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

… 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

It’s pretty amusing to read, at least for me, because as I look back over these old posts, I realize that my outlook on life has been significantly altered in the time between the great layoff and now.

This stuff is all pre-Conch Tales, and as such, is kind of a different voice, but you can definitely see the events that lead to this blog being created. It’s probably going to take me a few days at least to get these all posted, so check back to the link below if you’re interested in reading them; they won’t post here on the front page because I’m posting them with their original dates, so that they fall in behind all of the current Conch Tales stuff.

I’ve put them all in their own catagory here: http://www.conchtales.com/category/mnal/ They’re numbered and of course in true blog fashion, you have to read from bottom to top to go in order.

Read on, and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did!

She lounges on the sidewalk all afternoon and gets more attention that Pope John Paul on easter sunday. I’ve never seen a cat work the crowds like this little beauty does… not a single local nor tourist can resist her wiles. Everyone stops to pet her. EVERYONE.  I’m deathly allergic to cats and I stop every day to show her the love.. I just can’t resist, she is such a sweetheart.

I think this cat just may be a wizard in disguise… Gandalf after falling into the pit.. Yoda after fading away.. Ronny James Dio reincarnated…  I don’t know, but there are supernatural powers at play here, and I for one am not taking any chances! RUB THE BUDDHA!

Key West definitely has it’s share of cultural icons.. the jogging guy in the red hat.. WOO HOO!.. Magic Frank.. Captain Tony.. Mongo.. and this cat. Better get used to it, there’s a new sheriff in town!

Definitely stop by and give her a chin scratch, your day will go much better if you do!

Bill cooks up some serious blues, and some serious gumbo… While he plays. Yes, he cooks gumbo right on stage in a huge pot during the show. The first time we saw him all we could do was smell the gumbo before we had to leave, it was maddening.. this time we finally got to eat some! And it was gooooood. It was a little on the bland side, but I guess when you’re cooking for strangers you have to be a bit lenient on the spice. But not to fear, because he serves it up with his own hot sauce; “Liquid Summer”. A few splashes of that, and the taste was right as the rain!

Bill definitely knows how to please a crowd, and he plays with some serious energy. The whole place was up and dancing the whole time. I highly recommend that you go see The Sauce Boss if you get a chance to!

I’ve never been one for big goodbyes, because I do believe good friends will always be just that, and distance can’t take that friendship away. And hey, this is the digital age, I communicate online with people more than I do face to face anyways. That being said, Eric, Danny, and John.. I will miss you guys! I’m sure you’ll be back to visit sooooon.

With that I’m going to leave you with a few of photos.

This one is of Danny jumping into the Key West Bight the evening of his going away party at Dante’s. He had a choice of either getting thrown into the pool or the bight. He chose the high road and decided to thrown himself into the bight for our amusement. Danny was always ready to amuse the crowd by snorting hot mustard or pouring lime juice into his eyes. Danny.. I didn’t know you well, but you made me laugh, and the huge group of loyal friends you have here speaks volumes about your character. Go in peace brother!

And where would I be in Key West right now without Eric (Below). I met Eric while working on the Haunted Fort and he immediately welcomed Christina and I into his circle of friends and made us feel at home. Most of the people I know and count as friends right now are such because of my friendship with Eric. His graciousness and hospitality are unequalled, and he knows exactly when to escalate a bad situation with a carefully placed plate of mustard, ninja-style. Dude, I’m going to miss you most of all.. well, I’m going to miss your courtyard pool, your smoker, and your Porktoberfest parties, but I’ll miss you too! SNIF! Have fun in Georgia!

I promise to keep Key West warm for you!

Just an aside here; I really love Fausto’s. I’m a complete grocery store SNOB, and though I have in fact lowered myself to shop in Winn Dixie over the past few years due to unemployment woes, I historically shopped at Publix, and before they went out of business, drove 20 miles to frequent Goodings. We still do the majority of our weekly grocery shopping at Publix in New Town, but I’ve been comparing prices, and I’ve found that if Im not buying things like beer and wine, Fausto’s really isn’t THAT much more expensive than Publix. I’m still not convinced I’d want to do all my bulk shopping there, but I just can’t stay away.. they have the cool and fancy food stuffs that I crave. They have Cole’s Peace Bread and Baby’s Coffee.. those two items alone make it worth it! Anyway, I digress, this post isn’t about Fausto’s…

As I was walking back to the apartment from Faustos; a trip that takes maybe two minutes), I had a revelation that this is the way things really should be! The sun was going down on a beautiful day, people were stopped at the corner chit chatting while holding their bikes with their dogs in padded baskets over the front wheels, and the palm fronds were rustling in the late-afternoon breeze. I had one of those ‘moments’.

How cool is this I thought! I ride my bike to work every day – a lengthy 7 block commute, and go literally weeks without even getting into a car. We ride our bikes everywhere, and in the event that we do walk, like when there’s a group of us moving about, it takes at most 10 or 15 minutes no matter where we might be going in old town from our apartment.

The friends I’ve made here in Key West are among some of the coolest folks I’ve ever met. People here really are different. They all come here for similar reasons. It’s like there’s a big polarizing filter over Key West. It only lets the cool, mellow running-away-from-it-all people in.

You might think that the people who live here are are all party animals and high functioning alcoholics, and you’d be right to an extent, but what I’ve noticed after being here almost a year is that these people are not here to drink themselves to death. This is not leaving Las Vegas.  They are running away yes, but not from responsibility and reason. They are running away from polite society. Read that last sentence any way you like, and if I were feeling feisty and adversarial right now, I’d elaborate on my idea of what that means, but for now just fill in your own version.

Another very important thing I’ve noticed: The people I meet here are GENUINE. They are  here because Key West allows them to be comfortable in their own skin, to let their freak flag fly so to speak. And as far as I’m concerned there is nothing better than that.

I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Key West isn’t without its issues.. there are a few. But they pale when you stand them next to the brightness of the locals and the culture and the all-around coolness of the place.

OK, I’m being beckoned… time for dinner.

M

Edit!: I just re-read this and realized one would get the impression that I am saying that there are no truly alcoholic escapists down here. There certainly are. But I think a lot of people think of Key West as an island populated by those people, and it surely is not. People here get up in the mornings, go to work, take their children to school, attend church.. just like any where else. They just do it all with a little titter because they know something about life most people don’t .

That is all.

Since leaving my cushy corporate job behind, I’ve been without a decent camera. The D70 that I carried with me everywhere had to go back into the closet in the IT department, where it no doubt still sits unused and collecting dust. It was a sad day indeed.

If you’ve read some of the posts here, you’ve probably heard me complain about having to document my transgressions with the pitiful camera in my iPhone.. well those days are behind us dear readers.. Daddy has a new toy.

Now if I can just manage to NOT drop in the marina, everything will be fine.

It’s officially Spring here in Key West.. my first of many! The flowers are quite literally exploding all over Old Town. We’ve been walking in the evenings, and the smells we encounter are strong enough to knock you down. It’s really beautiful. Walking through Old Town Key West at dusk with a roadie during the spring has got to be one of the finest experiences out there. I highly recommend you try it whenever possible!

The weather is finally warming up after that cold-assed winter we had, and I’m beginning to think seriously about my beach hammock again.. Fort Zach, here we come!

WOO HOO!

Well, the spring breakers have finally abandoned the city, taking with them the late night WOO HOO!’s and the ever-so-popular drunken arguments between lovers that seems to be so prevalent in Key West’s nether-hours. The bars here don’t close until 4 AM, and when you add to that the gestalt idiocy of thousands of drunk college kids, you’re gonna get some anarchy!

The weather has been nice, so we’ve been leaving the windows open at night… this is great because it makes for nice sleeping, but…. being a block from one of the biggest party streets in the US during spring break, we definitely heard the party.

The nights typically started off quiet enough. I hit the sack around midnight most nights, so I’d slip into bed, pull out the kindle and start reading at just about the time things were ramping up on Duval. By about two AM I could hear the madness reaching a fever pitch.

There’s a phenomenon that happens when the alcohol intake of a crowd has reached it’s tipping point… especially for college kids on vacation; I call it the WOO HOO Phenomenon. They start high fiving and WHOO HO!’ing at EVERYTHING. It’s like drunken sign language.. they can’t speak very well anymore so they start howling at each other. I suppose it could also be a drunken mating call. Heck, it’s an all purpose exclamation!

“I’m Druuuuuunk! WOO HOO!”
“ME TOO! WOOOOOOO HOOOOOOO!”
“Hey dude, I just threw up! Gnarly!”
“WOO HOO!”
“WOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!”

At this point it’s spreads like wild fire, the drunk co-ed across the street hears the WOO HOO, and even though she has no idea what it’s about, she responds “WOO HOO!” as she stumbles into a lamp pole and drops the phone she was texting her BFF on into a pile of bum vomit in the gutter. Someone else hears her and WOO HOO’s in response. This chain reaction continues until the entire street full of drunk retards is WOO HOOing.. at what, they don’t know.. most people I think, are probably hoping it’s because someone saw a titty.

And Then…

The WOOOOO!’s and the WOO HOO!’s continue on through the couple hours between 2 AM and 4 AM. At 4 the bars finally kick people out, and the WOO HOO!’s start to become fewer and farther between; you hear them echoing off into the night as the mob disperses, until finally the only sounds left are the dulcet tones of drunk women arguing with their boyfriends.

Now, this is an interesting thing. I would think that the drunker of the two drunken arguers would be equally divided between men and women, but I swear I have never heard an argument between a guy and his girl where HE was the drunker one. And I hear A LOT of late night drunk-stumbling arguments going down the sidewalk. A LOT.

Without fail, it is the woman who is blind stinking drunk, mumbling about how he was talking to another girl, or he was drinking too much, or they don’t spend enough time together.. blah blah blah.. the content isn’t important, it’s the dynamic that interests me.

She’s usually yelling.. or trying to. She’s stopping every few steps and turning to walk away pumping her fists up and down, dropping shit, and/or just plain falling down. The guy without fail follows her, holds her up, holds her hair while she pukes, picks up her dropped items, holds her purse, and just generally tries to calm her down and get her to stop screaming while he ushers her back to whatever hotel they’re staying at so he can pour her into bed and just end the madness.

I’ve actually encountered this phenomenon personally. Christina and I vacationed down here probably 4 or 5 times over the years before moving here. Without fail we got into an argument in the middle of the night. And Christina, I love you.. but… well you get the gist. And we NEVER argue. There must be some special Key West argue pheromone or something. We’ve taken to just calling it ‘Key West Drunk’.

That being said, since moving here we’re back to our normal non-arguing life. I really can’t explain the drunk-chick-argument thing in KW. But it does makes for some super-entertaining porch sitting!

Well, Spring is almost here in Key West and as far as I’m concerned, not a moment too soon. After one of the coldest winters in Key West history (right after I move here I might add.. grrrr), I’m ready to begin the tropical phase of my life.

I’m coming up on one year in Key West this June, and as I look back on the last nine months since moving here, I can still say with all certainty that I’ve definitely made the right choice.

I finally managed to secure employment after a gruesome 7 months of looking. It’s a great job doing computer graphics and color correction for a local photographer at his gallery. Right up my alley! I was completely convinced there near the end that I was going to have to get a job at Pizza Hut or McDonalds! I even applied at Home Depot, hey.. I’m a handy guy, I could certainly sell tools to people. I never heard back from them though, so I guess they didn’t share my optimism.

I’m not sure if the lack of good jobs in key west is due to the nature of the city, or the economy, or a combination of the two, but let me tell you, I was having some anxiety there near the end that Key West might spit me back out. I had read the “Quit your Job and Move to Key West” book (After I moved here, I might add), and there was an entire chapter on the realities of trying to live and work on the island. They stated quite clearly that Key West chooses the people it wants to live here, and jettisons the rest.. I laughed when I read that, but now I’m a believer. Thank you Cayo Hueso for letting me stay! I see a long and delightful future in the cards for us.

Where does the time go?

One of the largest differences in my life after finally getting a job, is the loss of all the FREE TIME! I mean, I’d worked full time for my entire life up until a couple years ago when I was laid off, and I always seemed to be able to get the things done on the weekends that I needed to. I never really felt like I was missing anything.

Now I feel like life is screaming by me, and all I’m doing is workin’ for the man again! It’s disturbing, and as much as I love having a job and making money again, I lament the time I had to sit around and gather my direction at my leisure.

I’ve labeled this phenomenon the ‘time slip’ (Not to be confused with the Time Warp, there’s no jumping to the left in the time slip). It’s the creeping feeling that you get in your gut when, after a period of enlightenment and personal growth, you start to realize how precious your life and personal happiness really are. How much your time is REALLY worth.

I felt the Time Slip strongly for the first time when I went to the Virgin Islands to stay on Water Island at a friends house for a week about four years ago. It didn’t hit until I got back to my life in Orlando, and returned to my soul-sucking corporate job. I didn’t know what it was exactly, but I knew that I’d been altered somehow, and my life in the city, and the corporate job that supported it, just weren’t cutting it anymore. Not by a long shot.

The feeling passed after a while, as I slipped back into the matrix and resumed my daily grind making other people rich. But the feeling sat in the pit of my stomach, just a small flicker of a flame, refusing to be put out.

Personal Expression

Now, maybe I’m just a conflicted person. Maybe I want it all. Maybe I’m being unrealistic, or maybe I just haven’t yet found my ultimate stride in life. But working for someone else again reminds me just how strong my desire to be self sufficient really is. Don’t get me wrong, I love this job, there’s no corporate BS, no staff meetings, it’s just me and a couple other folks. My boss is a super nice guy. But still I’m stressed out about it. Is it the work? Most certainly not, it’s a very easy and casual job, so that leads me to believe that what stresses me out about it is the lack of personal expression involved in working for other people.

I’m guessing that across the gamut of the types of people out there, from artist to construction worker to corporate number cruncher, that everyone has a different needs when it comes to personal expression. Some people are completely happy in a corporate job working for the man. They find their personal expression in the daily minutiae of how they do their jobs, or perhaps the have hobbies on the weekends that fulfill their needs. Maybe they have no desire for personal expression at all and spend their weekends playing golf. Who knows. But I’m convinced that these people have not yet, or perhaps never will experience the time slip. Is there anything wrong with that? I don’t know. I certainly can’t speak for the rest of the world, but it’s no good for me!

I crave personal expression like air itself. I need to build… to create.. to live my days immersed in stimulating, thought provoking, beautiful surroundings. I’m just not happy without that. I tried for years to find happiness in money and stability. Hey, you look around you when you’re growing up at the people who seem happy, and you follow their lead. I mean, it worked for them right? Hmm. Don’t think so.

My Friend Eric told me about his theory that society needs to go back to the barter system and people need to learn trades. He holds that today’s society is unbalanced because no one actually knows how to do anything anymore. Most people can’t even change a tire, let alone grow food, or build furniture.

I have to say, that when I think about it, it makes some sort of sense. At least to me.

So anyways

I’m rattling off course here. My point is that holding a job again has brought me to the realization that happiness (at least for me) involves self sufficiency and personal expression on a grand scale. I need to build, create, make people think.

I guess I’ve always known that what would really make me happiest would be to make a living creating art for myself in some fashion. I’ve dabbled with writing a novel, painting, photography, sculpture.. you name it, I’ve probably tried it. I think my next big step in life is to focus on developing a plan to reach financial independence. I’ve decided that working for someone else, even if not an unpleasant experience in and of itself, is a dead end street when you look at it closely.

Besides, how can I cruise into the sunset on my sailboat and disappear into the Caribbean if I have to be back to work on monday?