Captain's Breakfast

I didn't expect to find a killer breakfast menu at Reefer's Social Club along the main drag in Clearwater Beach, FL, so that was a nice surprise.  My choice was the Captain's Breakfast shown below, a Belgium waffle, crispy bacon, Cheddar cheese, two eggs (over easy), scallions, hash browns, and maple syrup.  The waffle was the perfect size, enough to please but not enough to stuff.  

https://reeferssocialclub.com

Clearwater Cooler

Watermelon is one of the hardest flavors to get right.  I love watermelon sherbet for its sweetness and strong flavor, but most other watermelon-flavored food and drinks just don't tickle my taste buds.  The Clearwater Cooler shown below from Reefers Social Club in Clearwater Beach, FL is a rare combination that works.  A mix of vodka, watermelon puree, agave, and soda water, it's just the right mix and a refreshing day drinker.

https://reeferssocialclub.com

Sunshine Skyway Bridge

The Sunshine Skyway Bridge spans Lower Tampa Bay and includes the ramp seen below in the distance.  I'm not fond of heights but this one didn't trigger that I'm-gonna-die feeling I get sometimes, probably because it's perfectly straight and fences block the view of how high it's above the water.  I'm really glad I didn't know that this is the second version of this bridge, the first one collapsed in 1980 when a storm-blinded freighter collided with a support column resulting in 35 deaths as six cars, a truck, and a Greyhound bus fell 150 feet into the water.  You can read more about the incident at the link below.

https://www.tampabay.com/news/2020/05/06/the-sunshine-skyway-bridge-plunged-into-tampa-bay-40-years-ago

Beach Proposal

For some people just getting down on one knee and popping the question just isn't good enough.  This guy hired a service to secure a "MARRY ME" sign in the sand at Clearwater Beach, FL.  They scrupled the sand, planted some flowers, and even lit up the sign with some unseen power source.  I'm guessing they lured the soon-bride-to-be with a walk on the beach, passed the sign, turned her around, then dropped and popped.  We could have waited around to see how it really played out, but our thirst got the best of us.

PVC Chairs

The chairs shown below are from our condo in Clearwater Beach, FL.  The frame is made from PVC pipes, making it lightweight, very strong, and impervious to the constant salt air.   It includes a rail to put your feet on as these are at least a foot taller than the average chair, allowing you to see over the railing at the beach instead of looking through its rails.  Simply brilliant!

Arepas

The stars of the meal shown below are the arepas, the small, round things in the basket that look like English muffins.  They are a mixture of precooked cornmeal, salt, and water, made into balls of dough, flattened to about 1/2 to 3/4 inches thick, then baked or grilled.  A serrated knife is used to slice them deep enough to form a pocket and then stuffed with any combination of ingredients you desire.  I can't wait to try this at home.

https://www.tasteofhome.com/article/how-to-make-arepas

Basil’s Root Beer New Fashion

Sometimes I just try things because the ingredients can't possibly work together as was the case with ordering a Basil’s Root Beer New Fashion at The Salty Crab Bar & Grill North Beach in Clearwater Beach, FL.  It combines Basil Hayden Bourbon with root beer and a dash of bitters and after the first one, I was hooked.  I need to work on getting the proportions figured out and try a few different root beers, and by golly do it even if it takes all summer!

https://saltycrabnorthbeach.com

Max Brightness

When the clerk at Meijer uses their handheld scanner on the MPerks barcode on my Pixel 7 it typically takes four or five attempts before it's successful and sometimes they have to scan it using the stationary scanner, which typically works the first time.  I now know why, courtesy of the Frontier Airlines app that's scanned when I board their planes.

As shown below, the Frontier app has an "Allow boarding pass max brightness" option that does exactly that.  I thought that probably was to improve their scanning accuracy, so the next time I went to Meijer I manually cranked up the brightness before having them scan my MPerks barcode.  Bingo, worked the first time!  Case closed.

Three Dog Night

The rock band Three Dog Night was formed in 1967 by vocalists Chuck Negron, Cory Wells, and Danny Hutton and would have a string of hits including Shambala, Eli's Coming, Joy to the World, and An Old Fashioned Love Song.  The band still tours but only Danny of the original trio is still performing with the group.

If you're not aware of how the group got its strange name, it comes from Aboriginal Australians.  On cold nights they would sleep with a dingo (a wild dog) to stay warm.  On colder nights they slept with two dogs and on a really freezing night, it was a "three dog night".

https://www.threedognight.com

Empathy

Empathy is sometimes a hard concept to use in real life, so I offer one experience from my working days to demonstrate.

An Information Technology (IT) person is asked for help on a user's PC and says the seemingly innocent phrase "It's easy."  But if you look at the person's face on the receiving end, it's pretty clear the message received is "I must be stupid as I've been trying for ten minutes to figure this out."  It's surely not the intended message, but you won't see it if you're not looking for a reaction.

I learned to use the phrase "It's not hard, but it's not obvious" when assisting someone.  "Not obvious" calms the person's nerves.  They're not dumb, the designer of the interface hid this feature under layers of menus with not-so-helpful titles.  I've literally seen people's shoulders relax after I've said this.  I use "It's not hard" just to avoid using the word "easy", assuring them that they can do it.