Observations From The Front Porch in SW Florida

These are a few things that I found interesting lately:

-A sign on a lot near us... "Please pick up your poop". I believe the reference was to the neighborhood dogs
-70 year old women wearing Bikinis at the beach
-People walking barefoot on the Dog Beach
-Families with 12 year old boys eating at Hooters
-Guys who walk into the weight room with full UnderArmour uniforms on, pick up a 50lb dumbbell, put it down, and leave
-EVERYBODY underdressed at restaurants (This needs to be copied up North!)
-Retirees riding on Motorcycles
-BMWs, Lexus, Caddies, and Mercedes parked in front of every Goodwill Thrift Store
-Too many Grouper Sandwiches.
-Tag Sales (Don't they know it's called Garage Sales)
-Unbelievable amount of vacant storefronts (the economy ain't changing' down here folks)
-Elderly Seniors directing traffic (scares me a little but everybody needs a job)
-Finally, one bridge in & one bridge out of here....usually 30 minutes to get off this island unless you swim.

Our Superbowl Party

First off, we did our best to gather a diverse mix of friends and neighbors in our rented duplex home in Ft Myers Beach FL. while on vacation. It was a hard chore coming up with just the right formula based on the interest level (or lack thereof) in Football from some of the invitees. The first to show up was my next-door neighbor Phil (name changed) who is always cheery but very perplexed since he's from New England and bet against the Patriots (now he's a happy guy). He's our chart man who pulls together the $$$ and sells boxes on the chart at $.50 a pop. Then came his wife Matilda with her HOT wings (I mean chicken wings you perverts).

Next to show up was Shirley who walked in with a Patriot's balloon and asked me where to hang it. I told her to walk down to the beach and let it go South (I'm still not over the sickening loss by the Ravens). Following Marie was John with his wife Delores right behind him. John had three bottles of wine in his grip and just wanted to know who was going to open the 1st bottle (he wasn't even all the way into the room yet). His wife Delores was the one I remember from last year who spent the entire game talking about unrelated things; in fact, she forgot who was actually playing in the Superbowl. She didn't let us down this year and left before the 4th quarter even started.

Our friends from Baltimore, Jennifer and Laslo, came with fresh veggies that they had just brought over the Florida border, avoiding the fruit and vegetable checkpoint set up by the Florida State Police. Betty and Carol were two Southern belles who spoke with Gone With The Wind accents (I'm still trying to find out if they were put on or not).

So away we go with the game (after that embarrassing performance by so-called celebrities struggling with the National Anthem). Why can't they just let the crowd sing together instead of forcing all those personal renditions by those getting the big bucks to show up?

At the start of the game we had 16 boxes un-filled. I overheard one of our ladies tell her husband "just buy one box, you only need one to win". Come on...$.50 a box!! Anyway, Phil & I slapped extra money down for the rest of the boxes just to make it interesting. And who do you think won the 1st two quarters?....MOI. After hearing all the complaints about how the card was rigged I merely stated that I had spent my entire allowance (given to me by my wife Geri) on making the chart interesting enough for everyone.

Well, we had a good time with all the folks and the food was good. There was only one problem.....THE RAVENS SHOULDA BEEN THERE!!!