Cameo, Jazid, Markham, and Harry Potter

By the way! I didn't know this before, but you can click on all the images to make them bigger!

Last week we checked out a bit of the rare live music in Miami Beach. For some reason, Miami Beach has many great clubs, but not a lot of live music. This place called Jazid is different. They have live music downstairs and a DJ upstairs. The band we saw was Xperimento. There music is reggae-latin-funk. They are very talented musicians. Unfortunately, not my style of music. But it was still a lot of fun to hang out and see everyone having so much fun. We went with oru friends Liz, Marc, and John. (Here's a movie clip of the band.)

Also, last week we were wandering around in the car trying to decide about office furniture. We happened upon Shorty's Bar-B-Q and we happened to be hungry. I remembered the name from a book about Miami and the Keys. They have some great BBQ - some of the best I've ever had. Steve and I had a full rack with some corn on the cob. The atmosphere is down home and casual. Prices not bad either.

This past Saturday morning we attempted to go mountain biking at Markham Park. It got hot early and we got tired early too. But we had a nice short ride. We rode with our friends Martha and Derren.

This past weekend we went to a cool Miami dance club - Cameo. We go there kind of late for getting in. (Usually it is recommended you get in line at a club before midnight. We arrived about 12:30AM.) We got in line though. After only about 30 minutes, we were in! It was a very cool club. Great music, great atmosphere! We danced and had fun. We left "early" at 2:30AM. (This is early by Miami standards. This club is open until 5AM I think. Some clubs stay open until sunrise - people are sure to bring their sunglasses to greet the sunrise!) Here is a video. Some photos are below.



Regarding Harry Potter: I received my copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Saturday. I finished the book yesterday. I'd give it a thumb and a half up. It is pretty good. The final chapter seems a bit unnecessary. It's worth reading if you've read all other books.

Windsurfing!

Today Steve and I went windsurfing for the first time. I was pretty nervous to start since I seem to have terrible balance when it comes to all things surfboard-like (e.g. skateboarding, snowboarding, etc.). We had a very good teacher - Jerry - at Sailboards Miami. It is just on the Rickenbacker Causeway, on Virginia Key, on your way to Key Biscayne. (If you click on the map, it takes you to an interactive one.) It turns out the winds were in our favor. Also, I managed to do pretty well. I only fell off twice! Steve did very well also. Below are some pictures. The last photo is of Jerry giving one of the kids a few tips. It was a lot of fun! We are planning on going back for more practice. The great thing about this area is that it is about 5-10 minutes from home!

Urban Miami Fishing

Today we went fishing in one of many canals throughout Miami. It is odd, but these canals can contain some amazing fish. None of which we caught of course. We saw some Peacock Bass and many smaller "minnow" type fish.

The canal where we went was located in an urban area on the Tamiami Canal, just south of Miami International Airport.The area was kind of junkie, but like I said, people do catch big fish here. A couple of locals happened by with a gigantic carp. The let it loose, but we noticed it didn't look so well later - we saw it struggling at the surface further down stream.

We found lots of shells, including many of these snail shells. (At least I think they are snail shells. I also found a skull, which I think once belonged to a small alligator. The camera had run out of battery life by then though.)

Here are some more pictures...



Some interesting ducks. I haven't looked up what type of ducks these are.











Here are Steve and I fishing. I am on an old abandoned paddle boat.





















Various plants and flowers....

Some recent photos!

A photo of me getting back on board after snorkeling

at John Pennekamp Coral Reef State Park.

Steve and I at our favorite sushi place Sushi Hiro Express.

Today we visited the Miami Beach Holocaust Museum
It was very sad yet amazing to see.

working backwards

I have a cold so I'm sitting here on the couch trying to recover. It's been a while since my last post. I'm trying to break this habit and make it a habit to post more frequently. It's weird having a cold when it is so hot outside. But there is some good news!

Steve and I both have jobs now! We will be working at Fienberg Fisher K-8 Center. Their web site seems to be down right now, but here is some information from Miami-Dade County Schools web site. The really cool thing about this school is that it is very close to home.
As you may be able to see from this image, the school is a mere 6.5 blocks away. The other nice thing, of course, is that Steve and I will be at the same school. It looks like at this point I will be teaching 3rd grade. Steve will be teaching 7th grade social studies and sciene. (Not his first choice for a subject or grade level, but definitely his first choice for a school.)

Let's see, what else... Well we have done some awesome mountain biking. They may not have the killer hills like at Patapsco in Maryland, but there are some very cool stunts and winding trails here. On the 4th of July we went to Markham Park. It was very hot, but we rode for a while. I also brought my single speed. Did I mention I have a single speed now? Well, I do. It is a Redline Monocog. It was the cheapest I could find for a single speed. I am intending to mostly ride it around town. But since I've ridden it at Markham, I am considering using it occasionally as an actual mountain bike as well. Though it could really use a suspension fork. Anyway... We rode at Markham. One of the most exciting parts of Markham was this built up "boardwalk." It was very wavy. Steve was ahead of me and around the corner, so I didn't see exactly what was coming up. All I heard from hime was, "Keep pedaling!" We made it through. I wish I had a photo.

We also went snorkeling July 3rd. This was fun. I made sure to wear lots of sunscreen, covering all of my exposed body parts - or so I thought. We explored the John Pennekamp State Park in Key Largo. It was really cool to be able to drive a mere hour away to go snorkeling. We saw many fish and coral. I saw a conch. We both saw an enormous puffer fish. It had huge eyes like a cow! (Later, driving home, my but felt kind of sore. At home we realized that I managed to miss those tender parts of my butt cheeks just outside of my swimsuit. Now I know why people snorkel in t-shirts and shorts. This will be my choice next time.)

We decided to see a movie this afternoon. It is pretty hot today, so it seemed like a good idea. The only two movies playing at the time we walked into the theater - which is just a few blocks from our building by the way - was Ratatouille and Live Free Die Hard. We chose Ratatouille. It was pretty bad. So then we tried sneaking into Sicko, but that was just ending. Then we decided to try Ratatouille again - still bad. So then we thought, "Hey, Fantastic 4 Rise of the Silver Surfer got terrible reviews, let's go see that." This was so awful we decided it was better to just go home.

So we are very happy to have actual jobs. Now instead of stressing out about not having jobs, we can stress out about how we are going to teach, etc.

I'm hoping to post some great pictures as soon as I can.