IT'S FEB 3RD AND IT'S WARM ENOUGH TO DO WHAT?

DOWNTOWN XLVI

Thank you Indiana for welcoming me back from sunny Fort Myers with some pretty decent weather for Jan/Feb.
I wanted to check out the Super Bowl festivities and had Monday off anyway and Rita being the lady of leisure she is came with.

We got there about 12:30 PM, most events don't begin or open till 3:00PM. That really didn't make much difference because the zip line, was sold out, the stadium tours were sold out until NEXT Monday and the NFL Experience was most likely sold out as well.

No matter, we just wanted to go take some pics and see the outside stuff anyway. I'm glad to see the events are doing well and the weather has been cooperating nicely.

I hope the game lives up to the hype, but it is a bitter pill to swallow that we don't have two Manning's in the Super Bowl.
A Brady win here will not sit well with most of us. The one negative that I will call ahead of time, is the half time show. You will have to go a long way to top how bad last years half time show was. If anybody could be worse it would be Madonna. Never been a big fan, never will.

All in all, I'm very proud of my city. I flew over downtown on the way home from Fort Myers Sunday, as good as the Indy skyline looks in the daylight from the air; it is a beautiful sight at night from above. With the Super Bowl accoutrements added it will be a crown jewel.

There was an issue with parking, not with finding a space, finding Rita's car when we were leaving.
I took it upon myself to remember the spot, 2Q.
I followed Rita as we headed through Circle Center Mall to the parking garage. We got to 2Q and there was no car, you know your in trouble when the person you are following to the car starts turkey neckin around like they are lost.
Here is a pic of what that looks like.

After searching 2 floors of the garage for 30 minutes we began to explore 2 possibilities.

1. The car had been stolen.

2. We are wearing out the concrete in the wrong garage.

Yeah you guessed it, wrong garage.

Oh well, I needed the exercise.

So kickoff at Rita's house. BYOB !!!!!!!!

MY FAVORITE SHIRT

"I like your shirt"
"Thanks, I like your hat even better", I said to the old man.

I remember the exact day I realized my taste in shirts had changed. It was probably about 7 or 8 years ago. I can remember watching "Cops" and they were arresting some older guy and he was wearing a billboard tee shirt. It had large graphics on front and back and I thought, that guy is too old to wear that shirt.
My next thought was, I'm about as old as that guy and most of my shirts were like the DUI's shirt that was being cuffed and stuffed on my TV.
Nowadays I like shirts with a small graphic in front and I need a pocket. My favorite type is a button up Hawaiian style shirt with a pocket, that's what I got married in when Jojo and me had our wedding on the beach going on 7years ago.

All the shirts I packed for Florida this latest this trip were in line with my golden years style of shirts, except one.
It was a tee shirt that had a large graphic in front and no pocket.
It was the one I wore Thursday evening when Bob and me were going to our favorite steakhouse in Fort Myers.
It was that shirt that caught the eye of the old man sitting at an outside table finishing his drink at McGregor's Grill.
The hat the old man was wearing that had caught my eye said
"WW II VET" and had various campaign ribbons on it denoting battles he had fought in and survived.
After I told him how much I liked his hat I shook hands with him and humbly offered my gratitude for what he did for our nation some 65 years ago. Then I pointed to Bob and said "this guys a combat vet too, he was in Vietnam". "Oh they shot at you too!", he said as he shook Bob's hand.
We talked for a few minutes and walked inside and sat at the bar to wait for a table. As we sat there, the bartender told us the old man was a regular who had recently lost his wife. He was all alone now.
The more I learned about the old man, the more I started thinking about all the people that made incalculable sacrifices in all the wars since the founding of our nation.
I thought about how the sacrifices were made in the quest for freedom, an idea that was paid for in blood. Now we are governed by those who want to let that most valuable commodity be pilfered away in the name of some failed brand of Marxism.
I started to feel really bad for the old man and we watched him through the window as he got up to leave.
A couple of minutes went by and Bob said, "Mark you need to go check on him". He seemed to be having trouble getting into his car. When I got to him he had just finished putting his walker in the back seat. I asked him if he needed help.  "No" he said, "I just dropped my food". We talked again for a few minutes and he told me he was 88 years old. I said "I'd like to buy you a drink sometime" and he said, "I would like to buy you a drink too". I got down on my hands and knees and groveled while I cleaned up the old mans spilled dinner and told him not to worry about the mess, "I'll throw it away for you". I wanted to buy him that drink and another meal but he had to get home. He left me with another warm handshake with his weathered skin and bandaged arms. As I walked back to the restaurant I could feel my eyes welling up. "Don't do it you old softie, get it together", my pep talk to myself didn't help a damned bit.
I felt terrible that I didn't get there in time to help him carry his meal.
By the time I got back to the bar I had tears running down my face. Bob asked me what happened and I started to tell him about the old man dropping his food, but all that came out was a lot of blubbering. Bob looked away and said, "that's why I didn't want to go back out there, I knew I couldn't take it".

I couldn't relate to what the old man had been through and Bob could relate too much. We didn't talk about the old man the next morning and I was glad we didn't. I knew I wanted to write about it, but I also knew I would need to be alone when I did.
Bob had to run some errands so I rode the bike to Lakes Park.
It's a beautiful park and a good place to be alone in case you had to wipe your eyes from time to time, so I figured this would be a good place to write.

I hung the shirt in the closet.
The one shirt that has all the features that I avoid nowadays when I am looking for a shirt.
It's a tee shirt with no pocket and a large graphic in front.
It's the only shirt I packed for my trip that was like that.

It's a shirt that sparked a conversation between a vet from a forgotten war who came home to vocal disrespectful minority.

A vet from a brutal but romanticized war that had saved the world.

And a man who served in a peacetime Army National Guard engineering unit who felt completely inept to comprehend their sacrifice.
It's this shirt.
My favorite shirt.

THE BOB SEA TWINS

My last full day here at Fort Myers and we are heading to the beach. Yesterday was the first non-perfect day here so we went to the Muscle Car Museum instead. 
It definitely was worth the drive to see that amazing collection.  
It was an all GM collection and I'm a big MOPAR guy, but I love all the old muscle cars. 
It was another beautiful day today so what better way to spend my last full day here than straining our necks looking at all the great uhhhh scenery at the beach. 
Half way to the beach I looked at Bob and realized we were wearing the exact same shirt. 
I laughed and told Bob he looked a little gay wearing that shirt. 
It had a small Seagrams emblem on the back and on the front it said "JOIN THE TEA PARTAY".
It was a promotional shirt for a Seagrams Long Island drink. We were down here about 4 or 5 years ago and got them for free when we went to the liquor store. 

I like the shirt because it has small graphics and I like the reference link to the Tea Party. 
Of course it has nothing to do with the Tea Party, but nobody else knows that. We got these shirts before the Propagander-In-Chief got the White House and started using the Constitution for his toilet paper. 
I had no idea Bob had packed his Tea Partay shirt, or if he even still had it. 
Now we were heading to the beach looking like special friends, not that there's anything wrong with it!

I figured when we were on the beach I would have my shirt off anyway, but we were gonna have breakfast at a beachside restaurant first. 
When we finished breakfast, I figured I would go look for a gift for my grandson and my little buddy Gavin and I wouldn't have to walk with Bob who sure looked funny wearing that shirt. When

I was walking back to the beach I started to realize how paranoid I had been acting. I mean for Pete's sake, why can't two guys hang out together wearing the same thing and not have to worry about what other people are thinking?

That's when I spotted two women walking together wearing the same exact tee shirts and I  thought "ahhhh, a lesbian sighting !"

REVENGE IS LIKE SERVING COLD-CUTS

Said Tony Soprano. 
Of course he was referring to the old saying, "revenge is a dish best served cold". It's a philosophy I just happen to agree with. Not that I am one who lives for revenge, but sometimes in life you cross paths with some asshole who commits acts so egregious that some sort of payback is warranted. 
That's why I am returning to court next month for what I hope is the final preceding dealing with former renters who stole thousands of dollars from us. These lying thieves have been doing this to their last several landlords and creditors. They deserve and need a healthy dose of payback.
But the object of my "payback is a bitch" today however is a friggin seagull. If you read yesterday's post you will recall the attack of the seagulls on my lunch meat samich. 
Well when I got on the beach this morning there was one of those little sombitches enjoying an apple core at the edge of the water. I assumed it was the same bird who chomped my lunchmeat samich yesterday so I kept harassing his little ass until he gave up and flew away. 
I grinned and thought to myself, maybe Tony had it right. 
Revenge IS like serving cold-cuts !

I BLEW OUT MY FLIP FLOP

I was in no danger of stepping on a pop top however so I soldiered on to the beach with Bob and all our beach equipment. 
Then I hobbled to the nearest beach store to look for a replacement pair. I had brought my most comfortable pair from home and I knew I wouldn't be able to find some that I liked as much as these. 
After looking at several fifty dollar flip flops I gave up and went to the 7-11 and got some Krazy Glue. Problem solved. 

Friday when I got to the condo I put my tennis shoes in the garage and vowed they would not touch my feet until I was getting ready to head back home. 

We spend most of yesterday on the fishing boat, we caught our share and the weather was beautiful. 
So back on the beach today me and Bob are once again on thong patrol. We haven't spotted any female offenders yet but we have seen a lot of guys wearing bikini bottoms. That just doesn't do it for me. There are a lot of foreign vacationers here and all the dudes from those other countries wear those speedos. Not a good look. 
I decided to eat my lunch so I took out my samich. She was a beauty, ham, salami, pepper loaf, pepper jack cheese and mayo. 
Now for the finishing touch, open up the samich and insert a bunch of tater chips. 
As I began munching, I started to attract a crowd, Seagulls. First one then the word got out and it looked like a Hitchcock movie, they were all around me and hovering over my head. Seem Seagulls likes chips in their samich too. I hadn't gotten half of it eaten yet when one of them distracted me and his buddy swooped in over my right shoulder and took a big chomp of my samich. I threw my best shot at the offending bird. A straight right hand that missed wildly. It was time for the second half of my combination, an uppercut swear word " you sombitch!" that hit him cleanly. 
I looked down at my bird chomped samich wondering where that nasty beak had been before it had touched my inch thick of cold cuts, cheeze n chips and I put it back in the bag and threw it in the cooler cursing the rest of the clan gathered around me I got up and began kicking at them. I had always had a deal with these damn birds, I would walk around them and try not to disturb them when they were sitting on the beach and they would let me eat in peace.
 The deals off !      Sumbitches !

HAVING YOUR ASS HANDED TO YOU ON A SILVER PLATTER

John King is looking for a good surgeon to have his ass reattached. It was completely severed in last weeks Republican debate. Newt Gingrich was the one who wielded the ass axe. From the look on Kings face during the ass removal procedure it was apparent that was where John King was storing his brain. 
That look was priceless, then King tried to recover with the "it wasn't our network it was ABC". That's when Newt picked up Johns freshly decapitated ass, placed it on a silver platter and handed it back to him. There you go John, you just got served!  Newt said what is known to us all but rarely said out loud. 
I'm not sure who I will vote for, it will be between Newt and Santorum. I may have to hold my nose and vote for Romney, but I hope it doesn't come to that. Newt has had more than his share of personal issues. I have led a pure life so therefore I can sit in judgment of the past of all others. I also have some ocean-front property in Arizona. 
The things that bother me about Newt is not so much his past. It's his present, his views on illegals and his partaking of the global warming Koolaid really bothers me. His attacks on Romney's ability to make a lot of money doesn't sit well either. 
But can you just see Obama trying to compete with Newt in a debate. 
Even armed with his TelePrompTer, The look on Obama's face would make John King's face look like the Cheshire Cat.