A Cocoa Beach Quickie

 

A Cocoa Beach Quickie

Todd Swank's Diary Entry for February 11, 2024

On Sunday night, we headed to Minneapolis to watch our Western Conference leading Timberwolves take on the Houston Rockets.  We were darned happy to be there.

It was the first home game after Anthony Edwards and Karl Anthony Towns were named to this year's NBA All Star team.  I still think that Rudy Gobert got screwed by not also being named to the team since he's been an absolute BEAST this year.  That being said, it's still nice to see the home town team getting some national recognition for a change.  We've been the red-headed stepchild of the NBA for way too long!

Karl's dad styled up for the celebration.  He was dressed sharper than a DJ's scratch on a vintage vinyl.  Easily the coolest guy in all of Target Center.

Well, second coolest guy.  Hard to beat 50 Cent who sat about 20 rows in front of us.

All right, at least the third coolest guy.  How can anyone compete with Naz Reid?  Naz Reid.

The kids in front of us wanted to pay homage to the hippest Timberwolf and brought these signs to celebrate him.  It even got them shown on the TV broadcast where I screen grabbed this shot.  Me and Miss Sheri also made it on TV.  At least my mouth and chin and her fingers did anyways.

We did better getting our full faces on the big scoreboard in the middle of the arena which is always a goal of mine.  I'm guessing more people were focused on the kid sticking his tongue out at the camera, though.

On Monday, I boarded a jet plane to get out of Minnesota for 24 hours.  It's been unseasonably warm this winter, but I was interested to see all of the lakes remain frozen.

Soaring above Chicago, I gazed down at Soldier Field nestled among skyscrapers casting their long, dramatic shadows into Lake Michigan, and thought, "Even the city's silhouette is trying to deep-dive into the lake, probably to escape the crime."

My destination was Cocoa Beach, Florida. I was there to visit one of my best customers.

I had a great dinner visiting Troy Ligon who's a local legend in Cocoa Beach. He always knows the best restaurants to hit and I enjoy our conversations on a wide variety of topics.

Troy told me to visit on Monday night because a rocket launch was scheduled to take off at 2am. He volunteered to accompany me to watch. We went to a bar called the Sandbar and shared stories while we waited for the time to pass. He shared this photo with me he took during a previous launch. I found it to be an amazing picture and was excited to be able to see something like this in person even though it was a cloudy, windy night without a full moon to be seen anywhere. Unfortunately it wasn't meant to be. About 11:30, we received the notification that due to the inclement weather, the launch was going to be delayed until another night. I was bummed. One of these days I'm going to see a rocket launch in person!

The hotel I stay at is right next to the beach so I woke up early to go check it out. Due to the fact I was only there for a short time, I had 10 minutes or so to enjoy the view. Still was awe-inspiring, though.

After an exhilarating 24 hours in Florida, I came back to Minnesota. Our local Indian Tribe, the Shakopee Mdewakaton Sioux have reintroduced Buffalo to my neighborhood for some reason. I'm not sure what they're planning on doing with them, but I'm hopeful to eventually get to ride one.  That would be so fun.

On Thursday, it was Luke's turn to spend the day at Mayo Clinic with us.  The day started off great when his cardiologist said things were going so well he didn't need to come back for another year for his next checkup.  That was exciting for us because it's been about 9 years since Luke didn't need to get a check-up every 6 months.

Unfortunately we couldn't get his hepatologist to agree to that new plan.  Even though his liver is also looking very stable since his last visit, he still wants to monitor it every 6 months.  We still feel blessed and these men are very nice so it's not such a bad thing to see them more often.

We had dinner with our good friends, the Walters Family, on Friday night.  We debated doing Karaoke afterwards, but the allure of an early bedtime won the debate over the potential night of debauchery.  I'm still kind of sad about that one.

On Saturday, Miss Sheri and I went to Fogo De Chao.  It was an early celebration of our 30 year anniversary which is on Monday, February 12.  Hard to believe it's been 30 years.  I sure did get lucky with that one.

Miss Sheri can turn the world on with her smile!