Day 8

Tonight I had an Archer Farms Barbecue Recipe Chicken frozen pizza for the first time.
It was delicious.
Archer Farms is Target's upmarket store brand for food. I'm roundly impressed with their fare.
This may be my new favorite frozen pizza. Good toppings, plenty of sauce, and a thin crust which lends itself to being heated in 17 minutes.
Does anyone else have Super Target near them? Target may start dominating the supermarket business. Soup for $1.77, a pound of Starbucks for $6.90, good produce, good meat...and Barbecue Recipe Chicken pizza. Weird place to put the word 'recipe' really; I'd like a western recipe omelet, or maybe just some french recipe toast?

I'm going to Charleston tomorrow night, so will likely get a good new first in the Palmetto State.

Day 7

Tonight was a good one: my first visit to TPC Sawgrass.
TPC Sawgrass in Ponte Vedra (just south of Jax Beach) is host to the Players Championship each May, one of the premier events on the PGA tour.
http://www.tpc.com/sawgrass/overview/theplayersstadium.html

Last night was a monthly event called Thursday Night Drinks, and upon the invite of a fellow JAG and his wife, I spent a few hours in the TPC clubhouse shmoozing. Great group of people, and even a halfway decent live band.

For those of you who don't play golf, but maybe hang out in bars, TPC Sawgrass is the course depicted in 'Golden Tee.' FYI.

Day 6

Got punched by the mailman.
Just kidding. Another weeknight, another calm endeavor. I heard Seattle-based starbucks is laying off 7 thousand people, so I'm doing my part to help the WA economy by getting a new drink at my local starbucks. I can report the all-new London Fog Latte is terrible, and an abject waste of $3.16. I wonder why they're losing money?

Day 5

I'm counting a new movie as a new experience. I'll try not to do it often, but there it is.
Tonight I watched Gone Baby Gone, with Casey Affleck, Amy Ryan, and Morgan Freeman.
Great film, I had no idea Amy Ryan had that kind of range (Beenie from the Wire, michael's love interest from The Office). She's an amazing actress, she's nearly as repellent in this film as Janice was in the Sopranos. Anyway, new film (big ups to Netflix) and a gritty look at Dorchester (or as they'd say in Mass., "dawchestah").

I also ran a 5k this morning called 'the celebration run', kind of a new experience. The base puts on a monthly 5K road race, and this one was to celebrate the New Years. But since we do it every month and this one just had a different name, it would be pretty lame to count it. It was good cool weather this morning to run, and I placed 12th. The free t-shirt's design was a little light in the loafers, but what are you gonna do.

Day 4

Today I had my first turf battle in the Navy. No more needs be said, but without question a new experience.

Day 3

Today was a good first; going running in the Fort Caroline National Park/Timucuan Nature Preserve in North Jacksonville. The trail was amazing, dense forest with spanish moss overhanging the trail. Complete with winding hills and river views, it's easily the best run I've had in Jacksonville thus far.

On the banks of the St. Johns river, Fort Caroline is an interesting locale. Sixty years before the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts, French Huguenots seeking religious freedom landed at Fort Caroline in 1562, making it the first European settlement in North America. The Spanish showed up and founded St. Augustine a short time later, and things didn't go so well for the French protestants afterwards (note: the religious wars of 16th and 17th century Europeans are why we Americans enjoy religious freedom. It doesn't take too many readings of stories like what Don Menendez did to the French in Florida to demonstrate what our Founders were recoiling from. The first line of the bill of rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." It's not an accident the Founders put those words up front.)

The setting of the fort gives a great overlook of the river, and the national park and nature preserve around it give the visitor the sense of stepping back in time.

Day 2

Played a new golf course west of jax (panther creek).
This morning I helped file someone's taxes at our tax center. Both were new.
I promise these posts will get more interesting.

Day 1

For my first new experience of year 29:

'Be on the front page of the Navy JAG Corps website'

http://www.jag.navy.mil/