So the wife and kids departed today on the Disney cruise. They get in Sunday morning so I get a couple days to myself. My father in law will be here Friday night and all of Saturday when we will play some golf. After all, he is my main golfing buddy. People that know of this isolation for myself have asked me an odd question. “So what are you going to do in your couple days of bachelorhood?” This is a perfectly fine and polite question but yet I find it a little odd. I mean, what do you expect me to say? “Oh I will throw a wild party with strippers galore and swing from the ceiling in a toga.” Or maybe I will get loaded on beers and swiffer the kitchen wearing nothing but a swim cap and goggles. Perhaps I’ll hit Craigs List and turn the house into a brothel. In reality though I’ll just watch some baseball and hockey on TV, maybe a couple other shows, drink a couple beers, play on the lappy and throw in a little Playstation. I plan on cleaning out my drawers and taking out the trash too. Exciting huh? But I mean, what would you do? What would be your plans so that you want a story to compare with?

Tonight though, the perfect call came in. No, not the last call I will hear from my ladies for 4 days, that was sentimental. This call was just perfect timing. A team called me looking for a goalie for tonight. How perfect is that, I agreed of course so I’ll go take the ice in a little while and see if I remember how to skate.

My picture from Manta the roller coaster preview finally showed up. This picture was from our front row experience. If it looks like we were enjoying the ride, it’s because we were! Seriously, a great ride.

Yeah, I’m still around. Lazy in terms of logging and reading blogs. But you know, I’ve been pretty busy. That’s a good thing though, life is getting in the way.I think I’ll do this post as just some random babbling, it’s easier for me that way.

After the wedding, which I’m still hung over from, I walked into pure business at work and such. The wedding still lingers because it was that good a time. My first 2 days back at work involved 2 full days of in house training for myself and 4 of my employees on a cool JavaScript framework called Ext. Look it up if your nerdiness will allow, but its for serious coding nerds. Cool stuff, hard to adjust to, but still very cool.

After 2 days of training I had a highly anticipated concert in store. If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ll know I had an extra ticket that I never did find someone willing to take, even at a discounted rate. Oh well, it was seriously their loss. I went to see one of my top favorite artists, Ray LaMontagne at the Tampa Theatre. The venue is amazingly cool and I really hope I get to go back there for another show someday. The acoustics were absolutely perfect for Ray’s music and he sounded perfect. So perfect I had chills for most of the performance. His first couple songs were cool, slow and mellow and new and not very popular but good to settle in. Then he hit me with my favorite 3 songs all in a row. Burn, Jolene, Empty. After that it was like he read my mind and just played all the songs I love more than all the rest. It was a religious experience and it’s too bad I flew solo for such an amazing performance. His voice will make you melt.

On a side note, at the show, I met up with an old friend I haven’t seen since high school graduation. We were friends in junior high and high school and she ended up a couple rows in front of me. It was very odd to be chatting with an old friend again but I was happy to see her. The last time we spoke our whole lives were in front of us and on this night we spoke of each having a decade of marriage under our belts and children. She lives in Tampa so I hope to have more future meet-ups for concerts or any family type event.

Last weekend was a more normal weekend for us. U5 soccer filled our Saturday morning followed by lunch with the bro and sis in law and some normal errads after. Sunday we ended up going to Magic Kingdom for the afternoon/evening. Yup, I love living here. So, what do you want to do today…..I dunno…..how about we go to Disney World…..alright, I’ll make some sandwhiches. Seasonal passes are wonderful and 45 minutes in the car for an afternoon at the house of the mouse is always a great day. No matter how many times I go, I still get giddy when I get there, sad when it’s time to leave, and completely forget all about the rest of the world when I’m inside. I love it there. Case closed.

This upcoming weekend the wife and kids are going on a Disney cruise via a generous grandmother. It was supposed to be a grandparents trip, but her Dad decided he didn’t wanna go so my wife takes his place. I am so very VERY jealous but know they will have a great time. I will go to work, keep the house up and maybe get some things done around the house I have put off for so long. Yeah right! I’m gonna sit around in my undies, guzzle some Bud Light Lime, and play Playstation all night. Haha, that won’t happen either, my father in law will be here at least one or two of those nights so that would be awkward.

Yesterday was supposed to be a normal Monday with myself playing on my soccer team last night but that didn’t happen. Instead I saw a Tweet come accross from @RealShamu regarding a contest to post a picture of yourself acting like a ray, or just doing something ray related. So I entered with a pic of myself at the Rays World Series game I went to last year. Not knowing what the contest was for, I enetered my photo and ended up winning. What I ended up winning was an invitation for myself and a guest to the Manta preview party that night. A social media based formal event to come to the park and preview the new roller coaster which opened to the public today. There was about 100 people, a small little table with cheese, fruit, chips and dip, and a tub of about 6 types of Budweiser beer all free for the taking. Oh yeah, we also got to ride the ride. Amazing coaster. Simply amazing. Once I get the on ride pictures emailed to me, I’ll share here as the wife and I had a great time. They also gave us this cool t-shirt below along with the other pics I was able to snap. If you get to Sea World anytime soon, ride this baby, and also wait the extra time to ride in the front row. It’s simply an amazing experience.

Just a pretty sunset I snapped last weekend

Entrance to Manta

View from the gate, notice the rider in a sitting position?

This is how you ride Manta! Come fly with me...

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