Fort DeSoto "Finale"

Kites & Canoeing - Ft. DeSoto Park, FL - 3.27.06

If you have not carefully read my previous posts or perhaps not associated with my network of friends and family, you will now know that Florida will soon be a view that I will get to experience one last time through the rearview mirrors in my tiny Sentra. Given the fact that I will take every opportunity to come back home, this time I leave Florida in pursuit of a new employment opportunity and a new home. With only a few hours and counting until I depart the state I grew up in, I thought I would take this moment to share with you the last wishes of a simple Florida boy like myself.

To date, this weblog has been dedicated solely to the pursuit of photography and the pure enjoyment of the sights offered by new places. This last entry is no different except the equipment I used to photograph my outing is not something that made my "arsenal" of camera gear nor a camera I might recommend for the serious avid photographer. The camera used on this particular outing was a simple $9.99 single use Kodak camera preloaded with ISO 800 speed film and featuring an exclusive "Ektakron" lens. (I think that is how you spell it.) For the conditions we were to experience, this camera is absolute excrement. I give it credit though - we captured some memories. With the help of post production histogram adjustments, sharpness filtering, and a little hue/saturation tweaking, I think the image quality is acceptable for my oh-so-picky weblog of image quality.

If after 27 years of growing up in a state, give or take a few years for military service, how would you choose to spend your last day of entertainment and relaxation in your hometown? Kites. A beach. Mangroves and canoeing. Yes - that is correct. I spent a day with a great friend of mine, Jason Toft, flying kites and doing things this Florida boy will miss.

Just a couple of weeks ago I started to realize that my time in Florida was going to become very limited. The demands of packing, corresponding with a new employer, finishing tasks with a former employer, and making commitments to spend time with friends and family "one last time" started to pile on. Just this past weekend a last minute attempt at a family BBQ - hosted by my wonderful father - proved to be a great way to assemble the clan and distribute hugs all around all in one place. Just weeks ago though I knew I had to reserve one day to just hang out with a friend and do the things that I remember enjoying the most as a kid.


If you ask my friend Jason what he would have thought my last day hanging out would have been like, he might have told you that we would have spent a day at the local flying field launching rockets and reminiscing on our days as full time rocketeers. It was not to be. Partly because of packing and mostly because of time constraints, I suggest to Jason that we do something different. Instead of lugging launch pads, rockets, and other ground support equipment across an empty field, I figured for the sake of simplicity we should shelf the rockets and grab some air with stunt kites instead.

I think for once in my life I have finally understood the meaning of "go fly a kite" or why it is that people desire to be on the water. Somewhere between recovering Jason's kite as he plowed it into the beach sand, hoping to God our canoe didn't flip in the Ft. DeSoto bayou, and sensing that I was slowly getting a sunburn, I realized that harnessing the wind's power and paddling along that the last thought on my mind was what my first day of work would be like or how I should carefully document every expenditure from my travels for tax purposes. Living in Florida - for the most part - has largely given me the opportunity to feel just like that one moment when all I heard was the small beach waves slapping the shore. I guess I just woke up one day and realized that every day is not like feeling the breeze and just enjoying the sunshine. I need a house. I need a place to live. I need to chase opportunities and hopefully somewhere out there I can find my serenity. There is someplace out there that will afford me the peace of mind where I can just forget when the car payment is due or how I will increase my salary. Somewhere down the road I will find another Boca Ciega Millenium Park or a charming evening of photography in Upper Tampa Bay Park. Quality of life is out there. Sometimes you just have to leave your home to find it. .

It has been my sincerest hope that this blog has shown you a piece of what I have learned to be "quality of life." If you ever forget why it is that you work so hard day in and day out, call your buddy and do something you enjoyed as a kid. I promise the day's experience will put life into perspective and remind you what it is that makes life so enjoyable and working for it so worthwhile.

Please check back next week when I will be blogging from a new state and a new life.

All the best,

Eugenio