One day I'm going to move to Florida and go to the beach every day...

So... I was half right.

I've been thinking alot lately about how I used to love the beach. And how since moving to Florida I have lost that part of myself. We now live about 9 miles from the beach and do you know how long it's been since we went there? Neither do I.

Going to the beach used to be the highlight of my entire year. I only got to do it once a year, and sometimes it wasn't even every year.

I remember stopping to take pictures when we got down south enough to see a palm tree, and how excited we were to finally see signs for Gulf beaches.

Now I see palm trees all the time, they are everywhere... and I rarely notice.

I remember dreaming of moving to Gulf Shores or Panama City Beach and working in a gift shop, selling souvenirs to tourists... spending every spare moment at the beach.

Now here I am in Miami, and real life has taken over my dream.

Well that is about to change... I told Tom I want to start going to the beach again... very soon, I want to get that part of me back... I want to be the girl that thought the beach was a very special thing. I want to build sandcastles and look for shells and all that stuff. :)

Coffee time again...

I made it through another week at work and am doing my Friday thing... having coffee at Pasion del Cielo in The Gables... such a great place to relax and enjoy a good coffee. Not as noisy as Starbucks because it's tucked away on a side street...

We watched Alice in Wonderland last night and I really enjoyed it. I love Tim Burton's movies... they are always so unusual.

3 more weeks 'til my B'day trip... can't wait to see my old friends Spiderman, Hulk and the dragons again... wondering if the Harry Potter thing is going to increase lines on Dueling Dragons... and everywhere else in the park too.

Lazy Saturday...

I'm sitting here at Pasion del Cielo Coffee in the Gables, sipping on a coffee frappe and trying to think of something to blog about.

I see I forgot to update since we were sitting at Space View Park waiting for the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis. Well... they launched, completed their mission and landed back at KSC this past Wednesday morning. Someone posted a picture on fb of the shuttle flying by the KSC Visitor's Complex on it's way to land... that would have been really cool to see!

4 weeks from today I will be celebrating my birthday at Universal Studios in Orlando. Hope the weather is nice the 2 days I am there. Earth Wind and Fire is playing there that night... if I'm not too tired I might actually stick around for the show.

Can't believe my weekend is almost over already... NOT ready to go back to work tomorrow...

STS-132 Atlantis

We're in Titusville again... this time to see space shuttle Atlantis launch on it's mission to the ISS.

There are currently low clouds in the area, and weather is at 70% "go" for launch.

Space Shuttle Atlantis

We're getting ready for another trip to KSC to see the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis on May 14th.

Hope everything goes as planned and we get our daytime launch.

Stay tuned... (though I hardly ever remember to update this thing)

Happy New Phone Day

Just checking out what I can do with my new G1...

Searching for...

a backpack for my netbook while I wait for lunch at Denny's.

I can't find one local so I guess I'm going to have to order one online. I hate not being able to just go into a store and pick one up... you would think that would be pretty easy to do living in Miami but I find that more and more often I have to send away for things.

Best Buy: no
Target: no
Staples: no
Radio Shack: no

Going to check Office Depot and Office Max next.

Last published July 7th 2009...

Ok... it's official... I am not a blogger.

If I haven't added anything to this blog since July then I guess I have nothing to say... ever... about anything.

Though mostly I guess it's because when I DO have something to say I say it on facebook...

So let's blame facebook. It is facebook's fault that I am not a blogger.

:-P

Remembering Michael Jackson...

For whatever happened in the later years... I really did like MJ back in the Thriller days... his music was great and he was a superstar.

I'm watching the memorial.

I hope his kids grow up to be happy and healthy adults, with a somewhat normal life ahead of them. If that's even possible...

Happy Birthday To Me!

I bought myself a present yesterday... an Acer Aspire One netbook. It's pretty awesome... It's light enough that I can bring it to work and it's small enough to fit in my locker.

Airports are going to be a breeze now... I can't wait for my next trip! I always hated dragging the full size laptop around on a vacation but just didn't want to leave home without it.

I'm sure I'll have lots more to say about it later, but right now I'm having a coffee break before work. I'm enjoying an iced latte at Pasion Coffee in Coral Gables.

Bloody Mary's in the Quarter...

I spent the weekend in New Orleans on a mission to try some of the best Bloody Mary's around. I'd done some reading before I left and made notes of a few places people were talking about. I ended up trying them at 5 different bars...

1. Pat O's on St. Peter: Mostly tomato, very little spice... paired very well with the super spicy Jambalaya I had for dinner though. Garnished with pickled green beans... no celery. :(

2. Johnny White's Bar on St. Peter, across the street from Preservation Hall: My favorite of the 5... spicy, but not too much. Garnished with olives... no celery. :(

3. Coop's Place, 1109 Decatur St., across the street from Margaritaville: Very interesting to watch this one being made. Spices, vodka, brown stuff, and a splash of bloody mary mix "for color" she said... definitely not my favorite because it had hardly any tomato flavor at all, but seriously not my least favorite either. It was at least drinkable unlike my next stop... more green beans and again, no celery.

4. Yo Mama's on St. Peter, next door to Johnny White's bar: Vera went in to get this one for me so I didn't see how it was made. She said it had about 8 or 9 steps to it, and she couldn't even tell what most of the stuff in it was. Not a good sign... it was WAY too spicy and just not good. At this point I have given up on finding a Bloody Mary garnished with celery. Sadly I couldn't finish this drink... it just was not good. Too much spice, lots of "stuff" in the bottom of it... it was quite chunky. Bleh...

5. The Gazebo Cafe, 1016 Decatur St.: This one was just ok... definitely not as bad as the one from Yo Mama's, but not as good as Johnny White's or Coop's. Serious chunks in it... looked almost like pickle relish. Just a bit strange... no way of knowing what was in it because it was a gallon sized jug of pre-mixed stuff.

Even after all those drinks, I didn't have a hangover or headache, and surprisingly no heartburn either. :)

I can't wait to go back next year... I'll make Johnny White's Bar on St. Peter my first stop!

Website Update

I have uploaded pictures from the Miami Dolphins vs San Francisco 49rs game from December 2008.

I'm looking forward to football season this year... hopefully it will be just as exciting as the last one!

Roll Tide and Go Fins!

:)

Website update

Work is progressing slowly on MelissasTrips.com, but it is starting to come together.

I've been sick for 3 days but forced myself to work on it a little this afternoon. I worked out a color scheme for the main page and then figured out how to make Coppermine match it.

The next step will be to get back to editing and uploading photos.

I'd been looking forward to walking down the Mile to see the Hot 8 Brass Band tonight but I just don't have the energy...

I feel like poop.

Ok...

So when I said "this" weekend I didn't actually MEAN "that" weekend.

:)

Updates!

There has been a bit of progress on the websites.

AerosmithIsland.com is almost back to normal, though there are quite a few areas I wanted to remove and have misplaced the original "map" files so I can't actually remove them from the main page. Now those links just point to "under construction" pages... which I hate!

At the moment, MelissasTrips.com just links to here until I get time to redesign everything this weekend. I've got the new Coppermine photo album thing installed and am currently adding pictures and trying to decide how I want the thing to look. I don't like any of the pre-installed templates and need to get with Tom about making some adjustments.

Email is working now at least!

My websites...

are currently under construction...

they are completely blank slates...

and...

my email isn't working...

grrr!

No...

I haven't been locked in my room playing X Box since November.

I really just haven't thought much about updating the blog since my last post last year.

Soon I'll be giving my website an overhaul... a total redesign... and I started with the look of the blog. This might also be changing again after I start working on the website. I did this with one of the pre-made templates, and if I do something different to the site, I'll want to make the blog match it.

Let's see... 2008 ended pretty good. I got tickets to the last Dolphins home game, which they won against the San Francisco 49'ers. It was fun, and I stayed far away from the frozen Sangria this time. I limited myself to 2 cocktails (my new love, Crown and Pepsi) and we had a great time.

Christmas was good. Tom got me a Nintendo DS Lite and I became immediately addicted to it. I've got Animal Crossing: Wild World, Nintendogs: Lab and Friends, New Super Mario Bros. and Brain Age 2.

February 4 & 5 marked the coldest temperatures in Miami in a year... we reached an overnight low of 36 degrees, and finally got my kitty to start coming back in the house again after more than a month of her acting as if she was terrified at the though of crossing the threshold. Now she comes and goes pretty much as she pleases, which is fine with me. Though I would prefer her being a 100% indoor cat, I'll take what I can get, and know that having her in part of the time is better than none at all. I knew winter wouldn't be too much for her, let's face it, it only lasts 3 or 4 days at a time... but hurricane season will be here before we know it and I hated the thought of her hiding under the car during the next tropical storm or worse. Now at least I'm pretty confident she'll hop on the couch at the first sign of bad weather... just like last year. :)

Work still mostly sucks, but at least 1 person that was stressing me out is gone now... too bad the rest aren't going anywhere, but I try my best to just do my job and ignore them. It's easier now that I'm working a later shift...

Oh yeah... I'm working a later shift now because I was followed to work by some weirdo on a bicycle a few weeks back which made me very uncomfortable about walking to work before daylight. Now I don't have to be at work until 8:00 4 days a week. It's working out very well so far.

Wednesday night I'll be staying overnight for inventory... I hate it, but I do love that inventory bonus. At least this year we're only doing it twice... previous years we had 4 of them! We do still get the 4 bonuses though. Yay!

I guess that's about it... hopefully I'll get the changes started on the website this weekend and then start doing regular updates to both the site and the blog. No promises though because sometimes I just don't have much to say.

I got an XBox 360!

Happy Turkey Day

Stop the remake!