The Running of the Bulls 2010

Here’s a few photos from this year’s Running of the Bulls during Hemingway Days.

We wandered down Duval around noon on Saturday and made our way to Sloppy Joe’s to meet up with our friends Moose and Danyle. We procured a couple frosty beers and awaited the start of the festivities. If you’re unfamiliar, this is the main event of Hemingway Days, where the current year’s look-alike contestants hop on wheeled saw horses (or saw-bulls if you will) and they “race” around the block being pushed by their teams. Now most of these dudes are pretty up there in years.. grey hair and all, so there really isn’t much actual racing going on.. it’s more like a parade. But who cares, it’s fun, and not a long event, so there’s more time to wander the booths set up on Duval and perhaps feast on a turkey leg if the mood strikes.

After wandering the streets for a bit we were very hot and sweaty, and decided we needed to go to Ft Zach beach and cool off in the ocean. We hopped on our bikes, rode to the park, and hit the surf. And as these things are wont to go, not eating anything all day and drinking more than my fair share of frosty beer on the streets combined, to the amusement of my friends, with the heat to push me right into the passed out and snoring in the hammock phase of the day.  Unfortunately, however I never made it to the hammock, and just lay on the sand where I landed and took myself a little nap. Live and learn! Yeah, maybe someday..

All in all a very fun day!

Oh yeah. I Should have eaten too….	Last year’s Pappa on a stick.

Lots of art and food booths!	In the bullpen, waiting for the run.

Woah!

Where does the time go? Amazing how when you’re just livin’ life it seems to slip by unnoticed. I can’t believe it’s been so long since I posted anything here. I have photos and stuff from some really fun Duval St. events.. Lobester Fest 2010 and the Running of the Bulls that I need to throw up on here… guess I’d better get on that huh.

I don’t know what happened, it’s like I hit my one year mark in Key West and blacked out. Now it’s almost September and I don’t know where the last two months went! My son Connor was down visiting from NY for a month in there, so that probably had a lot to do with it. We went camping up in Bahia Honda state park one weekend, that was un-freaking-believably beautiful. I’ll post some shots of that too here in a bit. Most of the rest of our time together we spent on the beach or watching movies or eating. He loves visiting me because he says I’m a better cook than his mother, and he gets to eat better when he’s down here. Hey, I’ll take what I can get!

Christina and Connor both had birthdays in the beginning of August, so we had two separate birthday dinners. Christina’s happened to coincide with Lobester Fest, so of course we had lobster! Well, Connor had crab legs, but Christina and I ate the bug. We went to the Half-Shell Raw Bar over on the marina.. the food was pretty darned good, the atmosphere was steamy, and the beer was cold. Can’t complain one bit! For Connor’s birthday we went to Turtle Kraals, and had MORE lobster and crab legs. Im up in the air about Turtle Kraals’ food still. I’ve been 4 times now, and sometimes it’s really good, sometimes not so much. Maybe it’s just some things on the menu are better than others. It’s definitely no Conch Republic Sea Food though.

Other than that I’ve just been working for the man like the dog I am. This being the off-season, sales are way down, and the mood in the gallery is pretty.. I don’t know.. grim? I’m sure we’ll pull out of it, but man.. as if work isn’t stressful enough, we gotta add money woes on top. I sit at my computer and dream of the day when I can support myself off of my sculpture. Of course, this dream requires me actually SELLING some of it, but hey.. one thing at a time.

Speaking of the sculpture thing, that’s going really well. I was contacted a few months back by a gentleman in the steampunk-art world who puts on a yearly gallery show up in Connecticut. He had run across my coppersteam blog and was interested in placing some of my work in his show next year. COOL! Recently he contacted me again and wants to include photos of my sculpture in a coffee table book he’s putting together consisting of steampunk art. Even cooler! Needless to say, I’m excited about all that. I never expected to just have people come knocking on my door.

Anyways, just thought I’d better let whoever might actually read this thing know that I’m not dead or in jail. I’ll post some photos soon of the recent tropical misadventures!

Cheers!
Mike

The Big One-Oh

Just a little bit over 2 years ago..

… maybe closer to three, Christina and I made a ten-year plan. We decided that come hell or high water, we would be living on a sailboat in the Caribbean somewhere.. preferably the Virgin Islands. The plan was to work for the next 5 years in Orlando, save our pennies, and then move to Key West where we would spend 5 years learning to sail, buy a boat, and then sail off to St. Thomas. Easy!

Then Disaster struck. The economy tanked. Christina got laid off. A few months later I got laid off. Our yearly household income went from a comfortably ridiculous sum to just about nothing in the course of a few months.We both struggled to find work, but the outlook was bleak. Christina picked up some temp work during the week, and worked at Macey’s on the weekend.. she worked 7 days a week. I was lucky enough to get a very cushy severance package so I was pretty much living the high life and looking in vain for jobs I knew weren’t there, and wouldn’t be for many years to come.

One day on a lark, Christina applied for a job in Key West over the internet. Long story short, within a month we were moving. We sold just about everything we had, rented out the house, and hit the road. She at least had a job, and a decent one at that, I was still frantically searching. That was one year ago today. We are now 3 years ahead of our schedule thanks to the economic collapse.

I’ve since found employment. It’s a sweet little job. No stress to speak of. No team meetings, no performance reviews, no managerial duties; no corporate bullshit whatsoever. It takes me 3 minutes to commute to work on my bike. The worst traffic I get on the way is in the form of a family of chickens crossing the road or perhaps a curious, big green lizard. My job pays less than half of what I was making in Orlando but you know what? I wouldn’t go back to that life for all the money in the world.

We spend Saturdays at the beach, which is  less than a mile from our apartment. We relish the lack of the yard work and house work that it took to keep up with a 3-bedroom house in the ‘burbs. I spend my free time building my sculptures, writing in my blogs, and sitting at Dante’s enjoying a corona in the beautiful Key West sun with friends.

It’s a much simpler lifestyle

And I look forward to the continuation of our descent into simplicity. We’ll be starting sailing classes soon, and then it’s on to phase two of the plan. If things continue at this accelerated pace, we should be well on our way to being permanent beach bums well short of our planned timeframe.

I’d like to take a brief second here to say thanks to all the new friends we’ve met in Key West who have made us feel welcome and helped in the transition. Frank, Eric and Kelly, Moose and Danyle, Momma Frank, Aunt Ruth and Wayne, Frank II, Jocomo… you guys are the best, I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to hang with. I look forward to all the future misadventures we will certainly share!

We left 20-something years worth of friends behind in Orlando, as well as a fair amount of family. It was a rough break, but the internet and frequent visits from folks who have figured out that having friends in Key West with a free futon can be a good thing, have made the transition not quite so bad.

Here’s to the next phase of the plan! I wonder what I’ll be writing about this time next year….

M

The Minimal Regatta 2010

Our first Minimal Regatta!

We’d missed it last year as it’d happened just before we moved to Key West from Orlando. That brings me to an off-topic topic.. this weekend marks the anniversary of Christina’s arrival in Key West! Next weekend will by mine. I can’t believe it’s been a year already! I guess there’s no turning back now!

Anyway, the Minimal Regatta is an annual event put on by Schooner Wharf Bar in which contestants are given a sheet of plywood, two 2×4′s, a box of screws, and a roll of duct tape. With these ‘minimal’ materials, they build a boat to race in the regatta. Well to be more accurate, try to race. A lot of them sink.. which is where all the fun is!

I didn’t really know quite what to expect, I’d heard stories and seen some of the wining boats hanging in the rafters at Schooners, but any time you have a bunch of people dressed in costumes drinking you’re bound to have a good time, so sign me up!

My friend Eric (who drove all the way back to Key West from North Carolina for the event) built two boats; one for him and one for his wife Kelly. They were essentially the same but for the paint job. Hers had big pink hearts on it, his was just plain silver.

Event Day!

I had agreed to be on eric’s ‘crew’ for the event. I’m not sure what this really entailed, because they say you can have up to a 6 person crew, but really you only need one person to help you get the boat in and out of the water, and they sho’d people off the docks so fast you’d be hampered by a large crew anyways.

Eric had told me he’d be calling at 8:30 the morning of the event so we could go down and set up our tent in a good spot behind Schooner’s. When the phone rang that morning (after I might add, a long night of entertaining out-of-town guests) it was 7:00. Curse you Eric!

Well, I was up at that point so what the hell. He came by and picked me up and we went down to the marina. It was already hot and we were sweating profusely and it wasn’t even 8:00 yet! (in all honesty this could have been alcohol sweats) We finished setting up the tent and I had Eric drop me home so I could perhaps cop a few more Z’s before we had to meet for breakfast at 11:00. Ug.. never enough time on the day for sleep!

We hit Harpoon Harry’s for brunch at noon and did some carbo-loading for the big day of drinking and frolicking. The food was great, the service.. not so much. Our waitress seemed really put out that we were there taking up her time. I won’t let that keep me from going back though, the food is really good.

After brunch we  made our way to the party tent to begin the day. I’d been told that the two hottest days in Key West are the Minimal Regatta and the Battle of the Bars. I was skeptical.. the weather had been warm lately, but not too terrible, so I didn’t think it’d be all that bad. Well. I was wrong.

Key West had a record high that day, and it was like standing in an oven set to maximum broil on those docks! To make matters worse, the last time I’d seen the docks that crowded was new years eve. I’m surprised they didn’t collapse into the marina with all that weight on them. I found myself  secretly wishing for this because at least I’d be in the water if that happened.

To be honest I missed much of the races because of the oppressive heat and crowd on the docks. I only went out and watched when Eric or Kelly were racing. I’m not much for large crowds of people.. especially when its ridiculously hot. Also we had quite a crowd of folks at our party tent and we were having a grand time of our own back there away from the masses. Surprisingly it actually seemed 10 degrees cooler behind the building. It could have been the effect of the coolers full of ice and sweet-sweet vodka there.

Kelly actually won her first heat, Eric wasn’t so lucky. His boat sank as soon as the start horn sounded. Good times! So since Kelly won a heat it meant she had to race again. She didn’t feel like her arms were up to it, so she found a stand-in to race for her in the second heat. Her stand-in  however was not possessed of the same competitor’s mettle, and failed to even finish the entire course.

On to Dante’s!

When you’ve been out in the heat all day drinking, there’s only one thing to do! Walk down the docks and go to Dante’s for a swim! Well… everyone else at the event had had the same idea and the place was jam-packed. The pool water was a bit dubious as well, so we opted for just a few drinks before departing. Christina and I went home, passed out in the AC for a couple hours, then dragged our weary arses out of bed to meet up with our out-of-town guests for dinner at Jack Flats.

It was a very long day. Hot and long. But it was an absolute blast, and I wouldn’t have missed it!

Here’s a few photos for your perusal:

MinReg2010 (27 photos)
30 May 2010

Note: To see the pictures in the original Picasa album, click here

Blue Heaven

729 Thomas St. - (305) 296-8666- http://blueheavenkw.homestead.com

Why did I wait so long…

You gotta love a restaurant with it’s own outdoor shower.

I can’t believe we’ve been in Key West almost a year and have just now gotten to Blue Heaven over on Thomas Street. It’s not like it’s outside of the walking distance circle from my apartment, not like I haven’t heard from a hundred people how really good the food is, nor like it’s overly expensive. I really have no excuse. But let me tell you, I’m an instant convert.

A longtime friend and ex-colleague of mine Kelly came to town the other evening for a quick visit and some dinner before she had to re-enter the real world after a week-long vacation in the lower keys. We had originally intended to take her to Mangia Mangia (one of our favorite food hangouts), but she had honeymooned in Key West 11 years before and remembered really enjoying Blue Heaven, so hey.. why not! I love new things!

I immediately loved this place when I walked in. You enter through a large gate into a wonderfully overgrown and eclectically decorated courtyard. To the right is a cool outdoor bar area complete with a huge rattly-looking wooden cistern looming perilously above the bar, and a stage. I don’t think there’s a white light to be found in the entire place, it’s very colorful. The bar, stage, and surrounding courtyard patios are strewn with little bistro tables, cats, chickens, knick-knacks, and antiques. There’s even a ping pong table. Cool!

We gave our name to the hostess and were told there was about a 20 minute wait. That’s OK, I wanted to wander around and see the bar area and courtyard anyways. We ordered a couple beers at the bar and did some exploring.

One of the things that hit me right off was the music. There was a guy on stage playing guitar and singing… and the volume was low! Good god in heaven, I have come to mecca! One of my biggest pet peeves with live music (especially the lone, singing-guitar-artist type) is that they seem to always have the need to blast it so loud your ears want to jump from your head and run away. I’d like to be able to have a conversation and enjoy myself, and I just can’t do that when someone’s acoustic guitar is ear-fucking me. Too many restaurants and bars don’t get this simple concept. And it’s not like most of these people are brilliant musicians to begin with. Anyways.. I digress.. that’s a good topic for a future post.

There’s an outdoor eating area just off the bar area, and also a smaller indoor area. When we got the nod from the hostess she asked if we wanted to continue to wait for an outdoor table or just sit inside.. hey. I’m no snob.. I can sit inside too! She took us around to the side of the building and in through an old french door into a small quiet dining room. Air conditioning.. ahhhhh.

Time to eat!

We ordered a few more drinks and perused the menu. We were having a really hard time deciding because everything looked so GOOD. We delayed decision-making and ordered the Caribbean BBQ Shrimp appetizer. It was pretty darned tasty, the girls loved it, but I thought it was a bit salty. Of course I’m kind of a salt nazi anyways; it’s definitely not one of my favorite flavors, but I know there are folks out there who dig it.. so the vote on this one is 2 thumbs up out of three.

When it was time to finally order, Christina got the pork tenderloin with sweet potato, mango chutney and curry butter sauce. I ordered the beef tenderloin with cabernet demi-glace, and Kelly ordered one of the specials, some sort of grilled snapper dish.

Woah.. talk about tasty! My filet was very good.. not the best I’ve had, but certainly a far stretch from the worst. It was perhaps a bit on the done side of the medium I’d ordered, but not too far off. The Demi was very good, and they served it all up with a big chunk of corn bread. Very, very tasty. Christina’s pork was out of this world, definitely not a combination I’d have thought of, but it really worked well. I didn’t try Kelly’s salmon because I’m not much of a fish person, but she said it was really good.

So let me just say this

YES! I want to go back! I imagine it’s not so colorful during the day, but I hear the breakfast is out of this world, so I’m definitely going back for some of that. I can also see going to Blue Heaven just to hang out at the bar, have a few beers, and listen to some music with friends.

All in all a very pleasant experience!