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I am absolutely blown away by this place (and I ain’t only talking about Tobacco Road). It’s true when they say that everything is bigger in America. I was driving to Miami last night with a pretty good set of directions, thank God, and I was amazed by the sheer amount of concrete used in the construction of the highways. As an engineer (or just a generally inquisitive person), I am in awe at how all of this stuff is designed and built. I start thinking about it and then give up because it hurts my head. ...

Fort Lauderdale - the return. This time around I spent a bit more time actually walking around and enjoying the sights rather than trying to find some place at some address that was completely wrong. I had lunch at some European cafe and they actually had a pretty decent margarita pizza (or margharita - I see it spelt every possible way under the sun) - booya! I didn’t think I was going to be able to eat all of it, but my stomach thought otherwise. There was also a pretty good jazz band playing next door that provided a nice backdrop. The cars going past this place were all class - BMW, Mercedes, Jaguar, Porsche, Corvettes, and nothing like the equivalent of a Commondore or Falcoon. ...

yeah, I’m still at work (7pm here) but I’ve been studying the directions for making it to Tobacco Road to see Santos Renuentes play (plus the other bands there!). I think I’ll be able to find the place… expect a review tomorrow!

This entry is coming in late - mostly because I’ve been busy as heck at work and I’m just plain buggered. I spent most of Saturday recovering from the previous night since I only ended up getting home at 4:30am or something like that. Saturday night I didn’t have anything planned - but that didn’t particularly worry me at 2pm in the afternoon. At 8pm however, I was starting to get worried so I called Chet the player to see what he was up to. He was at this place called “Roundup” - a country themed bar out west of where I live. I was told there were lots of guys wearing cowboy hats but hey, I wanted to meet some new people so I didn’t really hesitate. Chet the player hadn’t been there before either so it was all new for him too. ...

Wowsers, I think I just had the hugest weekend in a while - my first real weekend in the United States. I’m going to have to break it into several posts I think. I made it into work this morning, so that’s a good start I guess.

Friday night I was due to hook up with a few people from work at a place called the Baja Beach Club. Here was the invite I received: Baja Beach Club, Riverfront. Upstairs, just past the movie theater. 3 for 1 from 6-10, with full dinner buffet. Come on out, and bring anyone you can. I hadn’t been to Fort Lauderdale yet, but this sounded as good an excuse as any to go. Because I was uber prepared, I decided to do a quick internet search to find out where this place was, just in case. No problemo, I had an address and I said I’d try to arrive at around 8pm. ...

I thought Adelaide drivers were supposed to be bad! Things I’ve noticed: The indicator is just a novelty item and rarely gets used. If a person driving in an adjacent lane notices that their vehicle will fit in the gap between you and the car in front of you, then they’ll take that gap. Refer to (1). There is no such thing as a safe distance between cars. If you can count “1001, 1002” you’re too far away from the car in front of you. Refer to (2). Don’t expect anyone to safely let you in even if you have your indicator on. You’ll have to barge your way in. Refer to (2) Stop signs are red and octagon shaped. That’s about all people notice about them though. Then there are some other things I’ve noticed - like the number of crashes between my residence and work (a 5 minute drive). I’ve seen the result of three crashes so far, and the one this morning was a doozie. It looked like an SUV had rolled a couple of times and was lying on its side - and that was in a 45mph zone! ...

Especially if I want to spend a couple of days in Miami, I’ve been informed. Ok, so learning Spanish is probably not essential, but it would probably help to know a bit more than just “Yo quiero taco bell”. I met a guy today who works here, Omar, who is in a band called “Santos Renuentes”. If you go to their website you’ll see pics of the whole band. I’ve listened to a couple of their tracks and it really can be best described as Spanish alternative rock. There are a couple of links to their tracks on their website, and it sounds like really cool stuff. Apart from being the bass player of the band, Omar does the mixing too. That then got us to discussing all things Reason, Cubase, Logic and VST plugins. He is also involved in a trip-hop band (think music that sounds like Morcheeba). Actually, I just had a quick look at the Morcheeba site - they actually mention the Adelaide show that got cancelled just over a year ago. This is what they had to say: ...

It’s funny how some things just don’t happen sometimes. Even though there were lots of delays in getting to the US, there still isn’t a computer ready for me and I’ve had to use another computer whose owner is currently on holidays. Of course, this computer doesn’t have any of the tools I need to do my work, but oh well. I had lunch today with some American guys plus a couple of Aussie blokes at pizza place. The waitress we had was pretty darn friendly, and the service was so good I could see why the American guys always went there (no, this wasn’t a topless pizza place in case you were wondering). Everyone was ordering pizzas with toppings I haven’t really seen before, for example, pizzas with sausages on top (and I mean full sausages just laying on the pizza base. WTF?) One of my Aussie workmates tried ordering a ham and pineapple pizza but they didn’t have any pineapple. I went for my normal Margarita - except the waitress didn’t know what a Margarita pizza was. I told her tomatoes with basil on top. The American guys sitting with us looked at me a bit weirdly, although I must say that one guy there knew what I was on about. I got back a pizza that had ham and basil instead. The waitress said “that’s not what you ordered, is it?” I shook my head and she got me another one, this time with the correct toppings. I ate both of them anyway, and it only ended up costing me a few bucks (I had 2 large cokes as well). ...

I can’t actually believe that I’m in the US at the moment - it’s all sorta a bit weird still. I think I most enjoyed the flight from Adelaide to Melbourne - mainly because it was the shortest. The flight from Melbourne to LAX was just plain painful. For over 14 hours I was right at the back of the plane and a Mexican dude in front of me had his seat right back which cramped my legs up. I lost count of the number of times I had to get up and walk around. I tried getting sleep on this stretch but it was just plain impossible. I chatted a lot to some Australian guys next to me who were biologists heading to Oregon. There was also an Australian girl, a vegetarian who was planning on hiking through South America. Talking to them made the time pass a little faster. I got to watch “Starsky and Hutch” and “The Girl next door” on the inflight entertainment channels, as well as a couple of documentaries. Woo hoo! ...