Trip to Ft. Lauderdale

Day 1

• Early morning flight. Needed to be up at 5:30 to catch 6:50 flight. Glad I didn’t decide to stay up through to flight time. The two hours of sleep made me almost functional.
• Enjoyed listening to the guy with the aisle seat say, “Please not here, please not here…” under his breath every time a new person walked on the plane. It worked! The seat between us was empty for the AUS to DFW leg of the trip.
• Slept the whole way from AUS to DFW and from DFW to FTL. I could’ve snored and farted the whole way, I have no idea.
• Lady next to me when I sat down for the DFW to FTL leg had her barding passes and passport in some pocket thing around her neck, which reminded me of being in elementary school and having notes pinned to my jacked by my teacher to bring home.
• First stop in Ft. Lauderdale is Kelly’s Landing for lobster rolls. Kelly’s gets all their lobster flown in from Maine and the lobster rolls are delicious. But Tim and I let the car salesman next to us talk us into the hot lobster roll. It was good but now I’m going to need to come back and make sure that the cold version isn’t better.
• Watched 2nd half of UT vs OK game at Tim’s house. Big win for UT, it would launch them to a #1 ranking and I’d get to hear how overrated the Big 12 is all week. They’re just hurting because of the depths Miami has fallen.
• After UT game, we go to a bar Tim’s friend Timmy Hagen works at. This place is full of old school drinkers. It’s around 3:30 a couple of the regulars are already hammered. Timmy Hagen is having trouble watching USC, his favorite team, because people keep asking him to put the Miami game on all the TV’s around the bar so that they can see it without having to readjust their seats. He’s actually kinda pissed about it.
• Checked out the Ft. Lauderdale downtown area. A couple bars have live music. One plays covers the other original work. The Whore House reminds me of Room 710 but with less metal.
  

Day 2

• Miami Dolphins play early game and Dallas play late afternoon game. Going to be on couch all day. This is cool with me, still catching up from fri/sat.
• Tim lives in a predominantly gay part of town. Great for property values. Every time we drive around the neighborhood and there are two guys walking together, he points out this fact.
• We go to pick up a couple things at the grocery store. Tim says something like, “See what I mean?” and granted there did appear to be a lot of male couples shopping. When I said, “They probably think we’re gay.” He tells me to “go stand over there.”
• Watched a couple movies Foot Fist Way and Leatherheads. I would recommend not seeing either one. Yup one big couch day.
  

Day 3

• Listening to a lot smooth jazz this week. This is what Tim listens too. Bands like Steeley Dan and Boz Scaggs. Trying hard to let it all sink in, figure out the rhythms of this town. Every time I come to Florida whether I’m with Tim or not this is what’s playing. I suspect that the record distribution companies haven’t been down this way since 1984.
• Took a long walk on the beach. These would end up being my favorite times on the trip. There are tons of empty condos along the shore, some of them halted in the middle of construction. The economic downturn hit here about two years ago. It’s odd when I was down 3 or 4 years ago, the place was booming out of control, looking back it’s reminiscent of the tech stocks in the late 90s.
• Lots of jelly fish on the beach. They look like inflated ziplock bags. Glad no one got stung so I’d have to pee on them, not into that kinda stuff.
• Stopped at The Parrot after walking on the beach. When Tim first moved to Ft. Lauderdale in the 70s this is where he made his living, albeit not a great one, by playing darts for money. He mentions that collecting became much easier once he started partnering with this big guy known to have a temper.
• Monday is league bowling night. Pretty interesting crowd. Tim will blame me for ruining his perfect game (he started with 6 strikes) because I was talking to Deidra on the phone outside the bowling alley. He was worried because I hadn’t returned with his beer.
• After bowling, back to Tim’s house for Monday night football and baseball playoff game. There would be a lot of sports watching this trip. I think I may have had my fill of sports for a while.
  

Day 4

• After Tim’s daily ritual of oatmeal, coffee and reading the newspaper front to back (this took up most of Sunday), we head out to the beach again. Winds are really strong out of the northeast which is creating big waves and there are lots of surfers out.
• We stop in at a place called Sly Foxes, which strangely enough is an Irish pub. End up bumping in to JR and this other friend JR who’ve know Tim for almost 30+ years.
• Getting back to the house after eating out, there is a blue crab running around his parking lot. Tim laughs at me chasing it around sideways trying to get a picture.
  

Day 5

• Late start, stop by a bar called The Dive. Ivan is working, JR shows up. I think they’re following us J. Lady at bar is there celebrating her wedding anniversary alone. Tells us that she’s having an affair with some guy who claims to have been Mike Schmidts backup in the 80s. I can’t find anything about the back up using the kindle’s internet capabilities.
• Went out to the pier, I looked in a couple shops for something to bring back for Deidra, but it’s all crap.
• Stop in to see Timmy Hagen who is working at a different bar tonight. Meet a Scotsman who likes to play golf (go figure).
  

Day 6

• Highlight is that stone crabs are back in season. They can only be harvested from Oct 15th through March 15th, so the one we eat at Old Florida are as fresh as can be. Delicious!

Day 7

• Wishing the lady next to me on the flight from FTL to DFW will stop putting perfume on every 30 minutes. I showered that day, so I don’t think it was me…hmm…I did have oysters and red beans and rice for lunch before the flight. Maybe that was why.