Category: Florida

Click to see the life-giving elixir at full size.

Pretty nicely, I must say. The background is the view from my yard this morning; the foreground shows part of my complete breakfast.

In case you’re wondering, the cold brew mix that Trader Joe’s sells is pretty decent. Cut with water or milk, it makes a decent iced coffee, livens up a protein shake, and I’ll bet that it makes for some good mixed drinks and shots. At about $8, it lives in the cost-benefit middle ground between brewing your own and going to your local coffee shop.

The blog’s been quiet for the past couple of weeks, but I have a good excuse: I married Anitra on Saturday, March 7th, 2015, and the wedding and everything related have been keeping us busy. It’s been a week since the big day, we returned from our honeymoon yesterday, and we’re both back at work this morning after ten days well outside reality.

We won’t get to see the official wedding photographer photos for about another week, but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t any photos. I’ve compiled this “album” from pictures snapped by Yours Truly, best man Eldon Brown, “father” of the groom Dr. Domingo de la Fuente, bridesmaid Elizabeth Cannon-Dang, Rob Strickler, and guest and unofficial wedding cruise director Marichka Melnyk. Thanks for the photos, folks!

We had the big event at the Grand Plaza Hotel, which hosts its wedding ceremonies right on the beach:

Here’s an overhead view of their ceremony areas. There are two sets of palm tree “aisles” down which happy couples can march:

Here’s a closer look at ours, the southwest-facing aisle:

Here’s a scene from the wedding rehearsal, with Anitra’s uncle and our officiant, Rabbi John Fischer giving best man Eldon some instructions:

Fast-forward a day to the next morning, and we’ve got Eldon giving me the traditional best man gift of booze, which in this case was a hard-to-find and very delicious Canadian whisky, served in the most appropriate vessels we could find:

And here I am with my father-in-law, who was greatly amused by the whole thing:

Male bonding:

We don’t buy into this “you can’t see the bride before the ceremony” nonsense. With a bride like this, I want to see her as often as possible!

Here we are from another angle:

Time to head to the lobby, where our big event was already posted:

A quick gathering of Team Groom, featuring my mom, Yours Truly, and my groomsmen Eldon and Richard (who’s also my brother-in-law):

I was ready to get the party started:

Here’s the last photo I snapped as a free man! It’s of my view of the “aisle” before I made my way to the front:

And here’s my last walk as a free man:

I was raised Catholic, she was raised Protestant, the officiant’s a rabbi, and the ceremony combined Jewish and Filipino wedding traditions. Here’s a Jewish tradition, where the bride walks around the groom three times, in a process I call “circling your prey”:

Post-ceremony parasol pix with the bridesmaids:

And now the bridesmaids and groomsmen:

Here’s the mandatory “Ocean’s Eleven” pic:

Here’s where we had the reception: the Presidential Ballroom, located on the Grand Plaza’s penthouse level:

As my friend George put it, it’s a classic James Bond villain’s lair waiting to happen, and it’s also reminiscent of the reclusive billionaire’s hotel from Diamonds are Forever:

Here’s a closer look at the “sweetheart table”:

A quick welcome to the guests before we all descended on brunch:

Here we are at our Star Trek-like table, with me sitting at Mr. Sulu’s post, and Anitra as Chekov:

Of course there was some accordion playing:

Anitra looked amazing, but in my opinion, she always does:

I love this photo:

Here’s the wedding “cake”:

At the end of the reception, a couple of hours before sunset…

…we made our way to Bongo’s Beach Bar, where we had the less formal, unofficial part of the day that stretched well into the night:

Here’s a view from the bridal suite the next day:

Before we left, we went for the first of many walks on the beach as husband and wife:

…and when we got to our car, we saw that one of the guests left us a geekily appropriate gift: a pair of twenty-sided fuzzy dice:

Now that the event has taken place and we’re husband and wife, I’ve opened up the Anitra and Joey wedding site to the public. It wasn’t all that hidden in the first place, since it lives at AnitraAndJoey.com.

It’s got all the details about where and when, plus a little background info about each of us and how we met:

 

The location was the wonderful St. Pete Beach, located on a barrier island just off the coast of St. Petersburg, Florida, and the venue was the Grand Plaza Hotel, a striking building reminiscent of the Whyte House, the hotel owned by reclusive billionaire Willard Whyte from the James Bond film Diamonds are Forever. The wedding took place at 11 a.m. and was followed by a brunch reception, which in turn was followed by an after-party at Bongo’s, a bar right on the beach:

If you’re feeling particularly wacky or generous and have a couple of bucks to spare,

Also: if you’re thinking about having a wedding in the Tampa Bay area and want to know about my experiences talking to various vendors and venues, feel free to drop me a line at joey@joeydevilla.com.

From concentrate and not from concentrate at the same time, this orange juice is part of Schrödinger’s complete breakfast. Or more accurately, the moment just prior to Schrödinger’s complete breakfast.

I’m beginning to realize that Florida is a quantum state.

I’ll let the Tampa Bay Times do the talking:

Did you miss the Pixies as they criss-crossed the U.S. these last two years? The band is ready to make good on all the spots they missed, so they’ve announced a new North America tour for 2015, which includes a previously announced May 9 stop at Tampa’s Big Guava Festival.

The Pixies will continue to tour with founding member Kim Deal. The current lineup is Black Francis, Joey Santiago, David Lovering and touring bassist Paz Lenchantin. The band also plans to debut some new Pixies songs for this time from material written in the last few months.

A fan-only pre-sale starts at 9 a.m. EST on Feb. 25 at www.pixiesmusic.com. (Use the pre-sale ticket password snakes.) General on-sale tickets for this run go on sale to the public Feb. 27. More dates are expected later, but here’s the lineup so far.

• May 5: Civic Theatre, New Orleans, LA
• May 6: Iron City, Birmingham, AL
• May 8: Shaky Knees Festival, Atlanta, GA
• May 9: Big Guava Festival, Tampa, FL
• May 11: PAC, North Charleston, SC
• May 12: Ovens Auditorium, Charlotte, NC
• May 13: The Norva, Norfolk, VA
• May 15: Louisville Palace, Louisville, KY
• May 17: Masonic Auditorium, Cleveland, OH
• May 19: Rapids Theatre, Niagara Falls, NY
• May 21: Flynn P.A. Center, Burlington, VT
• May 22: Brewery Ommegang, Cooperstown, NY
• May 24: Boston Calling, Boston, MA
• May 27: Beacon Theatre, New York, NY
• May 28: Kings Theatre, Brooklyn, NY
• June 18-21: Amnesia Festival, Montebello, QC

For more about the Big Guava Festival, go check out their site:

Click the photo to see the news report.

Here in Accordion Bay, schools have been phoning parents of their students with a warning about the cold weather, reminding them that they should make sure that the kids are dressed in layers.

The local news shows have been cranking out the graphics illustrating just how cold it’s getting here. If you’re wondering what those temperatures are, here are some screen captures from the weather forecast as of this writing:

For my readers from Canada, here are those same temperatures using a real measuring system:

That’s right — the big weather news here is about temperatures close to freezing. The way people have been going on about it here, you’d think we should all huddle in the library and burn books for warmth as civilization slips into an icy grave, a la Jake Gyllenhaal in The Day After Tomorrow.

Click the photo to see the news report.

I don’t see what all the fuss is about. I’m a recent import from Toronto, whose winters are considered relatively mild in Canada. I’m enjoying the local weather as much as this guy is enjoying his: