History of the J Man

On Tuesday we flew back from Tampa, Florida, having spent about four days there. How did we pass the time, you ask?

Sorry to say, but the weather was a little on the cool side. I know, I know, everyone from Chicago feels our pain. But seriously, we were hoping to lounge by the pool and do a little swimming in the Gulf, but we actually ended up wearing jeans and jackets pretty much the whole time we were there. But still, it was way better being in 60 degree Tampa than 20 degree Chicago.

We stayed at the Tradewinds Resort, located in St. Pete’s Beach, a small resort town to the southwest of St. Petersburg proper. The company Julie was visiting on business put us up for one night and then we paid for the other two, so it was a bit cheaper than if we’d gone by ourselves. The location of the hotel could not have been better as it was a short elevator ride from our 6th floor room, and then another short one minute walk and you were on the beach. It’s really too bad the weather didn’t cooperate.

We flew in Saturday and after an aggravatingly long wait for our rental car, we checked in and realized our room was right outside the bar where they had live music every night starting at 8pm. With Jonah in tow, we knew this wasn’t going to work out so we ended up switching rooms. After all of that, we basically had time to explore the hotel a bit (where Jonah got to dip his feet into the kiddie pool) and go to dinner and that was it, so after much deliberation we settled on Crabby Bill’s, a fine seafood establishment if you really like fried food. Jonah had a tough time going to sleep that first night, but he finally settled down after Julie went in to soothe him. As for our sleeping experience, our first room by the bar had one queen, but this new room had two doubles, so we ended up each having our own bed for a couple of nights. After our purchase of a king, sharing a full bed was just too confining!

Julie didn’t have to do any work until Monday, so on Sunday we went out to breakfast and discussed what we might do that day. It was overcast and looked ready to rain any second, and wouldn’t you know it, no sooner had we gotten back to our room than it started to rain. Our indoor activity was to visit the Florida Aquarium in Tampa. After checking out the aquarium down in Atlanta, this one was not as impressive, but what was really fun was that Jonah was much more interested in the fish and other wildlife on display this time around. He was especially enamored with the ducks, as he seems to be in love with any rubber ducky that comes his way these days. As a matter of fact, after the aquarium, we did a little shopping and bought Jonah a couple more ducks for his now-formidable collection.

Our dinner on Sunday was at a Cuban place down the street from our hotel, where Jonah made friends with a young woman sitting at the table next to us. That seemed to be his thing–he was very popular with the ladies down in Florida.

Monday was clear, thankfully, but still chilly. We decided to visit The Pier in downtown St. Petersburg, which was essentially a homeless man’s version of Navy Pier–that is, kinda lame. But the walk down the pier itself was very pleasant and we saw a lot of pelicans, which was a bonus. After taking the trolley back into downtown for lunch (Johnny Rockets, where Jonah ate his weight in French fries), we went back to the hotel for naptime.

That evening Julie had dinner with work people, so Jonah and I were on our own, so we went to the sports bar they had on site at the hotel. That night after Julie came back, we were hoping Jonah would sleep a little better, but he wasn’t having any of it, so we ended up letting him stay up waaaaaay past his bedtime to watch a movie (The Tale of Despereaux, which I do not recommend). Thankfully he fell asleep somewhat easily after that. I think he just needs a couple nighs to get used to a place that isn’t home before he’s ready to crash there.

Julie had meetings pretty much all day on Tuesday, so once again it was a boys’ trip. We went to Dunedin Stadium in Dunedin, Fla. (which I think is now called Knology Park, but whatever) which is the spring training home of the Toronto Blue Jays. Basically, we picked it because it was convenient to where we’d need to pick Julie up after her meeting and the Phillies (who play in Clearwater) didn’t have a home game. But hey, it was a great opportunity to see Team Canada warm up for the World Baseball Classic!

We arrived early, at about 11:30am for a 1pm game. In addition to visiting the aquarium in Atlanta, we also took Jonah to his first baseball game at Turner Field, where he wasn’t too interested in the game. I’m happy to report that he was much more engaged this time around. We watched Team Canada take BP and he was in awe of the balls as they sailed out of the park. We went to gift shop where I bought him a baseball that he carried around with him the whole time (side note to other dads: official league balls do not make good toddler toys). Jonah also reveled in eating bad food like hot dogs, super salty popcorn and cheese pizza.

We didn’t really meet any players, and there were actually a lot of well-known players there for Canada, like Justin Morneau (New Westminster, British Columbia), Jason Bay (Trail, British Columbia), Matt Stairs (St. John, New Brunswick) and Corey Koskie (Anola, Manitoba). Did you know Corey Koskie is only 35? Doesn’t it seem like he should be, like, 53 years old? I think Jonah and I were some of the only Americans there, as they sang both the Canadian national anthem, which was sung by the whole stadium, and then they did the Star Spangled Banner and I think Jonah and I were the only ones singing.

I bought a seat close to home plate, where the GM of the Blue Jays J.P. Ricciardi sat in the row in front of us. All around us were scouts with big notebooks, laptops and radar guns, talking shop about the young guys on the Blue Jays. It was pretty cool and made me wish for about two seconds that I had pursued a career in baseball, until I remembered that scouts are basically paid minimum wage. The game was far from sold out, so to get Jonah out of the sun, we went up to find some shade where Jonah had an entire section all to himself and he goofed off by running up and down the aisles about 300 times. If you’re interested, it appears Team Canada won the game 6-4, but we had to leave midway through to head to the airport.

The plane ride back went OK, though I feel bad for the people sitting directly in front of us. Jonah was pretty active and was kicking the seats occasionally and we got some dirty looks, but there wasn’t much we could do. Overall though, he did really great on the plane. Bringing some new toys and books definitely helped.

This week it was back to work. All in all, a good four days off.

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