A new game... Post pics from your cel phone V.1.0

[94touring]

I've only ever found it in NC but I bet you can order direct from them online.  I use to order sundrop back in the day.  I'm by no means a soda drinker but like to get my fix occasionally.

[MiniDave]

My daughter lives in NC, I sent her a note......

[94touring]

http://store.cheerwine.com/products.html

[MiniDave]

$12 for a 24 pack, plus $20 to ship. We'll have it next time we go to NC. My daughter says they just think of it as cheap soda.....a 2 liter bottle is $1 in NC.

[MPlayle]

The "Finder" page indicated World Market carries it in Kansas and Texas.  I'll have to look for it the next time I'm in the one near me.

[MiniDave]

My wife suggested we check World Market, I should always listen to her when it comes to shopping! We have them here in KC too.

My daughter in NC says that to them it's just cheap soda, nothing special..... 8.gif

[MPlayle]

Probably about like "Big Red" down here.

[Jims5543]

28 sugar..... pass.... Looks like Cherry coke... Although I am interested in tying one, you know for experience in life an all. I will still take some good SC moonshine over that though.

Random Gopro pic of the beach at Paradise Island, I was bummed to see my favorite bar was shut down, it was right on this beach and an excellent place to grab a drink.

[Jims5543]

OH and good news, my phone recovered from being submerged most of yesterday. Today it worked fine.

So no insurance claim.

[Mudhen]

Snapped a few pics at a concours the boys and I went to yesterday.  Amazing cars as you can imagine - completely flawless.  And the location wasn't too bad, either.







Nice little Ferrari 330 (you can buy these things all day long for $800k or so):


1930 Aston Martin:


Maserati racer:




My favorite...Allard:

[John Gervais]

Love the Maserati and Hornet - cool show!

[Jims5543]

Love the Maserati and Hornet - cool show!

+1

And yes the Allard is cool too.



Boats, all shapes and sizes...


Amazing lobby for the Cove Hotel, it is all open air and the breeze blowing through makes an 90+ degree day feel like there is air conditioning.


I am going a little backwards.

My office this morning. We spent the day bumming around the room and just wandering around the resort, I had a lot to catch up with for the office tomorrow we shall get away from the resort and explore Nassau.



We were asked to meet with a representative for the timeshare property under the guise that we were discussing the transfer to Marriot from Starwood as the two have combined merged whatever.

It was actually a sales pitch with them trying to upsell us as they try to sell some of their foreclosed units.

I am pretty pissed at them as they have let the property go, what they do with the 50 Million in fees they collect is beyond me, I do not see it being spent here. So they asked the wrong person to invest further into them and I let them know that. They tried to brush it aside showing they are NOW fixing up the place, too late assholes you should have been doing it all along.

So they wasted 3 hours of our morning, we got free coffee, and a gift bag (which we did not know they were giving out nor did we care) but it had a bottle of Barcardi Rum, so that made me happy.

The short of it, they wanted me to buy a 28K 2 bedroom unit, and pay an additional $1700 a year in Maintenance fees.   I politely but firmly passed on it.





This was our Home on Monday for the day, this is a private island in the Exuma Island chain.


The staff with this tour is top notch this tour is the only one I will take there. Total class act, here Johnathan is making conch salad fresh out of the conch.


This one of the 2 boats we went out on, obviously I was not on this 2000HP Jet drive boat, I was on the 1000HP outboard boat which happened to be fast going close to 50MPH. Makes short work of the 50 mile trip.


On the private island, there is a house you can stay at for the night. I have been told it is amazing as there is no light and the stars make it very beautiful and perfectly clear.  I think it runs around $400 to $500 a night includes open bar, private cook for breakfast and dinner and lunch with the tour group who you ride in with one day and out with when you leave.



Billboard near the fish fry in Nassau.



I have some go pro pics I am going to try to get uploaded. They should be cool.

[Jims5543]

Last couple until I get back..

This is the Powerboat we rode Monday, 1000 HP via four 250 2 stroke motors. Yes, those are sharks in the water, I saw Reef Sharks, Lemon Sharks and Nurse Sharks.





Other end of the Island we were on.


Rebecca the bartender, she got me good and drunk. She lives on the Island 24/7 for 3 weeks then gets one week off, repeat. She says she loves living out there.


Under a waterfall at pool with the kid at Atlantis.



Sucks to have to work so much on vacation, if the economy does not completely shit itself at the end of this year I may have a new hire, he reached out to me while on vacation he is a clone of me.  We are going to meet up for beers and talk soon.


Over the last 2 days I have walked all over Nassau, in places where tourists are not supposed to go. It was in the early morning. This morning we were on a mission to find locally bakes bread, it is amazingly good.  We scored 3 loaves and also found a great little local kitchen which we purchased breakfast at this morning and take out lunch for today.

I snapped some pics will post then when I get home.

[tsumini]

Timeshares are evil. Just escaped from mine last year.

[Jims5543]

Timeshares are evil. Just escaped from mine last year.

They are not for everyone, we have owned ours since 2002 we own it outright and it does us well.

We have traded for many locations and every other year we can cash it in for Starwoods points which gets us hotel rooms for 10 nights  give or take.

We also rent is every other year and make about 1K off it renting it out.

Atlantis is an easy property to rent out, place is always packed.

After going here so much we are pretty burned out on it, so we trade and rent out a lot.

[Jims5543]

As stated before, I am a brave fucker sometimes, probably gonna get me killed someday.  We wandered around places we did not belong. How I know, the Bahamian Bakery we went to has a locked door, you have to get buzzed in, when I got buzzed in, the girl asked me if I was OK, like I did not belong there and she thought I was trying to escape a bad situation.

I looked at her confused and told her I was there to buy some bread. She was still confused, I was not a typical customer. We Purchased 3 loafs to take home with us tomorrow. The native Bahamian bread is amazing, think Kings Hawaiian but not so sweet. But slightly sweet. If that makes sense.

So off we went with our bread, then we had a hike back to the bridge to safety (Bridge to Paradise Island) but first we found a local cafe / deli.  We jumped in there, more shocked faces, we ordered some breakfast sandwiches, and some lunch sandwiches. We have food for the day 2 meals worth for about $40. Now back to the land of $15 hamburgers and $7 beers.

I LOVE seeing sights of different locals, I like to snap odd pics of whatever I am looking or seeing at the moment. These are from our walk around.

Notice the razor wire.



Notice the Jewish temple.


Road shot:


More razor wire, lots of this and bars on windows. Not a nice place away from tourism, I would never go here at night at 9-10 in the morning, fine.


Back in fantasy land, Marina at night


The boats at night put on a show.


Cool store in downtown Nassau:


Pretty back roads and walking paths.




Banyan Tree growing down wall:


We are at about the highest point on the Island here and you can still almost look up at the cruise ships.


Maybe more later, I am out of time everyone is finally ready to go to dinner going to a local joint.

[MiniDave]

I know what you mean about the cruise ships, the Island Princess (The Love Boat) docked in Sandy Ego once, it was taller (and bigger!) than most of the downtown buildings! That was more than 20 years ago, the cruise ships have gotten much bigger since then....

[Jims5543]

Cafe con Leche stout from Cigar City Brewery.  A little breakfast for lunch.



No rain for 2 months, the moment my roof is ripped off the heavens open up.




Looking forward to it being done, sadly they are not doing the metal install until next week.



I was afraid to walk across the parking lot, I walked very quietly and quickly so as not to alert the Mustangs of my presence. I made it into my office alive.


My wife and I are addicted to Stranger Things on Netflix:

[Jims5543]

My son starts School next Tuesday, Kong opened up at Universal.  He has a summer reading / book report that needs to be done.  We told him if he wanted on last hurrah before school get his damn work done.

He did, I played hooky from work Wednesday.

The onsite Hotel Cabana Bay is super awesome and really hits the nostalgia vibe in me hard.  We grabbed a room for the night so we could go Wednesday.





He took a friend from his old school with him. Here he is in line scared of the skeleton.



The line que is really cool, you eventually enter this room with a witch doctor yelling a chant that is just creepy.



Lots of skulls all over the place.





You enter Skull Island through some cool doors, you are riding on a safari bus that has a "driver" but is really being driven by computers. 
Lots of cool technology being used. The ride itself was o.k., I was hoping for, well, I am not really sure.  It is just not a ride I would race back to.



What I did not like:

It is more of the new 3D screens around you to make you feel immersed in the action, job well done. The story line of the ride stunk. Kong is on HIS Island and he is our pal that protects us from the evil monsters. Wrong.

Kong is the enemy  and should remain so as he was in the original ride.


The original ride in a surprisingly good quality home video.
https://youtu.be/EXdjx1Y3TWM

The new ride, which will be a spoiler if you do not mind otherwise do not watch.
https://youtu.be/n_GZCxD1Jvw

Going back to Universal in 2 weeks for a Season Passholders only night at the parks, they are closing early and then reopening for the season passholders that RSVP'd in advance.  From what I understand the place is pretty empty.


Then I get to pay for my hooky, still at office at 7 PM after getting here at 6 AM



I will be leaving soon, at least I have beer.

[Jims5543]

I never updated this, on Thursday last week we received record amounts of rain, tropical storm like. Probably 5 inches in a couple of hours.

We took on some water only being dried in. No one showed up Friday morning so I had my wife call and tell them what was up, they were not planning on returning until Monday.

The owner and a helper came out, spent a lot of time up on the roof then Saturday morning at 7:00 10 guys showed up and finished the roof in one day. Red Bulls and water were put out in coolers for the guys and beers at the end of the day.  They did a bang up job and I am so glad this is over.

[jeff10049]

Nice roof Jim.


Today was hot 90 the ski resort here has summertime stuff like mountain biking and they do a dinner at the summit lodge by reservation. So the wife and I tried out the dinner food was good it was 70 degrees with a breeze up on the mountain. It was weird seeing the resort in the summer time lift ride was neat great scenery and kinda feels high up with no snow and rocks below make you want to hang on.

[Jims5543]

Great way to escape the heat!!  When we had the place in North Carolina we would head up to high peaks for the day to escape the heat.

In laws 50th is next weekend, Mrs5543 and I decided this event should not go by unnoticed. We ended up footing the bill for a big party.

After shopping around we decided on this party boat, open bar, food included and the unique setting made it a no brainer. Plus it was the best priced option we could find.


For a change the weather was perfect.


Upper deck was so cool to hang out on.


The happy couple, he is a Vietnam Vet they got married just before he left, which was very young. So at their 50th she is 68 and he is 72.


Had a great night, it was so awesome to do this for them. They are great people.

[94touring]

The last pic, that guy (father in law?) Looks like a cross between Burt Reynolds and the world's most interesting man.

[tsumini]

Went to Mecum Auction today in Monterey. Lotsa nice expensive cars.
1964 Austin Cooper S sold for $34,000.
Couldn't get the rotation right but posted aanyway.
Finally

[tsumini]

Mecum Auction.
1960 Morris Mini 850 LHD
Bid $12,000 did not sell Reserve I think was about $20,000
Billed as original condition. Original cloth interior.