Ocean Grove: Hunt for Hearts

Dad’s Taxi went yesterday for the first time to Ocean Grove, NJ. Considering that Dad has been living on the Jersey shore for over 15 years and has never visited Ocean Grove is totally different story.

Ocean Grove is located one town over from Asbury Park.. As a matter of park you an walk down the boardwalk from Asbury Park to Ocean Grove. Of course I’ve never done that either. Well let me tell you my visit to Ocean Grove was truly delightful and I plan on going there again soon. Ocean Grove is a very old town on the Jersey shore which has a beautiful boardwalk, quaint little bed and breakfast hotels, and a lot of history!

I went to Ocean Grove with a few my friends. Lee, Cris, Cara and myself. I was meeting Cara for the first time and Lee is my best friend.. He’s my partner in crime in all things related to Tennis. Lee, Cris and I work for the same company. Cris bought along Cara as they are lifelong friends! It was a true pleasure meeting Cara!  As you know it’s my normal practice to not use people’s real names so I can protect their privacy and prevent them from being more embarassed from making my blog.

I absolutely loved Ocean Grove! the history was everywhere. It was in the architecture of the houses, the feel of a small town and just the coziness of the town. I felt like I had gone back in time to the early 20th century when I looked at the houses and surroundings. Anyway, I’m getting distracted with my own observations, back to the reason for this posting, and my perspective on the “Hunt for Hearts”!

We were given a map of the participating stores/businesses that were partaking in the heart hunt. There were 29 stores in a proxemity of a mile to two miles. The objective was to walk into a business and find a hidden heart somewhere in the business. Once the heart was found the counter person would initialize your paper to signify your success at that location!

As we we walked around and searched for the hearts, many of the businesses made it easy to find the heart, but some places, made it very challenging. Of cours I was just interested in finding real chocolate and THEN the heart, as I have a notorious sweet tooth. My friend Lee was on the lookout for brownies.. The antique and thrift shops we walked into had such history and such amazing trinkets that I felt I had stepped back into time. I was really more interested in exploring the antique stores than finding hearts. Yet I know I didn’t want to be out done by my partners in crime for today, Lee, Cris, and Cara respectively.

We had some great conversations and the highlight of the hunt was Lee getting a marriage proposal from Cara (In jest of course). Since Lee is retirement eligible and has health benefits, Cara proposed marriage to Lee so she can get health benefits (See Mr. Obama what your Obama Care has done to the people?). Lee of course declined this proposal but I truly wonder he made the right decision. Cara is a very sweet and humorous individual. Her sense of humor was quite apparent during our jaunt hunting for the red hearts in the stores.

Along the way during our hunt, we all loaded up on chocolate (kisses, mini milky way and other chocolate treats). I must state here that it was mainly me that was loading up on chocolate treats. Cara, Cris and Lee were being very precise and sometimes too fast in finding the hidden red chocolates in the businesses we visited.

I was so enamored with the stores and the pleasant home feel of Ocean Grove, I had a sense of deja vu that I had been there before? Past life? who knows?

The weather was great after our last snow storm from the day before and we were jumping over puddles left over from the melting snow. I tell you the walk and the hunt was truly fun! I felt like a kid again when I walked into the store and was actually trying to find the hidden hearts!

After about 2 hour we found all the hearts and returned to the tourist center to fill out our entry to the raffle, Even this place had an old world charm to it!

We ate lunch at a really nice diner/luncheonette called Nagle’s . For $10 you had an amazing meal and you were sitting at a table where the table had on it under glass an newspaper extract from the late 1800’s. We sat next to the wall where there were authentic manual typewriters.. The whole place had an air of a luncheonette and the service and food were outstanding!

We visited some amazing Bread and Breakfast places across from the beach and let me tell you.. I plan on visiting and staying at these places in the near future!

The best part of this day was being with dear friend Lee and meeting Cris and Cara (for the first time). These people really are so down to earth and are so easy to spend time with. I do hope I have the chance to do this again.. I told Cara about Dad’s taxi and she will probably be reading this blog. I hope you leave a comment Cara!

Now it’s time for me to review my stash of candy that I got yesterday and finish them before my kids come over and finish it for me.

Ocean Grove is a treasure trove of history and I plan on visiting this historical little town again in the near future!

How many phone#’s do you have?

Today I realized that I have way too many phone numbers, that people can contact me with. I need to go off the grid, but I can’t with so many phone numbers that people have associated with me.

Here’s my list.. How many numbers do you have? Hopefully not as many as me.

1. VOIP Number – Cable company said.. a triple play was cheaper than double play..I didn’t need a phone at home, but hey it works! I wrote this number down, but now I can’t find where I put it.
2. Personal Cell – This my main iPhone.. yes.. I finally got the iPhone 6. Didn’t go for the 6+ as I didn’t feel like carrying a man purse to carry that around
3. Work Cell – Cell given to me by company.. This one is an iPhone 5. Finally I can use one cable to charge both personal and work phone
4. Magic Jack – this is my virtual number that I bought many years ago.. and I can access it from my iPhones as well as my tablet
5. Old Home Number – Not with me anymore.. but when people call that number they will still get a Dad’s taxi passenger.
6. Gmail Number – Ok.. this one is too much.. It’s on my signature on Gmail and I still don’t know how to use it well.
7. Work Phone – My desktop phone at work..
8. Skype – when I want to communicate with my relatives back home in the motherland.. I use this.

Ok so that’s 8 ways that I can communicate with the world using the various communications devices I have. What’s the maximum number of contact numbers you can add for a contact on the iPhone? I gotta figure that one out.

One time.. my daughter facetime’d me and both phones at home went off and I couldn’t find either one.. Now that’s what you call frustration!

So how many phones do you carry? Now I have to learn all the texting Acronyms so I can text myself using LOL and OMG or if I wanted to share TMI.. I can text the outside world!

Dad’s Fav link has been updated

As you know, when I find a site that I like and if I find a site that I really really like, I put a link to it on my Dad’s Fav Link’s page.

I made some updates to the Dad’s Fav links today to add some truly golden Amazon sites.

If you have any sites that you truly love, let me know and I’ll review and add them if they pass my test for value.. Ok.. If I like it.. I’ll put the link up!

Ok.. so for the folks that drop by.. (except for the spammers that keep on trying to SPAM), I’d like to hear from you!

Dad

Spring is almost here!

After a very cold winter, I think winter is just around the corner for us in Central NJ. This has been one of the coldest winter’s I’ve seen in a long time.. Not much snow, but the cold has been brutal. I personally look forward to the Spring as a time of rebirth and a time of new beginnings.

I’ll be ready to share with the world the story of my rebirth over the next few months.. as I’ve been keeping quite a few things I’ve been going through over the past year to myself. I’m finally at a point in my life where Dad’s Taxi is ready to say,  my taxi of life is finally on the right path and making positive progress .

Spring time is a time for new beginnings, why not start here??

Tonight (March 8th) is the start of Daylight Savings Time and as we all say “Spring forward, Fall Back”, I’m finally ready to spring forward not just by one hour, but to truly begin the next part of my life this Spring.