The only two things a pirate will run for is money and public office.

Today was the annual Tampa Gasparilla day parade. The hash has lucked out in that one of the members lives/lived right off of Bayshore Blvd and has allowed the group to use the place as a base of operations. several of us met in Temple Terrace and carpooled down to make parking a lot easier and arrive around 10:30. just before it was going to get crowded. The parade is a great excuse just to get silly, hang back and have a good time. A lot of people dress up, so I decided to play along and see how many beads I could get. Since I didn't use it for Halloween as I intended, I pulled out my old Burger King mask, threw on an eye patch, and waited as the parade drew near. I certainly wasn't expecting all the attention from the crowd, laughs, and picture requests that I received as well. For the past few years many of the guys have thrown on bras as a means to get more beads, so I figured, 'why not complete the ensemble'? Life is only as fun as you allow it it be and the day ended up being quite enjoyable. I had mentioned to a lot of friends where we would be and had several people drop by to visit. The beads, floats, and laughs were indeed plentiful and I even recognized several people in the parade itself, so that was always a treat (plus it being very beneficial in terms of the bead booty). After all, I'm pretty sure that even the invading pirates enjoyed seeing people out having a good time.

After the parade we retreated back to Finger's place to hang out and wait for some of the traffic to die off. The group eventually made its way to Tiny Tap and later to the VFW for the evening until we finally decided to check out Whiskey Park, a club I previously never had occasion to check out. We hung out and danced until midnight at which point I decided I had enough and needed some rest since I planned to go to the office the next day (yes, a Sunday). The weather outside for the parade was great and I had another great time. The Tampa Red Dress Run is the evening of the Gasparilla night parade, so hopefully it'll turn out to be an interesting time then as well.

The weekend pics can be found here: http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=vnlbugz.4fidlhm7&x=0&y=re7rz