We didn’t end up getting any even remotely decent fireworks pics from the 4th, as we were pretty far away from all of the action, but a few nice photos still came out of the sky as the sun went down. The body of water would be Hillsborough Bay (Tampa Bay is the area between Tampa & St. Petersburg, so this is the area between South Tampa and the rest of Florida), which means that the sunset was actually happening behind us, making for some pretty neat colors in the clouds in front of us as they caught the reflections of the actual sunset itself.
If this doesn’t get thrown out of court faster than our non-existent bullet train, our legal system drops yet another notch in my eyes of actually being intelligent purveyors of justice in America…
Woman Suing Green Iguana For ‘Flaming Shot’ Injuries
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/jul/16/woman-suing-green-iguana-flaming-shot-injuries/
Basically, this woman goes into a bar in St. Petersburg, orders a shot of Bacardi 151 on fire, then spit it out and caught herself on fire because she got scared of the flames. She ended up being rushed to the hospital and couldn’t work for two months due to the burns, so she’s suing the bar. Oh yeah, but one other thing – she was underage at the time that this happened…
“I’m suing because I should not have been let in,” Shannon said today. “If I weren’t let in, none of the events would have happened.”
Are you f’ing kidding me?! If you would’ve caught me trying to drink underage, none of this would’ve happened! The manager is even quoted earlier in the article that someone had told her that others were buying the girl drinks all evening, presumably because she couldn’t actually do so herself. You’ve just got to love the level of personal responsibility of today’s youth – I mean, my generation has had its dumb moments, but come on?! What are the chances that the judge will turn the tables and not only dismiss the lawsuit against the bar, but also add in some jail time for underage drinking?
And the biggest kicker of them all? Apparently she’s currently enrolled in college under a criminal justice major…
This is the perfect time of year in Florida for me. Well, this and October/November before the temperatures “really” start dipping back down to those dreaded sub-50-degree numbers in the evenings. Right now is great, though – it’s warm, but not blazing hot in the morning; the afternoons are sunny and hot, but not so much that you can’t go outside for a bit; and the evenings are still warm enough that a relaxing dip in the pool after a workout is comfortable, yet I can open up some windows around the house after it gets dark to help circulate air. In another month when the frogs start going at it, open doors and windows will no longer be an option so I have to enjoy that while I can!
Soon those tables will turn and instead of the weather being quaint and enjoyable, it’ll be pushing 100 degrees mid-afternoon, only cooled down by the 4pm rain, and you probably won’t catch me outside for anything more than a brief moment when the sun is up. Luckily Disney blocks us out of the parks all summer when it’s mad hot anyways, so that makes it a little easier. Still, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else…
More photos from Downtown Tampa…
I actually took these last weekend when we were out and about, but never got around to posting them until just now. Last Saturday we went on a free lunch cruise around the bay under the guise that we were actually considering them for our rehearsal dinner. It turned out, however, that their prices actually make The Melting Pot look pretty affordable, so unless we find any other restaurants that are willing to attempt to woo us with free food, it looks like we’ll probably end up scavenging for extra money to make our fondue rehearsal dinner a reality.
It’s been a long week, and it’s already stacking up to be an even longer weekend – I may have to work tomorrow, we have a wedding to attend in the afternoon, and I still need to do our taxes so we can get our money back from Uncle Sam! I do want to try and post again later tonight, though, to share all of my leftover wuv from Valentine’s Day. Sneak Preview: I got something big and cuddly from Sara!
I took a trip over to MOSI yesterday afternoon and, well, let’s just say that it’s a good thing that admission was FREE because otherwise I would’ve left there feeling disappointed and ripped off! Quite the bummer, too, because I’ve been wanting to go there for such a long time now – it seems like a year and a half later I’m just now getting around to visiting the big name venues of the town – the Forum last week, the science museum yesterday, the unemployment office tomorrow…I kid, I kid…
Anyone who’s been there will probably agree that the place has scads of potential, but just continuously seems to drop the ball at all of the wrong times. Very nice building – plenty of room, and even an IMAX-dome theater – but the content was simply severely lacking and barely even close to par with some of the other science museums I’ve visited. Signs were old and faded, some displays reminded me more of middle school science projects than what you’d expect to see having just paid $20 a piece for admission. They had about three worthwhile exhibits – space exploration and the planets, magnetism, and a few neat displays about forces and whatnot, but overall I probably won’t be going back anytime soon…especially if it’s not free.
In other news, I just got finished watching Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (Extended Edition) – and maybe this is just my weekend for disappointments, I don’t know! Of course, the theatrical movie itself is still stellar and it had been a while since I’d watched anything on the big screen, but the extra 50 minutes just seemed like a waste to me. Nothing really significant, other than the scene where Aragorn and the army of the dead took the boats on the river, but unlike the uncut footage from the other two, it almost felt like the director was just throwing in extra footage because he had done the same with the previous two DVD sets… *shrug*
I did, however, watch Resident Evil: Apocalypse last night and I thought that that turned out really good. I had been wondering if this was going to be a completely separate movie, so it was a relief to see that this one basically picks up exactly where the first one left off…give or take maybe five minutes. Mind you, a considerable number of scenes scared the bejesus out of me, but anyone who’s endured pretty much any movie with me will vouch that this is a common happening! I think I slept in the car for something like six days after seeing Arachnaphobia for the first time… 
http://traffic.tbo.com/traffic/hillsborough_pinellas.htm
It seems that a good portion of Tampa is, well, underwater and going home right now might not be the safest idea, so we’re stuck here for at least another day – maybe two.
It’s funny – management and the salaried employees are dying to get home, and yet all I continue to see are the dollar signs…
Whew…
That about describes it – what an eventful couple of days! I drove back from Lake Mary this morning…it took about four hours thanks to bumper-to-bumper traffic on I-4, but I was just happy to be going home. You know, maybe it’s just me, but it kind of redefines the meaning of irony when you evacuate across the state to evade the hurricane and yet, hours later its changed its course and is still coming straight for you – talk about pushing that idea of being followed to the Nth degree. Nonetheless, I can’t put into words how happy I was to hear that the Tampa City Center was back up and running this morning, and that this adventure was finally coming to a close!
Well, at least for me. Between TV and the Internet and the local newspapers, I’ve been fixed on all of the pictures of what happened over in Punta Gorda and it’s become very clear to me that everyone in the Tampa / St. Petersburg / Clearwater area was extraordinarily lucky yesterday. I know that things were pretty bad in Orlando – saw a lot of the damage first hand on the journey home, as we had to drive around trees covering one of the freeway on-ramps that hadn’t been cleared yet – but just seeing how hard they got hit on the coast, I can only imagine what the damages would’ve been like had Charley came ashore in Tampa instead. I don’t care what the fools said about how evacuating our area was a joke – it was something that had to be done, other cities would’ve done the same thing, and in the end we were just very, very fortunate.
So now I’m home, trying to unpack and clean up and try to enjoy the rest of the weekend, but right now I find it hard to really feel burdened by even the most mundane of tasks when you know that people a hundred miles south of you wish that they could be doing the dishes or unpacking their clothes. Welcome to Florida…
Sure, they’re predicting flooding and high winds and lots of damage, but let’s focus on the important part – I’m not getting my new TV this weekend!!! 
Yep, I got the confirmation message when I came home earlier this afternoon – the earliest I can have it now is Tuesday, which could prove to be a problem not simply because I work on Tuesday, but also because I might not even be home on Tuesday! Some days you just can’t win…
So long story short, the company that I work for has myself and about forty of my co-workers put up in an above-average hotel somewhere north of Orlando doing the whole “disaster recovery” thing, which actually worked out pretty good because I didn’t really have anyplace else to go anyways! I only had about an hour to both pack and batten down the hatches, so to speak, so hopefully I’ll come back to anything but a living room full of glass and trees and stuff, but nonetheless I am safe, so please don’t worry about me. They’re paying me quite well, indeed, to be over here right now and it sure beats sleeping on a cot in a high school gynasium somewhere, so if you want to be concerned about something, be concerned about the safe and successful delivery of my TV next week…whenever that may be.
And I had picked up the new cable box this morning and everything…damn.
I mean, seriously, we’re going on four straight days without sunshine now – there’s only so much dreariness a man can take…
My absence over the past days can probably best be blamed on the fact that I worked the last ten days in a row without any time off. That streak ended last night, and there was much rejoicing.
Walked down to Channelside Friday evening after work for dinner and a movie with Kurt and Nikki – a pricey night, that’s for sure, but it was nice to go somewhere other than straight home after work! Another of my many desired “tourist stops,” I’d never actually been down there before, so it was kinda neat to see what all of the fuss is about, between the shops and the street performers and the live music – pretty cool. Of course, the main draw for the evening was an opportunity to see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban…
And what better place to see such a beautiful movie than at an IMAX theater, right?! Wow – the scenery in this latest episode truly was amazing and I think the five-story screen really played a huge role in helping to portray the setting…no pun intended. I even found myself agreeing with the critics on this one – not only was this the best Harry Potter movie to date, but I think it was the first one that I’ll say was accurately transferred from paper to film – they really did a good job with this one. Did I mention that it was an IMAX film???
Today was just one of those days best spent sitting around the house playing video games and writing because tomorrow is going to be one of those days where I have to drag my ass out of bed at the butt-crack of dawn on a Sunday to go in for a meeting at work where we’ll all be treated like grade schoolers for a period of three hours. Topics of discussion are said to include how to dress for a business environment, how to clean up after yourself, and how to get your lazy, border-line unemployed ass to work on-time – should be a good time for all!
Not that I’m at all bitter about it – we are being provided with free bagels, mind you…
