Dylan loves the women

Dylan was so happy to see Jen and Leigh last night he could not decide which lap to settle on.

St. Pete Pride - Guest Blogger!

Jen Obermaier has agreed to be my first guest blogger! Jen and Leigh went to the Pride Parade in St. Pete weekend before last, and here's the story.

Saturday, June 28 was a hot day in St. Pete. Those of us from Florida don’t usually go outside this time of year voluntarily, but this was a special day for us and attendance was mandatory. It was St. Pete Pride, 2008 . There were an estimated 75,000 people in attendance.

Oh, and five pathetic protesters from Georgia who, in their effort to get all of us to accept Jesus Christ and renounce homosexuality, gave us important nuggets such as “Jesus is going to drop kick your asses to hell!”

We don’t have pictures of them, so we’ll have to do a visualization exercise together. Ready? Ok, you know the homeless guys that sell the newspapers in the middle of major intersections? Imagine five of them holding really nasty signs and one with a bull horn and a very shallow grasp of logic and you have it. There you go. No picture necessary!

The Democrats were out in force!

Tampa Bay’s O-Train energizes the crowd!

The diva Stephanie Shippae! She’s still around and looking fabulous after all these years.

Twirling rifles followed by rainbow flag spinning color guards.

Now that’s some hair!

One of the parade’s highlights: The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

The comedian ANT came down to celebrate with us. I guess he didn’t catch the weather forecast because he’s wearing not one but two black shirts and corduroy pants!

Note: he’s not from the south.

Thanks, Jen, and welcome back to the blog anytime!

Mark looks cool

After much urging from me, and from Jesse via me, Mark went shopping in a real clothing store! And bought clothes that fit and have some style! Really I should say that I went shopping, put myself in the very capable hands of a Nordstrom's salesperson (they do know about customer service in that store) and Mark went along, allowing us to use him as a model. Not only will Mark look good at the upcoming weddings and associated events, but he looks pretty good just hanging in the driveway, or going to the Ringling Museum in Sarasota with Jen and Leigh.

The Ringling Museum of Art

Barbara and Steve came down from Atlanta for the New Year's Eve weekend and we went down to Sarasota to spend an afternoon on the beautiful Ringling estate. (Barbara took most of the pictures.)

When we got back to Tampa, we picked up Dylan and Marley, then met Jen, Leigh and Gretchen for an evening at Cappy's (we went to the one in Seminole Heights, of course) -- good pizza, salad, beer, friends, dogs.