Buck nekkid in Miami!

Whose bright ass idea was it to get a 5am flight out of Boston? Logan airport parking is crazy expensive compared to Hartford and Providence, we look into other options but apparently nobody wants to travel with mass transit in the late night/early morning. The Logan express bus from Framingham and the trains do not run that early, what kind of a city is this anyway? The subway (T) stops from midnight to 4am, the bus is worse. Jessie ended up finding a external parking lot near the airport so we parked there, hopefully the shuttle from the airport to that parking lot will be easy to find when I get in today.

Anyway, we got to the hotel in the late morning and took some time to plan out what we wanted to see and when. Monday we ate lunch at a local brewhouse that Abita Purple Haze on tap! The burger I got was good and Jessie got a fried platter, the highlight was probably the deep fried pickles.. After lunch we went to a real upscale mall so Jessie could go to a designer's (DVF) clothing store. She tried on a few dresses, I think the cheapest one was $300. I really liked the little black dress she tried on but I don't think I could justify the cost, her plan was to find her size and then look for them on eBay or on some other such site.

I've been to the ocean now in a bunch of different locations around the world and one thing remains the same.. The water is smegging cold! We were in Australia and the water was so smegging cold I only stayed in for a few minutes. So naturally I don't change into my bathing suit because I figure I'll just walk in the water and be done. After hitting the water I was shocked by how warm it was, we went and got changed and I spent almost an hour in the water. I loved getting hit by the waves and I even swam across one as it was breaking, when I say across I mean along it on top. Only for a few seconds but it was neat to have the white break under me.. :)

We went to get changed again but the bathroom was closed!? We walked back towards the car and I found a great little set of bushes, there was one big one running along the sidewalk and another two in a V creating a triangle, there was a walkway into the center of the triangle but only viewable from the parking lot and not from the street or sidewalk. If you went into the center of the triangle you can't even be seen from the parking lot so I called it a dressing room.. Nothing like being balls naked in the middle of the city in the middle of the day! :D

We decided to get some rock crabs while in the area since it seems to be a big "to do" thing. We were going to go to Fifi's but it was in a sketchy area and their menu was not impressive so we ended up going to Billy's Crab House. Billy's was impressive but also very expensive.. Apparently "market price" was $40+ a plate.. The rock crabs were served cold over ice, the shells were cracked already so it was just a matter of ripping them apart. I would recommend them if you're in the area and have some extra money to spend on food..

Tuesday we went to the Seminole Indian reservation and did a water tour and a buggy tour of the Everglades at Billie's Swamp Safari. We saw some aligators, one up real close, it was pretty much touching the boat. The buggy tour was more impressive, but only because of the driver. He got out at one point and grabbed some of the bark of a palm tree and then later got off in a recreation of an old Indian house and started a fire with flint and steel and the palm tree bark. All the animals were free range and would walk in front of the buggy, at one point a bunch of animals were blocking the road and he used a horn to make them move, he said it was the first time he used he horn and in the past they would just bump the animals to make them move. We ate lunch at Billie's and I got a ethnic burger which was rolled in dough and then deep fried! It was really good but sorta scary. I posted a video of the burger on youtube.

After the swamp tours we went to a museum and saw an old ball and post game that the Indians used to play. We walked their nature walk for a bit before heading over to Sunlife Stadium to see the Marlins play the Braves. Sunlife stadium would be a great place to see a football game but for baseball most of the bars and stands were closed, they had the entire upper deck closed because they didn't have enough fans to warrent opening it. We sat eight rows from the Marlins dugout and had a great view of the Mermaids when they came out and danced for the 7th inning stretch. The food was nothing special, we ended up getting Boar's Head sammiches which were over priced and not very good. We then got a hot dog from the same kosher place that's at CitiField. I enjoyed the stadium but it certainly felt like the Marlins were playing in an away stadium.

Wednesday we went south to the Fruit and Spice Park and Coral Castle. The Fruit and Spice Park was very cool, they bring in plants and trees from all over the world, before the tour you can eat some of the fruit off the trees. There was one cherry which was star shaped that was amazing, unfortunatly because of the odd winter/spring they had there was not much fruit to be had. The tour guide was very good and kept stopping to show us different plants and explain what they were used for. After the tour we stumbled on a sign for a winery so headed there..

Schnebly winery was very pretty, they had a sitting/party area built out back with native huts and a waterfall. Because grapes in Florida are apparently crappy they use other fruits to make the wine. We got some of the Avocado wine, some of the Mango wine and some of the Guava wine. While we were at the winery it poured but it had stopped by the time we left (gotta love Florida weather)..

Coral Castle was very cool, apparently the guy who built it did so because a girl spurned him. They had an audio tour that was supposedly done by the guy who created it and he was a bit insane. He built chairs, tables, beds, etc all out of coral. They were suprisingly comfortable. I layed down on the bed and was actually comfortable, and the chairs rocked! I think it helps that the guy who made it all was five foot nothing so it all fit us.. :)

For dinner we went on a raw restaurant tour which started in Whole Foods where I got a Monk in the Trunk amber ale. I saw the name and had to get one, it was actually very good. After Whole Foods we went to OMGarden and got a main course. The place was in a run down area of Miami and the owner/waitress was a bit of a bitch but the food was great. Went from there to Green Wave which was closer to our hotel and got dessert. They have a water cooler that requires no water?! It sucks the humidity out of the air and filters it to drinkable water! What an amazing concept, the water tasted like bottled water..

Got back to the hotel on the early side and walked around the plaza across the street looking for somewhere to get a drink, ended up grabbing wine at the grocery store and came back to the hotel so Jessie could do some laundry.

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Now I'm sitting in the airport in Cleaveland, to be more specific I'm sitting in Great Lakes Brewery having another great Amber ale.

From Chicago to Miami with a quick stop in Catalyst

The last time I blogged I was out in Chicago.. That night I went to see a friend of mine in a burlesque show. The show was not till 10 so I went to Chicago Diner for dinner and then wandered around the city for a bit. I had a mock pastrami sandwich with mock bacon, it had banana peppers and sprouts on it and was very good and very large. All the mock meat at the Chicago diner is made with gluten so if you have gluten alergies don't even think about going there.. :(

Afterwards I was wandering around and stumbled upon a guy on a crazy bike trying to drumb up money to do a trick. The bike's frame has a circle above the rider and has a tire attached to the frame, he does a trick in which he pushes forward and rolls the bike over. If you pay him $5 he will do a single roll, for $10 he will do a double roll. The crowd he was talking to had already given him most of the money and I contributed to the pot to get it up to the $10 needed. He rode down the street a bit and came back doing his rolls as he passed us, I got a real good video of it and posted it to youtube.

Met my friend at 9pm and hung out with her before the show. It was the first time we met face to face after years of talking on IM. She is as cool in person as she is on IM, no strike that, she's cooler in person.. :) Speaking of firsts, it was the first time I went to a burlesque show and I really enjoyed myself. There was eight dancers and each one did a song/act. I can't say all burlesque shows are awesome but Chicago's Vaudzilla certainly is, if you're ever in the city you need to make time to see them. I am going to make a point to see other burlesque shows to see if they are as cool.

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Saturday I went to see Iron Man 2 with Jessie and dad, it was very well done and I loved the fact that they tied in the Avengers movie. Two of the Avengers comes to Iron Man and evaluates him for membership in the Avengers. There was not as much action as the first movie but they did a great job of showing the political and business aspect of Iron Man.

Sunday me, Badger and Jessie went back to the Robin Hood Springtime Festival with her friend Drew. The weather was amazing and it was great to be able to have time to just wander the faire a bit without having to worry about running from plot show to plot show. Me and Jessie did a vow renewal ceremony with Friar Tuck.. :D After the show I went with Lynz to JD Coopers for dinner and pool.. All in all, a great weekend home..

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Most of the week was working with Kevin trying to get everything ready for Future Imperfect, we got everything but Kevin's new chest plates done. Still want to make small changes to mine like put brown leather around the whole thing instead of the black tape that I put there for the time being. Kevin got his armor wearable but still has a long way to go to make it the way he wants it.

Thursday night me and Jessie met John, Lynz and Anja at 3rd Thursday in Willimantic. We ate some dinner and watched a folk band in the beer garden.

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Future Imperfect was just as good again, I know I've said it before but that game really is awesome! The guy who runs the game setup a module for the players to gather food for the cooks to make for dinner. He actually went out Friday night and dug holes and buried potatoes and carrots, he also made "boar poo" that had resources in it. The poo was so realistic we were avoiding stepping in it and at one point Kevin was getting close to it so we decided to move it so people could dig without worrying about it. I grabbed a stick and when I stabed it to move it I found a resource and that's when we realized it was fake! What a site to see the colony officials breaking apart poo to get resources!

This weekend coming up is Laire, I hope it can be half as fun as Future Imperfect..

Vibram Five Fingers - Shoddy Materials..

The strap on my Five Fingers finally broke the other day.. I got the shoes in August of last year and the strap on my right shoe split already?! I noticed it happening so last week I called Vibram, their response to the problem was to point me to a fan site which tells you to duct tape the straps to stop them from ripping! So, basically Vibram understands that they make shoes that will fall apart in less than one year and really don't care.. How can I recommend these shoes to people if I know they won't even last a year? It might not be so bad if they were only $30 or so, but they are $85 and that's a lot to pay for shoes that don't even last a year. These shoes are meant for outdoor sports which means they are meant to beat up, how can you make flimsy shoes that are meant to be used for outdoor sports? So now I'm left with three options: buy a new pair (am I really going to give them more money for another 8-9 months of shoe wear?), duct tape the ones I have (now that it fully ripped how well is the duct tape going to last?), find another manufacturer who makes similar shoes? I'm going to do the 2nd one for now but I will be on the look out for the 3rd option because I am not happy with the quality of these shoes. Now the trick is finding brown duct tape, you would think it's not hard but it seems to be out here in Chicago. I've gone to three different places and they had all kinds of crazy colors, but no brown..

Terra Plano makes a shoe they call Vivo Barefoot but they are not "toe shoes", I wonder why they call them barefoot? I'll have to find some and try them on. According to their website there is ONE location in the US and it's in NYC. Maybe I can find someone else who carries them?

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This week I'm out in Chicago, it's cold and wet and I forgot my duster.. Well, that's certainly not going to keep me from adventuring out.. :)

I got here on Sunday night and went over to the White Chocolate Grill for the amazing Balsamic marinated Rib Eye. I've been to that restaurant four times and every time I've been there I have gotten the same thing.. Yes, it's that good! If you ever get a chance to be near a WCG make sure you go and get that steak. There are few of them across the country so you never know..

Monday night I went to the Cubs game, I was debating it because of the weather but I figured I'd head over to the stadium area at least. Once in front of the stadium I have to admit I couldn't ignore the allure of spending a night sitting in the brick and ivy. I got a cheap upper deck ticket and headed over to Goose Island for a pre-game beer. Got one of their new summer ales and headed into the stadium. I was originally going to do dinner at the Chicago Diner but timing was bad so I ended up eating two bison dogs in the stadium, those two options are equally healthy right? Yes you read that right, bison dogs.. Wrigley field now has bison dogs and hot dogs, the crazy thing is that they are the same price! It was a good game but man was it cold, the wind whips through the upper deck worse then in NY.

Tuesday I went into Chicago with two students and we went to Goose Island for dinner. As we were leaving the Cubs game was getting out so instead of getting stuck in the sardine of a train we walked over to the Chicago Diner area. We were looking at the menu in the window and Christine commented that she had not a Fat Tire in a long time and that it was one of her favorite beers so we went in to get one.. Unfortunately they were closed so we went to a pub nearby and got one there, we ended up staying and chatting for a long time and didn't get back to the hotel till about 2am.

Yesterday I went into Chicago to meet a girl from OKC. Met near her apartment and walked around a bit before deciding on an Italian place (forgot the name but it is over by House of Blues). She moved to Chicago recently from New Hampshire and is still getting familiar with the city. After dinner I headed back to Naperville and tried to find brown duct tape which was a failure as previously noted.

Tonight I'm going to see a Burlesque show at Blue Bayou. It's not till 10pm so I may end up going over to a concert venue to see Kim Taylor before hand.

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Last week I was home catching up with everyone.. Kevin came over and we made enhancements to his armor and made me a breast plate and hat armor for FI. It looks pretty bad-ass, I am going to post pics on Flickr in a little bit so you can see.

Saturday we went to the new CT Robin Hood Springtime Festival. It started out as a miserable day with TONS of rain! Luckily the rain stopped before any of the plot shows and it ended up being a really nice day. If you're familiar with the Pope and Cardinal show you would be interested in knowing that the guy who played the Cardinal wrote the plot for the Robin Hood faire and the guy who played the Pope is the good king.. I have to hand it to both CT Ren Faires, they make you have to go twice because of the sheer amount of shows and things to see. We are going back on Sunday of this week to see some of the regular shows, hopefully it will be nice out..

Mclean VA and Camden Yards

Tuesday night I went to the local sports bar. I stress the word local, to say this was Cheers-like would be very accurate, I walked in and the bartender before taking my order asked me my name and where I was from. She then introduced me to the other people around the bar! Ordered some food and she threw the Mets/Dodgers game on the TV over the bar. Shortly after I got there Mike and John asked me if I wouldn't mind if they put the Basketball game on that TV since it's playoff time. I said sure and they moved the baseball game to a side TV. Got included in a free round by Jim, one of the regulars and my burger was really good. Hung out for a bit after the game ended because I was enjoying hanging out with my new friends.. :)

Wednesday night.. Robyn cancelled because she got called into work so I ended up going alone to Gordon Biersch, got lobster bisque and sea bass. After dinner I went back to Neighbors because it was Donna's 50th Birthday and I wanted to stop in and say happy birthday.. Hung out for a few drinks but left somewhat early because I was starting to feel get a sinus cold.

Thursday night.. I got tickets to see the Yankees and Orioles at Camden Yards. Met Matt, Sile and Daniel at McCormick and Schmick's for dinner, I had a Parmesan crusted flounder cooked with capers. It was so good! After dinner me and Matt walked over to Oriole Park at Camden Yards for the game. We got there early and walked around the stadium, when you first enter the stadium you're in the highlight of the park. There is a road past that runs from the CF corner to the LF corner out past the wall, during game days they close that road off and it's part of the stadium. It was very pretty and was full of historical things to look at like the Oriole Hall of Fame, and a great moments in Baltimore sports history section. We had just eaten so we didn't pay too much attention to the food, but they had a bunch of Baltimore local microbrew stands which were very good. Went up to our seats and found that there was two bars in our way of the field view. The seats were very wide but only the first row had cup holders. Around the 7th inning I got hungry so we went in search of something to eat.. Hot dogs, hot dogs, sausages, hot dogs and hot dogs was about all we found. I was very disappointed in the food selection at the stadium, to be fair they also had hamburgers and one place on the right field corner of the field level which sold expensive wraps. We walked the entire stadium and I ended up with a pretzel which they only sold at one location behind home plate on the field level! Maybe I'm spoiled by the food at CitiField but I have come to expect a mix of high end and low end food. In order to get into my top list of stadiums you need some sort of special food and they just didn't cut it.

Friday was drive home day.. Lynz came over but I was probably at the height of my sinus cold so we just ate some dinner and snuggled on the couch..

Saturday I got my bike back and on the road! I didn't ride much because I was coughing and sneezing while trying to ride and not very good when wearing a face shield and helmet.. But, it was the most comfortable I felt on my bike since I've gotten it! That night we went to Foxwoods to eat dinner and to see Mark Knopfler. Ate at the Grill at Two Trees and had Salmon in capers and kalamata olives which was very good. The concert was great, the sound quality at the MGM might be one of the best I've heard in a long time if not ever. It sounded like you were listening to a live recording, everything was very good and no echo or hard to hear instruments/vocals. The concert itself was also very good, it was very "trance" and you could just close your eyes and let the music flow over and through you.. It was odd seeing how old Mark Knopfler is because he's one of those people you don't see, never see videos and he usually has pictures of instruments on his CDs.

Sunday me and Jessie went to see her mom... It was, umm.. Fun? Sure.. Dinner was great! We ate at a little seafood place on the Hudson and I had a prime rib with crab stuffed shrimp.. Yum!