Archive for September, 2009

Yes, I know.. my photos suck

It wasn’t always like this…

I’ve been without a decent camera ever since I got laid off and had to leave behind the nice Nikon D70 that belonged to my office. I miss that camera. I’m sure it misses me as well. I’d liked that camera so much that when my own personal camera went tits up, I didn’t bother to replace it, I just used the office camera for everything.

Now, sadly it’s too late for me.. my current state of income won’t allow such an extravagance, and that office Nikon is probably sitting in that locked cabinet back in the IT department collecting dust because no one ever uses it anymore. Poor camera.

I’ve been using my iPhone and sometimes Christina’s little point and shoot jobbie to get pix for my blog. Both do fine if there is alot of light, but fail miserably as soon as it gets a little dark, as is evident in the example to the left.

If you can’t make it out, that’s because it’s total unadulterated CRAP! It’s a photo of a really interesting combination of ass-less chaps, and leather boy shorts worn by a young lady at the Poker Run festivities this past weekend on Duval street.

Unfortunately I can’t share the memory of that ass with my ardent readers because I couldn’t get a good photo of it. And for this I apologize. You deserve better from me.

Maybe I should try the Red Paperclip Trade-up idea

Have you heard about the guy in Canada who traded up to a house from a red paperclip? It’s a really interesting read.

And locally, one of the owners of the Coffee Plantation down here in KW has a blog about trading up from a red paperclip to a motorcycle.

Maybe I can trade up to a Nikon from say.. I don’t know… this old pair of  B&L Ray Ban Wayfarers? It would be fun to try. Anyone got anything they wanna trade?

Of course I suspect it would be easier if anyone at all ever read this blog. This could take a while…

Poker Run Key West 2009 Photos

Lots of really, really cool motorcycles, and lots of really, really strange people!

We wandered around both Friday and Saturday nights checking out the craziness that was Poker Run 2009. We saw lots of really drunk bikers, lots of exposed breasts, lots of serious machinery, and a lot of people having a really great time.

It’s unfortunate that the couple of people we know that ride bikes couldn’t make it down for this, I know they would have loved it. I think we got a very, very small taste of what Fantasy Fest will be like. What a blast!

Living a block from Duval, we definitely had a hard time sleeping this past weekend due to the constant motorcycle traffic, but you know what.. who cares. It’s exciting to see so many people out having a good time.

PokerRunPix (40 photos)
18 September 2009

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

Blogging for Dollars

Wouldn’t it be great if….

We could sit at home in our underwear every day, pounding gallons of coffee, jabbering endlessly on our blogs, and getting tons of money to do it! That’s the life huh? I spent a few weeks reading some books on building and monetizing successful blogs before I started this one up, with the intention that I’d take over the internet with my wonderful wit and insight into the world – and get rich in the process…

Well… let me tell you what I learned from all of those blogging experts. You can make money with a blog, and lots of it – you just need to focus your blog on telling people how to make money with their blog. Those people will in turn build blogs focusing on telling people how to make money with their blogs, and so on and so on. They feed on each other. Everyone wants easy money. There are damned few people out there making a living with their blogs, but the ones that do, are filthy rich from it because they were the first.

I never really believed I’d actually make any money with this blog, but it was a nice diversion, it was a new concept for me, and I tend to have a obsessive streak when I get hold of a new idea, so I buried myself in building it.

I can’t say I haven’t made money, a few of my good friends out there have used the ‘buy mike a beer’ button to send me a few bucks.. so far, I’ve made just enough to pay for the boot-up price for the web hosting and domain regestration.. so I really can’t complain! Thanks guys, you know who you are!!

Well crap

Then I started thinking that everything I’d read about blogging in all those books might be true! It’s really not easy to come up with things to write about week after week. Maybe thats why everyone blogs about blogging, it’s the perfect form of naval-gazing.  I have a shit-ton of things I’d love to rant about, but most of it’s off-topic from this blog, and seriously – who would want to read any of it anyways?

To have a successful blog they say, you have to offer valuable content, and focus on a niche so your readers don’t get confused about your product – they get comfortable with the stuff you write about, so they keep coming back. They are reading your blog after all, because they were looking for information about a specific subject – when you throw a wrench in there and blog about something off-topic for your niche, they get confused and go away.

Fuck it

Well here’s my problem. I have a tremendous aptitude for ADD induced inspiration. I have a hard time focusing on just one thing. I’m interested in all sorts of things, and at different times. What I’m completely obsessed with one day, I’m totally ambivalent about the next. It frustrates ME, I can’t imagine how annoying it must be to anyone trying to figure out what the hell is going on in my head, let alone on my blog.

So after struggling with trying to force myself to write on one small set of subjects here, I’ve decided to say fuck it, if it’s not enjoyable to me, then what’s the effing point? It was either allow myself to ramble on about what I want to ramble on about, or shut this blasted blog down after only a month because it’s making me miserable trying to focus on one topic.

I also keep reading that a successful blog should be relatively impersonal.. that is, don’t blog about yourself – No one cares. This concept bores the hell out of me, because sometimes the only thing I have to write about is the crazy crap that happens to me, or how I screwed up one thing or another. I’m an endless source of blog-fodder; to ignore that would be a waste of 8 bucks a month for hosting fees!

This of course is the raging delusion of an egomaniac, it puts me squarely in the ‘I-think-I’m-cool-enough-to-write-about’ category, but who cares. It’s my blog, and I’ll self-serve if I want to. Personally I think it’s rather cathartic, working through my problems by writing about them – and I enjoy sharing my foibles with my friends.

Luckily I don’t have any followers other than friends, so I don’t have to worry about alienating them!

Cheers!
Mike

A “Convergence of Lunar Events”… Blame New Moon.

Put on your clam diggers ladies!

Apparently this Key West place is pretty close to sea level. Who knew? This week (Starting today) the high tides will be 2 feet higher than normal, causing seawater to back up into the storm drains and flood the lower-lying streets.

This is all caused by the New Moon trailer.. er, I mean the New Moon combined with the Lunar Perigee.

I know this isn’t as cool as a hurricane, but I just may need to pour myself a rum-runner or two and hit the streets on my bike to see this!

The tides will be back to normal by the weekend, but any rain we get will just make things worse.. add to that there are 10,000 Bikers riding into town this friday for the Poker Run, and it should make for an interesting weekend!

It should be noted that I’m not terribly alarmed as most of the storm drains around here seem to be clogged up anyways. I doubt much water is going to come through backwards, as none seems to flow in the correct direction to begin with. God knows how many panties, bras, jock-straps, and beads are jammed up in those pipes. This town needs an enema!

I jacked that photo from Weather.com, if you were sitting there wondering how I was able to travel to the future and bring back funny photos. Thanks to spindrift88, whoever you are.

Jack Flats

509 Duval St – (305) 294-7955 – www.jackflats.com/

2nd Gator Football game of the season = trying out another sports bar!

After our trip to The Sports Page last weekend, we were looking for another sports bar to compare it to, so we decided this time we were going to try out Jack Flats on Duval St.

We wandered in about noon and bellied up to the bar. The walls inside were completely covered with projection screens.. this place means business! I ordered a draft blue moon, and christina ordered a bloody mary. The bloody mary was really good, and the blue moon was no slouch. Fresh beer.. a good sign!

We ordered some nachos for an appetizer while we waited for the game to start. There were a couple of big College games on that day so the place was busy, but not obnoxiously so, there were only two bartenders, but those girls were on top of their game.. and much cuter than the dudes at Sports Page.

Not Yo Cheese!

The nachos were pretty darned good, I’d definitely get them again. They fry their own chips there, so they were nice and crispy, and had that yummy flavor you just can’t get with bagged chips. They were smothered with beans, chili, cheese, sour cream, and some lettuce. Tasty.

I stuck with the blue moon throughout the game, but Christina switched it down to Bud Light. (UG), but you know.. who am I to tell someone what to drink, and it was a buck cheaper than the Blue Moon, which was 4.50, average Duval prices. We didn’t ask about a local discount, which most bars have here.. I guess we just didn’t think about it.

The couple sitting next to us at the bar were on their honeymoon, and they were Gator fans too, but weren’t terribly interested in chit chatting, so we let them be. They ordered a few pitchers, and a pizza app which looked really good. I wanted to get a picture of it, but I thought they might think I was wierd, taking photos of their food..

The booth behind us was full of a group of older dudes in full Gator regalia.. banner on the table and all. They had a little boom box with them, and every time the Gators scored (Which was ALOT), one of them would cue up the Gator theme song, and walk up and down the length of the bar with the boom box up in the air a la John Cusack.. hahaha.. good times. Lots of Gator chompin’ going on that day!

The televisions (projectors) were all bright and in focus, and the sound system was in good shape. No distortion here. Near as I could tell they picked a game from each section of the bar and played the sound from that program in that section. They had remote speaker boxes at the bar so you could dial in your favorite game if you couldn’t hear the game you wanted on the main system.

Time for some real food

I ordered a Cuban Mix sandwich, and Christina ordered wings medium. Funny thing, here in Key West, I notice they call it a ‘Cuban Mix’, but everywhere else I’ve been it’s just called a ‘Cuban’. I wonder what – if anything – is the difference. Anyone know?

When the food arrived, I immediately snagged a wing off Christina’s plate. It was really good, more spicy than the kinda bland wings we got at The Sports Page. My Cuban was VERY good, perhaps one of the best I’ve had so far. Of course Key West is much closer to Cuba than Orlando, so that’s to be expected.

It had the usual ingredients – ham, roasted pork, pickles, mustard, swiss cheese, and even bacon! Christina’s eyes lit up when she noticed that.. I had to fend her off by feeding her some french fries, which were also quite good, no funky tasting spices here.. just normal french fries.

This is the first Cuban sandwich I’ve had here in KW, so I can’t compare it to other local restaurants, but I look forward to hunting out the best Cuban down here.

And the score is!

I have to say, that as much as we liked The Sports Page last weekend, I’m going to have to say we both enjoyed Jack Flats more, and plan to go back next weekend for the coming Gator game.

I wish I had the kind of money it would take to really give places I wasn’t blown away with multiple chances, but eating out is expensive around here, and currently I’m a big fat burden on society, so Christina is our only source of expendable income. Hopefully that situation will cease to be an issue soon! There has to be some job I’m qualified to do down here.

I went to Jack Flats’ website, and it was down. What is it with web sites for businesses in this town?? It costs like 8 bucks a month to host a website, surely they can afford that. But hey, I have to give them props for even having a real website, unlike Sports Page which uses facebook. I know, I know.. it’s Key West.. who cares!

Jack Flats.. a fun place to go watch games, eat good food, drink good beer, and get good service.. check it out!

Peace!

Captain Tony’s Saloon

428 Greene Street – 305-294-1838 - www.capttonyssaloon.com/

And you thought Sloppy Joe’s was on Duval!

I knew right away this place was a little different. When we walked up to the front, there were a group of drunk coeds standing under the sign on the sidewalk, (fake breasts threatening to slip out of seriously strained bikini tops), facing the street and trying to chuck pennies up over their heads into the mouth of the big fish on top of the sign. I don’t know the history behind this, but I can only assume it’s a good luck thing. I certainly felt as if my luck was changing!

I’d been here once before for a couple of beers, but had to come back to grab some photos for this post (oh darn). Captain Tony’s is a place like no other, the ceilings and walls (every single available scrap of space) are covered with thousands upon thousands of business cards, panties, license plates, old junk, and bras.. bras, bras, bras.. everywhere you look bras. It’s literally impossible to make out what it all is, there’s so much of it.

Then there’s the tree. A huge old Oak, growing right up through the middle of the floor and out the roof! It’s dark, dingy, and utterly key west through and through.

A rich and infamous history

This is the original location of Sloppy Joe’s Bar, the actual place Hemingway hung out in in the early 1930’s. Sloppy Joe’s was owned by Joe “Josie” Russell. Hemingway immortalized his friendship with Joe in his book To have and have not by using him as the basis for Freddy, the captain of the Queen Conch, and owner of Freddy’s bar.

The building had been many things before Joe Russell bought it in 1933. It was a telegraph station in 1898, after that it was a cigar factory, a bordello, several speakeasies, the county morgue, and an icehouse.

Joe Russell moved his bar out of the building in the middle of the night over a dispute with the landlord, and the building housed a gay bar through the 40’s and early 50’s

Captain Tony bought the bar in 1958 after hitchhiking to Key West from New Jersey on the back of a milk truck.  He’d left NJ to avoid being chased down by mob bookies to whom he’d managed to annoy quite seriously.

During his fantastic life of 92 years, Captain Tony fathered thirteen children by three wives, had been a Charter Boat Captain, a Gun Runner for Cuban mercenaries during the Bay of Pigs, and was elected mayor of Key West in 1989, his campaign slogan being; “All you need in this life is a tremendous sex drive and a great ego. Brains don’t mean shit.”

His goal while mayor was to limit growth and to have Key West maintain its reputation as a refuge for eccentrics and renegades. He was quoted by the Chicago Tribune as saying “Key West is an insane asylum. We’re just too lazy to put up walls or fences, I want to retain that mystique.”

Captain Tony passed away in 2008; he’d sold the business almost 20 years earlier, but was still a constant fixture at the bar, and he spent his time signing autographs and visiting with the patrons.

Now HERE was a guy I would have absolutely loved to meet, I’m really sorry I got here a year too late to make that happen. Captain Tony, you sound like my kinda folk!

The Lady in the Blue Dress

I’m still digging for this story, and when I get it figured out, I’ll post it up in the ghosts of Key West section, but for now here’s a quick rundown. Apparently during the time when the building was used as a morgue, that big old tree that now grows through the roof, was the town hanging tree.

A woman who had killed her husband and son was hung from that tree, along with a few other miscreants over the years. When a huge storm hit Key West and demolished the morgue, they found bodies all over the place in the aftermath.

I’ve heard a couple of versions of this, one is that they cremated the bodies and filled glass bottles with the ashes, which they then embedded into the concrete foundations of the rebuilt structure. Another version states the bottles were filled with holy water to keep the restless spirits at bay. It’s hard to find reputable stuff about this online, but sure enough, the bottles are there in the foundation. I’ll keep digging.

The ladies restroom is supposed to be haunted by the ghost of the lady in the blue dress. Christina didn’t see anything in there during her visit, so the Jury is still out!

A good place to hang out

I like Captain Tony’s, it rates right up there with Schooner Wharf for down and dirty local character. There’s usually some sort of live music, and always a lot of interesting folk. It’s a block off Duval so it’s not totally overrun by sweaty sunburnt tourists. And you can hardly pass up the opportunity to run into a ghost in the ladies room!

Check it out!

AirTran and Key West.. hell yeah!

OK, all you Orlando people.. no more excuses.. Airtran now flies to Key West! Flights run on Tues, Thurs, Sat and Sun.. 120 bucks each way. Leaves O-Town at 11:30, gets here at 12:40! Can’t beat it… I want some visitors people, bring it!

Mike
KW Cruise Director Extraordinaire

P.S. Someone bring me some Kings BBQ sauce…

The Dream Rock

Is that a rock in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

About a year ago I was watching a video about how to focus your thoughts on what you wanted out of life to help achieve your dreams, and one of the guys in the video had a story about his ‘gratitude rock’ as he called it. He found this rock on the bank of a river one day and it grabbed his fancy, so he pocketed it and began carrying it with him everywhere he went. Every time he put his hand in his pocket, he’d touch the rock and he would remember the things he was grateful for in his life.

I thought this was pretty cool, and one day I happened upon a little tumbled rock that I’d gotten years ago in a bag of rocks I’d picked up for my son Connor to play with. Somehow over the years this one was still rattling around the house, and I thought it was pretty cool, so I dropped it in my pocket.

I’ve carried this rock in my pocket every day for the last year to help me focus myself on my dream of a simpler more satisfying life.. not quite a gratitude rock, so I call mine the dream rock. If nothing else it helps me stay on track mentally in those times when it feels the walls are closing in.. it reminds me to think positively. Someday this rock is going to get me a sailboat, and a life free from corporate dictatorship!  HAHA.