Townie Bastard: Lo, I am risen

What? Easter was last week? Oooops, sorry...

So yes, Hi. Sorry about that. Certainly hadn't planned on disappearing for quite that long. I really figured at some point the urge to blog again would become over-powering. Figure for sure it would kick in while on vacation. It's not like it was action-packed, but stuff happened that was amusing and worth writing about.

Nope.

Not even after being back for a week, it didn't kick in. So, at some point, you have to give something a kick all on it's own and hope the creaky thing swings back into life.

However, I will not be writing about the Royal Wedding. You can go somewhere else for that.

So, first, the vacation. It went well, I think. A trip to St. Pete's Beach is not meant to be an epic vacation. But it was my first one in a year and it achieved what it was supposed to. We resupplied and we did a lot of relaxing next to the pool or on the beach. Mission Accomplished. Although I think we managed to throw a bit of a scare into Cathy's parents. They've never seen a full-power Northern Power Shop before. It can be a terrifying experience if you're not used to it. It is not unlike a plague of locusts hitting a location. In this case it was hitting an outlet mall south of St. Pete's. Cathy and I even printed off coupons for the stores in the place and had a plan of attack. At the end of it, much money was spent, but we essentially had all of our clothing for the next year.

Oh, and a pair of Bose noise-cancelling headphones. Those things are spiffy.

And from there on out, it was mostly about the relaxation. Sure we might pop out for some air conditioning and twacking (window shopping for you non-Newfoundlanders) when the beach got too hot (about 33C every day down there). The ocean was also cooking quite a bit, so I suspect hurricane season is going to be an unpleasant one for Florida. They all kind of know that there, after speaking with some of the locals.

If there was a disappointment in the vacation it was the lack of wackiness. Last year I had a guy dragging a 10-foot cross along the beach on Easter weekend, marginally racist barbers, my first trip to the Wagon Wheel flea market and a stop at the Golden Corral for feeding. This year, no crosses, the flea market was kind of boring, the barbers were more worried about the weather and the Corral was completely unexciting.

Perhaps I'm getting used to Florida. I mean, all the heavy metal tapes and t-shirts disappeared from the flea market. Was there a run on them or something? Although the volume of betamax tapes....I didn't know there were that many left in the world. The only funny thing I heard was a woman saying "well, she went and divorced his ass once he got out of prison." Which was funny only because of the southern accent. I've overheard the same thing when I lived in Clarenville and it was just another day at Sobeys.

Still, here are some pics. A bit of wackiness. And I include the fruit ones just to drove people up north mad.

Enough to make you cry.

It was Sunday. I guess Jesus was busy somewhere else,

I really wanted to buy this for my friend Karin.

Just in case the flea market gets rowdy.

Happy Easter!

So yes, a good vacation and certainly a much needed one. Although I will say this one thing - and perhaps I've been watching too much Fringe - but is it possible that at some point during our flights we were transported into an alternate universe where the NDP is now a real political party. Just asking.

Oh, and here a few photos of sunsets and the beach. Just to prove we were there.