Beach Party

Spc. Jeremy M. Dimaranan, 29, Virginia Beach, Va., June 16, 2004, Iraq

Capt. James C. Edge, 31, Virginia Beach, Va., April 14, 2005, Iraq

Chief Warrant Officer Travis W. Grogan, 31, Virginia Beach, Va., Nov. 27, 2004, Afghanistan

Yesterday we spent the morning in Virginia Beach. A little girl walked over with this in her hand and showed us what she found. After I took this photo, she carried it into the beach house to show her mom, who I’m sure was more than happy to have this fine specimen in her kitchen.

It is the quintessential urban park that almost every city should be envious of. Central Park is literally the cynosure of all New Yorkers and almost every tourist likes to take a brief walk through its green environs. I had visited New York on previous two occasions and both times, the time I spend in Central Park hardly revealed the breathing space that keeps New York alive. The first time, I took a brisk walk alongside the Great Lawn although the weekend sunbathing people did slow down my pace a wee bit. The second time I was with my parents and like every person past their prime walking years, they found the vastly spread out green a bit of a drag. However this time, I was with two people very much in their youth and an equal eagerness to see the Park. Of course, it wasn’t a one-day job so we just walked across (again!) to the East side alongside the reservoir. At that time, I was meeting up with my aunt, uncle, and cousin busy in discussing urban space facets of the park rather than simply taking in the view. But as my oft-practiced tolerance for less-visiting relatives is inevitable, I let it be.

Naturists in southern England are concerned about the status of Eastney nude beach at Portsmouth in Hampshire. Described in the Bare Britain guide as ‘easily accessible’ and ‘officially recognised by the local council’; its future may be threatended by proposed high-rise residential development adjacent to the naturist area.

I know all about buoys, and how to steer my way to open seas. I know what to do if a tug boat pulling a barge crosses my path. (unlikely on this lake) I know what to do when gassing up the boat (sniff for fumes before starting up the engine, gas cans filled on the dock not in the boat) I even know the correct part of the boat to step on when climbing in from the dock. But what I do not know is how to turn the boat on, or make it go. I asked husband if friendly boat donor planned on showing us how to do such trivial things and he didn’t think so. Oh, canoe, canoe, canoe.

plans are mostly set for our canoeing trip in july. Ed and I are going to canoe for a few days. It’s going to be down the Greenbrier River, something like 30 miles. very excited about it. a little apprehensive being so far from civilization, but Ed’s boy scout training will keep us safe.

After the housecleaning, I went shopping for a swimsuit. This what I learned: I am WAY too chubby right now to be trying on swimsuits! None of them look good one me. So, I bought a pair of overalls instead. It is much kinder to the general public for me to wear overalls instead of a swimsuit. So, tomorrow starts my diet in earnest. I have to lose a few pounds and tone up before we go to Vegas! You are all my witnesses! Feel free to call me on the carpet if I write that I am eating any really fattening food! I will let you know how much...

This weekend brings us another puff-piece biopic from the Arts & Entertainment channel, this time one that makes Arnold Schwarzenegger look celebrity cool and teddy bear charming. Unlike the 1977 Pumping Iron version of history, in which young Arnie smokes a joint at a beach party, the 2005 reenactment has him politely declining the chance to get stoned. Well, of course he declined. No matter what was really happening on the beaches of California thirty of forty years ago, Arnie is now Governor, and there’s a certain honor in the way a governor...

Onward to: St. Paul’s Cathedral. I strolled around the outside and was shocked (shocked!) to see people sunbathing on the grounds. I’m certainly not a religious sort, but that seemed a little disrespectful to me. Inside, there was a service going on — it’s easy to forget that these classic churches which are such popular tourist stops are also functioning Anglican churches. I was a little surprised to find a service happening at 3:30, but there we were. Not much opportunity for touristing around, so I just listened to the sermon. It was a woman vicar (at St. Paul’s — I was stunned) and the lesson was quite reasonable: you don’t have time for God when you’re rushing from place to place so just Slow Down. I went downstairs and had a quick afternoon nosh (tea, I suppose) at the Crypt Cafe. Why, oh why didn’t they have t-shirts? I would have bought one in a heartbeat.

I’m not so excited about going through the worst of the summer while at my largest. Thank goodness our apartment is air-conditioned and has a pool. Score two for Carrie. Knowing my luck, we’ll have one of the hottest summers on record. Note to self: must get cute maternity swimsuit. Does such a thing exist? Maybe I’ll just get a bikini and scare the hell out of my neighbours. Heh.

Meanwhile, in my own, er, research this evening, I've also come across Dahlia Gordon's doctoral dissertation, titled Strippers and nudists: A comparative study using the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire (16PF). Yeah, it's funny to read that "participants were recruited on a voluntary basis at nude dancing establishments and at a public nude beach," but a comparison of the two groups does really interest me, in that the idea of even being in a strip club makes me queasy, yet I'm entirely comfortable and happy on a nude beach. (Just to be clear, nothing against strippers: I'm friends with a few current and former strippers, and they're wonderful.)

The abstract is a tease (no pun intended), so if I really want to learn how these two groups differ from each other, and from the general population, I might have to actually read it.

Ever been outside when the temperature is -60 degrees F? Actual Temperature? How about a windchill of -65 degrees F or lower? If you think it's starting to sound like Antartica here then you'd have to stick around for our summers, where record highs are about 114 degrees. The heat wouldn't be so bad if we didn't have about 15,000 lakes the size of 2 city blocks or more each (some miles and miles long) heating up like giant humidifiers as well. The humidity here can easily reach 80% - and it's not raining. These same lakes freeze in the winter - sucking all moisture from the air.

My last flight was very smooth and suddenly the weather which was warm and sunny began to turn cold. My fellow passenger was a lady and she put on her jacket and asked me if i was flying to finland for the first time.The view was simply awesome, i was able to see the "Land of thousand lakes" and i could see water everywhere.Also there were lot of clouds around and i was feeling i was in heaven while sailing in the clouds.

Maria and I are looking forward to seeing you all again this year. By now, you know the way to La Casa Goomba. Bring your swimsuits, your funniest stories and a sense of humor. This year we'll be parking out on the street. The lawn still hasn't recovered from last year. There's only so many pick-up trucks that Bermuda grass can tolerate.

You basically strap the camera in to the casing, attach it to the plane and then as the aircraft soars above the ground you can take panoramic shots of yourself, your mates or if, you are so inclined the fox sunbathing naked in next door’s back garden. The plane, which can apparently accommodate up to 55g of cargo, also comes with some other accessories including a mini parachutist, a little bomb and a cargo pod so you can drop messages. There’s even a paper glider that you can release when you're up in the big wide blue. Potential stalkers...

I'm feeling very unsure and insecure about this whole story. It's back to that old debate again that discourages me so much, that you can only write what you know. I don't think it's true -- or maybe I'm just desperate to believe it's not true because it would be so limiting, so limiting. Now I'm getting into the part where people are actually scuba diving and I don't even know what I don't know. This is so difficult. I cut all of the bits about people with accents because two people commented on it and I felt weird about it myself. Now it's...

The new Wynn Las Vegas casino and Casears have joined trendsetter Mandalay Beach in offering topless pools. Besides reaching back to Vegas' more carefree days, the option is turning into a pricless marketing and money making niche. Mandalay Bay rents out the cabanas above the pool to high rollers for $500 on the weekends.

Shank said he thinks more people came to the Myrtle Beach rally this year because the weather in Daytona Beach has not been very good the past few years, because there are lots of beachfront hotels here and less expensive hotels than in Daytona, and because there is more opportunity to ride here. ``Some rallies you go and sit. Here you can get out and ride. We try to encourage people to go to Charleston and Wilmington. People have a bike for a reason,'' Shank said.

When we got the island, I thought "Canoe!", the husband thought "Speed boat!" or some other kind of big, noisy, gas guzzling, lake polluting boat, I don't know the difference.

On my first visit to Brasil, this place completely captured my imagination. The people, culture, food, music and beaches - wow those beaches! I knew then, and still believe 8 years later (living here 2 years), that somewhere here in this massive, fascinating country, there sits a place on a hill, elevated just high enough above the marine eco-zone to grow a garden, surrounded by rain forest, overlooking the beach, and out to the sea, where I can buy or build a Casa, then I will have discovered my place in the sun.

Caye Caulker is a small island off the coast that has no beaches and where a person can walk across the island at its widest point in 5 minutes. It was once an affordable place to vacation until the tree hugging greenies protected the reef, slapped a $20/$30 use fee (to be read as a penalty like taxes) on any use of the reef such as diving, fishing or snorkeling. They even protected the see grass that grows in the shallows by the shore so the only way to enter the water legally is off a dock or some other man made obstacle. Next the ´Committee To Drive Up Cost And Send Tourist Dollars To Honduras´ will be protecting the dirt so a person will have to pay to walk around. So Mel and I saved our dollars for Honduras where we can snorkel ($5 rather than $35) and Dive ($15 a tank rather than $50) on the same exact reef. We found a disintegrating concrete wave break that was destroyed during a hurricane in the 80´s to sun on, bought Rum($6) and Fruit juice ($4) and drank the whole thing until we were drunk. We swam is the aqua blue water that was refreshingly warm and rested as a sweet ocean breeze cooled our tanning bodies After a nice sleep in the lazy sun we went to a local soccer game and met some natives, who are the nicest community of people ever, and then dined with a very nice family from Utah (not Mormon, not that there is anything wrong with that) who were in advertising. Next day we caught the 7:00 ferry for the mainland to catch our connecting bus to Guatemala. There really was not much to do in Belize as all of the tourist we met were trying to go somewhere else also.

We were excited about getting our reservations for the San Blas Islands. We had heard that we would have white sandy beaches all to ourselves and that we´d be sick of lobster by the time we left. I´m not sure who told us this but it wasn´t exactly true.

This last leg of our trip has involved three different beaches. We spent the night in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua, a tranquil fishing village on the Pacific coast of southern Nicaragua. We didn't do much but eat ceviche and walk the beach before taking a water taxi to a remote backpackers oasis at Bahia Majagual - one of Nicaragua's most beautiful areas. There we stayed in a huge thatch roofed dorm room with bunk beds for 30 people and also shared community bathrooms with the other guests and several cute little...

Looking for a perfect family canoe trip with desert landscapes rivaling the Grand Canyon, ancient Indian ruins to explore, and no crowds? Then pack up the kids, strap on your canoe, and head to Canyonlands National Park for a float on the Green River. Just don’t forget to calculate the “Sky Factor.”

Have you ever fantasized about a room full of sexy college coeds sweating over a match of Strip-Counterstrike; or perhaps you long to see young, bikini-clad sweethearts slaving away with soldering irons, installing mod-chips in their home consoles?

Dr. Beach announced America’s best beaches for 2005, and Fort DeSoto tops the list. Ranked #2 last year, Ft. DeSoto in South Pinellas is truly a great spot for fun in the surf, tanning, and catching some rays. We make our way over there a few times each summer, since it’s Wifey’s favorite beach too.

As an experiment I grabbed a handful of photos form the streets and beaches of Rio De Janeiro and cropped out some women in bikinis. I added some descriptive tags and POOF. Within 15 minutes of uploading the photos in my Brazil’s Bikini Girls set each of the photos had more views than any of my other photos that had been uploaded for days. Now that the swimsuit clad ladies of Copacabana and Ipanema have been up for 24 hours they have more views than my other 600+ photos combined. In fact the only photo that can even compete a little bit with...

From Saigon, I headed north to Nha Trang, a resort town famous for its beached and world class scuba diving. The diving was good, but too cold for me to go out for more than the one day. I did see more moray eels and lionfish in one day than I had seen in all the diving I’d done up until that point. I’m looking forward to getting back to the warm waters of Koh Tao. After a few days on the beach, I moved north again to Hoi An, home to over 200 taylors and famous for its custom made clothing that costs a fraction of what you would pay at home. Of course, I took advantage and has a few suits, jackets, skirts…a little of everything made. You walk into a store, look through their catalogs, pick out something you like, choose any material from the shelves, any color, and then a small group of vietnamese girls converge on you to take any and every measurement possible to make the fit perfect - it’s fun.

Sales are up and inventory is down in Lake Havasu City, according to the latest real estate report from Realtor Carl Flusche.

From Freycenet, we drove back to the Tasman Highway and travelled South through Swansea and then lunch at the bakery in the little town of Triabunna. We stopped at a couple of scenic beaches. There were a couple of places that we could get some good views acoss Oyster Bay back to the ‘’Hazards” on the peninsular.

» My latest adventure in transportourism*: The Cheseapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, a 17.6-mile roadway that connects the eastern shore with the mainland of Virginia. This bridge is so long that you cannot see one end from the other. With some time to kill in Virginia Beach Saturday, I drove over the bridge and back in my Ford Escape rental. The bridge-tunnel, first opened in 1964 and expanded in 1999, includes four lanes of low-level and elevated bridges, plus two one-mile underwater tunnels where traffic narrows into two lanes. The bridge-tunnel...

The Surfpark is built specifically for surfing and will include three separte pools including the Pro Surf Pool, the Training pool and the Boogie Pool for surfers of all ability levels. So Florida’s land of make believe will also have fantasy waves….how fitting! This will make it a lot easier for me to go visit the in-laws in Florida! I can take my daughter to Disney and surf world class artificial waves in the same day! Now we just need one up here somwhere outside of Boston so it’s kind of central to everyone in New England. What a great way to make it through flat spells and the cold of winter!

It will take about 15 minutes by car to go from the airport to the city.� This highway runs along the ocean on your right side and the desert on your left side.� You will also pass some poor housing developments.� Still, this road is safe and clean. Before it reaches Downtown, the road passes in front of the Costanera Sur (a narrow highway that runs along the beach on the Southern side) and Chinchorro Beach , one of the three main beaches in Arica, and the longest one.

This mug stands 6 3/4-inches tall and holds twelve ounces. On the front is brown-haired woman, wearing a blue bikini, riding a yellow surfboard. On the back are five dolphins jumping in the ocean. Also on the back are “Aloha”, “Hawaiian Village”, and “525-9222″.

The "Monsooning" of coffee first happened quite by accident in the deep of sailing ships - a shipload of coffee bound for Europe acquired a mellow yet unique taste en route, with the coffee beans 'swelling' due to the moisture in the air. A new kind of coffee was born - Monsooned Coffee.

It’s been a pretty easy week workwise, not too much drama which is A-ok as far as I’m concerned. Lake Havasu was interesting, got to take plenty of pictures of the London Bridge with my phone which will be posted when I get home. For those of you that are unaware, was in one incarnation, relocated to the desert. I would’ve moblogged, except for the fact that T-Mobile coverage here is spotty, at best.

Sat on the beach reading my travel books and pondering this and that. Then along came Tommy and Charlie with some kayaks amped up for a late afternoon paddle. We headed off out past the reef and up past Gun beach (because there is a big black gun on it) and pulled up a bay just before 'Two Lovers Point'. We headed into a huge cave - that I had actually zipped in and out of during the race to note down a code word.

Around 1300 paddling enthusiasts from all over the world will be on Hamilton Island from Friday June 24th for a long weekend of outrigger canoe racing.

American, Karel Tresnak Junior, who is the number one OC1 (one-person canoe) paddler in Hawaii will be competing in the OC1 races as well as steering for Team Hawaii’s Open Mens Crew.

I have a weakness, I admit, for this sort of thing. Two years in a row I went on a multi-day canoe trip with my (now-)wife’s stepfather and a group of other guys. Now, I’m not a big fan of the outdoors, with all the bugs, and the paddling, and the sleeping in a tent, and the bugs. (As my mom used to say, my idea of “roughing it” is a Holiday Inn where the elevator’s broken. I like to think of myself as an avid indoorsman.) But buying camping gear? That I can get behind. Waterproof bags, sleeping bags, backpacks, travel toiletry kits…set...

Just a quick update. We are packed and ready to leave for southern Turkey. We will be travelling through the areas around Ephesus looking at ancient Greek ruins. I am very excited about it. Things have been happening so fast and we haven't even been here for a week yet. Our honeymoon on Lesvos will give us a chance to slow down and reflect. We are looking forward to some beach days. The weather is looking good for our trip, so there should be plenty of swimming and sunbathing. I didn't know this would be possible, but I am falling more in...

Summer is here! It's been so nice out. I really want to go sailing bad, but I don't have a boat, so that would be a problem wouldn't it! I've though about building one vs. buying one, I still haven't descided yet. I'll probably start a whole new thread on this topic. I'm so into sail boats now, I think about it night and day. I have a friend who's supposed to take me out sometime this summer, I need to get in touch and remind him :)

The 2005 Rolex Trans-Atlantic Challenge sailing race is scheduled to start on Saturday at the mouth of the Hudson -- and end at the mouth of the Thames in England.

We took a great ride down the nile on a Feluca, it was very relaxing and peaceful, just listening to the water and the birds. We past banana and corcodile island, numerous little villages and fisherman, even had some nice mint tea. It was a very special feeling sailing down the nile, the sunset was golden and absolutely beautiful.

Me and my friend Dave. We had gone sailing for the weekend and were parked in the marina at Fire Island. We were on our way back to the boat with some provisions, but accidentally tossed our limes into the water. Here we are, saluting our limes lost at sea. Tanquerey & tonic kinda sucks without limes. Yes, we were humming Taps.

Below the jump, Jim Shepley, the fellow who taught Duane his first licks, recounts wild tales of Duane the juvenile delinquent. I bet y'all will like this one better than last week's article:

I met Duane in a pool hall in Daytona Beach when I was about 14. I was shooting pool, and he saw me and came over and started talking. I learned that he had just moved down from Tennessee with his mother and his brother. We lived close to one another - he was in Daytona Beach Shores - and that's how our friendship started. Over the years we rode motorcycles together, we played together, we partied together. We were definitely the best of friends back then. I really liked the guy.

Since summer is almost upon us I thought I would entreat all you savages to what summer is to me. Mostly, it's beer and bbq and women wearing less clothes, which is usually a good thing. But then again I suppose there really isn't an 'off' season for beer....or for women in less clothing being a good thing.....especially that terra....damn she's sexy...*catches my breath* ...ok but I digress....Since it is summer, what better way than to have a mock beach party. What we should do is have the girls send bikini pics *specifically...

Finally got the most successful pictures from our diving trip up on Flickr. There are some other great scuba diving pictures, but these are the ones that we took, and we’re proud of them.

Those who know me know I'm not a good navigator. If ever a guy could turn a 41/2 hour trip, into a 8 hour adventure-its me! My family laughingly will tell you they've never been to Myrtle Beach, SC the same way twice! Yet we've vacationed there on and off for nearly 30 years! Folks have tried to encourage me. They've told me I can learn to navigate better-my wife assures me I have potential-but two words just keep tripping me up-short cut! I just can't resist looking for a short cut!

The diving has begun! Today I joined the Kwajalein SCUBA club and had my orientation dives. I tagged along with an instructor and her student. First we went to a sunken Japanese ship in the lagoon. It was a pretty nice wreck. It was about 400 feet long. Supposedly there is a car inside one of the cargo bays of the ship but we didn’t find it this time. Visibility was pretty good…about 100 feet or so. There were tropical fish everywhere and it felt like I was swimming through one of those tank in the pet shop. That dive went to 118 feet. The low point being when we swam through a big cargo door and right back out a huge hole on the ship. For the second dive we went to the Troy coral head. The lagoon is pretty much 150 ft deep throughout. In several locations large coral heads build up from the bottom to about 30 ft of depth. you can anchor the boat to the head and dive down along the coral head. This one is famous for..SHARKS!