The Dali Museum

The Dali Museum was amazing. There were over 170 pieces and they were all fantastic. Well not the early stuff, that was just ok. I also wasn't a huge fan of the bread painting even though it was his first internationally famous painting. Pretty boring. I loved all his surrealist paintings and Sky was particularly fond of the one that looks like Abraham Lincoln from far away and a picture of his wife Gala nude looking out a window from close up. Heather and I were also big fans of the names of Dali's paintings, who knew the guy was hilarious? Unfortunately photography was prohibited in the gallery but we still managed some cool shots of the rest of the museum.



The building is brand new, they opened it on 1/11/11


Dali mustache


Dali mustache ladies


Group mustache shot


We were told every triangle of glass was slightly different


Sky and Heather overlooking the bay


Little Bit and I


This bench was pretty amazing


Little Bit relaxing on the bench


Heather and I walking through a botanical maze outside the museum, I missed the perfect shot but I still like it

Lightning vs Panthers 4/8/2011

Heather, Sky and I took in a Tampa Bay Lightning game on a Friday night during the vacation. It was Heather & Sky's first NHL game and my first non Bruin NHL game. We got seats 7 rows up behind the goalie. The Lightning won 4-2 with a great pace to the game and had a fantastic time. Excellent stadium and it was fan appreciation night so they had live music going on outside and a great atmosphere.

View from the seats


Sky enjoying the game


Heather wanted me to pose with the cheerleader but I thought a picture with Sky and Flat Stanley was a much better idea. Feel free to notice the creeper on the right

Mote Marine Laboratory Aquarium

We visited Mote on back to back days on the trip. The first day we toured the aquarium and the second day we went on a boat cruise around the bay. The aquarium was small but amazing. They had a cool little pool outside of the large shark tank where little sting rays were swimming around and you could pet them. Sky got a bucked that she sifted trough looking for shark teeth and found a big one. The boat trip was amazing. It went around the bay where we saw dolphins, a cool bird rookery with a lot of chicks and then they caught some cool marine life with a net off the back of the boat that was then shown to us by a marine biologist.

I like the statue outside


So surprised Heather posed for this picture


Heather, Flat Stanley & Sky


Jellyfish and stuff


Sky and I


Egret chicks on the rookery


Sky holding a seahorse


Ben and Snook in front of an awesome mural


I love this pic of Sky and I walking to the building with the dolphins


Kid is a straight up playa in the making


Not to brag but my girlfriend is absolutely gorgeous


Sky took this pic, she has a ton of talent with a camera. There is no doubt she will be a professional photographer if she wants to be

Big Cat Habitat

One of my favorite days was when we went to the Big Cat Habitat in Sarasota. There were ton's of animals there in addition to cats including bears, primates, exotic birds & roaming baby goats. It was a little rustic, great people watching and I think all of the animals were saved. They put on a show mid day that was free and amazing. They showcased some animals and the owner trained 3 of the tigers.

Pretty hilarious way to great visitors


Lil Bit patting a baby goat


More baby goats


Heather and I trying to strike the classic facebook pose


Sky and I striking a facebook pose


Tigger staring down his brother Nelson


Tigger in the show


Part of the show


This lion was pretty annoyed at the Midwestern woman who you can just see on the left


I seriously thought Ligers were fake. Pretty awesome and apparently she will grow to be huge!


Pretty ladies and the liger


Pretty ladies in front of a ham of a Kodiak bear


Heather and Sky watching the bear


Looks like a great place for a bear to hang out on a hot day


Bears playing in the water


Ring tailed Lemar's


Hard to tell but Raja was the biggest cat there


Hottest cougar I've seen in a long time (I apologize)


A ball next to the cougars cage


Marmoset enjoying a lollipop


Sky looking cute in front of a Bengal


We were told this gorgeous cat was kind of mean

13 of 30-Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King

This book consists of 3 novellas and 1 short story. This book just didn't do it for me except for the last story which was fantastic and almost carried the book all by itself. Unfortunately, it didn't. Going into it I was in the mood for a scary story and the book's title is epic so I had high hopes. Didn't happen, I thought it was going to with the first story but then he switched gears and lost me. The second story was good too but the writing was pretty brutal at times (sorry I hate to admit it). Who uses a scrunchy? Seriously it's 2011...

1922 - The first story was a confession by a farmer who killed his wife with the help of his 14 year old son in 1922. I was excited in the middle of the novella when it began to get scary but King shifted gears and the last half was more tense than scary. I was honestly just so so with this one. There were a couple choppy bits of writing that I had a hard time getting past and the story never reached that great level. It petered right out for me when it essentially switched from a ghost story to a story of young outlaws.

Big Driver - The second story was a story about vengeance. A writer in her late 30's gets trapped and brutally rapped by a huge red neck in the woods of Southern Massachusetts. While dealing with the pain, she hunts him down and the others responsible for allowing him to trap her. At times there were some pretty disturbing content and I enjoyed the story a lot. My only issue with this one is that King was a little awkward with some of the GPS & technology writing. It almost felt like he wrote it a while ago and had to edit it to catch up with the times. Luckily that was at the beginning and the story made up for it.

Fair Extension - The third story was the shortest and had some pretty good parts despite the plot being a bit on the dull side. Basically a guy is sick and makes a deal with what I assume is a demon to get well. All of his cosmic bad luck has to be transferred to someone he hates who is his long time best friend who he's basically just super jealous of. I liked the parts when he was making the deal but ended up just getting a little bummed out for the poor schmuck who never did anything to this guy. He was basically just better at everything and then this a hole dumps all his crap on him and sleeps like a baby.

A Good Marriage - The last story was the best, it was about a wife who accidentally finds that her long time husband has one of the darkest secrets imaginable. I don't want to give away too much but it was amazing and covered some subject matter that is fascinating and one that I'm surprised isn't written about more in fiction.

Florida Vacation

Heather, Sky and I just got back from our 2 week Florida vacation late last night and had a blast. We went from April 1st through the 17th, drove there and back and stayed in Bradenton Florida. I'm having a hard time remembering exactly what we did every day but the following is pretty close;

Thurs/Fri-Drove through the night, left during a snow storm, stayed just south of Ocala, FL
Sat-Pool
Sun-Siesta Key & Hard Rock Casino
Mon-Outlets
Tues-Sky was sick, golf, nightlife in Bradenton
Wed-Pool
Thur-Mote Aquarium
Fri-Mote boat trip then Lightning Game
Sat-Beach
Sun-Big Cat Habitat
Mon-Pool
Tues-Beach
Wed-Dali Museum
Thurs-Pool & Golf
Fri-Pool & Mattigans with Heathers Mom
Sat-Drove from Bradenton, FL to Richmond VA. Tornadoes
Sun-Drove from Richmond to Maine - traffic was awful

By the pool


Lot's of driving


Nocturnal buddy outside the condo



Ben and I mid round