{"id":230,"date":"2004-10-31T23:30:05","date_gmt":"2004-11-01T06:30:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/10\/31\/swing_state_vacation.html"},"modified":"2008-06-08T14:22:04","modified_gmt":"2008-06-08T21:22:04","slug":"swing_state_vacation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/archives\/2004\/10\/31\/swing_state_vacation.html","title":{"rendered":"Swing State Vacation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Aimee and I returned tonight from a weekend wedding in Sarasota, Florida, and having finally been a part of the big event she had helped plan with Abby and Dave over the last year, we&#8217;re now fully ready to worry about the election for the next two days.  My unofficial straw poll of bumper stickers in and around Sarasota ended with a plus 4 victory for Kerry. It was a particularly interesting experience, being in a state whose electoral votes are up for grabs, as sign-wavers for both sides crowded street corners, bizarre advertisements flooded the airwaves, and talk of the election was everywhere.  I&#8217;ll keep this short, just a few photos, with a recap tomorrow.<BR><BR>My soon-to-be nephew and I practice throwing shells into the water.<BR><BR><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"jackinthebeach.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2004\/10\/31\/jackinthebeach.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"667\" border=\"0\" \/><BR><BR>So a priest and a rabbi are standing next to each other under a huppa&#8230;<BR><BR><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"priest_rabbi.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2004\/10\/31\/priest_rabbi.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"667\" border=\"0\" \/><BR><BR>A quiet moment at the reception<BR><BR><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"sarasota_flowers.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2004\/10\/31\/sarasota_flowers.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"667\" border=\"0\" \/><BR><BR>A study in scarlet<BR><BR><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"sarasota_us.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2004\/10\/31\/sarasota_us.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" border=\"0\" \/><BR><BR>Some of the great architecture and signage in Sarasota:<BR><BR><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"sarasota_treat.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2004\/10\/31\/sarasota_treat.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"345\" border=\"0\" \/><BR><BR><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"melodee.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2004\/10\/31\/melodee.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" border=\"0\" \/><BR><BR><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"bent_bowl.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2004\/10\/31\/bent_bowl.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" border=\"0\" \/><BR><BR>On our way to the Tampa Airport, we stopped by the re-built <a title=\"Ybor City Chamber of Commerce\" href=\"http:\/\/www.ybor.org\/\">Ybor City<\/a> neighborhood this afternoon.  It boasts itself as &#8220;The City with a Past,&#8221; whatever that means; Aimee&#8217;s take on it was &#8220;The City with a Hangover.&#8221;  It had just hosted (endured?) &#8220;<a title=\"Guavaween in Ybor City Tampa FL\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cc-events.org\/gw\/\">Guavaween<\/a>&#8221; the previous evening, and the sidewalks were littered with broken beer bottles and mardi gras beads.  My favorite relic, though, was this example of something that is just not done in polite company: beer with a straw.  Why not?  Who knows.<BR><BR><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"beer_straw.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2004\/10\/31\/beer_straw.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"667\" border=\"0\" \/><BR><BR>And it was too bad we were there too early to find out what&#8217;s Alaskan about these tacos<BR><BR><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"memas_tacos.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2004\/10\/31\/memas_tacos.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" border=\"0\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Aimee and I returned tonight from a weekend wedding in Sarasota, Florida, and having finally been a part of the big event she had helped plan with Abby and Dave over the last year, we&#8217;re now fully ready to worry about the election for the next two days. My unofficial straw poll of bumper stickers [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.doubleperf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}