My GPS Camera Phone

Last night, I reached into the fridge for that last bottle of Grolsch I had purposefully left in the nearly-empty box. I pushed aside the cardboard bottle separators and noticed that the box seemed incredibly light. Like 12 oz too light. The beer I thought I left actually never existed.

So here’s a neat photo of what it would look like after finishing the beer that I thought I had. To cheer myself up, I found some beer quotes from Dave Barry, compiled by the folks at TastyBrew.com. Enjoy!

Not all chemicals are bad. Without chemicals such as hydrogen and oxygen, for example, there would be no way to make water, a vital ingredient in beer.

Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza.

When I heated my home with oil, I used an average of 800 gallons a year. I have found that I can keep comfortably warm for an entire winter with slightly over half that quantity of beer.

All other nations are drinking Ray Charles beer and we are drinking Barry Manilow.

- Dave Barry

Beer drinkers rejoice!

Traveling is one our favorite things to do. Beaches, camping, road tripping, whatever. It’s fun to pick up and get out of your circle of concerns every now and again. Of course, we like to bring home a souvenir or two to remind us of the good times we had. Instead of buying a T-shirt or refrigerator magnet, we bring home rocks and garbage.

No, really.

This is a photo of our little front porch garden, which used to be a garden of weeds. Undeterred by the ugliness, we decided to dig out some of the dirt, lay down a sheet of weed block, pour in a base of plain old lava rocks and then start covering that with shells from our beach trips. What started as an ordinary shell bed has become a scrapbook of our travels.

This photo is a showcase for a trip to Key West, not long after the hurricanes blew through a few years ago. The sponges are real sea sponges that washed up when the roads were flooded by the storm surge. There’s the wine bottle we found caught in the mangroves while kayaking, cradled in a piece of bamboo found on the same trip. Coconuts are a must, so we grabbed a few, along with some driftwood and other stuff. The worm-eaten piece of driftwood on the right is about seven feet long. I dug it out of it’s mangrove prison and attached it to my kayak. It was extremely heavy and waterlogged, but well worth the effort.

Most of the shells come from St. Augustine’s Anastasia State Park, arguably one of the best beaches on the east coast of Florida. Dare I say even better than South Beach in Miami? If you’re going for beach quality over traffic and ego quality, then yes, I dare.

Not seen in the picture: an orphaned, blue sandal from Anastasia Beach; an orange, plastic boundary marker from St. Simons Island in Georgia; a small, brown bottle with a rusty cap that floated in from who-knows-where; a Volkswagen Beetle headlight from the Key West mangroves, turned green on the inside from algal growth; a rusty railroad spike found by the tracks running through a small Florida town; the broken pieces of a Circle of Friends candle holder from our old house in Clearwater.

The point is that while it is normal to buy souvenirs, consider that they are usually made in another country or that they only last as long as they fit you. Shells, bottles, driftwood and rusty spikes hold meaning on many levels other than where we got it. Who originally drove that railroad spike in? Where did that brown bottle come from? What did the kid owner of the blue sandal look like? How the hell did a headlight get stuck in a mangrove? Questions like these linger, while reinforcing the original memories of your trip.

Take a piece of your trip home and you’ll see that the memories last longer than any hat, shirt or plastic cup.

NOTE 1: Do not take stuff from areas that disallow it, like National Parks. Tread lightly.
NOTE 2: I almost always make a pitch to “leave that crap here,” but Nancy usually gets me to agree, knowing that I’ll appreciate it once we get home. And she’s right, I really do.

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I nearly broke my streak of daily postings, but it’s only 10:59 p.m. here, so the record stands. Thanks to Nancy, I’m able to show off this great shot of ornate doors/windows (not sure which). She was originally reflected in the photo, but I cropped her out, much to her dismay. The intricate patterns just speak volumes by themselves. It looks so Gothic and cathedral-like.

I have so many of these freaky water glass photos, that I have to share, but this is the last one, promise. Yeah, that’s me in the center. Got lucky on the first try.

Always on the lookout for new ways to avoid cameraphonitis*, I stumbled upon this neat effect. Here’s how in however many steps it takes me to explain:

• Take a glass from kitchen and fill with water.
• Sit down and wonder what to photograph.
• Drink aforementioned water. All of it (this is important).
• Adjust camera phone settings to “flash: on” and “brightness” on its highest setting.
• Place empty (very important) glass over camera lens.
• Amuse yourself for approximately 30 minutes with this cool trick.

*Cameraphonitis: the appearance of a photo taken using a camera phone. This is a real term as of right now.