Ate rabbit for the first time, at Pamplona’s on E28th st. Tastes like chicken (it really does). Great restaurant, really good food. The menu (spanish cuisine) is completely unpronounceable, but the wait staff was more than patient.
2) Saw filming of “Night at the Museum II” outside of the museum of natural history. yes, there is going to be a sequel. Sorry.
3) Saw Cleopatra’s needle for the first time, in central park. Very obelisky.

This weekend I tried on Daryl’s assault vest. The kind with the ceramic plates designed to stop an AK-47.

That thing is HEAVY. And when you add the side plates? SUPER heavy! Once you actually get it on though, it’s not that bad, it’s actually fairly comfortable, but I bet having to do stuff all day in it would get real tired, real fast.

It also doubles as an effective means of disciplining your children…

Last weekend we went to NYC to see the fireworks on the east river. I probably had my expectations set too high, or maybe I was too far away, but I thought they sucked.

My camera went dead so I had to use my iPhone, which actually did a fairly decent job, considering it doesn’t have a flash, and the camera on the thing generally sucks. There was plenty of ambient light.

The crowd of people was ENORMOUS, as I would expect. We were practically in front of the United Nations building, maybe we should have gone farther south, I’m not sure. People we talked to who watched them on TV said they were really good. They seemed mostly interested in making crazy shapes, and not so interested in giant concussive booms and lots of light, which is the whole point of fireworks.

Oh and it rained the whole time. But we still had a lot of fun.

Personally, I enjoy a little cruelty in the products that I buy.

Today we went to the Miami Seaquarium, on Key Biscayne, which is like 2 or 3 miles from South Beach (feelin’ the heat.. uh). Overall, a really good trip, until about 4pm, when it started to downpour. Didn’t matter though, we were able to squeeze it all in. It was EXTREMELY busy this weekend.


Zoom in on the guy on the left, and check out the folded fish jammed in his mouth.
Personally, I love sea lions. Dolphins are WAY overrated. I mean, don’t get me wrong, dolphins are cool and all, and they are beautiful animals, but nothing beats sea lions, especially when it comes to tricks and just overall coolness. I always wonder why they let you swim with dolphins, but never with sea lions. I think they are probably the jerks of the ocean, I definitely get that vibe from them, but they are still wicked cool.

The seaquarium had lots of other pretty good stuff, like giant lizards that crawl in trees, sea turtles, etc..
Speaking of which..

Overall, it’s a really good place for kids. As an aquarium, it’s hard for me to judge it, having been to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Nothing comes close to that place. It even makes sea world look like a joke.

We were sort of screwed when the rain started, because we had to walk about 1/2 mile back to our car in the driving rain, and after that we just wanted to get home. We had plans to drive around downtown Miami, and go to South Beach, but that will have to wait until next weekend.

Yesterday we went to Sea World in Orlando.

Stingrays! I didn’t quite understand this. Aren’t these the nasty animals that killed the crocodile guy?

Apparently, they de-nastied this bunch, because there were a billion little kids touching them and feeding them fish. Evangeline was fascinated.



These chicks were walking around in stilts, and one stood tall over Evangeline’s carriage while she was sleeping, which woke her up, and the girl said “This is all a bad dream.”. I’m fairly certain she’ll need therapy because of this.

At the aquarium, they had a transparent floor with fish swimming around. This was a huge hit.

The glowing fish tanks were also a huge hit.

One happy kid.

Penguins and Sharks!

Shamu and baby

Taking a nap before the big Shamu show, “Believe”.

The Shamu show was a lot different than I remember it. This show was about 75% multimedia presentation, complete with pro Anheuser Busch propaganda (I didn’t know that AB was the best company on earth, and that I should give them all my money, and they are singlehandedly saving every possible species from extinction, somehow through the power of crappy beer). Apart from the obnoxious multimedia nonsense, it’s still the most amazing 10 minutes of killer whale tricks you’ll ever see. It’s completely worth the price of admission.


Checking out Walrus World.

That was a really long day. This is definitely a good trip to take little kids on.

The best way to describe the weather in Boca in March is to imagine a perfect New England summer day. It’s like that perfect.

Taking a walk around the property we’re staying at. It’s right on a golf course.



Someone really likes going for walks.

And then taking a nap.

Today we brought Evangeline to the beach for the first time. We parked at a nature preserve, which had tons of evil looking rapid little rodents crawling about, that weren’t at all scared to just sit there and stare right at us, ready to attack. The preserve also had those cool old trees that have those branches that seem to just grow horizontally in all directions.


For some reason, karen is completely obsessed with the fact that florida has trees that have real coconuts that grow on them. It completely blows her mind. All she does is go around and take pictures of coconuts.

The weather today was windy, 71F, with a 74F water temp. For march, amazingly warm.

After the beach, we took a walk through the nature preserve.

What the hell are these things? They are absolutely everywhere, the dog loves them, and I’m almost always stepping on them.

Arrrrrr… matey….

Pssssttt.. Hey… Buddy!

Next weekend.. Orlando and Sea World!

In South Carolina, we hit our first palm tree.

Next stop was Savannah, and Target to get some supplies. I’m not sure if this is just a “south” thing, but it seems that every Target has a Starbucks in it. Which is very cool. After that, we had an exciting adventure in St. Joseph’s emergency room in downtown Savannah (ear infection), but we were back on the road in a few short hours.

After a long day, crashing at a Red Roof Inn outside of Jacksonville was just the ticket.

The biggest problem with traveling with a dog is that it severely limits where you can stay. In terms of the chains, count on Motel 6, Red Roof Inn, and Super 8. You really have to be careful though.. some of these places are real dumps. We happened to luck out. All the places we stayed were actually pretty decent. (note: this is according to me, not Karen. Karen thinks every hotel on earth is a dump. And don’t even get her started on the Super 8 mystery pube, which almost forced us to check out early)

On our final travel day, we stopped and saw the Daytona Motor Speedway (it’s bike week!)

We even saw the Orange County Choppers bike trailer (no OCC celebs, though). And we took a quick stop and got a bite to eat..

And try on sunglasses..

A few hours later, and we arrived at our new home for the next month. The place is really nice, immaculately clean, and has everything we need.




And Evangeline loves drooling and puking all over the new carpet.
This weekend we’re going to try to hit the beach, and see some sites, and next weekend we’re going to a gator farm.
Boca is pretty much exactly what I expected. Everyone has lots of money, most everyone is extremely selfish and rude (with a few notable exceptions, and I should also mention that the people I’m working with are beyond awesome), and everyone wears lots of makeup and expensive looking clothes. In terms of city layout, at least in the area we are in, imagine taking the Berlin Tpke in Newington and making lots of copies of it, using the copies to form large city blocks that are about a mile square. Fill in any empty space with a golf course, and that’s Boca. Every chain in the northeast is represented (and then some), and throw in a few super-targets and super-walmarts into the mix. And TONS of enormous malls.
If you like to shop, this place is your mecca.

Weather is very good! It’s like a nice new england summer, with the exception of the thunderstorms, which we’ve had almost every day here.

Seriously. Look at this place.

You can’t drive south on 95 and not stop here. It’s the stupidist, most unimaginably cheesiest tourist trap in existence. It’s been over 20 years since I’ve been here, and my memories of it have all but faded. I remember it as being like maybe one or two junk stores, but now? It’s more like a small city. A crappy, crappy city, that just doesn’t seem to end. And it looks rundown and dirty. You can tell they never really fix anything, and just paint over it a lot.

They’ve managed to brand everything. South of the Border Motor Inn..

South of the Border Fireworks..

South of the Border geodesic dome?

We didn’t stay long. Although they did have South of the Border branded coffee, which I didn’t try. I can’t imagine it’s any good. Maybe I’ll try it on the way back up.
Waiting for mommy to finish buying SOTB branded junk..

On the SOTB footbridge..

We began our trip to Florida saturday morning. We decided to take 4 days for the trip, first stopping off to visit Anne and Jim in Maryland. I’m glad we did. Call it a combination of a slight cold and maybe a little car sickness: Evangeline opened up and doused me with baby vomit. EVERYWHERE.

The frown was staged though. Puke really doesn’t bother me in the slightest (I got plenty of training in college).

The next day we visited Betsy in Arlington, got some awesome Thai, and we ended up spending the night at a super 8 somewhere in north carolina. Conventional wisdom dictates that the super 8 chain is a complete dump that should be avoided, but we took a chance and tried it anyway, and this place is really nice, complete with pool and decent wifi.

Tommorow: South of the border!

We started Evangeline on solids at about 5 months, and it took about 3 weeks for her to really understand what was going on.

Now that she’s got the hang of it, feedin’ time is about the best time of the day.

Ok, um, that’s not food..

This year we took a trip to a local Christmas tree farm and cut our own tree. This is a new tradition for us, and one that I really like doing. Any activity that involves me walking around with a saw and cutting stuff down, and not going to jail, is a good time.

Even though it’s bitterly cold out, we still got a smile out of her.

And a few hours later, we’re completely ready for christmas.

Every night when I leave work, I accidently keep iTunes running. And for whatever reason when I come in the next morning, iTunes will randomly pick a small 1 second piece of a song, and play it continuously FOREVER. This morning’s selection is a new song by Avril Lavigne called “Foppy”.

I think Foppy could be her next number 1 hit. Listen for yourself and decide. I for one can’t stop listening to it.

FoppyFoppyFoppyFoppy

Remember 50 States, 10 minutes?

Now try all the presidents in 10 minutes.

I got 30 out of 43. Notable presidents I missed were Madison, Monroe, Wilson and McKinley. Who the f*ck is Millard Fillmore?

Also, stupid Google ads at the bottom of the page gave me Warren Harding, so technically my score should be 29.

Someone patented “breakpoints”. (patent: 20030208745).  That’s about the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.  It’s almost as stupid as the linked list patent.  How can they let someone patent this stuff?  It’s like patenting pants.  Please tell me that someone hasn’t patented pants yet.

Actually, lately I’ve had this really good idea for a patent.  I bet it could make me a lot of money.

Here it is:

A process of rigorous logical reasoning that can be used to:
a)  model the motions, actions and properties of physical objects
b)  solve problems related to the enumeration of objects
3)  provide an axiomatic framework of abstraction that allows the user to create general principles that can apply to different natural or manmade processes, and be able to predict different results of a process without having to physically reproduce said process.

That’s right baby.  I’m going to patent MATH.  And once I patent Math?  I’m gettin’ PAID.

This weekend Mark took me trap shooting. Trap shooting is the one with shotguns and moving clay targets where you say “Pull” a lot.

(I’m dead center, left)

Before I continue, I should point out that I’m not a “gun person”. In general, guns make me nervous, and people that own guns make me even more nervous, so when I showed up to the shooting range I fully expected to be swarmed by a bunch of preachy Charlton Heston loving conservative nut jobs, their cars plastered with pro-2nd-amendment bumper stickers, loaded to the hilt with modified assault rifles and rocket launchers.

I was really surprised to find out that they were just normal people, and really respectful and nice. I explained that I was new, and I had never fired a gun before, and the president of the gun club took me off to the side and explained gun safety, etiquette, rules, and how to actually hit stuff. And he assigned a guy to me to make sure I did everything correctly (orange vest, to my right). Everyone was exceedingly patient and friendly. There was even this one guy who had been shooting for a million years that had this stupidly expensive trap gun (8k+ ?) and he offered to let me try it out.

So I left with a really positive impression. As expected, I suck as a marksman, and I have a giant bruise on my shoulder from the gun’s kickback. But I want to go back again, it was pretty cool.

And no, I haven’t turned into a gun nut. And I’m not getting a gun. Why bother. The guy who runs the club said he has plenty of giant guns that anyone can use for the day at no charge.