Turning 33

I turned 33 on Friday.

Luckily I was off work after a long two weeks of covering the Republican primary election. We went out to dinner downtown then walked around ArtWalk for a while. We were home by 8 p.m. and loved it.

When I was younger, I thought I would never want to spend a weekend night at home. I thought only losers didn't go out on the weekends. I don't know if it's getting older or if it's because I'm always out and about with my job, but I just don't want to stay out late anymore. Being at home with Scott is more than enough for me these days.

While we were out, there was a preview for the Art Fest, so we checked that out. For a few years now, we've been eyeing these really cool salt and pepper shakers. So this year we finally decided to buy one. This was one of my birthday presents.

My other present came from earlier this month. I was out at Goodland near Marco Island for a story. At the end of the day after photographing stone crab claws, mullet fisherman, the friendly postmistress and a few other local scenes, we heard that one of the original Highwaymen painters was selling his work down the street. If you don't know, the Highwaymen were a group of African-American artists from Florida in the 50s and 60s that sold their paintings often on the side of the road. They are part of what has been called "The Last Great American Art Movement of the 20th century."

I was pretty excited to be able to own a work of art by S.M. Wells or Sylvester Wells. He is now nearly blind and he's one of the twenty six original Highwaymen. I was just excited to have the chance to meet him and expand our small budget art collection. Here's me with him with the painting he sold me. It's a royal poinciana tree - one of my favorite Florida trees.

Here's a couple of other iPhone pics from Goodland - a fishing village with a famous mullet festival where they do a dance called the Buzzard Lope (apparently something like the chicken dance but uglier) and drink a lot of beer. And they have a Buzzard Lope queen. Man, I'd like to see that someday. We visited on a regular weekday, so it was just business as usual. But it was a good place for a few Hipstomatic iPhone shots.

sorting the mullet

Last week I also went to Everglades Wonder Gardens in Bonita Springs for an assignment and came up with this photo of their flamingos.....

And this was parked in front of the Ritz Carlton Golf Resort in Naples during the Winter Wine Fest last weekend. A Packard, if I remember correctly.