What's New @ eriqsworld.com/bridget

Firenze Italia

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EST

The main event! The one I'd been waiting for the entire cruise. It isn't that Firenze (Florence) is more beautiful than anyplace else we'd visited. In fact, it's not that beautiful, it's frenetic, it's chaotic, it's kind of dirty but mein Gott the HISTORY! So much has taken place in such a small area it was awe inspiring to walk the streets and imagine Leonardo Da Vinci learning to draw or Lorenzo Medici walking the 2 blocks from his palazzo to the Duomo or to look at Ghiberti's Baptistry doors and then turn around to see the amazing Duomo rising almost 500 ft into the air right behind you and picture Brunelleschi overseeing the construction of the massive dome. And we haven't even gotten to the Chiesa da Santa Croce or the Ponte Vecchio.

Santa Margherita Italia

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EST

This was a great little town that we never even planned to visit but Portofino turned out to be so small that we had the entire day to explore that we hadn't anticipated. B and I both agreed that we love this little seaside village. It was very small, pretty, clean, quiet and everyone seemed friendly. We got to practice our Italian a lot which I thoroughly enjoyed although Italians tend to speak so fast that I had a very hard time understanding them if they thought I spoke their language. When they understood we were Americans they slowed down and I was able to get through a conversation.

Santa Margherita is about 2 miles away from Portofino along the coast, if you're looking at a map of Italy you'd find us at the northern most spot of Itay along the coastline of the Mediterranean. We bought a 3 Euro umbrella as it started sprinkling which promptly broke the first time we opened it hehe. Luckily it stopped drizzling so we didn't need it but I guess you get what you pay for.

Portofino Italia

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EST

You hear about Portofino and you think you know what to expect. Then you see Portofino and you think to yourself "WTF?", sure it's gorgeous, sure it looks just like the pictures but is this really it? Yes, that's really it, you can see the entire town in under 10 minutes of walking. There are only a few hundred residents and from the prices at the bistros and shops they all must be Hollywood celebrities. You can forget about groceries or a farmacia, those are a bus ride to Santa Margherita away but if you need a last minute Gucci or Prada you're in luck. Having said all that, this town has in irresistible charm and I found myself not wanting to get back on the tender back to the ship.

Principality of Monaco

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EST

No matter how much you've heard about Monaco and Monte Carlo, until you visit it you'll never understand how so much wealth can be concentrated into such a small area. In Monte Carlo anything less than a 150 ft yacht qualifies you for food stamps and the yachts seem to be cheaper than the flats on land. An efficiency near the harbor sells for around 1,000,000 Euros, Ferraris are everywhere and mansions can be found everywhere you look to the tops of the mountains down to the shoreline.

Nice France

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EST

Well everyone talks about nude beaches, I finally got to see one. It was pretty scary. The beach along Nice is topless and I got to see some things I'd prefer to forget hehe. We went to the old town section of Nice to find a Socca vendor we'd seen on Samantha Brown's show, we found her and the Socca was worth the journey. Socca is a pancake type of food made of soybeans, flour, olive oil and pepper (and God knows what else) and it's very tasty. After that we walked around the open air market and bought some olives (we're trying to become olive fans, B is progressing faster than I in this regard) and some almond praline, oh who am I kidding, we ate our way through this town. We had some pain du chocolat, some brioche, some dusted chocolates, etc (get the picture?). We also found the cafe we'd explored a few years ago on our honeymoon. Very cool to be in a foreign place like this and run into something you recognize.

Getting around in Europe is not very difficult if you have a basic

Aix-en-Provence France

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EST

This was my favorite city of all on our trip (B's 2nd pick). It combined all the great things we loved about Barcelona without the chaos of the larger population and I prefer speaking French to Spanish. It's more centrally located to the rest of Europe and it's in a region that's much more beautiful. The day started very cold and it looked like we'd get a lot of rain, we went into a church and when we came out it had rained already and the sky had completely cleared up and it was warmer now. Geez, how long were we in that church? hehe

Marseilles France

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EST

Nice city, too damn busy. It's the busiest port in the Mediterranean from what I understand and that doesn't begin to describe it. The city was very pretty but very very busy and very very crowded. We weren't here very long as we spent most of the day in Aix-en-Provence but we had a few hours to kill and walked to the old port which had some nice sidewalk cafes and more sailboats than I've ever seen in one place. We shared a crepes avec jambon et fromage and picked up a pastry on the way back that was so good it must have been illegal.

Montpelier France

Mon, 06 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EST

Montpelier is a larger university town and to say that it is immaculate doesn't do the town justice. There wasn't a spot of dirt or garbage anywhere in the city. Even their train tracks had grass in between them such that it looked like the train was strolling through a meadow. There is an old section of the town surrounded by the new section which appears to have not a single building more than 5 years old and given the proliferation of cranes throughout the city it looks like their building the entire town from scratch.

Sete France

Sun, 05 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EST

Sete is just a small sleepy fishing town that isn't really ready to be a tourist destination. Most cruise lines can't get into this port, our little ship (30,000 tons) barely fit in the harbor so you can imagine the 90k and 150k ton behemoths out there now couldn't get within a few miles. Because of this, our ship was as interesting to them as their town was to us. The port was ringed with locals who had come out to see the ship in port.

We were there on a Sunday so almost every single thing in the entire city was closed save for a couple of cafes. To make matters worse because we'd gone to Montpelier we were in town during their siesta (what is it with Europeans and naps?). Anyway, it was a very nice town even though we didn't get to experience much of it.

Barcelona Espana

Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EST

Barcelona more than made up for our bad experience in Tunis and the fact that I still had not received my luggage and was wearing my clothes from the airplane for a week now. Barcelona is a large city done right. The thoroughfares are large and you can walk anywhere or easily hop on a bus. The city is spotless, it's as if a brand-new city was built to look like an old one.

We spent 2 days walking up and down La Rambla, the main walking area of the city anchored by a statue of Cristobol Colombo at one end (where our ship was docked) and extended out to one of Gaudi's designed buildings. We'd been to La Sagrada Familia before so we didn't bother going again this time. We decided to explore every side street and alley we could find with no thought at all

Tunis Tunisia

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 12:00:00 EST

What can we say, we hated the place. It was very cool though to think we were in Africa for the first time. It's an ugly city, the market was full of people who wanted nothing more than to take every Euro we had in our pockets. They all spoke English but not one of them understood "NO". The Souk is a great example of capitalism without any rules, nothing has a price tag on it because the price is whatever these guys can get out of you. I bought a small curio of a vase about 3 in tall because B and I like to have a small symbol from each of our vacations, all I had to do was glance at it for 2 seconds and a salesman attached himself to me like a dog on a bone. He informed me it was made of silver (obviously plastic) and that he could let me have it for only 50 Euros, I walked away and suddenly the price dropped to 30, then 25, then 20. I left the store altogether and the price dropped to 15 but I still had no interest. About 5 minutes later I found Bridget next door using the bathroom,

Valleta Malta

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EST

We didn't really know what to think or to expect from Malta, all we knew is that it was an island (chain) midway between Sicily and Africa. When we got there it most definitely felt more like Africa from looking at it on the ship. Once we got into the city though it had a more European feel to it. Once again my luggage was nowhere to be found (day 4) but we'd heard there was a Caravaggio painting at the St John's Church so we went to see this. It was amazing, obviously I couldn't take a picture of it but you can see it here on wikipedia. What struck us was how large it is, the figures in the painting are slightly larger than life size. Caravaggio's use of chiarroscuro is amazing, you felt like there was a bright light source illuminating aspects of the flesh and the red pigments were amazingly vibrant.

Sorrento Italia

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EST

Our first morning aboard ship I awoke at dawn and opened the drapes to behold such a gorgeous sight of hundred foot cliffs which, over the years, have been shaped and carved out into tunnels, caves, stairs and columns. I got some great pics of the cliffs which you'll love. We tendered to the harbor and took a shuttle up a ravine to the main city center where we transferred to a larger bus to take us to the olive and lemon farm...

2008 Mediterranean Cruise on Azamara

Sat, 27 Sep 2008 12:00:00 EST

Well B and I are back from a wonderful 2 week cruise throughout the Med and we're well rested unlike our honeymoon Med cruise when we returned exhausted. The trip itself started ominously with a 2 hour delay in Tampa, which meant that when we landed at 6:05 pm in Philly our flight to Rome was about to take off. I grabbed my carry on and took off running. We landed 2 terminals away from the plane so I had to run about a half mile with bag in tow. When i finally reached the desk I couldn't speak from a lack of breath so I just handed the lady the boarding passes. Luckily this flight too was delayed a few minutes so by the time Bridget arrived we were boarding.

Lion King @ TBPAC

Thu, 08 May 2008 12:00:00 EST

Bridget and I went to see the Disney Production of the Lion King at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center. It was a fantastic show that I'd highly recommend to anyone! The production values were signature Disney and the art of set pieces and costumes were excellent. My favorite was the human giraffe, a person walking on all fours with 5-8 ft long legs and a similarly long neck extending from their head. An elephant, which walked through the crowd was 4 people each comprising a leg. Very cool and the music was inspired by the Elton John soundtrack with a more African flavor. In all a wonderful time!

South Beach Miami Food & Wine Festival 2008

Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:00:00 EST

Team Breland (Bridget and I) drove down to South Beach for the annual Food & Wine Festival and had a blast. We arrived on Thursday at the Nassau Suites Hotel (hat tip to Tonya and Mike for the great location!) which was centrally located only 1 block from Ocean Drive and 14th St. A great spot right near the entrance to the Grand Tasting Tents, midway between the shopping on Collins and the Lincoln Dr mall. Tons of great restaurants all around and we didn't have to move the car once all weekend.

Friday night we walked over to Emeril's Sugar Shack, a nighttime feast sponsored by Perrier Jouet. I personally drank about a case of champagne and could barely stumble home which was probably a good thing because the next day I had no desire to drink.

The Grand Tasting on Saturday was incredible, 2 tents each around a football field in size, with 4 rows of tables filled with food and wine from hundreds of restaurants and wineries around the country. Some of the most flavorful food I'v

Street Rod Classifieds and MLS Listings added

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:00:00 EST

Hi everyone, well I apparently don't have much of a life because I've been very busy building plugins for eriqsworld.com that no one cares about using :) First is a plug-in which shows classifieds from StreetRodding.com on this site and adds the tagging and 5-star rating systems, second I added a neat new MLS system along with a simple search form that searches more than 56,000 MLS properties in the surrounding 3-county Tampa Bay area covered by the Pinellas Realtor organization.

Eriqsworld.com Features

Sat, 12 Jan 2008 12:00:00 EST

Well what can you do here other than look at several thousand pictures? Since I'm a web developer I'm using this site as a test bed for ideas that I may or may not someday implement elsewhere. I thought I should explain a couple of the things you can do here on this site and what some of these things mean. Read More...

Merry Christmas

Tue, 25 Dec 2007 12:00:00 EST

Well the Christmas Holiday is coming to an end and it was wonderful although I've been sick the entire week and doped up on robitussin the whole time :)

To begin, Christmas Eve was hosted at our home this year although Joyce cooked most of the food and it was wonderful as always! And, as expected, we were left with a metric ton of leftovers which I've been chowing down on for lunch today (mmm stuffing!). About 20-25 people showed up and we all had a wonderful time. Thanks again to Joyce and Bridget for the wonderful spread and to everyone for coming over and sharing your Christmas Eve with us.

Animal Kingdom Lodge

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 12:00:00 EST

Anyone who knows me, knows that I Love DisneyWorld! It's my favorite place to be mainly because it's close, it's relaxing and it allows me to be a kid again. I still remember the times my parents took me to the park way back when they still had E-tickets.

This time Bridget and I stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge, they upgraded us (woohoo) to a beautiful Savannah View room. The only downside to the room was that it was located at the absolute furthest point from the lobby as one could be. Nonetheless it was a wonderful week, we took advantage of the "extra-hours" available to Disney resort residents and went to the parks at night. If you think Disney is beautiful during the day, wait till you see it at night! The lighting was gorgeous! I couldn't get my camera to take a good night shot or I'd love to have shown you just how great the parks looked.

Thanksgiving Day

Fri, 23 Nov 2007 12:00:00 EST

Thank you to everyone who showed up! We had a wonderful time and it was great to see everyone together for the holidays. We ordered much of the food from Fresh Market which was a mixed bag, the turkey and cornbread souffle were great but the mashed potatoes and green beans were awful. Joyce made her amazing stuffing and a ham which I couldn't stay away from. Bridget made some homemade pumpkin pies and pumpkin bread and generally made sure everything ran smoothly.

I made sure the couch stayed nice and warm :)

Alaskan Cruise on the Noordam

Sat, 15 Sep 2007 12:00:00 EST

Neither of us have ever been to Alaska and we've never heard a bad word from anyone who has visited so we were very excited. We left a day early so we could see some of the sights of downtown Seattle before the ship left. We made it to the hotel without a problem and had dinner that night at the Metropolitan Grille. The chateaubriand was to die for!
The next morning we walked over to Pike's Market, had breakfast at a wonderful little french restaurant and took in the sights and sounds of the city before grabbing a cab over to the Noordam.
This cruise would be different from the others in that the weather was such as to keep you away from the outdoor areas for the most part and you can forget about the outdoor pool! The ship itself was large but felt cozy and relaxing, the explorations cafe was our favorite place on the ship!

MENSA Baby!

Wed, 05 Sep 2007 12:00:00 EST

I qualified to join MENSA! About 15 years ago I took a home version of an IQ test and scored really high, so high that I never believed it was really accurate but also too scared to take another to find out for sure. Better to leave it in a gray area where you can tell yourself you're that smart without ever having to actually prove it to yourself.
Well one day a few years ago I got the nerve to order the home version of the MENSA qualifying exam. It's sort of a pre-test you can take to find out if you should even bother taking the real qualifying exam. I let it sit on the desk for 2 years without even opening it. Finally Bridget told me to put up or shut up...

Pimp my House

Sat, 01 Sep 2007 08:42:16 EST

Well, it took all of B's sanity and lot's of patience but we finally finished phase one of the home remodel. We had the kitchen and master bathroom completely torn out of here and replaced. In addition, we also had the entire house repainted inside (thanks Joyce!) and out and when B and I returned from our Alaskan Cruise around 2 am that sunday we had found that Joyce and her busy helpers (thank you all!) had removed most all of our furniture and furnishings and replaced it all with stunning new pieces. Not just the furniture mind you, but Joyce has a wonderful eye for decor and she took care of the little details too; right down to paintings on the walls and plants throughout.
This was definitely the best part of our vacation :)

Our Wedding Day

Mon, 28 Aug 2006 12:00:00 EST

Well the day finally arrived. B and I went to Disney 4 days earlier so we could relax and enjoy the build up to the wedding day without any stress. Disney's wedding planners do an amazing job of coordinating everything for you, there was nothing for us to do but sit back and enjoy the resort which is exactly what we did.

Animal Kingdom Lodge

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 04:31:23 EST

With 3 months to go till the wedding, Bridget and I were having trouble waiting so we decided to go spend the weekend at Disney World and relax for a couple days. We booked a Savannah-view room and took off to see Mickey!

My New Job

Mon, 30 Jan 2006 04:31:23 EST

Started a new job working for Symmetrex, a company similar to the business model of paypal. I'm building web front ends for their customers and clients to manage their card information. I have my own office and work with a bunch of great people. The office is very casual and laid back and everyone is easy to get along with.

Bridget said Yes!

Sat, 10 Dec 2005 04:31:23 EST

As most of you know, I've never been married, never even been engaged so this would a huge moment for me. I wanted to do this right so I started planning months in advance. I had started out thinking that I would pick an incredibly romantic restaurant and ask there but the more I thought about it the less I wanted to do this in front of a bunch of strangers. I enlisted the help of "the moms" in October after I got a new job and had the income lined up. Together the 3 of us came up with a very nice, tasteful band and had my grandmother's wedding stone mounted in it.
I had selected the date as the 1 year anniversary of our first time together, the night that we first realized we had a shared interest in each other (thank you Caroline, Carrie and Elizabeth!). We had agreed that this should be our true anniversary...

Disney's Contemporary Resort

Fri, 16 Sep 2005 12:00:00 EST

This trip was significant for several reasons; it was the first time I'd stayed at the Contemporary (very nostalgic for the 70's), it was the first Disney trip with Bridget and it marks the date that I made the concrete decision to ask Bridget to marry me. I got the idea from a story she told me about Pat and Debbie getting engaged at the bar in the hotel.

Thanksgiving

Thu, 25 Nov 2004 12:00:00 EST

This weekend was important as it was the very first time I met Bridget. We were at MacDinton's in Tampa, I had driven down on a whim (mainly because I was bored silly in Jax) and met everyone at Henry's place. We all had a great time and the food was amazing; Henry is an amazing cook and I still remember how good Shelley's pumpkin pie cheesecake tasted.
That night we all decided to head out to MacDinton's for awhile and Elizabeth had coaxed Bridget and some other girls out to Tampa. I remember thinking she was quite pretty (and sexy in that black leather jacket hehe). Nothing of note happened between us that night other than the standard what's your name, what do you do type questions but I noticed Carrie had gotten her phone number as she left and just filed that in the back of my head. Who knew what that would eventually lead to?

Chris Smith's Wedding

Tue, 03 Aug 2004 04:31:23 EST

This is the last time I'm every going back to Arkansas (famous last words I know) but it was a lot of fun. It was great seeing everyone and Thomas' place is a college frat's dream come true! The wedding itself was nice, it was set in Thomas' backyard in a Hawaiian luau-theme.