Nestled amongst some condos, right on the water, this little bistro serves up some great seafood. The only problem we found with it is that they don't start serving dinner until 6pm (that's actually not an uncommon happening on St. Thomas). However, they do have a bar and they will bend their hours a bit if you don't mind sitting and relaxing, which is a pleasant way to spend a few minutes waiting for your food.
One thing we noticed on St. Thomas is that just about every restaurant we visited was voted the best of something. Perhaps we were just lucky. Or perhaps they like to make sure everyone feels included. Duffy's is voted the best parking lot bar. Or restaurant. Or something. I can't imagine there are a whole lot of those, but then what do I know? As it is, the place is pretty unique - a smallish building on the outskirts of a parking lot in Red Hook, near the St. John's ferry terminal. Definitely gives you the feeling of being in the tropics, but it would do so even more if you could see the water nearby.
After we had been running about St. Thomas for most of the day, we really didn't feel like getting back up and going out again, so we decided to try the hotel restaurant for dinner. The one advantage it has is that it has a nice view over the bay, which isn't a bad view. Dinner time is also when the turtles come out, and they like to poke their heads above water in the bay, and that's a nice experience to see, even though you can't see much. It's just neat.
Unlike St. Thomas, St. John doesn't have a huge number of places to eat. There are a few places in Cruz Bay and a few others in Coral Bay, and that's about it. So when we stumbled into Coral Bay (I speak metaphorically - we were driving), we stopped at the first place we found that was open - Island Blues.
It seems that just about every publication we had read said something good about this place, found in Bluebeard's Castle (not Blackbeard's Castle), atop a hill in Charlotte Amalie.
Having no familiarity with St. Thomas at all (not even geography), we went online looking for a place to stay. We did find a nice list of hotels - which I can't find now - and after reviewing several of them online, there seemed to be a pretty distinct breakdown. There were a couple of fairly high-end spa-type places, and we were going to be running about and that just made no sense, so those were out. There were some places downtown, which isn't bad, but gave no place to really pull back and relax, so we put those into a "hold" status.
Though I still think the idea has some merit, perhaps proposing an official language is not the best idea. I'm open to others. Let them fly. In the meantime, people want to know why I haven't mentioned anything about companies that offer services to those who speak other languages. Maybe I do pick on the government too much.
First and foremost, those companies choose to offer these services. Sure, the government does as well, so we're about even on this point alone. But while it is certainly not without cost, that cost is then borne by the other consumers of the services, and ultimately, those companies have made the choice to offer the services at a cost that their other customers will then permit them to bear. While this seems to still be even, those "other customers" of the government don't usually have such a choice.
It is no secret that one of the things that elected officials do is pat each other on the back. But they also pat other people on the back. If you have spent any time looking around, you've undoubtedly seen a resolution of some sort of another that in the end does nothing more than waste a bunch of time.
The state legislatures are especially fond of these. When I lived in California, you could find these resolutions about anywhere. I was pretty young, and I'll admit to not looking into it much, but I think you can get a resolution passed by the state for just about anything if you know the right person to ask. It seems that this even extends to the county level, if you live in Mecklenburg.
Way back on August 24th, as the Carolina Panthers were playing the Miami Dolphins in an NFL preseason game, the announcers came on to tell us that one lucky fan would be going home that night with a car. How else did they plan on keeping an audience, with the starters long gone and no one in their right mind wanting to tune into the rest of a boring game?
As it turns out, I heard that announcement, and it did pique my interest, but I fell asleep anyway. That's the risk you run when you start a game at 7:30 on a school night. But there were those who didn't fall asleep, and they lasted until there were a little less than two minutes left in the game, when they saw Tony Siragusa present Greg "Catman" Good with a car. Not just any car, mind you - a Porsche. Unfortunately, it was a toy car. The whole thing was just a joke gone horribly wrong in an attempt to keep viewers until the end of the game and make sure advertisers were happy.
It's already been established (more than once) that The Old North State (or at least our little portion of it) borders on the incompetent when it comes to transit projects. As it turns out, there's more than one boondoggle waiting to happen when it comes to the LYNX Blue Line (the light rail line along South Boulevard).
In a world caught up in trying to pinch pennies whenever and wherever they can, retail behemoth Wal-Mart is getting caught up in a new and what seems - at first - an unlikely promotion. According to an article at Fast Company, Wal-Mart aims to change the country's perception of "swirls" - more appropriately known as the compact fluorescent lightbulb. What seems unlikely is that swirls cost more than your standard bulb.
Their goal is that they want to sell every one of their regular customers over the next 12 months - 100 million in all - one swirl bulb. It's probably a reasonable goal, but in some respects, they have their work cut out for them. Most people have seen these bulbs. We all have. Usually they sell for something like $3 each, next to regular old light bulbs that sell for something more like $0.50 each. Which do you reach for when you buy? If you're anything like me, you probably reach for the standard bulb.
When I think of Italian, I have to admit that I really don't think "Olive Garden". But our son wanted to go to a movie to meet some friends, and around the Northlake mall, there isn't a huge selection (there is a large selection, but most are chains) so we decided to try the new location and see how it was. The building is awesome. It's like a Tuscan villa. The food is pretty standard fare.
