I try to do a 10K bike ride most weekdays and on at least one of the weekend days, and I manage to fit in most of my grocery runs on these rides (unless I need to buy stuff that won’t fit in my backpack).
As a result, I’m not as tubby as I could be, I’m lowering my risk for lots of health problems, I get to catch up on a lot of podcasts and audiobooks, my mind is clear for the day’s work, and I have to gas up my car once a month or even less.
Anitra is on the board of the Glazer Children’s Museum, the home of the world’s largest triceratops skeleton — lovingly known as “Big John” — for the next three years. Big John’s exhibit opens to the public this Friday, May 26th, and we got a sneak peek at the VIP party last week.
I wrote about Big John back in January, in a post titled The world’s largest triceratops is moving to Tampa Bay! Since then, the museum has been hard at work getting this 66 million year-old beast and his room ready for the public in time for the Memorial Day weekend.
The museum’s CEO, Sarah Cole, gave us a quick welcome speech and thanked everyone involved in bringing Big John here, with a big special “thank you” to the Pagidipati family, who purchased Big John in late 2021 and have arranged for him to be publicly displayed instead of being tucked away in a private collection.
Since the occasion called for it, I brought my triceratops sunglasses…
…which came in handy with the viewing domes underneath Big John:
If you’re downtown and driving down Ashley Drive or in Curtis Hixon Park, you’ll be able to see an inflatable triceratops atop the museum:
If you’d like to see Big John, he’ll be available for viewing at the Glazer Children’s Museum for the next couple of years, starting this Friday!
I saw the “palapa boat’ pictured above on the Hillsborough River from my vantage point on the balcony of the Glazer Children’s Museum, where I was attending a pre-launch party for Big John, their new tricertops exhibit (which opens this Friday!).
I couldn’t read see the sign on the boat from that distance. Can anyone tell me whom to contact to rent this boat? I might want to do so for…reasons.
Leave it to none other than Daniella Diaz, local tech person and cofounder of High Tech Connect and HireUp Florida to give me an answer within a couple of minutes of my posting this!
It’s the Tampa Bay branch of Cruisin’ Tikis, who provide the boat with a bar. You bring the drinks (including booze), food, and music. $300 for 90 minutes.
There’s an unexpected, growing tech scene here in Tampa, and Made in Tampa is dedicated to covering it. Their latest installment is about an accordion-playing techie whom you might know.
My thanks to Amanda Kern for the wonderful interview and write-up, and to Jason Allen for setting this up!
Last Sunday, Anitra and I went on the annual Old Seminole Heights tour, which gave us the chance to see the insides of some of the houses in our neighborhood. One of the houses on this year’s tour belonged to Susan, our neighbor across the street, whose house turns 100 this year. She and her tour assistants dressed up in 1920s clothing and a local antique car enthusiast brought his 1916 Ford Model T to display in her driveway.
I was chatting with the car’s owner for a little while when he asked if Anitra and I would like to sit in the car. We’ve seen Model Ts before, but we’ve never been in one, so of course we said “yes!”
You can find out more about the Old Seminole Heights Home Tour here:
Last night, I joined Tom Hood and the Tropical Sons at Bayou Bistro, a little bar and restaurant located right on the bayou just east of the Greek “village” in Tarpon Springs.
Wednesday is “open mic night” at Bayou Bistro, where anyone can hop onstage and play for the patrons. Since there’s no guarantee that anyone will bring an instrument, most open mic nights feature a “house band,” which in Bayou Bistro’s case is the Tropical Sons.
While Bayou Bistro is a short drive away for most of the other band members, it’s a fifty- to eighty-minute drive for Yours Truly, depending on the traffic. I can’t do it every Wednesday, but I try to play when I can.
Bayou Bistro is a charming down-home bar. If you drive past it, you might not even realize that it’s a bar — it’s hidden away by the water, and you could easily mistake it for a fishing shack. But it is indeed a bar, with friendly staff, and sandwiches that don’t disappoint (I’m fond of their mahi mahi, shrimp, and banh mi sandwiches).
As you might expect, a band called the “Tropical Sons” has a sort of uniform, and in our case, it’s aloha shirt and shorts with optional hat. For last night’s gig, I went with my “Disney Polynesian” shirt, which is one of my favorites. It’s a gift from my friends Natalie and Eldon, who somehow found it at a market in Ottawa:
We played from about 5:15 until 8:30, with a break to get a bite in the middle. Here’s what my view looked like at the start of the gig…
…and here’s what the audience saw:
This is the “accordion’s eye view:”
When we took our break, Mary took the stage:
She attended the gig to catch our act and collect the ukulele she won at the raffle for Tampa Bay Ukulele Day, which took place last Sunday in Dunedin.
She played a number of amusing songs, including one called Pink Flamingos, the unofficial symbol of Cheektowaga and other towns in the Buffalo area. As a long-time resident of Toronto, I got the reference.
A short while after, we started our second set, also known as the “Sunset Set.”
And we played on into the night, wrapping up around 8:30 (Bayou Bistro closes at 9).
Once again, a fun gig! I’m going to be busy for the next couple of weeks, so it may be a little while before I get a chance to play at Bayou Bistro again.
I’m playing more classic rock on accordion this evening with Tom Hood and the Tropical Sons at Bayou Bistro in Tarpon Springs!
The fun starts at 5:30 and wraps up around 8:30. If you’re in the area and like seafood, beer, and great live music, come on over! It’s an open mic night, so if you feel like playing with us, bring your instrument!
Here are some scenes from the last time I played there, a few weeks ago:
