weekend « Kenny Smith | A remarkable thing happens …

weekend

adventures / Caribbean / photo / video / weekend — Comments Off
10
Jan 15

Sea day

In between places again today. I wish I had brought my sinuses with me. Or left them in Bonaire, whichever. Not feeling so well today. Since we are sailing, here is a shot of water:

Thankfully we didn’t have to do a lot. Enjoyed the views of the ocean, stared out at the sky and off into the sun. I also read and took a nap. I wonder how many sea days in a row it would take before I got bored with them. The number would be at least three, perhaps more.

A brief video:

And, finally, my hand at dinner tonight:

Tomorrow, another choice destination and snorkeling.

adventures / photo / video / weekend — Comments Off
4
Jan 15

Leaving Miami

Does this look like the face of a young woman set for an adventure? I think so.

That was on the 15th deck of the Celebrity Eclipse, our home for the next several days. Not the 15th deck, necessarily, but the vessel.

We set sail today. Here’s a little video I put together as we left port. I think you might enjoy it.

I’m especially proud of the tracking shot at the end.

More tomorrow.

adventures / Caribbean / food / photo / video / weekend — Comments Off
3
Jan 15

I got hit by a van

I’m fine.

At the end of the night, our hotel concierge asks how things are. “Well, I’ve been hit by a van and almost ran over by a teenager on a bicycle.”

This, and a few other interesting non-traffic things happened within a five-block walk.

The concierge points out this is Miami, and they are all notoriously bad drivers here. Turns out he knew of an insurance survey ranking them at the bottom of the list, and everything. There’s a lesson there. If you cite your source, even if it was one of those publicity surveys, you’ll always come off as an expert.

The van incident was a mutual fault kind of thing. We’re on the sidewalk and the van is trying to join the road to which we’re walking. He’s looking to his left and we’re approaching him from his right. The Yankee walks quickly in front of the van, which might not have been smart. I walked behind her, which definitely was not smart. The van driver started his acceleration as I’m in the middle of his path. I hop back and smacked the hood of the van twice. Hard. Scared him to death, aggravated me, terrified The Yankee.

But I’m fine. I hurt my hand hitting the hood, purely a defensive measure. I tweaked my left ankle in trying to hop back in an effort to create some distance between flesh and bone and bumper and grill. I was happily able to walk off the ankle as the night wore on. I’ve grown very protective of my feet of late, as I have recently noticed I use them to walk and run and ride my bike pretty much everywhere.

So that was a big highlight. A van! Hitting me!

Other highlights include this little story: Last week in Connecticut the woman who runs the little Italian place we visit there told us she was cruising out of Miami today. Her two children had booked a trip for their parents. Knowing we were also going to be in Miami we said “Maybe we’ll see you on your ship, haha.”

We checked into our hotel, got up to the room, took in the view, looked out the window to the left and:

That was their ship pulling out for a week-long party.

Dinner tonight was at Havana 1957. I’d recommend it. I had the Fricase de Pollo:

Here’s their placemat, and how often do you take a placemat from a restaurant?

I’m going to shoot a lot of video in the next few days. Here is one from today, just some shots of the city:

Tomorrow, we’re leaving Miami … but to where?

photo / site / weekend — Comments Off
28
Dec 14

Catching up

The weekly post of extra pictures, brought to you by Extra Photos Almagamated!

Doing up the northern experience in the proper fashion:

They make their own chocolate here. I’ve never tried it, because it costs $3, but I’m curious about what a seagull tastes like:

Never put on someone else’s glasses. This happens:

The traditional shrimp cocktail, of which you may never have enough:

It is a pretty special thing when Sammi lounges on you:

My wife’s godfather’s train world is quite impressive. The next several shots are from an industrialized city that is always in progress:

We saw this locomotive in Denali, Alaska. He’s ridden it. And when you’re a train guy, and you ride a train, you go buy the train:

And now a bit about model details. You can’t even see most of the ice factory unless you’re leaning directly over it, but check this out:

He’s even got distressed tracks, and earth erosion on the berms. The man is masterful:

The Seaboard was running when we visited yesterday. From 1967 until 1983 the Seaboard system ran from Florida to Virginia:

If these are the last Christmas lights we’ll see this year, let’s be happy their huge:

Part of my run today:

adventures / family / iPhone / video / weekend — Comments Off
27
Dec 14

Coming down the tracks

My godfather-in-law knows a lot about trains. He’s been doing this for years. It has taken over most of the family basement.

He says he’s torn it down and rebuilt it twice. There’s a general idea in mind, but sometimes new models change your plans. The ice factory had to go up front because it was such a fine display. And there’s one bend of mountains that are simply too good to move from where they are.

He had a neighbor out back who also collected trains and there was talk, for a time, of burying a PVC pipe, a tunnel, where they could run through both houses. He was apparently a high roller, a “forget the house, get the trains,” kind of guy. He moved away and sold all of his train material to someone else.

That guy came up because I mentioned you could put some tunnels in this wall here or that wall there and run track into other rooms. But that’s probably not in the cards. His latest expansion has come out from one corner of the basement and into about half of the room, a negotiation. He built a cedar closet for his wife.

Just keep that in mind, he said, “You can go a long way on a cedar closet.”

For Christmas his granddaughter got a watch that has a video camera in it. (Kids these days.) He’s now ready to put that watch on a train car and shoot the town from the miniaturized view.