NYE was much fun. The ‘Ladies played right up to midnight, we all did a countdown and sang Auld Lang Syne. They were their usual selves, which of course meant great fun. They played Feliz Navidad (everyone in the band switched roles for the song — that’s Ed, normally on guitar/vocals, drumming and the drummer, Tyler, doing vocals, and Steve (normally on vocals/guitar), doing keyboards with Jim and Kevin on the guitars!) (video, .AVI, 25.9mb, 1:44), had us doing the chicken dance (video, .MOV, 3.6mb, 15 seconds long, yeah that’s me guffawing in the background 🙂 and of course what night would be complete without a quick “hokey pokey” or a song about the hockey lockout? 😀
We were home by 1:30 am. We stayed up late chatting about Chinese pop music and days gone by. Saturday, we slept in ’til noon, took off to Lido Beach:
…explored Ken Thompson Park’s wildlife:
…had dinner at the Old Salty Dog:
…then it was back home, where we stopped by the hot tub, where Mavis re-claimed her bikini from the forces of evil. Or something. She thought she might have been getting sick so we made it an early night. Sunday we were at the Salvador Dali museum by noon:
(I told her to make her best “melty” face and this is what she came up with)
…explored downtown St Pete:
…(not much going on at 3pm on a Sunday afternoon, though we did find somewhere to stop for ice-cream), then it was off to the International Plaza, where we popped in the Apple store. (Oh my god, you won’t believe the size of the new 30″ LCD display until you see it. I would have a photo of me beside it, but there was an elderly couple using the G5 attached to it the whole time we were in the store and we had to go get dinner.) Dinner was had in a sports-pub-restaurant nearby:
…then it was off to the Tampa International airport to drop Mavis for her 8:45pm flight to Las Vegas and then to Seattle:
I had a great time with Mavis. Besides being a good friend she’s a great cook; she kicked me out of the kitchen!! Haha. Knows a thing or two about interior decorating too 🙂 I’m sad to see her go.
Well, 2005 is here; having a look back through at my resolutions from last year, some turned out to be a bit ambitious (Spanish? Eh?), and there were a few I would have liked to have paid more attention to (e.g. reading!), but for the most part I’m quite happy with how the year went. As it turned out, for me it was the year of the airplane. Mostly thanks to work, I’ve travelled all over the place: San Antonio, Victoria, Ithaca, New York City, San Diego, and Augusta. Time to figure out how those mileage plans work 🙂 This year I’d really like to continue my goal to read more. I’d also like to entertain a little more often, too. I’ve got this great place and I never have anyone over. Finally, I’d like to start investing the money I’m accumulating. Those that know me will tell you this is unheard of. The investing part, not the accumulating. But, there’s a first for everything. The new year promises to be exciting, especially with Cam and Melissa having their little one soon. Here’s to everyone, for a healthy, happy and prosperous 2005. 🙂