My Professional Business Card...

Although my professional business card is in need of an update insofar as my phone number and email address, I've nevertheless gone ahead and included it in my blog for your convenience.

It's a certainty that at some point you or someone that you dearly care about will one day be in dire need of my many varied and talented services... so feel free to save my business card among your favorite websites for when that moment arrives.

You can expeditiously contact me by dropping a line in the comment section of this blog posting. Simply describe in thirty words or less what your problem is that you need fixing and how soon you need it done.

My professional rates are surprisingly quite reasonable... especially if you happen to be female and super hot and can afford to pay for your own beer and beverages.

Also be advised that it is a well known fact that the gentleman in the various Dos XX Equis, beer commercials, touting himself as the "most interesting man in the world", doesn't have a thing on me and can't back up any of his claims... so don't be misled by this guy or any other impostors.

I am well known throughout the many dockside bars here in the Keys for my many adventurous and successful exploits. Feel free to walk in any bar and inquire about me. References from previously satisfied customers can be graciously furnished upon written request... or you can simply pick up my bar tab and I'll find someone to vouch for me.

Lastly... mature, sensible, attractive women in dire need of companionship get top client priority and my immediate attention.

Alex Shaffer
All Around Good Guy
Casual Hero
Personal Advisor

Bathroom mural at Jack's Lookout on Marco Island... do be sure the read the quote written on the wall.

Jack's Lookout is a quaint open-aired dockside bar on Marco Island. It overlooks the Rose Marco Island Marina and is frequented by the same usual suspects. Even the same snowbirds come here year after year to spend the winter months before heading back up north to wherever that might be.

I'll admit to having enjoyed more than just a few cold beverages at that dockside bar but I can assure you that it doesn't even come close to being described as a "secluded, hedonistic, dockside bar".

The mural in the mens room can be said to depict the typical bar patron at Jack's Lookout... pale, fat, old, disgruntled, and on a fixed income. In other words... your typical male FOX Fabrication News Network viewer.

I'll just have to keep on looking for that elusive dockside bar while the regular bar patrons at Jack's keep on looking to make sure that "it is still there".

Damned... too much drama... time to set sail.

Goodness... this place is starting to wear on me. There's just too much damned drama going on around here. It's been a good twenty-some years since I last cruised aboard my Morgan 35' throughout the Florida Keys and the Bahamas. Somehow I had forgotten all about all the personal bullsh*t that goes along with it.

I'm ready to haul ass on out of here and start experiencing the cruising lifestyle for what it should be. I had some dude engage me in a one-sided conversation the other evening and proceed to tell me all about his disputes with the City Marina. After awhile, all I could think about was that "I don't really give a rat's ass". Later in his extended one-sided dialogue he chides me for being tide up at the marina and not out on a "hook" in the river. Somehow the caricature of a river-rat floating on an inner tube down the Brazos River in Texas came to mind.

Another too-much-drama incident involved a large gray heavy-duty plastic garbage bin chained up to the wall just in front of the slip where S/V Blondie-Dog happens to be tied up to. On two consecutive late Saturday evenings, a sailing vessel pulls in after hours to avoid dockage fees and ties off onto the docks. Soon thereafter four somewhat young guys can be seen trekking past along the sea-wall and on over to the local taverns.

Well the first Saturday evening after the local bars had shut down at two in the morning, all four dudes come staggering back down the piers hollering obscenities and kicking dockside gear all over the place including the large grey trash can in front of my boat. Moments later a loud splash can be heard and all the trash that had been neatly tidied up in plastic bags can now be found floating alongside my boat.

I of course am awakened out of a sound sleep and poke my head out of the hatch above the V-berth... (not unlike an office cubicle-mole)... to see what the hell is going on but I think better of a confrontation and settle back down below. Well the same scene repeats itself the following Saturday evening and now I'm hacked... its been another week and the trash still hadn't been picked-up for whatever reason and once again can be seen floating alongside my boat in the river.

I'm incensed about the smelly trash not having been picked up and of the damned horse-flies hovering around the trash-can and bothered about not having purchased a VHF radio that I had planned on purchasing earlier in the day so that I could report their collective asses as they motored on down the river.

I did nevertheless shout out to them as they were pulling away from the docks, "Hey asshol*s... you will be reported first thing in the morning!". Admittedly, this certainly was a chickensh*t response made once again avoid a confrontation. I did indeed report the incident to the Marina the next morning. The dudes haven't been back since and my big regret is that I did not have the presence of mind to record the name of the vessel when she tied up that second Saturday evening.

There is more drama to report but I can't take anymore of this bullsh*t either.

Not that any anyone "le importa tres carajos"... but lunch/dinner earlier today was some genuine comfort food... and I'm not talking about another greasy burger with soggy fries or even a chicken-fried steak with instant mashed potatoes and over-boiled brocolli with fake cheese either. I'm talking about some delectable "Lechon asado" along with a huge mound of "arroz con gandules" with a side order of "tostones" and a salad to boot!

I happened to be wandering down Cleveland Avenue in Fort Myers looking for a place to get a bite to eat when I happened to spot a place. I swerve over two lanes and shortly thereafter find myself seated in a small, austere, yet air-conditioned eatery. I have arrived at "El Pilon" restaurant. Soon thereafter I place my lunch order and somewhat impatiently wait for my food to arrive as I see one delectable plate of food after another get placed on adjacent tables.

My lunch order finally arrives and I'm not dissapointed in the least. Damned that was good eating! My only reqret was that I didn't take a moment to take a picture of my plate of food when it arrived... nevermind that I have yet to figure out how to download pictures from my cell phone to my computer.

Up on the walls were scenes of Puerto Rico from back in the day and a Puertorican flag as well. What the proprietaries and other patrons probably wondered was "what the hell is that "gringo" doing in here"... not realizing that I, having lived on the island for an extended period of time and having played in a multitude of chess tournaments throughout the island probably knew more and had seen more of the island than they'd ever seen or would ever see.

http://www.elpilonrestaurant.net/

Captain "Jacobo"

There aren't many of us sailors here at the City Marina... nevertheless for better or worse, I have established a relationship of sorts with a fellow mariner. By all accounts he is in his mid-seventies but could easily pass for someone in his late eighties... How he managed to sail down from Maryland all by himself is beyond my comprehension.

Jacobo is frail beyond his years, hard of hearing, and somewhat of an old grumpy neurotic. He has no muscle tone to speak of and his weathered skin sags all over the place. I suppose this is what happens to chain smokers when they get old. I'm not certain whether he ever eats much of anything but he routinely offers to mix up a Bloody-Mary for me every morning whenever he sees me striding either to or from my car. It's an offer that he knows that I will politely yet resolutely decline but nevertheless an opportunity for him to hit me up for yet another favor so it seems.

We often meet up at a local tavern for happy-hour in the evenings along with another wanna-be boater. Together we talk boating and what not. Somehow I've got to keep reminding myself that I am not his caretaker, nor am I his chauffeur to be driving his scrawny ass around places. Sorry... don't mean to be an A-hole about it but I see a pattern developing along here somewhere.

I spent a couple of hours today figuring out how to program Captain Jacobo's GPS... GPS, as in Handheld Global Positioning, not that any cell-phone savvy, pimply-faced adolescent couldn't figure out. Somehow while at the tavern yesterday evening I got snookered into agreeing to programming the thing and getting it to work. Well I had made a promise to "look into it", so the handheld was waiting for me first thing the next morning. I didn't mind... I even learned a few damned things along the way.

After a simple google search I found and proceeded to download the GARMIN GPS76 operators manual and read through it. I also found a website with GPS coordinates submitted by other boaters which I then proceeded to load into the handheld.

Later at the bar that evening, I show Jacobo how to operate the GPS as well as how to load way-points and what-not. He was pleased I suppose, but didn't deliver on his promise to buy me a few beers for my efforts.

Boater Wanna-Be soon thereafter shows up and inquires of Jacobo whether he had brought his GPS handheld along because he was lost. Jacobo looks over at me and proceeds to derisively dismiss the question with a "he was just messing around with the thing"... He might as well have stated "He's just f*rting around with the thing." This all after I had spent the previous thirty minutes or so methodically explaining how to operate the thing and having him perform the various operations himself. I later find myself doing a slow-delayed burn.

Next on my agenda for tomorrow is to haul his dinghy out of the water and who knows what else...

Memo to self: Park car elsewhere... disengage to some extent... haul ass on out of here.

RJ's Bar & Grill... just south of Clearwater Beach...

One early evening I settled into a bar stool for a cold one and some grub... On the menu were inexpensive burgers and fries along with 10once draft beers which went for but a buck a piece. So that's what I ordered so that I wouldn't burn another hole in my wallet.

Scattered throughout the bar were but a few patrons sipping on a beverage while looking up at the flat screen featuring FOX Fabrication News Network bullsh*t when in strolls this scrawny chick who then proceeds to sit alongside of me.

Before long we're both commenting on how hot it is outside and whatnot when the emaciated chick places her dinner order along with a glass of merlot. She proceeds to tell me that she will die if she doesn't eat. Somehow I'm now thinking that she literally means it, and I believe her, that's how bones and skin she looks.

Soon after, the most succulent plate of prime rib, twice baked potatoes, and steamed brocoli is placed before her and she proceeds to devour every morsel of that mouth watering juicy steak and then wash it down with yet a second glass of merlot all the while explaining that she will be competing in triathlon event in Pensacola in another three weeks. I then suggest that she better verify whether the event will indeed be held because of the film of oil on the surface of the water. After a moment of confusion, she says "oh".

Somehow the conversation now shifts gears and suddenly I'm being subjected to hearing all about her business travels throughout Paris, and London, and Prague, and Milan and who knows where else throughout Europe. I'm getting heavily scoreboarded but what the heck... it's a bar.

It then occurs to me that the burger that I ate awhile back somehow isn't really agreeing with me when to my astonishment, the scrawny chick casually and expectantly asks me "Will you buy me another glass of wine?" After a momentary WTF moment on my part I emphatically respond, "What? Are you broke? Did you run out of money? I was hoping you'd buy me dinner."

Hell no am I buying you a glass of wine and hell no am I going home with you and hell no did I believe any of your bullsh*t. I've got you figured out.

She soon turns her attention to this old, chain-smoking, emaciated geezer seated down the bar and I later observe them leaving the bar together not that it mattered any to me.