It was hard to believe that I haven't been to this place that I have pretty much called my Holiday retreat since March of 2004. Although I have to say in being away for so long it did give me an interesting unbiased perspective in how things are going economically. When I was there last I remember running into a guy that moved there after graduating from Vanderbilt and made 80,000 in one year selling Real Estate. Mind you we were both watching NU play Oklahoma in their NCAA Tournament game after the game started to become settled. In looking around they were just bonkers about kicking people out of mobile parks to raise condo towers.

Fast forward 3 years where now it just seems that the place was missing about 1/4 to 1/3 of it's snowbird population. It was like I was back living in the early 90's when I first started going down there after my last grandparent passed away and we retired the traditional Christmas in our immediate family. All I can say is there should have been more people down there than I experienced. The beach was really empty. Yea, I know X-mas to New Years is usually slow but this was just too quiet. Every server we spoke to said things were pretty much dullsville.

Next door to my Mom's friend Louise's Condo lives a young Gay couple, one 30 and the other one 35. The 35 yr old works in the cardiopulmonary department in the local hospital and the 30 yr old works as a server and now a hotel worker. They bought their place 3 years ago for $200,000 and just 6 months ago their mortage reset from $1500 to $2200 and basically they are just abandoning it and moving away. The Medical guy has though about moving up to New England but is they are going to stay in the area due to his love of his current job. They haven't recieved any offers on their place and a comparable unit just sold recently for $150,000. SO basically they are in the tank for $50,000 :-(
All I can say is that it seems that this kind of thing is only going to get worse.


Anyway enough of my B.S. and on to some happy pics

I have a bunch more

Well I'm off. It's going to be a long ass day. Working 8 hours and then driving down for 24 is going to be a pain. The 80 degree temps should be worth it. I'm overpacked but I just don't care at the moment.

Now off work and beyond. FLA here I come...eventually

So all I can think about is X-mas's past. Like the years back when my sister would string along two guys. One guy from the U.K. Dan and this other from Winnipeg Mitch. It was always fun just hanging in the pool answering their questions about such and such along with stuff when you get older. Then there was the New Years where I ended up initially not wanting to party but ended up getting freaking sloshed beyond belief from this family from Scotland. The last thing I remember was Galliano, before I spent the day soaking in the pool with a horrible hangover.

It's just that I'm just happy to be able to wear my Madras shorts before the end of the year. It's going to be 77 when I get down there on Saturday. So along with grabbing nice outfit to dress up in I'm also looking at grabbing a thing or two that you just can't get up here. Some fine Waffle House food! You know hash browns covered, diced and smothered!!!

Why the F do I like the semi- cover of the Wu-Tang Clan that I hear on the radio?

I've just realized that for the entire life of this blog on this site I have not been back to Sarasota Florida. Basically since the last grandparent died in 1994 we got out of dodge and headed down to that place. It started off when my parents made plans to visit my Dad's bauxite salesman for the materials that he used in his plant that he managed. The guy also turned out to be my Dad's best friend for some reason they had this unique bond. He was cool beyond belief, as a true Dutchman. His name was Bart Hendrix and during WW2 he survived by eating the fish he caught when the Germans occupied the Netherlands. After the war he vowed never to eat seafood again and everytime we went out to eat no one at the table could order seafood as it would cause him a vomiting reaction. Other than that he had a impressive art collection and represented his country for the Dutch water polo team for the Olympics. For the first years we spent it at a place called the Half Moon Beach Club on Lido Key since that is where we stayed for a couple of years while he still was in good health to make the trip and a couple of years after. In some ways we were just trying to relive those first couple of trips with him.

Then my sister died and we ended up looking for a place away from the other regular visitors during the holidays. Basically it boiled down to my parents not wanting to face the families of the other kids that we got to be friends with. So we had out holidays in a condo complex we rented until 2003. That was when things started to launch in terms of the Real Estate Bubble. Every old couple from the Tri-State area started buying up condos thinking that snowbirds would pay their fees, mortgage and taxes for the entire year off of a few months.

My Mom ended up moving around but still keeping in touch with her friends that she made when she hung at that condo complex before all of the old crew moved on to cheaper places to live. In the last few years she ended up renting a house from an older Gay couple and that is where we are today.

Sarasota was back then a W.A.S.P haven and also for nice corn fed Mid-Western retirees that were extremely frugal and never knew the word debt. I remember in '94 that when my Dad had a craving for Italian and we looked in the Yellow pages the only listing was Domino's. Things have changed as now it's a pretty cosmopolitan place. Although old money screams Republican, especially since it was Katherine Harris's Congressional District after that "election" in 2000 you can get any variety of cuisine.

I"m just looking forward to getting out of the cold and grabbing some vitamin D. Hanging with refined people with tons of $ and a few scattered rednecks is something that I have missed for 2.5 years. There's nothing hanging at bar close to the beach sucking down a cold one, slurping down some oysters with a guy wearing polo on one side and another dude with a bandanna.

As I get closer I think may post again about this topic.