Homer Vs. Kidd

Today we went to the Miami Seaquarium, on Key Biscayne, which is like 2 or 3 miles from South Beach (feelin’ the heat.. uh). Overall, a really good trip, until about 4pm, when it started to downpour. Didn’t matter though, we were able to squeeze it all in. It was EXTREMELY busy this weekend.


Zoom in on the guy on the left, and check out the folded fish jammed in his mouth.
Personally, I love sea lions. Dolphins are WAY overrated. I mean, don’t get me wrong, dolphins are cool and all, and they are beautiful animals, but nothing beats sea lions, especially when it comes to tricks and just overall coolness. I always wonder why they let you swim with dolphins, but never with sea lions. I think they are probably the jerks of the ocean, I definitely get that vibe from them, but they are still wicked cool.

The seaquarium had lots of other pretty good stuff, like giant lizards that crawl in trees, sea turtles, etc..
Speaking of which..

Overall, it’s a really good place for kids. As an aquarium, it’s hard for me to judge it, having been to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Nothing comes close to that place. It even makes sea world look like a joke.

We were sort of screwed when the rain started, because we had to walk about 1/2 mile back to our car in the driving rain, and after that we just wanted to get home. We had plans to drive around downtown Miami, and go to South Beach, but that will have to wait until next weekend.

Today was 85, sunny, humid.. a perfect first day to try swimming. The pools here are all heated, which makes it double perfect.

Getting ready to put the swimsuit on

No surprises here, she really liked it.

After mastering swimming, we wanted to see if she could try walking. Not bad, for a first attempt!

Yesterday we went to Sea World in Orlando.

Stingrays! I didn’t quite understand this. Aren’t these the nasty animals that killed the crocodile guy?

Apparently, they de-nastied this bunch, because there were a billion little kids touching them and feeding them fish. Evangeline was fascinated.



These chicks were walking around in stilts, and one stood tall over Evangeline’s carriage while she was sleeping, which woke her up, and the girl said “This is all a bad dream.”. I’m fairly certain she’ll need therapy because of this.

At the aquarium, they had a transparent floor with fish swimming around. This was a huge hit.

The glowing fish tanks were also a huge hit.

One happy kid.

Penguins and Sharks!

Shamu and baby

Taking a nap before the big Shamu show, “Believe”.

The Shamu show was a lot different than I remember it. This show was about 75% multimedia presentation, complete with pro Anheuser Busch propaganda (I didn’t know that AB was the best company on earth, and that I should give them all my money, and they are singlehandedly saving every possible species from extinction, somehow through the power of crappy beer). Apart from the obnoxious multimedia nonsense, it’s still the most amazing 10 minutes of killer whale tricks you’ll ever see. It’s completely worth the price of admission.


Checking out Walrus World.

That was a really long day. This is definitely a good trip to take little kids on.

The best way to describe the weather in Boca in March is to imagine a perfect New England summer day. It’s like that perfect.

Taking a walk around the property we’re staying at. It’s right on a golf course.



Someone really likes going for walks.

And then taking a nap.

Today we brought Evangeline to the beach for the first time. We parked at a nature preserve, which had tons of evil looking rapid little rodents crawling about, that weren’t at all scared to just sit there and stare right at us, ready to attack. The preserve also had those cool old trees that have those branches that seem to just grow horizontally in all directions.


For some reason, karen is completely obsessed with the fact that florida has trees that have real coconuts that grow on them. It completely blows her mind. All she does is go around and take pictures of coconuts.

The weather today was windy, 71F, with a 74F water temp. For march, amazingly warm.

After the beach, we took a walk through the nature preserve.

What the hell are these things? They are absolutely everywhere, the dog loves them, and I’m almost always stepping on them.

Arrrrrr… matey….

Pssssttt.. Hey… Buddy!

Next weekend.. Orlando and Sea World!

In South Carolina, we hit our first palm tree.

Next stop was Savannah, and Target to get some supplies. I’m not sure if this is just a “south” thing, but it seems that every Target has a Starbucks in it. Which is very cool. After that, we had an exciting adventure in St. Joseph’s emergency room in downtown Savannah (ear infection), but we were back on the road in a few short hours.

After a long day, crashing at a Red Roof Inn outside of Jacksonville was just the ticket.

The biggest problem with traveling with a dog is that it severely limits where you can stay. In terms of the chains, count on Motel 6, Red Roof Inn, and Super 8. You really have to be careful though.. some of these places are real dumps. We happened to luck out. All the places we stayed were actually pretty decent. (note: this is according to me, not Karen. Karen thinks every hotel on earth is a dump. And don’t even get her started on the Super 8 mystery pube, which almost forced us to check out early)

On our final travel day, we stopped and saw the Daytona Motor Speedway (it’s bike week!)

We even saw the Orange County Choppers bike trailer (no OCC celebs, though). And we took a quick stop and got a bite to eat..

And try on sunglasses..

A few hours later, and we arrived at our new home for the next month. The place is really nice, immaculately clean, and has everything we need.




And Evangeline loves drooling and puking all over the new carpet.
This weekend we’re going to try to hit the beach, and see some sites, and next weekend we’re going to a gator farm.
Boca is pretty much exactly what I expected. Everyone has lots of money, most everyone is extremely selfish and rude (with a few notable exceptions, and I should also mention that the people I’m working with are beyond awesome), and everyone wears lots of makeup and expensive looking clothes. In terms of city layout, at least in the area we are in, imagine taking the Berlin Tpke in Newington and making lots of copies of it, using the copies to form large city blocks that are about a mile square. Fill in any empty space with a golf course, and that’s Boca. Every chain in the northeast is represented (and then some), and throw in a few super-targets and super-walmarts into the mix. And TONS of enormous malls.
If you like to shop, this place is your mecca.

Weather is very good! It’s like a nice new england summer, with the exception of the thunderstorms, which we’ve had almost every day here.

Seriously. Look at this place.

You can’t drive south on 95 and not stop here. It’s the stupidist, most unimaginably cheesiest tourist trap in existence. It’s been over 20 years since I’ve been here, and my memories of it have all but faded. I remember it as being like maybe one or two junk stores, but now? It’s more like a small city. A crappy, crappy city, that just doesn’t seem to end. And it looks rundown and dirty. You can tell they never really fix anything, and just paint over it a lot.

They’ve managed to brand everything. South of the Border Motor Inn..

South of the Border Fireworks..

South of the Border geodesic dome?

We didn’t stay long. Although they did have South of the Border branded coffee, which I didn’t try. I can’t imagine it’s any good. Maybe I’ll try it on the way back up.
Waiting for mommy to finish buying SOTB branded junk..

On the SOTB footbridge..

We began our trip to Florida saturday morning. We decided to take 4 days for the trip, first stopping off to visit Anne and Jim in Maryland. I’m glad we did. Call it a combination of a slight cold and maybe a little car sickness: Evangeline opened up and doused me with baby vomit. EVERYWHERE.

The frown was staged though. Puke really doesn’t bother me in the slightest (I got plenty of training in college).

The next day we visited Betsy in Arlington, got some awesome Thai, and we ended up spending the night at a super 8 somewhere in north carolina. Conventional wisdom dictates that the super 8 chain is a complete dump that should be avoided, but we took a chance and tried it anyway, and this place is really nice, complete with pool and decent wifi.

Tommorow: South of the border!

This weekend I took a trip to Ikea to get a new desk for my new home office I’m building. The desktop is glass, and was very heavy, so I needed to go to special full service furniture pickup universe to get it. I get in line, and prepare to wait my 7 minutes plus one additional minute per line. Over the sitting area they have a monitor with the active pick numbers on display.

The application looked strange. Tacky colors, sloppy layout, a really unpolished look. Upon closer inspection, it turns out they just use Microsoft Excel to display active pick numbers! They actually physically type in each active number in a cell, and when the order is filled, someone highlights the cell, and deletes the data. I couldn’t believe it.

I know Ikea is known for their frugality, but using excel to track workflow is just stupid, for too many reasons to count.