Fred and Valerie

The lovely people over at Google have updated with new Street Views and one of the cities included is St. Petersburg, FL, the city where I spent my entire childhood until I went to college. Join me for a bit of a tour, at street level, of my hometown.

• The house I grew up in has seen quite a few changes, but it’s still painted yellow with brown trim and the two trees we planted when I was in middle school have grown up quite a bit.
• North Shore Elementary School has changed a lot. It’s actually a bit difficult to place it on the map because it doesn’t look much like it did when I attended it.
• Riviera Middle School, on the other hand, doesn’t look like it’s changed at all since the days when I was going there.
• Northeast High School always had changes going on, so it doesn’t surprise me to see it look different from when I was a student.
• My brothers and I spent many afternoons playing baseball on the fields at Fossil Park. We also fetched our fair share of balls out of the creek in the foreground.
• We also spent plenty of time at Gateway Mall and Pinellas Square Mall.
• Last, but not least, it’s nice to see my grandfather and grandmother’s old house again.

I’ll post more places from my childhood as I find/remember them.

In case you missed it or don’t live in the surrounding area, there were some shootings along I-64 in the overnight hours last night. The two drivers who suffered gunshot wounds were treated and have been released, but the suspects are still on the loose and the manhunt is under way.

We initially found out about this after my alarm clock woke me up to the local news (instead of music) and the newscaster reported shootings along I-64. After listening for a moment longer, I realized the shootings happened right along the route we take for our daily commute. Further, the interstate was COMPLETELY shut down in both directions and had been for the past 5 hours.

After waking up, turning on the news, and assessing the situation, we decided to head into work along a very back route. The interstate was reopened while we were on our way to work and the congestion apparently cleared up pretty quick, but we just stuck to our route.

On the way home, we noticed that temporary cameras had been added to the cameras already in place along I-64 near Afton Mountain. Now, they have cameras located at each of the scenes of the shootings.

This whole episode obviously brings up memories of the Beltway sniper attacks of 2002 that resulted in the deaths of 10 people and critical injury of three others. But, for now, we’re not terribly concerned. As someone else pointed out, if these were snipers, we wouldn’t be talking about “treated and released.” Still, we’re definitely keeping our eyes open for any cars stopped on overpasses.

While in the waiting room…

“She done got this stuff injected into her face and it’s gone all wrong.”

“Injected in her face? Like what?”

“Like she thought she was getting BoTox, but it wasn’t and now it’s done hardened up her face.”

I couldn’t make this up if I tried.

This is a story about dinner, but it STARTS with getting gas. Not that kind, the $3 kind. We were in need of some gas for the car and decided against the usually cheep Sheetz’s $3.19/gallon fuel in favor of Martins’ $3.03/gallon fuel. We also wanted to check out some food in the grocery store, so it made sense.

We fueled up, we shopped, and we were leaving when Valerie noticed that the new Foster’s Grille looked like they had opened. We saw a man in a red shirt standing nearby and he seemed to be trying to get people into the restaurant. We rolled down the window and asked, “Is the restaurant open yet?”

Turns out the restaurant wasn’t open yet, but they were inviting people in for their Training Night. Free dinner? Sure, why not? And we went in, had some charburgers and fries and milkshake samples and it was all pretty good. Best of all, it was free!

I’ve been a bit delinquent in posting the books I’ve finished, so I’m doing a two-fer.

Running with Scissors is Augusten Burroughs’ memoir about his wacky childhood. There are really too many wacky topics to even begin to list some of them, but if you have some time and an open mind, it’s a good, and oftentimes funny, read.

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky may sound like the kind of book sure to put anybody to sleep, but just a few pages in, you start to get a picture of how important salt was and is in our culture. Salt used to be the food of kings and used to actually be used as currency. Now, over 50% of the salt Morton’s, the world’s largest producer, makes is used to deice roads. From kings to roads, salt’s journey is quite fascinating. Also, a fun little tidbit from the book is that the average human can live for a VERY long time off water, salt, and soy beans.

I’m currently reading Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History, but I’ll soon be putting that down temporarily to read The Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken: A Search for Food and Family.

We’re not on the honeymoon yet, so check back later when we are. We hope to provide updates, but it will depend on when/where we can get internet connections.

UPDATE
Day 1: Made the flights on Air France and Ailitalia okay and got to Rome okay. Then they only delivered 3 out of our 4 bags. Waited for the next flight and the bag wasn’t there.

Day 2: Saw Colusseum, Vatican City, St. Peter’s Square/Basilica, Sistine Chapel, Trevi Fountain, and Spanish Steps. And the bag arrived!!!

Day 3: Saw inside the Colusseum and inside the Pantheon and a lot more.

Day 4: Braved Termini and the pickpockets and made it on the ship! Bon voyage!

UPDATE, APR 17

Day 5: No Portofino. Too stormy, so we had a day at sea. We won a trivia quiz, though!

Day 6: Livorno. Went to Florence by train and saw David in all his glory. Saw some other sites before catching the train back and making a stop at Pisa. 1 hour walk to the tower. 15 minutes of pictures. And a 1 hour walk back. That was pretty much it.

Day 7: Livorno. Thankfully, we did Pisa the day before because we took the train to Lucca and it was absolutely beautiful. As Valerie said, this is what you imagine Italy to be. So quiet and peaceful, too!

Day 8: Day at Sea. That’s today. We’re currently heading towards Messina (Sicily) and getting ready to go to more trivia!

UPDATE, APR 19

Day 9: Messina. This was the island of Sicily. We enjoyed a cruise excursion into Taormina and up Mount Etna. At 6000+ feet, we had a wonderful lunch and almost got blown into one of the volcano’s craters. It wasn’t quite that dramatic, but it was VERY windy.

Day 10: Day at Sea. Today’s schedule includes more trivia and relaxation as we get ready for four days in a row of ports (and more carrying of the backpacks)! We’ll be going to Split, Croatia, Venice for two days, and then Dubrovnik, Croatia.

UPDATE, APR 24

Day 11: Split, Croatia. A beautiful city and we got plenty of walking/hiking in. We followed a walking tour we had to the highest point in the city (584 ft) and saw the city from above. By the time we got to the furthest point, the ship looked pretty small.

Day 12: Venice. The arrival was stunning and we caught it all on tape. The ship sailed right past St. Mark’s Square for a wonderful view. Once we got off the ship, we had rain all day and spent most of the day doing walking tours, visiting St. Mark’s, and riding the boats (including a boat tour down the Grand Canal). Water everywhere!

Day 13: Venice. The city was nice to visit, but it all starts looking the same after a while. There are only so many canals to cross and so many bridges to look at before you feel like you’ve seen it all before. Still, discovering the city market via a walking tour was a nice surprise!

Day 14: Dubrovnik. Very similar to Split in that it was VERY hilly. We started with a walking tour that took us AWAY from the walled city, but ended up taking us to a fort that overlooked the entire city. We had the place to ourselves and instantly fell in love with the tour. The rest of the tour, including walking the walls of the city, was okay, but the highlight was definitely the views from the fort (and the side trip to the small church/convent on the cliffs overlooking the water).

Another day at sea today and then Naples (Pompeii) tomorrow. After that, we head back for home.

FINAL UPDATE

Day 15: Day at Sea. More trivia and we watched Michael Clayton. Unfortunately, neither of us particularly cared for the movie. On the up side, our trivia team placed 3rd in the Trivia Marathon (one game on each of the three scheduled Days at Sea)!

Day 16: Naples. Took the train to Pompeii and avoided the crowds for a while. Managed to see what we wanted to in 2-3 hours, so we hopped the train to Sorrento. Train was packed because of the holiday, but Sorrento was nice. Took the ferry back to Naples and ate at the famed Pizzeria da Michele.

Day 17: Civitavecchia. The end of the cruise and we headed back to Rome to catch our flight. The flight was delayed by over 1/2 hour, so we almost missed our connection in Paris (darn, that would have been nice!). Made it home safely!

The wedding’s over and we survived and the power came back on just minutes before everything started. Time to catch some Zzzzs.