Curtis Matthews » Miami

On the way to Miami Airport

curtism — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 13:15:15 +0000

We are on the way to Miami from Tampa to pick up Gina’s brother at the airport. He is coming in from Trinidad. The drive is about 4 1/2 hours each way and I am letting Rebecca drive the first leg of the trip. Rebecca got her driving learners permit a few weeks ago and this will help her log some good hours behind the wheel and get highway driving experience.

My car is hooked up to keep up entertained with two Verizon Wireless MiFis, a laptop, a tablet and Netflix so no boredom here. I plan to play games and watch movies all the way up and down. I have my mobile devices set up to play the audio through my cars stereo by Bluetooth and auxiliary jack input.

Poker Run Bike Ride

curtism — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:09:39 +0000

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

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.

Fishing at Matheson Hammocks Park

curtism — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:57:31 +0000

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.