Saturday, March 29, 2008

It's late and I should be in bed...

but the late night and early morning keeps me creaking along. It was an interesting day...I worked 8 hours, spent a couple of hours at a VIP party rife with amazing cars and gorgeous women, then went for a ride. Ended up at a bar and had the pleasure of watching a stranger empty her stomach onto the floor next to her bar stool, then finished the night at Village Inn with some French toast that hit the proverbial spot. Like I said, it was an interesting day.

The VIP party was connected to this weekend's Festival of Speed, which is being held at the St. Pete/Clearwater Airport. Highlights included 2 Bugatti Veyrons, one in black and blue, the other in red and silver, both $1.2M each. Next to them was a Ferrari Enzo, an Audi TDI LPM1 American Le Mans Series racecar, and a Mercedes SLR 722. The least expensive car in that mix was well over half a million dollars. Horsepower probably averaged around 700bhp amongst them. Needless to say, that was quite a cluster of machines. Strolling throughout the event was a multitude of beautiful women to compliment the raw sexiness of such machinery. Suffice to say, I had a good time.

But the decision was made to leave early, so I raced home and saddled up Audrey for a ride. The winds took us to a couple of bars on Clearwater Beach, the last one being Kelly's Beach Bar, one of Clearwater's oldest watering holes. Apparently, a young Spring breaker had miscalculated her ability to consume and contain alcohol, with predictable results. Interestingly, this particular young lady thought it was best to simply lean over and vomit onto the floor, rather than scramble toward the bathroom. Of course, this was a much less appealing option for those who were unfortunate enough to be standing within spatter distance of this particular girl.

Somehow she managed to stop vomiting long enough to make a dash for the restroom. I literally laughed and pointed when I saw her sitting at a different section of the bar about an half hour later. People never fail to put a smile on my face. :)

I must say, seeing all that automotive hardware in one place was easily today's highlight. The Veyron is a monster, both in its physical absurdity (1000bhp???) and its financial footprint ($1.2M, if you can find one). Given my long (everlasting?) stint of celibate singledom, seeing such cars in the same 3-dimensional space as a steady stream of models made life simultaneously torturous and revelatory. Bottom line: I think all of the parties involved are out or my price range, but they were certainly fun to look at while imagining what it would be like to take them for a drive. :)

Posted by Erik @ 3/29/2008 03:50:00 AM