Check out my new blog

2007-09-15T16:36:00.000-04:00

Since I've posted so much on this blog, I figured I needed a 2nd one. Check it our HERE.

Our Vacation to Florida

2007-03-17T09:24:00.000-04:00

Day 1 (3/7/07) Travel day 1

Woke up to 6 deg weather with 20+ MPH winds. Thank God we're flying to Florida! We flew out of Boston's Logan airport just past noon and arrive in FT Myers, FL just before 5PM. Air temperature: 81 deg. Nothing like a 75 deg temp change! Welcome to Florida! After making our way to the baggage claim area, something happened that has never happened in my life and I never expect it to happen again. Our luggage was the first to come down the belt. This is going to be a good vacation.
We picked up our rental, a 2007 Nissan Sentra, and headed to Ft Myers beach to our hotel. Traffic barely moved! This would become a re-occurring theme during our time in Ft Myers. The city has completely out grown it's infrastructure. We eventually made it to our hotel, Ft Myers Beach Holiday Inn, and headed out by foot for dinner and drinks. We had a good meal at the South Beach Grille, along with some beers and a mudlside. This would just be the beginning of our drinking. Laura was trying to fit the whole vacation into one evening and did not want to stop.

Day 2 (3/8/07) Sox Game 1

Happy birthday to me! I'm a little groggy from all the alcohol I consumed last night, but I have tickets to a Red Sox game so we get moving. Grabbed some breakfast (Mmmm cinnamon french toast) and drove up to City of Palms Park for a 1:05 PM start time. It's a beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, temps in the 80's. This would be our weather for our whole week in Florida. Arrive at the stadium at about 11:30 AM. Plenty of time to watch batting practice and walk around.

The new Red Sox Japenesse import, Daisuke Matsuzaka (Dice-K) was signing autographs for close to an hour. Seemed to be having a great time. All the media and fan attention doesn't seem to bother him at all.

Always good to see Johnny Pesky at the ballpark.

View from our seats

After the game (Sox win 2-1) we had dinner at Jersey's sport pub and headed back to the hotel where we watched the sun set over the Gulf of Mexico.

Day 3 (3/9/07) Beach Day

Today we woke up, had breakfast, and checked out of our hotel. We went to Publix to pick up some sandwiches, drinks, and a cheap cooler. We drove down to Lover's Key State Beach. We had a great relaxing day at the beach.

After the beach we drove 3 hours northeast to Lakeland. The drive went by pretty quick. We just followed the GPS and listened to my IPod. All praise to the mighty GPS; I'll never drive in an unfamiliar area without one again! It takes all the stress out of navigating; thanks Dad. We checked into our hotel and headed for a quick dinner. Found a Sports Pub, The Gym, and jackpot; Killian's Red on tap!

Day 4 (3/10/07) Sox game 2

Why did we drive 3 hours to Lakeland; Red Sox at Tigers! We arrived early again to check out the park, Joker Marchant Stadium, and watch batting practice. The crowd was at least 50% Red Sox fans; not bad for a road game.

Wily Mo is one big dude!

Josh Beckett is on the mound for the Sox today

Coco

Tek

After the game, Sox win again, we drove over to Orlando. The drive only took about 1 hour. When we arrived, we checked in our hotel, the Comfort Suite's near the Universal gate. We headed over to City Walk and settled on Bubba Gump Shrimp for dinner. Good food, poor beer selection. I find it completely unacceptable when I can't get either a Killian's Red or Sam Adams! Afterwards we met up with my cousin Alex and a few of his friends for drinks at TGI Friday's. Jackpot: Killian's Red on tap! We stayed out until 2, sprung ahead to 3 and went to bed. I felt short changed that we lost an hour of our vacation to daylight savings.

Day 5 (3/11/07) Theme park 1

We woke up, grabbed the continental breakfast and headed over to Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios. We decided to go to Islands first because we figured the lines would be longer. I didn't bring my camera today so no pictures. We did all the big rides, Laura even volunteered for front row on the Hulk roller coaster. After going through the park, we had lunch at the NBA restaurant and headed over to Universal. The best ride at Universal was probably The Mummy roller coaster. Very fast and dark! Lots of fun. After a full day of rides we had dinner at the Hard Rock and called it a day.

Day 6 (3/12/07) Theme park 2

Alex had the day off so he decided to go to Epcot with us. His cousin Joe, who is a Disney employee also came. Joe was nice enough to get us into the park at a great price.

We started off going on some rides; Soaring was amazing, Test Track was pretty good, and Space Mission was great. After the rides we decided it was time to drink our way around the world. As mentioned on Alex's blog, this soon turned into hats around the world.

Old Mexico

Norway

China

Germany

Canada

After making fools out of ourselves and having a great time we decided we still had some time and headed over to Disney MGM. We rode the Tower of Terror; while in line, Alex scared some little kid by talking about how a little kid once died on this ride. He wasn't taking any chances and decided to leave. Pretty funny.....or mean! Take your pick. Next we went on the rockin' roller coaster. Joey go upside down real soon!

After we had enough of the rides we went to my Aunt Donna's for dinner. Had a good time visiting my family who I haven't seen for a while. I especially like Kate's dinner blessing.

On the way back to the hotel, we just missed being part of a three car accident. We would have been the third car, but were barely missed. It was so loud, at first, I did think I was hit. Everyone was o.k. It was just a matter of time. Everyone says people in the Northeast drives crazy, but we got nothing on Floridians! I don't think I saw one car use a directional my whole visit.

Day 7 (3/13/07) Going Home

Unfortunately our vacation came to an end. We drove to the airport and dropped off our rental. Nissan Sentra = great gas mileage. And boarded our flight. Upon returning to Boston, our bags were not the first ones down the chute. Oh Well, back to reality!

3 days later

I had to shovel a foot of snow!

I need a vacation!

2006-07-04T21:31:00.000-04:00

Here's To The State Of...

Some anti-bush music form Pearl JAM

Pretty Good Weekend...Pretty Good

2006-06-12T21:15:00.000-04:00

Laura & I left work on Friday afternoon and headed to UMass Memorial to visit her brother Al and his wife Jen. Jen had just given birth to their first child, Kylie Jean Carlsen. Here is a picture of Laura with her new niece.

On Saturday, we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary. We went to our favorite restaurant, the 111 Chop House, for dinner. It was great as usual!

Later that night about 10PM, we got a call from Laura's other brother, Dave. The Red Sox had a double header on Saturday but due to the rainy weather they could only get one game in. Dave had tickets for the 2nd game which was postponed until Sunday at noon. He couldn't go, so he offered us his tickets. Sweet!

The weather cleared up and we had a beautiful day at Fenway. After getting the tickets, we were happy to see the tickets were not only free, but they were really nice seats. Loge Box seats up the 3rd base line behind the visitors dugout. Here are some pics.

Josh Beckett pitched o.k., but left in the 6th trailing 4-2. The Bullpen did a good job shutting down the Rangers the rest of the way. Which brings us to the bottom of the ninth, 2 outs, 2 on, down by 2. Big Papi at bat down to his last strike.....

3 run home run! Game Over! Absolute insanity ensues at the old Fens. Sorry I had a Globe photo for the this one. I was busy acting like a complete lunatic.

Thanks Dave.

Backyard wildlife

2006-04-30T15:34:00.000-04:00

The Red Sox will win the World Series

2006-04-11T20:04:00.002-04:00

It's that time of the year again! Every year I am overcome with hope and hit a point where I believe the Red Sox will win the World Series. I hit that point today. It seems to get earlier every year. But the Sox look fantastic so far. We finally learned two years ago that it's all about pitching. Well, this has the potential to be the best group of arms the Sox have ever assembled. This coming from about the biggest Petey fan you'll ever find. We are 6-1 and Manny hasn't even had a good at-bat yet. Just wait 'till this year. God I'm happy the Sox are back!

We are now Home-Owners!

2006-02-28T07:44:00.000-05:00

And we are broke!

We are buying a HOUSE!

2006-02-03T17:39:00.000-05:00

Casa de Gordon (if all goes well)

Sorry Myles, they are taking the hoop

Kitchen (with 2 big closets)

Dining Room (the Kitchen in the Background)

Dining Room

Living Room (with Laura and the Dining Room in the background)

Living Room