“Exploring Miami,”… or “Giving The Gay Beach a Fair Shake”

We woke up late, around 10 or 11, and decided to do a bit of local exploration on our only real day in Miami.

Our hotel was (and still is, presumably) located on a street called the “Miracle Mile”.  It’s called that because if you don’t have a stroke upon seeing the prices in its shops, it is a “miracle”.  This street has upscale bridal boutiques like Seattle has coffee shops.  We did stop in a cute hipster pet accessory store that was actually pretty fun.  We chatted with the clerk inside, who was really knowledgeable about dogs, but we didn’t buy anything though.  My dogs have quite enough kelp and live-caught Mahi Mahi in their food, thank you very much.

Famished, we thought we might sample the local fare at a quaint little bistro called “Denny’s”.  Brandy is still raving about the culinary masterwork that was her “Grand Slamwich”.

Afterward, we popped into a chocolate shop - I don’t recall the name.  It was about 4 feet by 8 feet, so thankfully we were the only customers.  We chose a couple of interesting truffles for consumption later, but I’ll go ahead and cut to the chase.  One was advertised as some sort of hot pepper infused amalgam.  So, without getting too erotic, here’s how the taste went down: First, powdered cocoa shell, followed by sweet, slightly boozy chocolate filling and the texture of puffed rice - a la a Crunch bar.  A few seconds, subtle hot pepper.  Then the freakin’ pop rocks start going off.  Crackling in my mouth for a good minute or two.  You read correctly.  I wasn’t lying when I said, “interesting”.

Carnival Cruise Lines, with whom we were sailing, if I hadn’t mentioned it, allows each guest to bring aboard a single bottle of wine or other similar small volume of alcohol.  As vino aboard ship can cost in upwards of $50 a bottle for even Chateau de Hobo, we thought we would take advantage of this lovely perk.  But that’s not why we visited Navarro Pharmacy.  We went in there for disposable waterproof cameras and body wash.  But this place is a goddamn cornucopia of merchandise.  Think Walgreen’s meets Family Dollar.  Not only did we find our necessary sundries, but we picked up a couple of very cheap bottles of half-decent wine.

We strolled back to our hotel, intent to check out what the local beach scene.  We asked the hotel concierge where we could find a good one.  He instructed us to tell the cabbie “Ocean Drive and Twelfth.”  Now, in Owatonna, give me the intersection of two streets, and I’ll get you there in ten minutes.  I assumed something similar here.  But, and come along with me here, cuz it took me a minute, too: Miami is somewhat bigger than Owatonna.  I know.  How much bigger, you ask?  More than twice as big.  I’ll wait while you catch your breath.

OK?

A one-way trip to Miami Beach took about 35 minutes and $40.  We did neglect to factor in that part of the NCAA tournament was happening on that day, and that it was held in an arena down by the beach.  Not a huge deal, right?  Understanding I should plan to get wet, I brought about $60 cash and $100 in traveler’s cheques.

Digression: Understand this: Traveler’s cheques are not the same as cash.  Probably why they are called “cheques”.  The bank you purchase them from will tell you they will be accepted anywhere.  This, I now understand, is bullshit.  There’s something in the bank teller contract that states that they can’t tell you, “When you try to use these, people will look at you as if you have an ass growing out of your forehead.”  Thatwould be the truth.  I won’t go into detail, but, after managing to pay for drinks at a spot on beach with my near-unusable notes, there was a very nice cab driver named TironJoseph who gave us a $39 cab ride for $37.  Thanks, Mr. Joseph.  End of Digression.

Down at the beach, we grabbed a patch of sand and took in some sun, sandwiched between the lifeguard stand and the gay section of the beach.  I’m not being derogatory here: it’s demarkationis two prolific rainbow flags.  Look at it this way: lower risk of drowning and a noticeable lack of posturing neanderthals.  Small price to pay for seeing a dudesoul-kiss another dude.  Am I right?  Hello?

After a quick dip and bit more sun, we decamped and took a stroll down the boardwalk to watch the kite surfers.  That looks like a great freakin’ sport to me: getting pulled around on a surfboard with a giant kite strapped to my torso.  I am working on starting my own chapter, but thus far it has amounted to a sport that can only be called “kite floating on a surfboard in an algae bloom.”  It’ll take off someday - metaphorically speaking.

Back at the hotel, we took a dip in the pool, grabbed a shower, and went on walkabout again to find a spot for dinner.  We settled on an oaky little Irish pub/restaurant.  I sampled the corned beef and cabbage while Brandy enjoyed another old Irish favorite, Eggplant Parmesan.  Who am I to argue?  It was under “House Specialties”.  Really.

We headed back to the hotel once again to get everything ready for our debarkation the next day.  From our balcony, while enjoying a nondescript wine of questionable vintage, we could clearly hear the sound of band down the street royally butchering Funkytown.  But the wine was decent, and we watched a beautiful sunset, so, who’s complaining?

“Miami, here we come!” … or “The Ambiguously Dangerous Haitian Cabbie”

Our flight didn’t leave MSP until about 7:00 P.M., but I elected to take a half-day from work anyway to prepare.  Lots to do.  Bags to pack, cars to load, milk expiration dates to check.  Besides, I knew I would have been all but useless at work.  I’d been sandbagging all week (not literally), preparing to “go dark” for better than a week.  As it turned out, two of my three teammates also chose the same dates for their vacations.  That left the stalwart, if slightly anxious, Sharon to hold down the fort.  God Speed to her.  As I write this, safely back in the States and within easy reach of mobile phone coverage, I have no voicemails, emails, or text messages pertaining to my professional world going up in flames.  I have not checked my work email.  That will wait for Monday.

But the half-day.  I had packing to do and doodles to prepare for Bob & Christine, our friends (and fellow dog-lovers) who agreed to take the doods for the week.  We got the car loaded to the gills by 4 and by 4:15 we were out the door.  The doodle hand-off went smoothly.  Lola and Violet don’t have much for attention span anyway, and even that modest amount is significantly reduced in new situations.  So they were still actively sniffing around the new place when we tiptoed out the door.  When they did realize we were gone, I imagine it went something like this:

Lola: “Hey.  Where’s Mom & D - !”
Violet: [Bites Lola's hind leg.] “Bark!”
Lola: “Ow!  Dammit!  Not cool!” [Growls].
Violet: “Let’s fight!  Are you hungry?  I’m gonna drink some water!”
Lola: “Hey!  Get back here!”

Something like that.

We made it up to the airport, checked in, and made it through security by 5:30.  With some time to kill, we were elated to find a Chili’s nestled near our gate.  I enjoyed a beer and burger while Brandy delighted in two strong strawberry blended courage cocktails.

Flying medicine duly administered, we boarded our on-time flight to Miami.  For in-flight entertainment, I employed a two-tiered of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter Thompson and Oregon Trail on my phone.  Truly a pair of savage journeys in search of the American Dream.

Miami International Airport is called “MIA” for short.  It’s an unfortunate abbreviation when applied to air travel.  This would have been a perfect opportunity to name an aiport after a famous person.  Was Ricky Ricardo from Miami?  Well, if he wasn’t, he should have been.  “RRIA” doesn’t drum up any ill connotations for me.

The best word I can think of to describe our cab driver to the hotel was “surly”.  At the same time, I would have described him as a “beast of a man,” but that could be the Thompson talking.  Following a silent 20-minute drive to the hotel, I asked him what I owed him - the meter hadn’t been running.

He asked, “How much the the guy tell you?” evidently referring to the airport employee who had hailed him.

“He didn’t tell me anything,” I answered.

He sniffed, looked at something far off to his right, and said, “Sixteen.”  He didn’t look at me.  I was getting a little scared.

I handed him a twenty and asked for two back.  He seemed confused.  “Can you break that?” I asked slowly, but not insultingly.  He grudgingly complied, without removing my head from my body.

Sixteen felt fair, so why did I feel like he totally screwed me?  Chalk it up to inexperience.

We snagged the hotel room on Priceline for quite a good price; I would call the place “fancy”.  So nice, in fact, that I giddily felt like clapping the nearest bellman on the shoulder while declaring that the hotel was “one nice sumbitch”.  I held it in, but barely.

We schlepped our luggage to the room, still wide awake from the trip.  It didn’t long for the day of travel to catch up with us, and we conked right out.

jeremy

Caribbean Vacation, Prologue

Let’s start with this: I am typically a very difficult person when it comes to taking a vacation.  I don’t have any illusions about that.  This is a net effect, the causes for which I’ll get into next.

First, I’m cheap.  Why go to northern California when they have perfectly fine-tasting wine at Cash Wise?  Quicker, and fewer damned dirty hippies.

Second (and I think this is profound), I don’t have any internal mechanism to propel me to take a vacation.  This may be because we didn’t take very many vacations when I was a kid1.  I don’t really remember the trip my family made to San Diego when I was three.  All I have rattling around my brain to mark that journey is an airplane window, brown carpet, and a tonka truck, one which I probably played with on the brown carpet.  The other vacation was to Mt. Rushmore, and I was ten.  The most vivid memory I have of that trip was of the eight hour car ride to get there.  We had a portable Ms. Pac-Man arcade game, and I completely memorized all the ghost movements and “mastered it” (as was the lingo) it about ten times.  Oh, and the mountain was OK, too.

But, who needs an internal impetus when you’ve got solid external motivation, manifested corporeal in my wife.  Brandy has an internal alarm set so as to keep vacations roughly one year apart.  As you can see, this puts our vacation “styles” in direct opposition to one another.  She effectively counteracts my inertia through helpful reminders, coercion, and brute force (not necessarily in this order).  She’ll start with cute little hints, like following anything I say with a disappointed head shake and a mumbled ”Jesus Christ.”  It only gets more overt from there.  Soon I’m explaining away the bruises (the ones that show, anyway) to my coworkers.  “It’s nothing.  I hit my head on the coffee maker.”  I did by the way… hit my head on the coffee maker.  Really.  Stop looking at me.

Anywho, the point is, taking a vacation is a tough for me.  But I generally feel like a new man when we’re back, as is the case here.  So, check out the pictures, and I hope you enjoy reading a bit about my take on our trip.

1 I should note, for the sake of journalistic integrity (heh), that the above is certainly not a complete summary of our family trips.  We also did a lot of camping, fishing, trips to the Twin Cities.  We also took a family trip to Duluth in 2005.  So, Mom & Dad, I am acknowledging that you took me places.  In this context, I’m narrowly interpreting “vacation” as spending a week or so fairly far away from where I live.

jeremy

Not effing cool, guys.

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It’s in our nature as a people to know what we’re talking about and be able to tell others what we know.  We like to brandish our knowledge the way our ancestor Caveman Bob paraded a freshly killed boar before his friends and neighbors.

We are also, as a rule, lazy.  Don’t get me wrong - this isn’t our fault, exactly.  Do you think Caveman Bob travelled one foot farther than necessary to snuff his quarry?  Doubtful.

So what are our options?  Politicians, especially during campaign season, are especially available.  They are omnipresent on TV and the internets, not to mention print.  And they are so darn smart.  Really, Senator McCain?  Drilling offshore and in ANWR will bring gas prices back down?  Immediately?  You’re my guy.  Oh, hang on.  Senator Obama?  McCain’s full of shit?  Oil exploration will have no effect for 10-20 years?  I knew it.  You’re my guy.  I think.

You can also listen to the pundits - pick one. Right-leaning?  Drill!  Left?  Save the Arctic Wolf!

What about the dot orgs?  Surely they answer to no one.  But try to find one that doesn’t drip with parsimony and it’s own fundamentalist agenda.  Seriously.  Try to find one.  Then send it to me.

As Winston Churchill said, “When we don’t travel very far for our knowledge, we gets us some shitty knowledge.”  He didn’t really say that, but he should have.  Bob the Caveman could probably walk 10 feet out of his cave and kill a rodent for a meager supper.  But if he wanted to sustain himself, he would have to travel farther afield.  And so we must.

A few months ago, I tore through a book called Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores The Hidden Side of Everything.  It got me thinking.  Would an economist be able to help us understand this?  Check out this bit of light reading to help bring your blood pressure down.  Steven Levitt, Freakonomics co-author, also has some interesting thoughts on gas prices (grain of salt, please).

(Sidenote: Don’t let the above paragraph convince you for a second that I don’t believe there’s a problem.  In fact, I read a great article in the Star Trib a couple weeks ago that I heartily agree with, and to which my best friend Jake was kind enough to provide a link.)

The most recent culprit implicated in rising oil prices has been the Speculator.  A speculator is just an investor who essentially bets on whether oil prices will rise or fall.  In our case, these investors have been betting that the price will go higher.  But they never buy a drop of real oil.  The idea is that prices go up when speculators bet on high prices because oil producers are more likely to hoard their supplies in anticipation of higher future prices.  However, there isn’t evidence that this is happening.  Paul Krugman, in a NY Times opinion piece, compares the rise in oil price to that of iron ore:

… iron ore isn’t traded on a global exchange; its price is set in direct deals between producers and consumers.  So there’s no easy way to speculate on ore prices.  Yet the price of iron ore, like that of oil, has surged over the past year… the price that Chinese steel makers pay to Australian mines has jumped 96 percent.

The free market has a lot to do with the price of oil.  I agree that oil producing nations control the flow of oil, and price is a function of supply and demand.  That being said, it’s hard to argue against the idea that conservation is needed in order to guarantee our continued high standard of living.  Do we really believe that the U.S. could control itself if gas dropped back to $2 a gallon?  Within a week we would all be road-tripping to the opposite end of the country in our brand new Hummers, amnesia of our recent pain promptly and reliably kicking in.

So, what’s the point?  The point is, both our Still-President and LifeAfterTheOilCrash are probably oversimplifying things.  Fundamentalist ideas are low-hanging fruit; easy answers for a time-starved populous.  A Star Trib editorial today summarizes the debate neatly.  The last paragraph is a cool clear glass of common sense.

Rice University expert Kenneth Medlock has it right when he states that the nation needs a “portfolio” of solutions as it shifts to renewables. Nuclear energy and what may be the most potent tool of all — conservation by consumers — should all be part of a countrywide conversation on energy as the presidential election draws near. Offshore drilling isn’t a panacea, but its potential role in the nation’s transitional energy portfolio deserves thoughtful deliberation.

Discuss.

jeremy

Stupid begets stupid

The Bster is out of town for a couple of days and my inner lion, as is its custom, has come out of its cage.  This consists typically of scandalously eating nothing but fish (which is not my lovely wife’s bag) and watching horror movies.  Last night’s feature was Oscar-would-be Saw IV.  I laughed.  I cried.  You get the drift.

As a backdrop to the conduct of these underground vices, I have kept our nation’s political goings-on in my periphery.  I normally wouldn’t deign to comment on these much ados, but I’m seeing a cornucopia of disparate issues that, together, bear the dropping of my opinion, at least in this personal venue.

I am a 24-hour news junky, principally getting my fix from CNN.  That particular network is the least annoying to me.  That being said… Jesus Christ.  We have real issues to be concerned with, but the various 24-hour news networks, for ratings-related purposes, distill these issues into populist-palatable chunks of news meat scraps to be tossed, with all earnestness of course, into the hungry mob below.  I am a member of the mob, but I fancy that I stand among it arms crossed and head shaking, scrutinizing the dripping chunks for the truly meaningful bits.  My questions below are aimed rhetorically at these news sources.

Can we get off gas prices for a few moments?  We have had quite a run building our disposable McSociety on the shoulders of cheap oil, knowing all the while that oil is a commodity outside of our locus of control.  As an addict needs his fix, we need our oil.  Our politicians (see McCain’s and Clinton’s boneheaded Gas Tax Holiday) seem to believe that we believe that the people’s chief concern with respect to oil prices’ continuous upward trajectory is how much it will cost us to drive the kids to Six Flags this summer, or how our 2-hour commutes to our jobs are becoming mutually exclusive to how often we can eat at Ruby Tuesday.  How about we address the real problem?  Why do you think that all the goods we buy are inexpensive (and yes, they are inexpensive)?  How does Wal-Mart offer $12 jeans and 50 lb bags of rice for $3?  The answer: hugely cheap transportation costs.  What happens when those costs double?  Triple?  We’re seeing the answer.  Let’s do our best to figure a way forward with a combination of energy diversification and more local consumption.  But can we please stop decrying the cost of a gallon of fuel?  Any drop in oil prices will only result in more consumption of it, which will only delay our realization that we need to make some changes in our lives.  Let’s skip the denial, and go right to acceptance. 

Can we also stop investing so much time and resources in the Democratic nomination process?  Clinton and Obama are both great candidates, who are almost certain to be leaps and bounds superior to our current Dunderhead-in-Chief.  Both of these candidates spend millions upon millions in their effort to clinch the nomination.  This is not their fault, but rather the nomination process that requires it.  Let’s shorten the primary/caucus season and require that sitting government officials running for office perform their actual job duties at least 75% of the time.  Are the three senators currently running really able to govern effectively given the monetary, time, and mental requirements of the current system?  Are they doing as much good for their states as they given if they were not running?  I assert that they cannot.  If I spent the majority of my time at work trying to get a promotion, I would get fired for ignoring my job duties.  Should we not expect the same from the potential leaders of our country?

We also need to stop talking about the recession for 5 minutes.  By continuing to tell Americans that they are downtrodden, they need help, their jobs are in danger, etc, we are exacerbating the problem.  I’m not saying that we bury our heads in the sand, but why do these news sources need to convince me that I and my neighbors are in bad shape?  This is only so easy to link back to gas prices.  The rhetoric goes like this: “America is in recession, but this $600 will make you happy, right?  Except that unemployment is way up, so you’ll probably be laid off.  Oil prices hit another record high.  People are starving in Africa.  Every school kid brings a 9mm to class, probably because test scores are way too low and drop-out rates are way too high.  If you bought your home with an ARM, you are so fucked.  Are you shitting yourself yet?”  Let’s all just take a collective deep breath, and keep doing our best.  Oh wait, that’s what we would be doing in the absence of the propaganda anyway.

Ah.  I feel better.

jeremy

A Career Change on The Horizon?

This looks like something I could get into.

You may have noticed that I have been post-lean since December.  Evidently that’s what a new puppy and very little initiative will do for you.  Anyhow, I find the following in my Drafts folder as I attempt to resume my communique with no one in particular.  I present it to you in its original form with no editing by yours truly. 

So dog ownership is fan-freakin-tastic.  Saturday was our first full day little miss Fuzzybutt and we had 25 legitimate potty excursions outside and at least 10 accidents in the house.  Ho-ly crap.  A carpet in a Mötley Crüe hotel room never saw this volume of urine.

jeremy

Critical Thinking

With some gymnastics of correlation vs. causality, I submit a pair of articles from Monday’s Star Tribune.  The headlines and accompanying teasers read thus:

Article 1. 
Eating In. 
As consumers rein in spending and eat at home more often, area restaurants are cooking up ways to lure them back.

Article 2.
STD rate keeps rising in state.  Health experts warn that without funds for intervention and education, there’s no stopping the trend.

Is Taco Bell’s Fourthmeal not enticing or affordable enough to keep our young people’s grubby mitts off one another?  Perhaps if IHOP began offering free condoms and dental dam with every Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘N Fruity, we could kill two birds with one stone.  Why do I have to think of these things?

jeremy

Here you go, hippies er… cynics

Signs of hope that our federal government isn’t blind to the benefits of mass transit?  We’re not exactly Europe yet, but it’s a good start, anyway.

http://wcco.com/politics/northstar.rail.line.2.608083.html

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