life hereafter

random musings from a wannabe economist

I am spending the next two weeks in Florida (my second home.)

Friday night I flew down to Naples, I am spending the weekend in Naples and then driving up to Tampa on Monday. There I will meet up with two other people and drive up to Orlando for a week of training put on by The Firm. Next Friday, I’ll hop on a plane down to Fort Lauderdale to visit family for five days.

Unfortunately my weekend in Dewey has resulted in some severe sunburn on my upper back, chest and shoulders. After spending a week religiously applying aloe and moisturizer to my skin, I laid off on Friday. Of course, that means that after my flight landed and I looked under my shirt, all my skin has started to peel off. Ugh. It’s actually one of the grossest things I’ve ever experienced. I am molting. My first stop in Naples was at a target to buy SPF 50 sunscreen and bottles of moisturizer. After a few swims in the ocean I seem to have “exfoliated” a majority of the dead skin. I have now revealed my semi-burnt, semi-pink, semi-white next layer of skin that is very sensitive to the touch.

I think I have learned my ‘not wearing sunscreen’ lesson.

I had to travel to Dallas for The Firm on Thursday and Friday of this past week, so I thought, why not extend the trip a little bit and visit my family for the weekend.

First, I decided to stay at the W Dallas Victory which was wonderful, whimsical and not the least bit woeful. (Sorry.) The rooms were fantastic, the ghostbar was intriguing and the views were quite excellent. I checked out a lovely little restaurant on McKinney Ave called Bread Winners. Everything on the menu was unique in some way, but tasted absolutely delicious. Although, I do not recommend the spinach dip, honestly I think they just warmed up a can of store bought spinach dip you can find in the chip isle of a supermarket. I had the Buttermilk Pan Fried Chicken as my entrée and it was superb. The chicken was juicy and not over done, the breading was just perfect and the cheesy potatoes and gravy were as homestyle as you can get.

After finalizing work my step mother picked me up from the office and drove me about twenty minutes north to the City of Frisco, where my father is now a police officer. Frisco was very cool. Everything is extremely new, and you can tell that what is there now, wasn’t there just a few years ago. It is growing very quickly, but the cost of living and housing prices are no where near what they are in the rest of the country. A house that would sell for $1.1 million in the northeast was barely $600k in Frisco. As my father has been tirelessly attempting to get me to move down to Texas, he took me around to a few open houses. The houses were amazing. Five bedrooms, two studies, a third “living area” and media rooms were standard. Even the “cheaper houses” in the $350k price range included all of the above features. Not a bad place to move if you are just starting a family, although it is a little too far outside of a city center for my taste. Also, the houses sit on zero property and backyards are non-existent. To get real land you have to move even farther outside of the city limits.

Who knows, Dallas and Texas made a good first impression on me, and I dare say that I will return.

Washington Monument

Originally uploaded by britoman.

Pictures from my weekend trip! The best part was, it was about 40 degrees out and I left my coat in Philadelphia!

…plotting another european adventure for september…

How cool would it be to head over to spain for two weeks with nothing but a change of clothes, some cash and a bike!

less than 24 hours before I leave for the Europe. I now have that weird mix of excitement and anxity, this is definatly going to be an adventure.

There is a 50/50 shot I will be arrested and not allowed to return home… I’m taking bets, 2:1.

Got a little surprise today when I checked into my hotel. Apparently my Firm and the hotel chain I frequent are having a little appreciation week. I was lucky enough to book a stay at this particular brand on this particular week and benefit!

I ended up with a supremely large room, fruit basket, bottled water, a luggage thing and the opportunity to earn double points the rest of the year.  Not bad for doing something I was going to do already.

On another note, this past weekend was supremely awesome in its own right.  The bike race on Sunday was not to be believed. I’ve never seen that many people, that drunk standing next to that many cops cheering for that many cyclists. It was pretty awesome. Oh and running into kids you graduated high school with but haven’t seen in six years is fun too. Especially when you are out partying.

Watching the races also made me that much more excited to go see the Tour de France this summer.  I’ve come to realize there truly is nothing stopping anyone from taking their road bike and just hoping onto the course, jumping in with the pack (if you can keep up) and essentially joining the race. I swear I saw one guy do it this weekend.

Yesterday was totally worth waking up at 8am for.

Woot!

Got a large envelope from the United States Government today. The first thoughts running through my mind were, “Oh God… I must have screwed up on my taxes… I am getting audited. I don’t make enough money to get audited… OH!” After I reached inside and pulled a few documents out, I realized I had just received my very own U.S. Passport!

Yay. Now I can travel to all sorts of places including Canada.

That was quick, see just slip the government an extra thirty bucks and things go your way… Now all I have to hope is that my picture dosn’t make me look too much like a terrorist…