Curtis Matthews

writing my post while doing cardio

Today is the Super Bowl, I live in South Florida so everything is about the Super Bowl around town. I did not attend any of the parties around town but I will be watching the bowl game and rooting for the New Orleans Saints.
The Saints are the underdog and never won a Super Bowl. This is their time to win. The city of New Orleans needs this boost for the city. They have had hard times in the last few years.
The New Orleans Saints fans are out numbering the Colts fans in South Florida at least 5 to 1. So the Saints have the support of their fans here in South Florida.
I am in the gym now writing this post and after I will go to work till 4pm. Then after work I will go over my uncle’s house which is a few mile away from the newly named Sun Life Stadium where the Super Bowl will be held. I will get that imaginary feeling of being at the bowl game.

I decide to see Avatar tonight. The only time I would make the movie was the 10:55pm showing. By the time I would get out of work and go home and change the earlier showings were not an option. I wanted to get the full effects of the movie so I planned to see it at the Imax in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. This movie was the top grossing movie of all time and the special effects used are new to movie making.
The director Mr Cameron created a new type of camera to film this movie. He had to wait for technology to advance before these cameras became a reality.
I had called Imax to buy advance tickets. A couple days before my coworker Ana told me she was going after work with friends and family. She intended to leave work at 7pm and make it for the 7:50pm showing. She also intended to buy the tickets at the box office prior to the movie. How wrong she was the 7:50pm was sold out and Imax also recommends that you get to the theater 45 minutes early.

The last movie I saw at the Imax in Fort Lauderdale was Transformers. I got to the movie theater 25-30 minutes early and still ended up sitting at the very front of the movie theater. This was way to close, I still enjoyed the movie but would had rather sat in the middle of the theater.

So this morning I called Imax in Fort Lauderdale and waited on the phone for 15 minutes before I had to leave for work but I left my girlfriend on hold. It took another 15 minutes on hold so 30 minutes is needed to wait on the phone to buy advance tickets for Imax’s Avatar today.

I hope its all worth it. I expect it would be since it is the top grossing movie of all time.

Now its been 2 days since we saw the movie and it was worth the wait and the extra money to see at Imax in 3D. In some of the senses I felt I could walk onto the screen. I was entertained and my girlfriend whom always falls asleep in movies stayed awake and the movie was a late on, it ended around 2am.

Last year I rode my bike by CB Smith Park and saw they were having a concert. It was the annual Chili Cook Off, lots of country music and a chili cook off contest.

The main thing that caught my attention was how the surrounding area was thrashed with garbage and broken beer bottles.

This year I made the mistake of driving in that direction in the morning to go to the gym and like last year it was thrashed and it seems that it must go on for two day because that trash could not have gotten there at 8am. Besides the trash a mile long line of cars with confederate flags waving were waiting to get into the park. I was block from going the direction I was attempting to go and had to turn around and go to another LA Fitness in west Pembroke Pines.

I have to say last year I remembered that the following Monday after the Chili cook off weekend the streets were clean so I can not bitch that some country music, chili eating, beer drinking folks had a good time.

I am just jealous I don’t like country music that much or I would be drinking beer and eating chili with my American Flag t shirt.

Chili Cook Off

Last year we went to Universal Studios Orlando for New Years Eve. I decided this would be the best time to try out may Video capabilities of the Blackberry Bold 9700. The video taken below is the Macys Parade at Universal Studios in Orlando on New Years Eve. The whole video is a little over 15 minutes. I posted the Video up on the web from my Blackberry Bold 9700 with the QIK application. The QIK application only work to upload videos already taken with my 9700 the app has problems and is not working to allow me to stream live video like I did before with my Blackberry Bold 9000 with the QIK application. But this video was uploaded and will give you a good sense of the quality of the video camera for the Blackberry Bold 9700.
Macys Parade at Universal Studios

Sitting here waiting in Coral Gables for my riding buddies to show up. We were all to meet at 8:45 in this location and then ride together to Miami Beach for the Loose Cannons Poker Run.
I got here a little early and decided to start writing out this post for my Blog. The thing I wanted to test the most is the writing capabilities and easy of writing in the notes section of the iPhone and copy it later in my Blog as a post.
It was 8:46pm when my friend Andy called me back, I had left a message that I was waiting at Naveed’s home. He told me they were already there and I must be at the wrong corner. He rode around to find me an realized I was 20 feet away but we did not notice each other.
Our group consisted of one girl and eight guys ride a mixture of road bikes with gears, fixed gears and a mountain bike that I was riding. The ride to South Beach was not bad, the wind crossing the Venita

Waiting for the bridge

Miami

My Mountain bike

my hand

me

Andy

Causeway was a little ruff for me. I was not in great bike riding shape.
When we got to the bike shop on the beach there was about 60 bikers already waiting. The turn was good, South Beach was hosting the Art Basel weekend and Lance Armstrong is a sponsor.
I had a good time and a good workout this night. I should have won the Poker Run but at the end people were cheating and adding fake initials on the playing cards. The organizer initiated the playing cards to eliminate cheating but at the last stop they forgot to initial the cards.

Today marks the beginning of a nearly week-long celebration of bicycles.

Thursday 12/3 is a Loose Cannons in poker run format that starts at Keirin on the Beach, includes stops to pick up playing cards at four bars, and then finishes at The News to compare card hands. The person with the strongest (or most marvelous) hand wins. This event is less of a race and more of a opportunity for hooting and hollering.

Friday 12/4 marks the opening of a Lance Armstrong-themed exhibition at a Gallery. And then Bicycle Film Festival starts on 12/10.

But first things first. Let’s demonstrate our poker prowess by meeting at Andalusia & Galiano at 8:45pm on Thursday 12/3, then riding out to the race start. I have not ridden in months and it is very windy today but my friends promised not leave me behind.

Yesterday I went fishing with some friends. I woke up at 3:30am to be at my friends house at 4:30am so we would be at the fishing spot at 5:30pm. Well I got to my friend’s house at 4:40am and the other guy did not get to the house until 5:30am so we started out late already. We then all drove in two cars to the bait shop which was on the way to our fishing spot but when we got to the bait shop it was closed and would not opened until 7:00am. Damian was going by the hours for the weekends and this bait shop opens at 5am on weekends. We then Google other bait shops and decided to go to Crook and Crook on US1 as that would bring us closer to our destination. When we got to Hook and Crook they also opened at 7:00am but i remembered around the corner was a breakfast place Coral Bagels. We all had a great breakfast each for $4 so that ended up as a bonus point for me, I have eaten at Coral Bagels many times before and had to convince these guys against Burger King to eat there. I ended up a hero of food establishments after they tasted and experienced the service at Coral Bagels.
We eventually went back to Crook and Crook after breakfast and brought live shrimp, chum and I think mackerel for bait. I also purchased a $20 fishing rod since I did not have one and they guys did not have an extra rod they only had what they called a Cuban fishing wheel with a glove.
The drive to the Matheson Hammocks Park did put us in some school zones and some morning traffic but it was not bad at all and I got to check out South Miami and 57 Ave.

When we got to the park it was $5 per car to get into the park. I was glad that we were some of the only people at the park at that time. We turned at the first point that said fishing and away we went. We put the chum in the water then we set up or rods with hooks, weights and bait, a learning experience for me. The rest is self explanatory as you can see with the pictures below. I caught the biggest fish this day out of a total of 3 fish caught that day.
Damian caught the first fish that he is holding up in the picture below and I got the fish on the grass pictured, they say it’s the big fish is a Jack. We moved to many different spots but was not successful. The marina fishing was not allowed as we found out later. I did not mind the low fish count and next time we will get bait the night before. We all enjoyed the couple of hours fishing, and relaxing this day in Miami at Matheson Hammocks Park.

We ate and drank with friends and family, that is what Thanksgiving is all about.
Pictures from iPhone.

We went to see the pay per view UFC fight at the Carolina Ale House on November 11th

We went to Fort Lauderdale beach for some sun and fun. It was a very hot and sunny day perfect for the beach. The water was perfect no oil spills or any toxic waste. The beach was not crowded, I assume because it is a work day. Gina and I met up with our friend Drew who is playing in the Miami Carnival this Sunday with us. Gina will be designated driver and Drew and myself will get pretty f*#k up or at least that’s my plan. The beach today was to top off our tans and relax, we accomplished both things.
After we dropped Drew off we took I95 home and decided to try a Greek sub shop we heard about, so we got off on Griffin and stopped by Big Foot Subs. All I can say it will definitely by a regular stop from the beach in the future, the food is delicious. We already have two of our favorite restaurants on that same stretch of Griffin road, Royal India and My Big Fat Greek resturant. After leaving the sub shop on the same Griffin road in the Davie area we saw a natural food stand that we have seen many times before but this time we stopped in. This place was a lot more than I expected they had Alligator meat, Stone Crab Claws, Honey, fruit preserves, hot Fudge, Brownies, and a lot more. We brought a half gallon of Coconut water and some dried Papaya. It was funny because we were talking about Coconut water on the beach earlier on.
Now I am getting ready to shopping to buy a wedding present for my friends wedding that I am attending Saturday. They are big drinkers so I will get warm up at the reception for the next day which is th Miami Carnival. Later on tonight I barbecue and chill because tomorrow is another busy and hopefully good day. Curtis Matthews