Category Archives: Florida Finger-Licking Fun

After leaving Hogan’s Beach we were only a few miles away from the Cigar City Brewhouse Tasting Room and as this was Chris’ top destination on his trip to Florida we decided to dedicate the next hour to seeing what Cigar City was all about.

The exterior of the building is quite modest. I acutally had no idea that such a hidden gem was located right off of Dale Mabry.

I had never been to a tasting room before so I was instore for quite a treat. My comrad Chris had been to several of these before so he felt quite at home. I was familiar with the Cigar City label but hadn’t given the brand the full experience.

Luckily for me, the tasting room had over 30 of their beers on draft ready for tasting. Even better, the tasting room had the sample paddle available where you could pay around $6 bucks and get a small sample of four beers.

The three of us grabbed three notecards with four vacant slots for beers to try and we occupied the slots with beers that our hearts desired.

I decided to try a coffee beer, a lager, some random and most rememberably, the Chocolate Banana beer. They were all fantastic. We sat there and took our time and enjoyed the good flavors like beer snobs.

Cigar Rolling station in the Cigar City Brewhouse

Finally we decided we had had enough and it was time to hit Caddy’s off of Treasure Island and enjoy a few rays of the sun while the vacation weekend still existed for my guests.

Where to even begin on this one? It was Chris and Lyndsey’s final day of visiting me. As every non-Floridian thinks, a visit to Florida means a visit to the beach.

Personally, I am not a beach guy. I don’t see what all the hype is about. This is probably because I was raised as a lake guy in the lakes of Tennessee, Florida and Kentucky.

Anyways, it was Chris and Lyndsey’s last day. We were torn by a few things. Chris wanted to go to the Cigar City Brewhouse in Tampa. Lyndsey wanted to see the beach on her last day in Florida and I was hungry. So what did I suggest that could help accomodate all of these needs? Hogan’s Beach of course.

I had only heard about Hogan’s Beach about a week before their visit. I am not sure why the indigenous people of Florida kept a gem from me for far so long but I am a strong advocate of anything professional wrestling.

Chris and Lyndsey had never had a conch fritter… WTF?

Apparently Hogan’s Beach is a beach restaurant that the legendary wrestler Hulk Hogan bought on the outskirts of Tampa with limited beach front on the Tampa Bay. I pushed strongly for this idea that morning as I knew it was close to the Cigar City Brewhouse and had the beach that Lyndsey desired.

We urbanspooned (yeah I guess you can make the use of any app a verb by adding a ‘d’ to the end of it these days) Hogan’s Beach and got the shittiest reviews. The Rusty Pelican was a nearby restaurant that they were pushing for as we approached Tampa from Saint Petersburg but I was still hesitant. Fortunately it was Father’s day and The Rusty Pelican looked to “Sunday Best” for us three. I eventually sold my idea of Hogan’s Beach.

The place was so misleading for the reviews the internet gave it as it looked like a luxury hotel from the outside. After eventually determing that valet parking was the only way we were going to get in we gave up and paid the fee to have some mindless idiot to park our car 20 feet away.

We walk in the sliding glass doors and I am already ecstatic with the choice I force upon my friends. We are immediately greeted with movie posted from Hulk Hogan’s hayday in the early 90’s.

We continue walking and my day is immediately fulfilled. There is a display of Hulk Hogan’s wrestling championship belts before we even get into the restaurant. I was shocked to see a TNA belt on display. That might have been the best part.

We finally get seated to our table with a beautiful view of the bay and order some simple beach lunch food. I will make a note that my guests had never had conch fritters so I found it a necessity to add it to my tab and let them try the most Floridan snack available.

Overall the food was subpar. Just as the reviews had described. The beachfront access was also subpar. Not the layout beach that Lyndsey had hoped for but I was still having a blast.

Obviously Jimmy Hart’s vehicle. (I think)

The whole experience was just as shitty as I had hoped. The restaurant seemed like a beach front that seemed to be the kind of place that attracted Ed Hardy wearing scum and Lyndsey quickly decided she didn’t want to lay out here. We decided to wrap our trip up with a few pictures and head to the Cigar City Brewhouse.

Kayaking in front of the Saint Petersburg skyline

Since I have been in Florida I have yet to be on the water. I take that back. I went out on the Deep Sea Fishing adventure the one time that I made a blog post about. I also was able to go Jet Skiing one my girlfriend’s neighbor’s jet skiis one time. I felt bad though as I did not know the neighbors and did not want to drive their jet skiis too ferociously.

This particular weekend however I had friends in town. And I wanted control of the boating to show them the best of times.

Weatherby doing his thing

Fortunately for me, I made the best of efforts the previous weekend to borrow a friend’s truck and drive to Dick’s Sporting goods. I had my heart set on a particular kayak. I get there and of course its sold out. Its not as if I own a truck and can come as often as I please so I knew a decision was imperative. My girlfriend Leslie was also in the market for a kayak but she wasn’t as picky as me. After a few hours of kayak shopping we eventually made some cheap purchases and headed home with two solo kayaks.

Best photobomb ever. I worked really hard on photobomb this.

Leslie has a beautiful house located right on the bay which makes a kayak launching opportunity perfect. Unfortunately we only bought two solo kayaks and we had two guests coming into town. Like I’ve said before though, I am a chess player and always thinking of the next move so with over a week in advance of their visit I locked up a tandem kayak to borrow.

Leslie couldn’t join us the day we decided to go kayaking as she had a very important Coast Guard event to go to. So my two friends and I ventured off on our own. This was my first real time navigating on the bay by myself. It was exhilarating. So we packed a 12-pack of Cigar City and ventured out.

She did however recommend to us that we go into the inlet where the Coast Guard boats were moared up as we would have a high probability of seeing dolphins. So we paddled up current for two hours to get to this particular inlet and what do we see? No fucking dolphins. I did see a Devil Ray jump straight into the air though. It was so fast there was no way a picture could ever be taken of this kind of moment. I swear it was 5 feet away from my kayak and jumped 6 feet in the air and belly flopped. Knowing that this creature killed the alligator hunter Steve Irwin I increased my paddling tenfold.

I have never been so disappointed with a kayaking trip. As I have only done this one that logistically makes sense, but that was a definite buzz kill on the dolphins. Who am I kidding? I am only exagerating. It was a blast. But we decided to head back as a storm was approaching and the sun was quickly setting.

A picture of Leslie’s dock on the bay.

The paddle back was simple as we went along with the current. It felt like the returning trip was less than 20 minutes. It is amazing to see what the current of the ocean can do to a kayaking trip.

I must appologize to my readers for the shortness of this article but there truly is not a lot to say for the beauty of kayaking on Tampa Bay. It must be experienced by all.

If I had to rate myself, I would say I am the best gift giver of all time. I don’t give people multiple gifts for their birthdays/Christmas but what I do do is give them one awesome gift that is very memorable(yes I just said do-do).

However, my girlfriend’s birthday was approaching and I was definitely struggling coming up with something heartfelt and memorable. I was dumbfounded on my inability to come up with something meaningful. This had never happened to me before.

I suppose I was fortunate that her roommate had signed up for Painting with a Twist a few months before and it seemed like a terrific idea.

After struggling for months to come up with the perfect gift idea, Painting with a Twist seemed to obvious and it is what I eventually settled on. After all, Leslie did express to me how much of a great idea it seemed. So I signed us up and told her to keep the date open.

For those of you who don’t know, Painting with a Twist is a painting class where you can bring a bottle of wine and get taught how to paint a masterpiece. The website the business runs is amazing too. It shows you all of the painting each class with demonstrate for the next month. With the knowledge of a birthdate, I was able to examine the painting and choose the most meaningful painting. Fortunately for me, I am in love with everything Florida and Leslie had casually mentioned how much she like palm trees the following week. I looked at the calendar, saw a painting of palm trees and signed us up.

We showed up and studio was much more modest than I had expected. Not only that, but the class was pretty much all females. It could be that the day that I signed us up was Mother’s day or something but it ended up being a blast.

We poured our glasses of wine and got our paint on. I’m not sure how two hours past so quickly but once it was done, we both had masterpieces of Florida palm trees with beautiful sunsets in the background.

I am not sure I can top the birthday present next year but the smiles Leslie gave in the pictures assure me that I did a decent job in showing her my appreciation for her being in my life!

Monet’s Vanilla Skies better watch out!

I have always loathed Twitter. I think it is one of the dumbest websites on the internet. I honestly don’t understand why it is one of the most popular sites on the internet. I probably never will. But for this article I will give it credit. If it wasn’t for Twitter, this article probably wouldn’t event exist.

So one night, I randomly decide to log into my Twitter account. I probably hadn’t logged into my account for atleast 2 years. But for some reason, on this random night I decided to log in and give it another chance. One of the few people I happened to follow on Twitter is Chris Jericho. Jericho is one of my top favorite wrestlers of all time. Not only is he one of the most talented wrestlers in the WWE but he is also one of the most talented speakers on the microphone of all time.

It just so happened that the first post to appear my newsfeed(I’m not sure what you call it since Twitter is a Facebook wannna-be) is Jericho promoting his band’s concert in Saint Petersburg. Not only is Jericho a WWE champion, he is also a front man of a metal band(and a NYT best selling author). I knew immediately I had to buy tickets.

The concert was on a Thursday night in downtown Saint Petersburg so it would be no sweat of my back to buy tickets and see what his band was all about.

My roommate and I headed to downtown after work and stood in line to get into the Club Detroit. It blew my mind as show time slowly crept in that not that many people were occupying the bar. But oh well. Maybe we would actually get a chance to meet him and take a picture with the champ!

The opening band was pure metal. I don’t even recall what the name of the band was. They weren’t amazing enough for me to try and remember and frankly I don’t like metal enough to even look it up. They metal~ed it up and even managed to produce a mosh pit that I wanted no part of. The show wasn’t bad by any means but I am not a fan of metal so I can’t write home about it but whatever.

Finally, after the anticpation had set in long enough Jericho’s band finally took the stage. Just like wrestling Jericho knows how to work a crowd and he got the fans pumped to 110%. Unfortunately, as soon as the concert was over he hurried off stage and didn’t speak to anyone. This really sucked but I understand.

My roommate and I noticed a few WWE wrestlers were in attendance and we decided we needed to get pictures with them. Unlike the past, we live in i-Generation times and autographs no longer suffice. Autographs have quickly been replaced by photos with smartphones. So we decided to make our ways to celebreties and get our much needed photos.

Former Intercontinental Champion Drew McIntyre

I noticed former Intercontinental Champion Drew McIntyre sitting akwardly the corner. He was excited to take a picture with us. I could tell they were ready to flea the scene so I tried to quickly aquire a photo with former 3X WWE champion Shamus and left Drew behind. I honestly felt bad because it seemed like he was willing to have a beer with us and shoot the shit. I felt even more bad once I grabbed my picture with Shamus. Shamus ended up being a complete asshole. But what can you expect? He was a ginger celebrity. I will no longer root for him. He gave me basically enough time to take a picture and walk away. Not only that, but he cut my roommate out of the picture.

3X WWE Champion Shamus

Oh well, Shamus is no where near my favorite wrestler anyways.

Truly paradise that I live in.

Last year I moved to Florida on April 1st. This was rather disheartening because I love watching Indy Races and I had just missed the Grand Prix of Saint Petersburg by one week. Even worse, I didn’t get a chance to go to either the Kentucky Speedway or the Indianapolis Motor Speedway like I had in previous years. So when Leslie told me she bought us tickets to the races for my birthday I became super ecstatic.

The Grand Prix actually sets up shop along the coast of the bay through the streets of Saint Petersburg. To describe this as exciting is an understatement. Even more so, the track runs next to building of my employment and even through our parking lot. While this does become a burden, due to the fact that we had to park three blocks away and make a trek every morning, it was definitely worth every second. The best part is the fact that the track actually runs through my parking spot. (Each day when I am one of the last to the leave the lot I like to pretend I am an Indy Car Driver…maybe one day).

The week before the race actually kicks off is insane. Downtown becomes a mess and the cars are running their practice laps and qualifiers. Yachts from all over come to park along the shore for a fun filled weekend and for me that really adds to the beauty of it all. Friday before the races I wasn’t able to get any work done. The cars were roaring right outside my window and I was as excited as ever.

Leslie forgot her earplugs

Come Saturday we realized that this race track wasn’t like most racetracks. Since the Grand Prix was a road course views were limited. Even worse, we found out that our seats were General Admission only and that didn’t provide any actual seating. This didn’t stop us from having a good time though as we were able to find a nice grassy spot to post up at thanks to the recommendation of one of my former roommates.

My Sophomore year of college I had a roommate, Ben, hellbent on making a name for himself in the racing world. Like me he was an engineer but his focus was on mechanical engineering. The gods truly blessed him as he has now succeeded at getting his foot in the door and is an engineer for one of the drivers in the Indy Racing League. My current roommate and I actually went out to eat dinner with Ben a few nights before the race and by chance randomly sat at the table next to his driver, Ed Carpenter, which was pretty freaking cool.

Since my office is literally right next to the track, my company has a Race Day party every year in the conference room. The conference room is super awesome because it basically looks down on the entire track. As such, I took the opportunity to make my non-work related appearance at one point during the day.

Once we got home and I realized my neck was flamingo pink I could officially say the day was an overall success. I am superglad I had a girlfriend amazing enough the bear through the masculine day of motorsports with me.

One day in early January, a co-worker was making her rounds through the office asking for volunteers for the Pub Crawl. What’s a pub crawl you ask? The pub crawl is where you pay $30 bucks, and get to bar hop between five bars in downtown Saint Pete for four hours.

A picture of a co-worker. He doesn’t know its posted here, but the skyline in the background makes it my best photo from the day.

This is exceptionally awesome because downtown Saint Pete is packed with nothing but bar after bar with beautiful Florida views in the background. There’s not a lot to this post really. I am only posting it simply for the fact that I wish my readers to visit the bars of downtown Saint Pete at some point (and if you can day drink during this experience it will only add to the value of the adventure).

We started the day at Cafe Alma. A quiet little restaurant in the basement of one Saint Pete’s downtown buildings. Apparently it was decided that all the volunteers from the company should meet at a breakfast location so that we could line our stomachs.

This is how the day started out.

It slowly crept to this.

And finally the day started looking like this.

I was hoping to save a place like Busch Gardens for the middle of summer when tourist season is in full stride, lines would be huge and muffin tops will be moist with sweat and exposed for all to see. Instead I chose the coldest day of the year to go to Busch Gardens. It just so happened to also be my birthday.

But there was a reason for the date that was chosen. The Goo Goo Dolls, arguably one of the best pop rock bands of the 90’s was playing a concert. It just also happened that Leslie had mentioned that the Goo Goo Dolls happened to be one of her favorite bands. Being horrible at giving Valentine’s Day gifts, I saw this the prime solution.

Unfortunately, the website didn’t tell me until after I purchased the VIP tickets that admission to the park was not included. Ok, no big deal, or so I thought. We are both Florida residents and they probably give good discounts at the door. I was wrong. To get into Busch Gardens it is $85 American Dollars. FOR ONE PERSON. Highway robbery. Never have I ever paid so much to gain admission to an amusement park. And today would not be that day either. Leslie came through in the clutch with her Active Duty Military Discount. Awesome.

I haven’t been to Busch Gardens since I was a little kid but the one thing I remember were the giraffes. So it was my obligation for this adventure to make sure that we saw the giraffes. To be honest, I was let down. You can only get so close to the giraffes unless you pay extra for one of the guided tours. So I was kind of saddened.

This inner-melancholy was quickly relieved when I found one of my other top favorite animals of the animal kingdom…The Flamingo.

One thing I did learn during this adventure was that each Busch Gardens has a particular them. The one in Tampa is Africa. This for some reason never clicked with me. I just always assumed that it was warm in Florida and therefore the Busch Gardens in Tampa had an African themed zoo. Who knew?

So in addition to the concert, this particular day was also a barbecue beer festival going on with unlimited beer sampling. What a great birthday! There’s one thing for certain with beer. Even on the coldest day in the Sunshine state, thousands of people will line up for unlimited beer. We were only able to snag two beers before it was time for the show.

I didn’t know my $30 VIP tickets were going to get us four rows back from the stage, but it very well could have been one of my life’s best purchases. The show was super phenomenal at such a close sight. I suppose The Goo Goo Dolls are past their prime and forced to only play shows at carnivals, state fairs and amusement parks but whatever, I’ll take it.

To close off one of my favorite birthday’s in my quarter century I was given an awesome gift. When thrown into the crowd, the wind guided the guitar pick perfectly four rows over the crowd and right into my hands. It was at this point I decided the day was a complete success!

There are apparently millions of Burmese Pythons overrunning southern Florida in both the Everglades and Big Cypress. Long story short, they are an nonnative predator to the Everglades and destroying the natural balance of things. So the state of Florida decided it was time to do something and opened up python hunting in the form of a competition.

All one needs to do to participate in the challenge is take an online quiz and pay $20. Then your python license is rushed in the mail to you and all you need to do is put on your ‘Murica t shirts and camo pants and your set.

Some of the guys from work and I decided to make this a weekend adventure. As we told other co-workers about our excursion we were warned of the Skunk Ape. I had never heard of the Skunk Ape before but Wikipedia quickly informed me that Skunk Ape is a hominid cryptid native to South Florida. In simple terms, Skunk Ape is the Big Foot of the Everglades.

Check out the snake skin on the wall.

Anyways, we needed to find a campground site somewhere along US-41. A few places we had in mind prior to starting the trip, but when we saw the campground next to the Official Skunk Ape Research Headquarters, we knew exactly where we were staying. I wasn’t sure what to expect from the Research Headquarters, but it ended up being a gift shop.

Our group was gawking at the snakeskin on the wall and that’s when my pal Dave found the entrance in the back. As we went though the door in the back of the gift shop, I couldn’t help but to feel like we were about to go through a freak show at a carnival.

It ended up actually being a huge covered room with several species of South Florida. It was like getting a glimpse of the Everglades without actually doing any of the dirty work. But that’s not why we drove three hours south. We drove to see the nature. We drove to capture us a python bounty.

So we set up camp and tried to hit the wilderness a little bit before dusk. Google Maps led us off a side road to a small path we could barely see from the road. Seemed like good as any place to me since we were all Python Hunting noobs. Darkness quickly approached and we were pythonless. So we headed back to camp.

The next morning we were awakened by the sounds of every creature nature has to offer at the crack of dawn. It was time. There was a path behind the campground that led to endless miles of nothing. It was beautiful. It actually resembled everything I have ever imagined Africa to look like. We ventured this way for an hour or so but the only wildlife we noticed were deer. Yes, deer in the state of Florida actually do exist.

So we headed back to the campground and went off in a different direction, north actually. That’s where we found land that resembled what you would envision the Everglades to actually look like. This is where I saw the biggest Doe I have ever seen in my life. But alas, no pythons.

We went back to the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters and that’s when we threw our stubbornness to the side and asked the locals where to head. They suggested a path behind the Post Office had yielded the best results. The path didn’t bring us any closer to the bag limit of pythons but I did notice that Post Office was the Country’s Smallest Post Office, literally.

One of the best parts about living in the Sunshine state are the professional sports teams. Before moving to Florida all I had were the Reds and the Bengals and I wasn’t about to root for a team from Ohio.

Since I’ve lived down here I have anxiously been awaiting hockey’s opening night. Some of you may have heard about the lockout which only increased the amount of time I had to wait for this night. And then finally the lockout came to an end. And January 19th was set as the date. And then the schedule was released. And the Washington Capitals were set as our first victim.

I knew I would be attending this game so I bought tickets the day they went on sale without hesitation. My transaction went through five minutes after they went on sale. The seats were nosebleeds but the game was a sold out slobberknocker. We ended up winning 6-3.

The best part about the Tampa Bay Lightning are the tesla coils built into the arena. Every time the Lightning put the puck in the net, the coils shoot off bolts through the arena. It truly is something special. Especially when you get to see it six times in one night.