A couple of months ago, I told you about a new web site my son was developing for me to operate and I said I would let you know when it was up and running.
Well, it has been available for a while now and it has 10 articles on it for your reading pleasure. It is called www.wanderingtourist.com. It is a travel web site that mostly features articles about lesser-known tourist venues in Florida and the Southeast, with a couple of exceptions.
One of those exceptions is the series of submissions a friend of mine, Wayne Bolla, is posting about his sailing adventure to the Mediterranean Sea, with a couple of stopovers along the way. I think you will like Wayne’s writing and the photographs he took.
Another article was written by my son, Robert, about his excursion to a family reunion during the Taste of Chicago Festival around the Fourth of July. It is well done, even if I say so myself.
The two web sites are my attempts to both generate some income and keep my mind occupied while I try to figure out what to do with the rest of my life. While I have not given up hopes of returning to work, I know that reality grows dimmer with every economic report published showing a stagnant job market.
I frequently get asked how I am enjoying retirement.
I’m usually taken aback by the question because I don’t consider myself retired. It is true that I don’t have a job, that I am 65, that I receive a Social Security check every month and that I have not gotten a job interview since I was laid off by the Florida Times-Union in November 2008. Still for the life of me, I can’t come to grips with the idea that I am retired. Let’s just say I’m between jobs.
Of course, I really don’t expect anyone to hire me at this stage of my life, especially considering the state of the economy these days. A lot of people who are younger and more educated than I am are in the same situation in that they can’t find jobs either. That makes my chances of returning to the workforce even more unlikely. Still, I persevere.
I currently have applications in for two positions I feel I would like and am qualified to handle. And there are a couple Read the rest of this entry »
Tiger Woods played another nine holes at The Players Championship at Sawgrass Country Club Wednesday in preparation for the start of this year’s tournament on Thursday, May 7, 2009.
As he did on Tuesday, Tiger had more trouble off the tee on Wednesday and his disgust visibly showed on hole 18 with slumping shoulders and a grimace on his face. Whether he’ll get his game back in shape for an 8:10 a.m. tee time Thursday is anyone’s guess. Although he has won the tournament once in 2001, he traditionally has not played well at The Players.
On Wednesday, he was paired with Jacksonville area resident Jim Furyk and the two seemed to have a fun time, despite Tigers’ woes off the tee. Tiger did chip in off the green on No. 14 earlier in the day.
To see more photos of both Tuesday and Wednesday’s activities at the tournament, click on the gallery above and select the two Players galleries.
Florida has three of the most scenic golf courses on the PGA Tour and none is more visually pleasing than The Players Championship, the annual extravaganza in Northeast Florida.
Now held the first week in May (7-10), The Players Championship is easily one of the most spectator-friendly tournaments on the Tour and its three closing holes rival some of the more prestigious golfing sites in scenic beauty and viewing satisfaction.
Except for perhaps during the last two hours on a Sunday, you can find a viewing spot behind the greenon the infamous hole No. 17 and easily track your favorite players over those last three holes.
Of course, tracking the world’s most famous golfers such as Tiger Woods or Phil Mickelson is never easy but I did track Tiger one time from a strategic viewing spot behind No. 17, the diabolical water hole that has spelled doom for many championship contenders on the last day of the tournament. Read the rest of this entry »
Well, I am back from a two-week “vacation.” I know, you are thinking, “How can a guy who is retired go on vacation?”
I used to think the same thing about other retirees. Now I know. Going on vacation when you are retired is taking your wife or significant other out of town on a trip that you really can’t afford but you do it anyway.
Getting out of town accomplishes two things. It means you don’t have to do any yard work and it means you don’t have to do any house work. So, from that standpoint, retiree vacations are extra special.
We didn’t do anything really extravagant but it seems like even small trips can add up when you are trying to watch your pennies. We spent two days at a bed and breakfast in St. Augustine before heading south and taking two of the Orlando grandchildren to the Universal theme park. I am hoping to turn both of those activities into travel articles on a companion web site that I am developing. I’ll let you know what the address is when it is up and running.
Universal Theme Park, Orlando
Part of the two weeks was also spent hosting all six of our grandchildren at our house on Easter weekend, coloring Easter eggs, doing the egg-hunt thing and going to church on Easter Sunday. I am firmly convinced that God gave us grandchildren as a reward for the trials and tribulations of raising our own children. (Not that mine were bad, but raising children is just different from raising grandchildren. Grandchildren are like eating cake, while your own children are sometimes like broccoli. As Jim Varney would say, “Know whut ah mean, Vern?”
After Easter, we were back home and all alone for two days before my wife headed to Lakeland and the state science fair competition along with two other curriculum specialists from Clay County and 14 students who were competing in the fair. I took advantage of the time alone to visit my sister in Lutz (just north of Tampa) and then my uncle in Tarpon Springs. Read the rest of this entry »
The chilling crowded streets were beyond exhilarating for an aspiring “poli-sci” student. There was never a better time to go to D.C. Everyone you accidently bumped into had the nicest (sometimes unexpectedly nice) demeanor. Everyone who came was there for one reason: to see a change in the world and to witness history. Most people who went were told they were crazy for going, but we all responded, “We’d be crazy not to go.” Sure it was below freezing, and, yes, there was no telling if you’d be able to see a thing, but my mother reminded me the night before the inauguration “You’re not there to see Obama’s twinkling eye but rather, to be able to say you were there and you were why that twinkle was there that day.” Read the rest of this entry »
This giant mastadon skeleton is on display in the Museum of Florida History in Tallahassee.
I accompanied my wife on a job-related trip [for her] to Tallahassee last week. She was working with the State Department of Education on some new science standards for public school teachers.
While she worked, I played. Sort of. I got in one round of golf on Thursday after it had warmed up from a low of around 20 degrees and I visited the Museum of Florida History, which I will tell you more about in a few minutes.
The trip was also noteworthy for renewing acquaintances. My wife visited a friend from high school whom she had not seen in more than 40 years and I met a person I used to work with at the Times-Union, Jim Baltzelle, who is now Florida bureau chief for the Associated Press in Miami. Of course, there was a legislative update session in Tallahassee, so it was natural that journalists would be all over the place. My neighbor Mike Marino was also there visiting with the Times-Union’s new Tallahassee reporter. Read the rest of this entry »
One of the many waterways down a sawgrass river in the Everglades.
A few years ago, my wife and I spent a week in Naples at her father’s time share condo. It was June and it was hot, a perfect time to visit the Everglades National Park, which was about an hour or so away. Maybe a little more.
Naples was beautiful, as was Fort Myers to the north but the Everglades is what attracted my photographer’s soul. It was a beautiful, nearly cloudless day, and where sky met water crystal clear reflection pools mirrored the image. Read the rest of this entry »
A much coveted trophy from the Bass & Ass Tournament. You be the judge as to who won it one year.
By Lamar Thames
(My wife and I have a group of very good friends — the group includes some relatives, too, I might add — who live in Orlando and are known, rather informally, as the Steak and Ale Gang. Members of the group have pretty much gone their separate ways in recent years but we get together on occasion. A gathering of the gang is being organized and in tribute to them here is an account I wrote of an activity the gang used to participate in known as the Bass & Ass Tournament. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed composing it.)
I had heard so many stories about the infamous Bass & Ass Tournament that I was both anxious and nervous about the impending experience when my first invitation arrived.
In essence, the Bass & Ass weekend was an exercise in machoism to celebrate the summer season at the Lago D’ Oro Golf and Country Club, deep in the Ocala National Forest.
The much-anticipated event had been hosted on and off for more than two decades by a trio of Orlando residents who held the lease on a rustic cabin on the shores of Lake Dorr — or Lago D’ Oro, as the Spanish explorers called it because of the water’s deep golden color. Read the rest of this entry »
If you like travel photos (scenery, not people) click on the photo bar above and go to the North Carolina photos. I have posted a few more from a trip to Lake Toxaway in August. I think you will like them.
posted
Oct 28, 2009 by Lamar Thames
