Last weekend our extended family gathered in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
Above pic is all the grandkids at the beach with Nana & Poppy.
For her 75th birthday Mom wanted a pic with all the grandkids, and since we all live up and down the east coast (in 4 states) we all agreed to meet up in Delaware.
I rented an 8 bedroom beach house, a block off the boardwalk:
Three generations gathered together, and we had a nice time.
Love this pic of Claire with my niece Savannah.
This is my Dad with my daughters, Grace & Claire.
Me, with Grace and my niece Caroline:
I made some videos about the weekend, this was at the photoshoot…
Some goofy things took place.
A rickety old beach house full of family always makes for some great memories.
Last time our entire family met up was at my Uncle Ken’s funeral in 2022.
It seems that time accelerates as the kids hit their college years.
Next gathering there will be MORE people, God willing… new babies, spouses, etc.
Last week I was in Nicaragua, because Marcus bought a small hotel.
It was also a great excuse to climb the 4,000 foot high Cerros Negros active volcano, and slide DOWN it.
It was dusty, and not that great:
We went back to the hotel to takes showers and get all the volcanic grit out of our nooks & crannies.
We drove to San Juan del Sur and had to visit Giant Jesus
We left late Tuesday night and we were back in Florida by 6AM Friday morning.
It was a whirlwind tour.
I’ve been to Honduras, which is directly north of Nicaragua, and there seems to be zero difference between the 2 countries.
Since I’ve been to Philippines THREE time in the past year I kept thinking about how similar Nicaragua and Phillipines seem to be; both have had a 500 year history since Spain invaded, both countries are corrupt, poor and chaotic, both countries are hot and pretty close to the equator.
I moved to a suburb just north of Tampa back in 2003 and bought this house for $157K…
I know there are more jobs in urban areas, and I know everyone needs a car to live in the suburbs… but the money I saved buying my house more than offsets the cost of owning my USED cars.
I know, real estate prices went nuts, partially because billion dollar hedge funds bought up thousands of homes and now rent those homes out to the rest of y’all.
I’m not sure how my daughters will afford their first homes, I’ll probably help them out when it comes to that. Hopefully the real estate market and interest rates go through a correction and prices stabilize again. A ginormous recession would do that, but it might also fuck up the solar biz and my income could trickle down to nuttin.
But back to city living fer a minute… allow me to rant:
If you have a car you should never have to compete with your neighbor for a parking space. My house has a driveway with room for 2 cars, NO ONE else can park there because I won that driveway.
If you park in my driveway and don’t move your car? I can blow it up with a couple sticks of dynamite, or C4, or thermite… you get the idea.
I grew up and hour south of NYC and every single time I went up to visit or do work stuff I hated it.
Bad roads, insane traffic, super expensive parking…
My younger sister Dani lives in NJ and works in Manhattan in the fashion industry. She takes the train into the city from the suburbs… she’s been working in Manhattan for decades and she tells me it’s just getting worse.
More homeless, more drugs, more crime…
If you have a home OUTSIDE the cities? With water and solar and lotsa guns?
You’ll be better off if the shit hits the fan and things devolve into chaos.
For $11 bucks a month I have full access to a gazillion machines, barbells, treadmills, ropes, and a the place even has a lap pool for swimming. I’m doing some lifting, trying to gain muscle and slim down.
I don’t want to look like a fat old man next to my wife:
When I go to the gym I’m surrounded by hundreds of fit people from multiple generations working out, even the 70 yr old guy with huge muscles who still works out daily. Impressive dude, really.
I’ve been thinking about WHERE I spent and time, and with WHOM.
My nephew George is on the University of Tampa track team, and I cooked them dinner last night:
Mom said a blessing over the food.
Nephew George has some nice friends, it was good and positive to see them last night.
Between sales I have plenty of free time, and immigration has not granted a visa to MaryAnn yet, so I’m in a period of waiting. I might as well get very healthy, go to church, sell solar… and just do positive stuff.
I’m the (rotund) Kungfu panda of the class, if you’re in bad shape any form of martial arts will shine a bright spotlight on your physical weaknesses.
This pic is from 2 years ago, when I got on the plane to Ukraine… I want to get back to THAT by this summer.
Every Judo class is HARD, and beats me up a bit.
It’s the hardest thing I do, in any given week. I’ll either toughen up or get injured.
That’s the price, right?
Being 50 is rough, being 50 and being out of shape is rougher.
I’m not going to post a pic of my out of shapeness, I look better in clothing:
I mean, really. Old guys should cover up, even if they get in good shape they still look bad, in my humble opinion. That’s why Jesus invented the Business Suit. It covers most of the body.
Please take a minute to watch this astounding video:
In this video Epic Spaceman scales the size of our Milky Way Galaxy down to the size of the continental USA, then shows us how our ENTIRE SOLAR SYSTEM at that scale would fit… on a fingertip!
If you’ve driven across wide swaths of the USA you realize how HUGE a space that is, and if our solar system is only as big as the tip of my finger?
This might be why we don’t have aliens all over the place, they don’t know we exist!
Perhaps there are aliens here on earth, carefully hidden and disguised?
Back to the Milky Way… our galaxy has over 400 BILLION stars, so there could be an advanced civilization with colonies across 1,000 star systems… but that 1,000 star civilization is on the other side of the Milky Way… or there could be a vast civilization with planets around 10 million stars, but those stars are in a distant galaxy.
400 billion stars in our little galaxy, and there are MILLIONS of other galaxies out there.
Our tiny blue marble, orbiting an average star… with a race that has ONLY been in existence for the last 400,000 years… in an area the size of the United States, our Earth is the size of a red blood cell…
Perhaps alien races don’t notice each other until they both reach far larger sizes, and they are simply hidden by distance up to that point. Maybe when humans have colonized planets around 10,000 stars our galactic peers will suddenly appear, and start a meaningful dialogue.
An advanced race that controls 10,000 star systems (or 100 million) would probably hide it’s technology and communications for tactical and strategic purposes, only revealing it’s true abilities once it can assess any outside alien species.
Perhaps all sufficiently advanced races become peaceful because at intergalactic scale there is zero competition for resources, unlike the wars fought on our planet over land, oil, or wealth.
Even within our own solar system we can find unlimited mineral resources on asteroids as well as the moons of planets like Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune.
Hell, our puny tech might be simply unremarkable and not worthy of study to an advanced race 100,000 years ahead of us. And we have nukes, so why risk interaction with a violent race when there are plenty of planets out there without nuclear weapons, controlled by primates who still rape and kill each other.
I hope you enjoy the Epic Spaceman channel, he does great work!
Sang TWO 45 minute pieces this morning at both the 9AM and 11AM services. We sing an Easter and Christmas Cantata every year, typically about 45 minutes of music selected by Pastor Russ and our church pianist Ferrell.
Church choirs tend to be notoriously bad, but I think we did a good job this morning.
Last week I was the MC of the Spotlight on Talent show in Wesley Chapel, and the organizers gave me a nice gift card to The Citrus Room, and upscale restaurant over in Dade City. I took Mom and Dad out to dinner there last night:
Look at these two! Married 55 years just last month.
Since my MaryAnn is still over in the Phils I figured I would spoil Mom and Pop.
Funny thing is that they invited me over to dinner tonight, with my daughter Claire and her fiance Paul.
Looking forward to that.
It’s a lovely Sunday afternoon, so I’m headed to Lake Park for some target practice:
They have a decent archery range over there. I’ve been shooting a compound bow since I was 14 year old, mostly at targets. The modern archery equipment is accurate as hell, this was at 30 yards:
My compound bow has a 70 pound pullback, so shooting for an hour is similar to lifting weights. It’s a good combination of fun and exercise, I’ll take it. It’s an inexpensive hobby.
I’m at the OTHER range on a regular basis as well:
Bullets tend to be one use only, so practicing with a firearm gets pricey sometimes.
Shooting carbon fiber arrows is more exercise, but I like shooting both guns and bows.
Solar biz was super slow last 8 weeks, but last week picked up a bit. I’m paying out $1,000 to any existing client who sends me to the new client, that tactic seems to be working.
So far this month I’m the top seller at Tampa Bay Solar… I’ve been the top salesguy over there for 6 years running. My huge client base sends me regular business.
I keep it simple and direct with potential clients, and that engenders TRUST.
I got a call from Barbara Friedman a few weeks ago, asking me if I would be the Master of Ceremonies for ONE of the Spotlight in Talent competitions on March 16th, either matinee or evening.
I told her I’d do BOTH shows, then went to Brooks Brothers to buy a new suit:
That’s me, backstage at the theater yesterday, watching the show.
Spotlight on Talent has been awarding scholarships to young people here in Pasco county for 41 years!
This year Kasey Lang won the Grand Prize, a $1,000 scholarship, here is a snippet of her performance:
These contestants were so talented, my spot in the wings was like a front row seat!
I’m not paid to do this stuff, even though Barbara gave me a really generous gift card to a restaurant at the end of the event. Before the event Barbara emailed me a detailed script, so my job was pretty easy; stay relaxed, keep it light, keep the show moving.
My daughters both competed in Spotlight 10 years ago, and a had a very positive experience. Seeing these young people sing, dance and act made me a happy at a profound level, I’m glad Spotlight gives them an opportunity to compete, shine, and be confident.
As I write this the next day I’m so grateful that Barbara called me and asked me to be a part of this event, in my small way. I hope that my contribution made the show 1% better.
I hope everyone is having a slightly kerfluckered St. Pat’s Day today.
I turned 50 this morning. My sister Andee did this:
I woke up, and took a long walk while talking to MaryAnn on Whatsapp (we talk every single day)…
She’s in her village back in the Phils, visiting family. I’m here, 9200 miles away. I miss her.
MaryAnn sent me this video of Thalia:
She’s precious, eh? After talking with MaryAnn I swam in cold water, and in a few minutes I’m driving to the dojo.
BACK to Judo three mornings a week.
Today is a good day to start back up, after a break. Mostly because I was going to Philippines for weeks at a time in November and January.
Solar biz is slow, interest rates are at 7.5%, and you can’t get a solar loan if your credit score is south of a 700. This is one of the main reasons there isn’t MORE solar on rooftops all over Florida.
Also… about half of the homeowner’s insurance companies in Florida don’t cover rooftop solar, AND the economy is slow.
I saw my daughter Claire on Sunday, she’s in retail / luxury sales… she said it’s been deadly quiet.
There is economic uncertainty out there; the Middle East, the 2024 Presidential Election, even the ongoing Russian / Ukrainian conflict (that everyone seems to have forgotten about).
This was 2 years ago, on my way to Ukraine in April 2022 ::::
I’ll be home this April. No trips abroad, just waiting for USCIS to approve the K1 visa for MaryAnn and her twins. JUST WAITING.
Since I’m hitting age 50 very soon I started to make a VERY simple series of videos about this subject:
That one seemed to do well, but the comments attached to it are… angry.
This one is my fave, so far:
The solar coaster has been a bit slow lately, so not much has happened since I came back from my trip in the Philippines to visit my MaryAnn. I sent her flowers for Valentine’s:
She was REALLY happy to get flowers from me… we are still waiting for her visa to get approved by Immigration. I want to get her and the twins here, but you can’t rush the federal government.
Her daughters are 4.5 years old, and very energetic.
Many people are surprised that I’m willing to step back into a fatherhood role, especially at my age.
I truly believe that God put MaryAnn and her twins in my life for a reason. Of course, when they get here stateside I’ll probably write about it here. Stay tuned.
I’ve been doing more serious long form content on Uncle Ben’s Channel, especially this year.
This has been one of my more popular videos:
My long form content is not just limited to “dating in the Philippines”. This video relates to my ownership interest in Tampa Bay Solar, and the state of the solar industry here in Florida.
It’s been a year since I launched my YouTube channel, and in that time I uploaded plenty of BAD content boring videos that I deleted a few days later. Some of my content was just… cringey.
It’s an experiment, and the channel has NOT monetized yet, so I have a long way to go anyway.
YouTube represents an unlimited creative medium, a marketplace for concepts and ideas, really.
All my content is recorded on my Samsung phone, I still can’t edit a video to save my life!
Ben Alexander writes. 