TravelShit, my flight to Des Moines is on a Delta Connection jet. It’s hard enough to squeeze in the seat on the bigger planes, this is going to be fun. I did get an exit row seat though, unfortunately since the plane is so small I’ll probably have someone sitting next to me. Anyway I have an hour and a half to kill so I figured I would write a review of my Tampa trip before I completely forget what happened.
I was there from September 9th through the 13th. I’ve been to Tampa three times before. A couple of them were like one or two day trips though. This trip was purely a personal one. I went to visit my friends Brian, Lori and Brian. I was also hoping to see my friend Steve his new wife Summer and daughter Reba. Unfortunately it didn’t workout this time. I know I’ll be going back though, especially since Brian’s getting a pool and hot tub put in. (I mean to visit my friends again of course.)
Brian picked me up at the airport and after playing musical cars we headed to Hooters for a beer and wings. I never go to Hooters except when I’m out of town hanging out with friends. I don’t really like their food and I have an ex-psycho girlfriend that used to work there (before I dated her) so it brings back bad memories. The wings were actually good this time though although not hot at all. Plus they had Bass on tap so of course we had to get a pitcher. I think we just hung around the house the rest of that night. Hey give me a break it was two weeks ago, my brain can only hold so much. Isn’t weird how you remember some things and not others? In this instance for example I can’t really remember what we did that night but I remember things from years ago on “non events” from work at the beginning of the year. Of course the beer I drank that night is probably playing a role in this case.
On Saturday we hung out around the house, played some games and Brian changed the wheels on his car. He was showed me Doom3 one night. That is one scary game! Play it at night with all the lights turned off and try not to jump. I used to be a total Doom junkie when the first one came out in ‘93 or ‘94 I believe. I was in Charlotte at the time and some friends and I would have LAN parties before anyone new what a LAN party was. I remember getting hassled by a cop at least once for having a computer in my back seat after getting pulled over for speeding. One of my friends broke his desk by jerking his knee after getting scared by the game.
Back to the trip, that night we went to see Deborah Coleman at WMNF’s 10th birthday party. I’ve seen Deborah twice before, once at The Blind Willie McTell Blues Festival and once at a defunct blues club in Old Towne Conyers. Deborah is a real treat to see, she really shreds on the guitar. Not some girly guitar either she uses a full-size Les Paul with a fat neck. She is hands down the best female guitarist I have ever seen, and better than 98% of the men I’ve seen. We showed up a little late so we only got to hear about four songs. I would’ve went if she was only playing one song though. Dave Alvin was headlining, that was a buzzkill after hearing Deborah so we left after giving him a chance by suffering through a couple of songs. This actually worked out great because I was originally going to see Deborah at The Harvest Moon Bluesfest which I’m going to miss now since I decided to go to the Voodoo Music Experience in New Orleans during that same weekend. After the show we stopped at a bar closed it went back to the house and stayed up to some ungodly hour.
On Saturday we went to Siesta Key Beach which was about 45 minutes away from their house. Siesta Key is a beautiful beach with white sand the consistency of powdered sugar. I had a great time that day.
I must interrupt this blog for a minute. There is a young couple sitting next to me at the gate bench. I guess the guy isn’t not feeling well because he is sitting on the ground in front of the girl. Earlier she was massaging his head but a minute ago she was touching his head in a petting motion. Out of the corner of my eye it looked like a couple of chimpanzees grooming each other. It was hard for me not to laugh, this relates to a conversation I was having last night with my roommate and the door guy at the EARL, Duane. He was saying sometimes he looks at everyone as some type of monkey. He actually meant primate but I didn’t correct him since I got what he meant, plus he’s big. 
Anyway he was saying he’s a gibbon, my roommate said he would be a chimpanzee which Duane agreed to. They were trying to pick one for me, my roommate suggested gorilla but Duane said that I wasn’t big enough. Duane said people who hangout at the bar are baboons and my neighbor who’s always at the EARL everytime I go there (except for that night) is a spider monkey. Then something happened and the conversation was dropped. Now I’m in limbo as to which primate I resemble. Maybe I’ll get some morphing software and see what unnatural union looks best.
Sorry about that, back to Siesta Key. It was a very relaxing time, threw the football around, swam, drank beer, took pictures and chilled out. This was the first time in about two years that I’ve been to the beach so it was a much needed trip. I found tons of live sand dollars that was pretty cool, most were small but I did find one about five inches in diameter. A quick rain shower came in when I was in the water, that was pretty cool getting rained on while your in the water it was kind of a surreal experience. Tons of little water explosions all around me. I saw a few fish out there too and one jumped out of the water and hit me in the chest as its school went by. The clouds were very impressive that day, I snapped a bunch of pictures I’ll be posting them in my Tampa gallery soon.
After the beach we went to the house to shower and change, mainly because dumbass me went to Florida without a swimsuit. After cleaning up it was off to Bones a family friendly BBQ joint. They had TVs all over the place and each table had a speaker on it. You turned a knob on the speaker to switch between the different programs. Needless to say the noise pollution was plentiful. I was sitting next to Brian’s son Brian who happened to have a coloring placemat. I decided to add my own contribution to his interpretation of modern art. We only had three colors to work with, yellow, blue and green. My addition to his creation was coloring one of the logs. I colored the body blue a leaf on a branch green and the cut edge of the log yellow.
I think it looked pretty good, however I need to bring up an issue that has remained under the populace radar for far too long. The crayons they give kids at restaurants are of horrible quality. I could have colored better with candle wax. These things don’t stick to the paper at all and they are way to slick. So the next time your kid shows you something that’s splotchy and outside of the lines don’t just smile and nod and say “that’s nice honey”. Get the manager over and tell him you refuse to come back to an establishment that gives their patrons sub standard wax sticks of pleasure. What has happened in this world where everything has to be the cheapest quality possible? How about giving away nice crayons? Is that so hard? Too much money? Then don’t give any away then. What’s funny about this is kids probably don’t even care or notice, so nevermind, forget it keep giving out the crap crayons, eight year old girls in China need the work. I was talking about this to a couple of coworkers the other day one of which used to work at Rio Bravo. He said they have crap crayons too, except when they ran out and somebody would have to make a Crayola run to the drug store. Crayola, now there’s a good crayon. I wouldn’t know what periwinkle looks like if weren’t for Crayola. I remember one time in Houston we left some outside for a little while and came back to a multicolored blob. It had a very strong smell and made me nauseous. One of my brothers used to eat them too, so they’re not just for coloring.
Three times during the trip while outside smoking, an armadillo walked up. One time not more than six inches for my feet. The first two times I ran inside to get my camera but he was gone when I returned. The third time I didn’t bother which worked out since he was only there momentarily. I also saw lots of lizards, frogs and birds while I was there. No gators this time, next time I go I plan on taking pictures near Brian’s house on land that hasn’t been developed yet supposedly there’s gators there.
Sunday was laid back, we watched football, played games and drank beer. All in all it was a very relaxing trip and a much needed break. I wish I had more time but I always wish that unless I’m travelling for business.
Look for Tampa pictures soon. I have a few up there now with more to come.
-Alex
