Barbara emailed me some pictures, my mom forwarded me the same pictures, Jenn sent me a couple through IM and Margaret uploaded some to Photobucket. So far, this is my favorite one... the caption SHOULD read "We finally figured out how to drag their attention away from the Canucks game" because as you can see, even though they're at the hospital in Danielle's room, the TV is on in the background, with the game on :)

This is what my Vespa looked like last Sunday, the morning after the accident. You can see pretty much exactly where the car smacked into me. There's some damage at the front as well, I think what happened is when she got hit, she pivoted and slammed the front end in to the car. I believe (because I don't remember) that was what caused me to be thrown off to the right, plus my forward momentum of about 25mph made me not only skid around but roll too. That would explain why I have scrapes up and down two opposite sides of my helmet, as well as shredded my new microfibre shirt that my mom bought for me while I was at home a couple weeks back. First time I wore it, too! The INSIDE of the collar is shredded, as was the lanyard I had around my neck (the breakaway section worked as advertised too) and my John Hardy necklace got mangled, too. Other casualties of the wreck were my new Prada sunglasses that were about a week old, the pants I had on and the toes of my sneakers where my feet dragged along the ground.

What you can't tell from the pictures, is that while we took these pictures, the scooter was running! We picked it up off the trailer, put it on the center stand and fired it up. She sputtered a bit at first, and then spit out some smoke where the oil had sloshed around inside and burned up for the first 30 seconds or so. Aside from the smoke at the beginning, she ran well. Lee actually climbed aboard and road it around the parking lot a bit. We quickly went over it, part by part and he estimated about $1100-$1200 in parts.. things like brake levers, mirrors... that sort of thing. The running board and seat grab handle were the big multi-hundred expenses, but all the little bits and pieces, lights and things quickly added up. The bad news came a few days later, when we got the estimate from the body shop. On top of the $1400 in parts (labor extra of course) the shop manager at H&R Autobody wrote an official estimate for the insurance company at $2225 for paint, labor & bodywork. 3600 give or take, Cayman dollars, for repairs to make it roadworthy. She was $4200 new in December '05 and Lee figured I could have sold her for $3000 as-is the day of the accident (before, obviously). Looks like she's going to be a write-off. I haven't been back there since the day after the accident, I think she would be sad that I didn't come to visit sooner... Lee's got another LX125 at the shop that someone who left the island is selling for about what I would get from the insurance company.

I'm undecided still about getting back on another one. A lot of people have offered their opinions one way or another. I've heard a few "you're not invincible, you know." To those naysayers, I say this: "I was hit by a car at about 25-30mph while I was doing 20-25mph and more or less walked away from it. I FUCKING AM invincible! Aside from the cuts and scrapes, bumps and bruises, shock and road rash, I didn't have one broken bone, not one fracture. Jesus H Christ, my bones might even be made out of Adamantium for all I know! I'm just waiting for someone to really get under my skin and see if blades pop out of my knuckles! I've already got the sideburns for it!

I had to go back in to work last night around 8:30 and even in my Jeep I was SO paranoid about getting hit by some fucking inattentive jackass that by the time I got home I had a pretty nasty tension headache in my upper back and neck. I was able to get to sleep around 11, mostly because I was so exhausted from only getting a couple hours of sleep the night before. I ended up taking some sleep-eze on Saturday night, so I didn't want to take some again so soon. Sunday night I took my last antibiotic (Doc gave me more after the hospital 'scrip ran out, didn't want me getting a staph infection in my road rash) and then this morning I took the last anti-inflammatory he prescribed me.

I remembered seeing some Advil nighttime at the supermarket last night, so I stopped in at the little pharmacy at the four-way stop in West Bay. I didn't see it on the shelf, so I asked the pharmacist, but he told me he didn't have any. Damn. "But I do have these..." he said.

Turns out you can by Nurofen over the counter in the Cayman Islands! As you can see by the .co.uk link, Nurofen is a British drug. It's ibuprofen, like Advil, with the addition of--wait for it--codeine. Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick, you can buy this shit without a prescription?? I picked up a packet of it to try it out and will see how things go. Something tells me I'm not going to have any trouble falling asleep tonight.

Shoes are still proving to be a bit of a bother. I wore my Geox sneakers to work yesterday, going 100% down the comfort alley. Didn't work too well. by 10:00 my feet were dying. I went the opposite tack today and laced up my Doc Martens. It worked. My feet were held in place and supported and it felt a lot better... until about 1:00, then they started aching again. Last night I got home early and soaked my feet in a bucket of hot water and epsom salts, but tonight I haven't had a chance to yet. Perhaps I'll do it before I go to bed, and then wrap some ice packs around my left foot for good measure.

I haven't posted them to flickr yet, but in the meantime, the pics from the hospital, pics of my scoot and pics of the road rash and bumps and bruises are here at this link on facebook:

 

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=41670&l=c5678&id=904890192

 

 

As we lingered over espresso we realized that we were going to miss our train to Venice, so we decided to order some profiteroles and a slice of fresh fruit tart and catch the next train. As good as the chocolate profiteroles were, we both agreed that the fruit tart, with the light custard and fresh strawberries, kiwi fruit, grapes and plums with a glaze over it was the better of the two.

I'm SURE that this wasn't going through their heads when they decided to pull a prank on a friend's car in the long-term parking lot at the airport, but it's what happened as told to me by someone who talked to the perps last night:

We started the day with a plan: take the subway to the Vatican, mosey around there, see what struck our fancy, then make our way southeast through Campo Dei Fiori to the ancient city, pass through the Coliseum, check out the Circus Maximus and then catch the subway back to Roma Termini and catch the train back to Florence in time for (a late for me, early for Florentines) dinner.

It was about a 2.5 hour train ride, but it went pretty quick. Watching the countryside roll by out the window you could tell as soon as you left Tuscany as the hills gave way to flat plains. We rolled in to Rome around 3:00 in the afternoon and went first to our hotel to check in.

I'm not sure what prompted it... maybe it was Freddie Mercury's birthday, or the anniversary of his death, I'm not sure. Everywhere I turned, the whole time I was in Italy there were references to Queen everywhere.

We first noticed it when we were in Rome. I heard Radio Ga-Ga coming out of a storefront and I mentioned to Tina that it was a good song, but there was this "band" called the Kleptones who did a Queen/Beastie Boys mashup that was one of my favorite songs at the moment.

A couple days later we were in Venice and walked past a little glass shop and the proprietor was sitting at his laptop and he had a Queen song blasting out the little speakers. I pointed it out, but Tina at this point didn't remember hearing it in Rome. Five minutes later ANOTHER shop had Radio Ga-Ga playing loud enough to hear in the street. I laughed and said that was the third time we'd heard Queen and the second time we heard Radio Ga-Ga.

As we were walking back to the bus station in Venice, we came across a poster that had Freddie Mercury's face on it! I don't know if it was a cover/tribute band or what. I should have taken a picture of it. We moved along and shared a little giggle about it.

  The next day we were sitting in a piazza cafe in Verona with my cousin Rafaella when all of a sudden... this guy walks by with a Queen t-shirt on! Tina pointed it out and I was quick enough to get a photo of it. Raffaella looked at me like I was crazy, until we explained what was going on what with all the Queen references, she laughed and said "well I dunno about Queen, they're kind of old aren't they?" We finished lunch and were walking around Verona looking at the sites and a Queen song came on the radio and we all laughed.

A few days later, when I was back in Florence I decided against the line to climb to the lantern of the duomo and instead went for the belltower. Just as high, less crowded and actually gives you a view of the dome itself rather than being on top of it. As I was climbing the stairs (and that really kicked my ass, it was a tougher climb that the cupola of St Peters in Rome) I came across this scene and had to snap a picture of it.   What are the chances??? We heard Queen once more before I left Frankfurt, but by then it was giggle and move on and I can't remember if it was Radio Ga-Ga or what.

Update!: I nearly forgot the icing on this particular cake! The night before I flew back to Miami, I was staying in a hotel just outside of Frankfurt and had a terrible headache so I stayed in rather than see any of Frankfurt. I was flipping channels on the tv in the hotel room and it was the FINAL of the German version of Pop/American/Canadian/Whatever Idol, I think it was Deutschland Superstar or something. It was down to the LAST TWO contestants and they were really giving it their all fr the crowd and for the judges. The first guy comes out and... belts out "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" by none other than-- QUEEN. I had a hysterical fit of laughter all by myself and then wrote in my moleskine to remember it when I made this post. Of course then I forgot until just now. :)

Yeah, well that's more of a sight gag... try to imagine me making swimming motions with my arms. Anyway. Im back in Florence this afternoon after spending two days in Venice, a day in Verona and then heading up to Valdagno to spend a day and a half with my family. I'm in the process of downloading the pics from my memory card and posting them (I threw them up on Flickr as part of the Italy Trip set, but they arent really tagged or described yet) before doing a walking recon of Florence before I hit it tomorrow with the camera.

I was worried that I wasn't going to get any lunch today as the train was delayed and I didn't arrive til 1500, when everything shuts down for a few hours. Fortunately the butcher and bakery around the corner were still open so I picked up some Proscuitto di Parma and some Friulano Salami and a hunk of bread (it's like focaccia, but it's made without any salt so it has another name that I can't remember). Now that that's in me, Im ready to hit the road running.

Last night we all got together for a "family dinner"... reservations for 30, please! Lots of pictures there, too but I haven't posted them yet.

Two more days in Florence, then Pisa on the way to Frankfurt and then Sunday morning back on a plane for 9 hours to Miami and then Cayman just in time to unpack, have a shower and try to grab a few hours sleep before work Monday morning!

I promised to post something in Italian, but I'll leave that for next week when I'm home and have collected my thoughts (and looked up the words I don't know) :)

OK, so I was expecting a LOT of scooters, but good lord!

Quick note here to point out the pictures from Rome I posted on Flickr. I only picked and posted about 20 or so of the 250 (love digital, eh?) so I'll post more and put in descriptions later. For now, it's off to the train station to head to Venice.

Work has been CRAZY the past few months. I STILL haven't gotten around to posting my travel schedule from January, just for a laugh. I haven't left work before 5:30 since I can't even remember. Monday was another one of those nights, however I had there plans, so I hit the road at 4:59.

My friend Suzie was down visiting, and she wanted to cook one night, so I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone. Saturday after diving we went shopping and then came back here and started cooking.

We started off with two bowls, one to whip cream in and one to start mixing up the other ingredients for the filling. I brewed some espresso and poured the remainder of the bottle of Appleton Estate into it and started soaking the savoiardi biscuits. Yup, you got it, we made Tiramisu.

Sunday morning we went to Vespa Church and then came home and made up some tomato sauce. I had meat sauce already, but I thought it was a bit thick for what we had in mind. We let that cool a bit while we went to Copper Falls with John and Ed and then came back, blanched some noodles, whipped up some bechamel and started building lasagna.

HOLY COW what a lot of work! I've only ever done it once before, and it took about three hours to do last time, too. We finally finished around 11:00 and put it all in the fridge overnight.

Monday night I left work like Fred Flintstone right at 5:00 and fired it into the oven around 5:45. Steph & Zac showed up about 6:45, right before Matty & Joy & the baby. James made it right before dinner. We cracked into a couple bottles of wine, pulled the lasagna out at 7:30 and got to eatin. It was goooood. Just when everyone was getting full of Lasagna, Salad and Garlic bread, I told them to save some room because as rich and calorie-filled as the lasagna was, there was still dessert!

Once we were all finished, we headed up to the Cracked Conch. Ratskyn was playing outside at the bar down by the water. The setup was good, they sounded great and I even got a couple good pictures of the band!

I've been mucking with Flickr to get a mosaic of the photos into this post, but it's frustrating me, so just go to my Flickr page and see the new photos for yourself :)

...Like we're not, but I mean literally. A couple days ago, Zac found this picture online and it struck a chord with him, so he copied it and forwarded it to John, Jake and I with the caption "If John was a dog" in honor of John's infamous picture. We had a good laugh at it and John punched me in the arm when I got home that night because it made everyone think about his picture again. I laughed and said "oh this has a blog post written ALL OVER it" and he said "you better not post that picture of me again, you bastard" so I said I would be fair and post the one of me up as well. It's too bad that we don't have one of Zac in that position as well...

Friday night was Zac's birthday. Usually Zac & Steph celebrate "birthday weeks" instead of birthDAYs, but we didn't all get together until Friday night which was his actually birthday.

I ran into them at lunchtime and we made a plan to meet up at the Hard Rock Cafe down in George Town at the south end of the harbor and start crawling north from there ending up at Calico Jack's at Public beach. The plan as Hard Rock, Margaritaville, Hammerheads, Rackham's, Aqua Beach, Decker's, Legendz and then Calico's.

I caught up with them a bit later at Hammerheads and the crawl was already in full swing. We stayed at Hammerheads for a few beers and a couple of shots. Gordy was already there and Paulie & Catherine showed up with a friend of hers who's down visiting. We ponied up there and then walked over to Rackham's from there. We stayed at Rackham's for awhile, Eleni and Emma showed up there, and Super-fan Kendi was there with her friend who's visiting from Victoria and had a couple shots with us. We ended up staying longer at Rackham's than we initially planned for so we skipped ahead right to Legendz from there.

 By the time we got to Legendz, we were all fairly lubed up with alcohol. Someone ordered a round of shots, and even though it was well past breakfast, we bellied up to the bar and downed 'em. As you can see in the picture, Zac was still smiling at this point. I lost track of how many shots he did, but my count was about a half-dozen or so, plus a few mixed drinks along the way.

 

 After that round of shots, things started to get a little crazy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We finished up there around 11:00 and headed to Calico Jack's and closed the bar there. 

Calico Jack's is a beer & shots bar. There's really no getting away from it. In hindsight, it's probably not the best place to END a bar crawl, as you really don't have much of a resistance to shots anymore. I ordered a round of Jagerbombs for the boys, and then Renee also ordered a round, almost at the same time that Matty ordered a round of... something. Not sure what it was but it tasted like it had some Crown Royal in it or some other sort of whiskey. The funny thing about this picture of Zac is he's making a face, like he can even taste anything at this point! :)

John and I got home at about 12:30 (Calico's closes up at 12:00) and I went straight to bed. I didn't feel too drunk, despite the half dozen shots, and the last three coming within minutes of each other, but I guess they hadn't kicked in yet. I woke up around 3:30 with acid in my throat and the "uh-oh" thought on my lips. It was a long night. I think my lunch hadn't bee sitting too well, and in hindsight, I remember having heartburn as I got off the bus downtown to meet up with everyone for the crawl. I made a mental note to take a Zantac before I went to bed, but then, of course, I forgot. I think had I not been drinking I would have been fine, or had I only been drinking, I would have been fine, but the two together was too much for my system to handle. Saturday morning I felt like assssss and slowly sipped a quart of Gatorade watered down with about a quart of water. After that and a bowl of rice & turkey pot pie over it to soak up any excess I started feeling human again until I passed out on the couch at two o'clock and slept until about seven that night.

 

They say pictures speak a thousand words, so here for your own discourse are a few thousand words describing Zac's death spiral into the hallowed halls of infamous Internet pictures: (click for larger views)

So this past weekend, our old roommate Jake got married. Ironically, the invitation showed up in the mail today. Thanks a lot, Cayman Postal Service!

Steph (who's like a sister to me, J ;) ) was worried that they wouldn't know we were coming because we didn't RSVP, but come onnnn like we'd miss this!

Johnny Rotten (the not-quite-littlest hobo) even flew back onto The Rock from his Immigration Vacation® to attend!

I picked up John at the airport last Tuesday at about five o'clock, and it turned out Jake was at the airport picking up some family from the same flight. We took a swing by Big Daddy's and got some Grolsch flippy-top beers and joined Jake and his family down at the Harbourview Apartments for happy hour.

Wednesday we all met up at Legendz for dinner

Thursday The Not-Quite-Littlest-Hobo and I popped into Sunshine Grill for their Thanksgiving turkey buffet. First drink was included with the buffet dinner, so I stuck to my "next time I go to Sunshine Grill, I'm going to have a Painkiller" promise. Whoooo boy. Following that, we went down to Decker's to meet up with FNG and his friend Snowflake who was visiting from Vancouver. Jason the bartender (who was well into Movember) asked me what I wanted to drink. I wanted to stick with rum, so I ordered a Collins. He looked at me funny and said I should aim higher in life and poured me their signature Blood Orange Mojito. In a pint glass. By the time we made it up to Legendz later, I was pretty fuzzy.

Friday, well what can I say that hasn't already been said. Friday was the day of the wedding. All week the weather was not cooperating. We had an early nor'wester that churned up Seven Mile Beach pretty well, the temperature dropped into the LOW SEVENTIES and the wind was blowing just above a breeze. We opened up the windows and balcony door and had the a/c off all week.

When I came out of my windowless office on Friday afternoon to meet up with the boys (and Stephie) it was still breezy, but the sun was shining! I kinda chuckled to myself and made a point of asking Jake which God he prayed to for that. :) It was too late though, the wedding planner moved the ceremony inside at the Ritz-Carlton. We got there just before five, after walking across the gallery and past a piano that Gordy couldn't help but stop and tickle.

We got to the Ceremony just in time and sat down together in the same row, right in front of the music(a violinist and a flautist). I leaned over to John and said "And then there was this one time... and band camp..." and his reaction was priceless. Jake was standing up front with the minister awaiting everyone, and surprisingly he looked cool as a cucumber (although he did say later that the Jager was just what the Doc(Jelly) ordered). The rest of the wedding party made their way up and they got under way. For the second wedding in a row that I've been too, the ceremony was brief, and before you knew it, they were kissing to seal the deal and making their way down the aisle.

 Drunkenness occurs when you have too much alcohol for your liver to filter out and the alcohol gets into your bloodstream causing impairment. According to an email that goes around every now and then signs of alcohol intoxication are: a lack of volume control, ravenous appetite for kebab or Denny's and karaoke.

Logic dictates that if you bypass your liver and get the alcohol directly into your bloodstream, you'll get drunker, faster.

But HOW to get that alcohol directly into your bloodstream? Injection? Too risky. Orally? That's not bypassing your liver. Your mucous membranes are another thing altogether though. You can absorb the alcohol right through them! How to get alcohol in contact with your mucous membranes? Just like in the picture. A wide, shallow vessel such as the bottom of a beer bottle works just fine. The trick is you're not drinking through your nose, the trick is to get your nose close enough to the liquid that when you inhale quickly, it creates a vacuum and the alcohol can get atomized into particles small enough to go right up your nose.

Of course, I'm completely talking out of my ass and I was already pretty damn drunk in the first place to even attempt this. The alcohol in question in this picture is champagne. Not only did it clear out my sinuses, but after I snorted it up there, I could FEEL the carbonation in the champagne bubbling inside my head. It made my eyes water and I don't remember if it made me drunker because I was already bombed.

What was the reason for the champagne? Our old buddy and roommate from The Ranch, Jake was down here with his whole family to get married. There'll be more posts and pictures coming in the next few days as I remember it and get things in order. If you'd like to jump right to the pictures, they're posted up at Flickr. I dropped the $$ on a Pro account renewal this afternoon and did a little housekeeping of my photos.

Halloween is a big event in Cayman but not so much for the kids

Meet Mike. Mike is a friend of my little brother's. They started hanging out back in high school years ago and we haven't been able to get rid of him since... I kid... I kid... 

I've told the story of The Shocker more than a few times over the years,both in short form and long form. When I told Zac, Johnny Rotten & Seb on the way into town one night, the whole jeep was shaking with the boys laughing so hard. I hadn't seen John laugh so hard since the Elizabeth/Coneheads kissing scene. When that happened I was afraid he stopped breathing he was face down on the carpet laughing so hard.

Anyway, Mike came over this afternoon and I had the camera out so I thought I'd post this up here just so the boys could put a face to the story. Here he is in all his, uh, glory.

One of these days I'll post the whole Shocker story in all it's gory details (and I do mean gory, especially now that you can picture this guy within the story) when it's a slow news week.

...gets posted on docjelly.com! :)

...gets posted online and at flickr. :)

I've got my webcam up and pointing out the window. It's not the best view right now, I need to fid something taller to put it on so the bars of the balcoy aren't obscuring the camera, and it's a bit washed out as the sun is going down, facing the camera, AND there's some window tint on the door that it's behind.

It refreshes every minute or so, but to refresh your view, you have to hit refresh (F5). If you want to link directly to it, it's http://docjelly.is-a-geek.org/ww.jpg

Update: Since Ernesto doesn't realistically pose a threat to us anymore, im taking the webcam offline. If he should radically change course and come this way again, I'll put it back up.

 

Little did she know that it was all part of the setup. While we were taking her out for a scooter ride, all our friends were congregating in South Sound at Robert's Treehouse.

Last weekend a bunch of us congregated at the Cayman Islands Yacht Club to board Gordy's new boat, the Aquasition. He's had it down here for a few months now, and is just getting his charter operation up and running. To celebrate the launch of Aquazure and also a warm-up, pre-going away party weekend for Sharon, we rounded up a couple coolers full of cold frosty beverages and went for a cruise in North Sound.

Aside from the usual suspects (Miller Lite for John, Kokanee for FNG and Michelob Ultra for Gordy and myself) I also brought along a little something I whipped up last Saturday: Minted lime syrup. The reasoning behind it was simple: Mojitos without all the work and utensils. Saturday afternoon I made a simple syrup and then steeped 2 packages of mint leaves in it and then soaked a half-dozen limes in it before straining it and pouring it into a Nalgene bottle to bring on the boat. 2oz of white rum (which in the end we forgot to bring) 2 oz of the syrup, over ice and topped with some club soda and a mint leaf garnish and that would be it. No muddling, no half-inch of sugar sitting in the bottom of the glass, just pure, refreshing, alcopop.

We headed out towards Stingray City to see if we could catch up with Zac, who was working that day. As we got out towards the sandbar, we saw Moby Dick was anchored at the barrier reef, so we pulled up alongside and dropped anchor. Zac was in the water with some customers, looking for the baby nurse shark that had been hanging out around the barrier reef lately, so we climbed up on the bow and cracked open a couple cold frosty beverages. Zac's boss Mark was on the boat and he jumped in the water and swam over and had a beer with us, and then later on Zac swam over to say hi, but conscientious boat captain that he is, forwent the beer. What a guy! Eventually, they pulled up anchor and headed back to the dock and we stayed there in the afternoon sun cooling our jets with dips in the water and more frosty beverages. Little Naiya Pearson was out with us the whole day and was super well-behaved. She even let me hold her without squeaking and squawking AT ALL and even posed for a few photos (soon come). Finally with the sun starting to slide past "right overhead" we decided to pull up anchor and make our way over to the Kaibo Yacht Club.

We tied up at the end of the pier and mosey'd over to the bar for some refreshments (because we didn't have enough on the boat already. Kaibo Yacht Club is a funny old place. Back in the day, it used to be THE place to "be seen" on Sundays. People with boats would go and tie up and hang out there, and people who didn't have boats suddenly wished they did. Kaibo is also the scene for Mardi Gras every year, too. Part of that draw is the restaurant that used to be upstairs. Back in the day it was called Cecil's and was a very New Orleans-styled restaurant. Crawfish Etoufee, gumbo, oysters casino and rockefeller, that sorta sorta. In about 1999 they remodeled the inside and it was really slick. Most of the tables were outside on the balcony behind mosquito netting and best of all, they had a free ferry service from Safehaven. Just before sunset you'd board the boat and have a sunset cruise across North Sound, and then dinner upstairs at Cecil's. After eating way too much and then stuffing some fresh beignets down for dessert, you'd get back on the boat and have a starlit cruise back to Safehaven, and then it was only 10:00 or so! As of right now, the restaurant is closed and the ferry is not running. Taking a page out of the Almond Tree/Treehouse book, the Kaibo Beach Bar has expanded their menu to offset the restaurant not being there anymore. We didn't eat this time around, by MJ told me that the food there at the bar is really good. I'll have to put it on my list of places to go.

As the sun started to set, we climbed back aboard and made our way into the sunset headed for Morgan's Harbor in West Bay. To drive that would take about an hour or so, barring any traffic jams. It's about as far as you can possibly drive on the island. On Gordy's boat, it only took about twenty minutes to scoot across the sound. We found space to berth at the pier and tied up. I knew beforehand that we were going to the Calypso Grill for dinner, which is a semi-fancy place, but assumed that we'd all look like we were on the water all day. I assumed wrong. :) I ended up way underdressed for dinner, but I figured I could pull it off with chutzpah and balls. I did. :) If you like seafood, you'll like Calypso Grill. If you're like me and aren't particularly big on seafood, then you'll still like Calypso Grill, although you'll have to study the menu a little harder. Freya, Gordy and FNG all put a debit in their karma bankbook and ordered the seabass. I had a little taste of it, and it was pretty good, but seabass are approaching endangerment so I wouldn't order it myself. Knowing what I know of the Calypso Grill, I ordered a salad, and then the Calypso Shrimp which is an appetizer, for my main. I was saving room for dessert! They have a few "regular" dessert items, like Sticky Toffee Pudding and their chocolate bread pudding, but I went for the dessert on the daily specials menu: Mango crepe with coconut and pineapple ice cream. Freya was sitting next to me and ordered the sticky toffee pudding on the assumption that we'd share both. The sticky toffee was good, but the mango crepe was better. Best of all was the ice cream. I'm not that big on coconut for the most part, but hot DAMN that was some of the best ice cream I've ever had! There were a couple orders of bread pudding down the other end of the table, but I'm sticking with the mango crepe and coconut ice cream as my pick of the night.

Just as we were finishing up, G-Love caught the eye of a dark-haired lass at the bar and struck up a conversation with her. As usual, women travel in pairs and this one had a friend with her as well. Seeing the opportunity for G Love, I selflessly assumed the role of Wingman and chatted up her friend. He invited them back on the boat with us and we cruised back to the yacht club where all our cars were parked. G and his lady friend were deep in discussion, leaving her friend caught in the crossfire. I suggested she ride back in my jeep and her friend could ride with G Love and they could finish their conversation in his car with a modicum of privacy. We came back to my apartment (which is right next to where they were staying, at the Westin). We went upstairs briefly and I mixed up some drinks for us. I broke out the rum and the minted lime syrup that we didn't get a chance to try and whipped up a batch of mojitos for us to take down to the beach. We sat on the beach sipping our mojitos (which turned out pretty good, all things considered) and chatted with the girls. Eventually G made his move and they "went for a walk" down the beach leaving us on the chaise lounges. We actually had a lot to talk about, as she was in online marketing, and I'm a huge nerd. We both realized we were in the wingman role, made the most of it and had a good conversation. A  little later on, I walked her back to the hotel and went home. Gordy showed up awhile later to drop off their glasses and collect their shoes.

A long day? Yes. A fun day? Definately. Monday afternoon I talked to Gordy on the phone and we laughed and said the previous night was like it was "back in the day" when we were both divemasters at Bob Soto's. The difference being that instead of meeting girls at the Seaview and giving them a ride back to our rathole apartments on the handlebars of our bicycles, we met them at a classy place like Calypso Grill, went for a cruise with them on his yacht (it went from boat to yacht as soon as they got onboard) and then jumped in my jeep and his beemer and went back to my condo on Seven Mile Beach next to the Westin and the Ritz-Carlton :)

The Bad news is that gasoline is $4.43 per gallon today in Grand Cayman. That's $5.26US dollars and $5.83 in Canadian dollars. Per Gallon.

The Good news is that my Vespa only needs 1.4 gallons to go from fuel warning light to full, and that lasts me just over a week of commutes and running around at work.

I estimate that Im getting on the far side of 60MPG out of that little puppy, plus it's fun to ride around on, there's no traffic hell anymore, and chicks dig it. :)

Tonight when I got home from work I busted out the Miracle Wash. It's a can of "waterless car wash" that has a built-in polish to it, and WHOA BABY does it ever do a good job, and fairly quick, too. Spray on, wipe away the dirt to a dull haze and then buff with a second, clean terrycloth towel and she's showroom pretty again. It also gives me a chance to go over it and see if there are any scuffs, scratches and chips. I seem to have picked up one scuff on the right rear corner and there's a chip in the front, probably from a rock or something. Time to pick up a little tube of touch-up paint.

Warning: very long post. Click to read the whole thing.

So another year has come and gone. The world has changed so much in the last 33 years that it's hard sometimes to grasp the changes. Things that don't change in 33 years or even 100 years are good friends. Last night I saw an outpouring of love (and jager) that you just don't see very often anymore.

April 1st seems like a long time ago. So long ago in fact, that I don't remember what the weather was like. I'll take a wild guess though: SUNNY AND WARM.

I've had my scooter since just before Christmas, and I've already piled on 2200 kilometers. Just in case you're wondering, this island is only 30 miles long and seven or so miles wide at it's widest spot. I haven't really gone for many long rides. I went out to East End on the scooter one night a couple months back when I was at the Reef Resort to see the Barefoot Man's show, and the knobbly road on the north side of the island tore my back tire to shreds.

Cleaning out my electronic shoebox of old photos and stuff, here's a few that deserve to be seen once more before being put out to pasture.

For some reason, when I grab the URL of a photo from Flickr and incorporate it into a post here, rather than using the Flickr Blog This! thing, they aren't showing up. But then again, some of them are. I dunno, it's an IE thing. I double-clicked the little privacy report icon in the IE status bar and it said that there were some blocked cookies from Flickr on the page, so I guess that's why. All the pictures show up and work fine if you're viewing this in Firefox, it's just IE that's blocking the cookies and preventing the images from showing up. So either change your IE security settings, use Firefox, or just wait and see what happens. I've sent a comment to flickr's tech support, perhaps Im not the only person this is/has happened to and they have a solution.

Update: I flipped a switch in the config, mostly on a hunch and now the pictures seem to be working. Changed the site's skin, too. Huge improvement over the "all gray" look, but still needs some work.

Say hello to little Jellybean Pearson! SHe came home from the hospital today, so aroud 3:00 I txted them saying "OK, need a picture!" and it just so happened that Johnny Rotten, who had just borrowed my camera, was there, so he snapped a few and then brought my camera back over here. Matty called a few mins later, and I asked how everyone was doing... were things going in and coming back out again later on, all that sorta good stuff. Short of Everton's baby girl Raeann, I think Jellybean will be the SECOND most-photographed-and-posted baby in the Cayman Islands :)

For the past few Sundays, I've been rounding up "the gang" and hitting the beach. Have a couple beers, tell some awful jokes, look at and make comments on the bikinis that walk by all day (sometimes I swear it's like going to one of those sushi restaurants with the conveyor belt... they just keep on coming) and can you blame us?? Not sure what's going to happen this weekend, Matty & Jules, if she's even home from the hospital yet with Jellybean, will probably not be up to a "beach day" just yet anyway.

I think I can count on my available fingers the number of times I've "gone to the beach" in the last eight years (this summer) that I've been down here. It was always an ordeal... make sure you have everything you need, load it into the jeep, drive to the beach, find parking, walk through someone's back yard (basically) and then find a spot on the beach. If you needed anything, or had to go to the bathroom (#1 is ok, the ocean is right there, but god help you if it's a #2) then you were, no pun intended, shit out of luck.

Now that I just have to go downstairs and walk 50 yards, I've spent more time on the beach in the last month than I have in the last eight years.

Cheers to more weekends like that!

I was out and about on my scooter today at lunch time and a bunch of cop cars went screaming past me on North Sound Road, sirens blaring. A few minutes later, another cop on a bike and another cruiser behind him passed me doing about 70mph on the Harquail Bypass. I got home and made some lunch and was sitting on the balcony looking at the water when I heard MORE sirens heading north and an ambulance, too. I figured it was a big traffic accident or maybe they were filming season six of "24" here in Cayman.

A couple minutes later, Seb IMd me and said that the Cayman National Bank in West Bay had been robbed by gunmen. Later on when I got back to work, I heard that not only had they robbed the place at gunpoint, but also that a security guard had been shot. Later I heard it was a gardener, who was working on the landscaping. At this point, it's all rumor and conjecture. I'm sure there will be something about it in the paper on Monday, but until then, the rumors will travel down West Bay Road faster than the traffic does.

I went to the CNB downtown on my way back to work to pick up a draft and PIN my new debit card that finally showed up, and when I walked into the lobby, the doors were closed. There were two security guards there, and you had to go through the bypass lobby, and pretty much brush past both security guards to get into the customer service area of the bank. I don't blame them for the extra security, the guys in West Bay got away, and who knows, maybe they thought they had enough luck to go 2-for-2. The customer service agent said that there was a cop car parked outside for the last hour or so, but had just left a few moments before.

The only question remains is "Why didn't they catch these hooded robbers last time and avoid all this in the first place? it's not like their faces were unknown to the entire public at large..."

OK, OK, it's a bad image. It's a 20 year old newspaper page that was photocopied a few times. One of these days I'll go down there and get a good copy and update this photo, now that I know what date it is. For now, squint.

 

 

 

UPDATE: The Cayman Compass has an article posted up about it under the heading "breaking news" that they posted yesterday afternoon. Realizing that they were sucking the hind tit and got scooped, the Net News posted something up a little later on.

I headed out to McCoy's last night, late, and John said it took him 90 minutes to get from West Bay to George Town, as there was a police roadblock just north of the Yacht Club that was stopping and searching vehicles. The roadblock was gone last night when he headed home, but apparently it's back up again this morning, with traffic backed up for an hour or so again. But what I don't get is why they took it down and then put it back up again? Isn't that like closing the barn door, then leaving it open, and then going back to close it again after? Who knows how many horses got out of the barn?? Someone else IM'd me about that and said "I guess the key to getting away with something here is to wait for the police to get tired and go home for the day first"

This beats Porno Shrimp, hands down. After all the hubbub about the Largest Gay Cruise II calling into port in Grand Cayman, the local paper goes and prints this above the fold...

Last Monday, which was a holiday here in the Cayman Islands, I went out with Off The Wall divers for a little 2-tank dive in the afternoon. It was a bit windy and bumpy, but it all went fine. We scooted up around the corner and did a deep dive at Hepp's Wall out in front of the Turtle Farm. As we were cruising along around 80 feet or so, I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and turned to see this whitish stingray-lookin thing swimming just above the reef.

It took me a minute to recognize it but the 'scalloped' leading edge, which looked like uncooked pizza dough, piqued something in my memory. I had SEEN one of these things before, years ago when I worked at Soto's. I had been doing a dive on the west side, and the videographer, Elspeth, called me back down rather frantically to see something, so I sunk down there and saw this weird looking ray. I aimed my camera at it, tripped the shutter and... the battery died. D'OH!

This time, I was ready. I took a few shots of him swimming around, and then got this shot as he landed on a ledge of coral. Shortly after this shot, he fluttered is fins to push him further into the reef and out of the light, and did a good job of stirring up the bottom making it difficult to take pictures.

When I got home, I pulled out Paul Humann's Reef Fish book and flipped to the section on rays. I found a picture that looked just like this one, and read/remembered then that it was called a torpedo ray.

There isn't a lot known about Torpedo Rays, they have been known to deliver an electric shock as a defense mechanism, and they're rarely spotted. The field guide said they were rare in the northeastern Caribbean, and not known/spotted elsewhere. Ironically the photo he had of the Torpedo Ray in his book was taken here in Grand Cayman, back in the day by Wayne Hasson, who's the owner of the Aggressor Fleet.

Unlike any other blu