Friday KD and I had a lovely relaxing day. Morning began with a trip to a local diner before heading off to the post office for a new PO box for SMHeart and renewing my passport. On the way home we took a stroll through Harlem.

Saturday started with a shopping trip to Arthur Avenue with Lucy and Uma. Fresh warm mozzarella, onion bread, olive bread, huge dates!! Great score! Next up was an Amtrak ride to Exton Pennsylvania (near Philadelphia) for Sandy’s wedding reception. We stayed the night in the Sheraton. 4 weddings that day, all the brides gathered about the bar with their respective entourage.

Sunday KD and I were up early and swimming, making it back to the hotel room in time for the hotel fire alarm to sound. Turns out it was Sandy’s husband (Mike) two year old niece who pulled the alarm. We opted to take SEPTA and NJ Transit to get back to NYC. Lunch was Jimbo’s Burgers on Melrose. Tasty, inexpensive, but stay away from the onion rings. After relaxing at home for a few hours we headed to Hunts Point for an exploratory bike ride.

It was a great weekend, Philadelphia, Hunts Point, great people, train rides!! Wahoo! KD and I also took some time to reflect on the past year and all we’ve accomplished. Hard to believe all that we have done. Wonderful and amazing!!!

Saturday remained cool and overcast. KD and I worked about the house and ran a few early errands to Animal Feeds and Food Bazaar. After a few more hours of work about the apartment we took an evening break and walked up to the Vietnamese restaurant as there was a Vietnamese grocery store we wanted to explore and pick up a few things. We also stopped past a pizza shop at aqueduct and Fordam road for a bite to eat and then went past a house KD looked at last year to see if it had sold.

Sunday was up early and bike down to Toni and Eric’s apartment on 91st street to help them pack the truck for their move to Chicago. Toni had picked up H&H bagels and Starbucks coffee to power us through. A very tasty combination. The only other person to help out was a woman named Kelly. Her job was to watch the truck as we ran up and down the elevator. Happily it tool only 3 hours to pack the truck and KD and I biked home to finish cleaning the spare room in preparation for Toni, Eric and cat Julia to arrive for the night.
We dined on pizza from Tiny’s and drank tasty mojitos! KD Eric and I walked Kelly to the 167th subway stop 4 line while Toni relaxed at the apartment.

Saturday we prepared for the night’s Granny Cart market… Our entry “Fishing for Compliments” was a smashing success. Participants cast a magnetic fishing line into the granny cart to snag a fish filled with compliments.

Good friends Toni and Eric held their farewell party at the Alexander Hamilton statue in Central Park. Eric accepted a position at Northwestern and they are leaving in a week. Toni also unveiled that she is expecting and December is the due date. After eating everyone joined in creating fish and writing compliments.

A quick trip back to The Bronx to grab the granny cart pack the fish and head off to the East River park dance area. I think we had 24-30 people go fishing with Kevin Balctic discovering that fish believe he has nice boobs.

Sunday Andy was up early (5:30) and began his journey back to Madison Wisconsin. A few hours later when KD and I fully woke up we went for a lovely bike ride through Van Cortland park and up into Westchester County. We stopped for lunch at this great little Irish pub, Piper’s Kilt to discover that they offer a $17 brunch special of any burger or eggs with either Coors Light, Mimosas, or Bloody Mary’s all you can drink 12-3.

One more venture out to Target and Bed Bath and Beyond before settling back into CK for the remainder of the day. I finished our application for City Island Yacht Club and arranged a rental van to pick up our new boat on July 1. Laundry antics and lunch prep for the week helped draw the weekend to a close.

Gantry Park is the space on the East River where you can see the big illuminated Pepsico sign. One magical moment occurred when a party boat came up river and used the water in front on the park as a turn around. Musically it was an 70′s cover band that resembled what might happen if Bruce Springsteen sang the songs of George Michael and Michael Jackson.

Saturday was a relaxing day with the biggest item being Christina’s 30th birthday party in Williamsburg. It began at the east river park as a potluck. Ryan, Meeghan, Rachel, Brittany, Adam, Ashley, Collette, and Steve became new friends! Phillip and Linda joined us as we headed to stage two: Berry Park. Being on bikes KD and I rode ahead and hung out in McCarren park and enjoyed the last notes of the Bacteria Records & Third Ear day party. It was a fast and thumpy house music. Christina and crew arrived at the rooftop bar and began the celebration and more new friends arrived, Aaron, Mark, and Will. A few beers and a slice of tasty gluten free cake later and we headed back to our bikes and began the return ride to Chez Kitteh.

Sunday was supposed to be a ride to the Rockaways, but an urgent need for crickets and golf pencils found KD and I riding about Staten Island instead. It was the most different of all the five boroughs that I’ve explored. Staten Island felt more like a fishing village than cityscape. Trees, lawns, and not overly bike friendly.

Angus and Biscuit were amused with the crickets chasing them about and maybe even munching one or two… Hard to tell as it was fast and furious pouncing going on.

I had a Skype with Debra and Adele planning for Conflux in October. Debra and I met up at Loki Lounge in 5th Avenue in Park Slope. Good beers on tap and lovely couches! The rest of my night was filled with laundry and brownie baking.

The evening wound down sharing a bowl of brownies topped with peaches and vanilla ice cream with KD.

yeah it was a good fun weekend and I’m happy to be back writing again!

Robin came to St. Petersburg this past weekend.  He says it was for computer training, but deep down inside it was for pancakes.

Calamity and I gave him the full St. Petersburg experience

• Alligators in the wild
• mini golf with alligators
• a trip to PUSH Ultra Lounge
• Dinner at Caddy’s
• Tour of the downtown St. Petersburg Night life
• Trip to Wal-Mart
• Late night conversation with non-sober, fake boobed, blonde cougars.
• Plenteous trips to Starbucks
• A visit to the Saint Petersburg Saturday Farmer’s Market
• A trip to Kahwa Coffee for a granita
• short bike ride about the area
• Shopping at International Mall
• Day trip to Ybor City
• slice of Key Lime Pie
• a Cuban Sandwich

A few things that we did not get the chance to pack into the weekend:

• Dolphin spotting
• finding a manatee
• Trip to Ft. DeSoto PArk and beach
• drive over the Sunshine Skyway Bridge
• Feeding the Pelicans
• Kayaking

So there are lots to do here in Saint Petersburg.. well at least enough to do for about three days.  Overall I’d say Robin’s visit was a five star encounter.

Saturday was an longish day broken up with the Folk Festival held two blocks away from the apartment. McTastic and I took a break in the middle of the day for some investigation. It was much like all the other street fairs we’ve found in the Tampa Bay area. Lots of vendors offering arts/crafty products some music (this time folk style related) and the local merchants having a mini sidewalk sale to entice people into their shops. A few movies tonight… The Hangover was a great movie, at least better than I expected. Kept my attention throughout.

A raindrop dodging bike ride to Pinellas Park put some spice in Sunday. We ended up at Freedom Lake park watching the R/C sailboat regatta and waiting for the rain to pass. A bit of luck came our way when we opted for Vietnamese fare for lunch. Randomly chosen Saigon Sandwich was a total delight. Yummy fresh Vietnamese Sandwiches and Frozen Mango Boba were just what we needed for the ride home. However, upon entering neither Miss McTastic nor I noticed the sign that read “Cash Only.” Finding an ATM felt like it took nearly as long as the meal itself.TEnder problems aside it was great to find a little pocket of another culture dropped in the middle of strip mall Florida. As an extra bonus I found some Vietnamese Red Bull. I’ve not opened the bottles yet, but if it is any good I may switch for it is 1/2 the cost of the US canned version. There was this tree… looked like it had zucchini growing on it.. know what it is?

So there in ends another weekend. The coming week for me holds substitute teaching, repairing of MooseB8, writing and photography, and finishing up a website for a client. At least those are the expected bits of the week.

While we biked about a little we spent an equal amount of time on our feet on the area of the old Sponge docks. In the late 1940′s a red tide killed off most of the sponges in addition to massive quantities of other sea life. It has only been in the last ten years or so that the sponge harvest has returned to the pre red tide levels.

There is a long history of Greek culture in Tarpon Springs and the city is said to have one of the largest US Greek population. It was an interesting experience. There is even a store that proudly advertises Fisher Price toys with Greek! It was quite immersive. You could walk down the street and hear the greek language spoken and it was common to see people having the traditional Greek complexion and characteristics.

We stopped for lunch at Mykonos. Simply the best Greek food I have had (and not yet having been to Greece)

The remainder of the weekend was spent cleaning up Chez Kitteh and working on posting content. Both of which slipped past with out photo documentation

As for the week ahead I’m hoping to get some substitute teaching positions and keep working on content creation. Wahoo!!!

The plan for the weekend was:

• drive to Atlanta Thursday Night
• Prep for the race on Friday
• work the start ramp, tear down
• see if Maria and Mike had time for dinner
• arrive back in Saint Petersburg

Overall the plan went as expected. Not only was I able to have dinner with Maria and Mike on Saturday, I managed to meet up with Shannon on Friday night. She gave me a tour of her Atlanta restaurant, which happened to be just around the corner from the Red Bull race, before we had a late dinner and drinks. I got the chance to introduce her to Red Bull Cola. Wonder if she like it…..

The race itself was great fun. Rain on Friday delayed the setup slightly and we did not finish until 8:30 PM. However there were no problems when we rechecked gear on Saturday morning so happy faces all around. After running 1000′s of feet of cable for the cameras and audio equipment I found myself working the start ramp with Pete, a great camera operator. The only drawback to working the start ramp is that you don’t have much a chance for lunch or breaks of any kind for as soon as a team launches their vehicle down the course the next one is coming up. Except in cases of wrecks we were launching a vehicle every five minutes.

My favorite team of the event was the Yellow Fur Bus. The had a big yellow fur covered school bus, whose driver wore crazy big mouse ears and played the trumpet while driving down the course. Their skit was hysterical and involved yellow fur speedos in the telling of a convoluted story of the Fur Bus history. As the bus left the ramp it began to slow down so the co-pilot jumped out and began pushing the bus down the course. Once the bus began the pick up speed it crashed into the hay bales alongside the course launching the driver, ears trumpet and all through the front window area (but there was no window) Not to be undone he grabs his trumpet and with fur speedo and mouse ears flapping sprints to the finish line. I wish I could have gotten a copy of that. It may have been the heat exhaustion and excess caffeine or tey may really have been that funny.

Dinner with Maria and Mike in Macon was a delight. I had the chance to meet some of their friends and caught up with what was going on in their lives over the past week. As I was still wired with caffeine it was an animated and exciting meal.

Over the next few weeks McTastic and I enjoyed the consumption of large quantities of Red Bull. It was always sad to see the last can come out of the fridge. But time to stock up again.

This was the only Red Bull event for me this summer. Next year I’m planning to be a part of more of them. I’m also contemplating starting a team and participating on a different level. If you have the desire to join me lets get together and do it. In 2010 there are nearly ten events put on by Red Bull – soapbox races and Flugtags. I wanna be at as many as possible.

This weekend I left Saint Petersburg, Florida and headed up to visit my friend Maria in Macon, Georgia (About an hour south of Atlanta). Her grandmother had moved from North Carolina to Wisconsin and there were several items that needed to go to Maria’s Mom’s house in Ohio. It had been a while since my last road trip so I jumped at the chance to do some driving, see some friends, and have a minimalist type of adventure. MooseB8 was prepped and off I went.

Overall the drive was kinda boring. Not much happens on the highway. Dinner with Maria on Friday was really good. We had Thai food and some amazing drinks custom made by the bartender. Saturday I left for North Carolina and arrived at my destination about 1pm. After loading up the furniture and other items I set my eyes on the next stop, Ohio. I did end up making one slight detour in Charlotte, North Carolina. Since moving to Florida I have felt Trader Joe’s withdrawal and try to take advantage of every shopping opportunity. An hour of shopping later and the last bit of space in MooseB8 now filled I pushed on to Ohio.

It ended up being late in the night by the time I arrived at Maria’s Mother’s house. She was still up and helped me unload the items and handed me a few boxes to take back to Maria on my return trip. A few hours of driving later I took a nap and then was right back on the road to Macon, Georgia. I caught Maria at her house having just finished a 40 mile bike ride. It had been a beautiful morning and I could also feel the desire to have been out biking. One banana and a full tank of diesel later and I was making my way to Saint Petersburg.

I was glad to pull into the Chez Kitteh parking spots, fall from MooseB8 in to the house and rest for the remainder of the Sunday.

I was happy as the day I was getting set to leave I had a present arrive.. A lighted hoola-hoop from my friend Eddie in San Francisco. She is an amazing hooper and sent me one of her historical hooops!!! Can’t wait to play with it all the more