Larry Battle

Live Music Upstairs in Scampi’s Lounge

Larry Battle sings at Scampi’s Restaurant on the Bay in the upstairs lounge. It’s a great place to relax and watch the sunset over the Laguna Madre as the lights of the Queen Isabela Causeway and Port Isabel come to life. Larry sings a selection of easy listening music that some would describe as romantic. For that reason it’s always fun at take that special someone with you. There’s a full service bar and a great selection of wines and imported and domestic beers and a dance floor for dancing. Larry loves dancers so just take your spot on the dance floor and enjoy.

Larry’s been known to share the mic with his guests, so if you fill compelled to do a little entertaining yourself, twist Larry’s arm with a trip to the tip jar and he might even record it for you.

Larry has a new website created and hosted by yours truly. We’ll be adding more videos, but check out Larry’s site for more live music and dancing on South Padre Island.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeYlqJsms1k

Internet was easy. I work online and I need speed. While wireless Internet and DSL are both available on South Padre Island, neither are fast enough for me. So the choice was simple. Stay with Time Warner’s Road Runner service. I did that and even upgraded my service to Road Runner Turbo, which is noticably faster than the standard  Road Runner Internet service. (I said something nice about Time Warner, so this post is not a total cable rant.)

The decision on the phone was almost as easy. I like VOIP (voice over IP) service. It’s available in many forms including Time Warner’s Digital Phone. It’s really not much more than Skype, which is very inexpensive, but Vonage makes more sense and the phone isn’t tied to a computer. I made the switch to Vonage and saved myself $20.00 a month. Vonage is a superior product with more bells and whistles. I really like the ability to get my voicemail online and receive text notifications to my cell phone.

The hard decision was the cable TV. The question was whether I should switch to a satellite service like Dish or Direct TV, or should I really cut the cord and go to free over the air TV. Annualizing my cable expenses had made me more aware of how fast cable, or satellite, adds up. I decided to go for free TV and cut my cable bill from $240.00 a month to $55.00 a month for the Road Runner Turbo. When I add in the $31.00 for my Vonage digital phone, I’m still saving over $150.00 a month. That’s a saving of $1800.00 a year, but the flip side is that I’m giving up a lot of TV options; but really, is cable TV worth it?

I think I get a lot of value for my free TV setup. Here’s what I did.  I installed a $60.00 Radio Shack antenna I bought in Port Isabel in my attic above my garage. I live in a single family home about three miles north of the Queen Isabela Causeway. I pointed the antenna slightly south of due west. When I found I was dropping some channels, I added a Phillips 28db signal applifier at the antenna. That helped as I am about 40 miles from the transmitter towers. Now I get the three major networks crystal clear, two 24 hour weather channels with background music, Retro TV which is a scaled down version of TV Land, and PBS. I also receive several Spanish language analog stations from our neighbors to the south in Mexico.

If you haven’t seen free high definition digital TV, you’ll be suprised. It’s better than cable or satellite, hands down. Many of the programs are broadcasts in HD 1080i or 720p. Most primetime shows are broadcast in 1080i. While some programming is still standard definition, the quality is great without the ghosting you’re familiar with on analog TV. You can’t even get 1080i from cable or satellite, so free HDTV is in a league by   itself.

Ok, I agree that most of us like a little more flavor in our TV choices other than what ABC, NBC, and CBS offer. I’ve had a basic NetFlix subscription for years and have never used their movie download options. NetFlix has about 12,000 choices of movies available for instant download. I hooked up my laptop to my HDTV with a S-Video and M-M RCA – Stereo Mini type audio cables and whalla, I cannot only watch movies from NetFlix, but also free TV shows and movies from Hulu. I can also rent movies and TV series from Amazon and iTunes, as well as watch anything available online from MSNBC, CNN, YouTube, Comedy Central and dozens of other video sites. So far and I don’t feel deprived and I’ll use the $150.00 a month savings to get out on the town more often. I like free HDTV!

There’s lots of reason to live here, but I’ll share some of the reasons we chose South Padre. We were looking for someplace warm. I have an aversion to long pants and my wife doesn’t like cold weather. A winter in Atlanta, which is relatively mild when compared to much of the United States, taught us the cold weather was not our cup of tea. So we concluded that our choices were South Florida, Southern California, or South Texas. We briefly considered Las Vegas, Phoenix, and the Gulf C0ast, but quickly dismissed those options for a variety of reasons including cost of living, freeze potential, and hurricane vulnerability. In the end, we narrowed our choices to Corpus Christi and South Padre Island. I had lived in Corpus Christi years ago for a year while in the Navy and it didn’t seem like a tourist town. I like tourist towns because of the availability of dining, entertainment, and recreation. In the end we chose South Padre Island. We’re happy we did.

South Padre Island is both a geographical location and a municipality located on South Padre Island. Town South Padre is located near Brownsville, Harlingen, and McAllen, TX. North Padre Island is located near Corpus Christi, TX, about two hours north. Travel from South Padre Island to Matamoras, Mexico takes about 45 minutes by automobile. South Padre Island is often referred to by the initials SPI.

South Padre has about 6000 full time residents. The tourist population fluctuates during the year with the slowest season being fall and the peak season during Spring Break and Summer. The principle industry is tourism focused on beach and water activities including boating, fishing, kiteboarding, surfing, building sand castles, birding, and simply relaxing on the beach.

There are a variety of vacation accommodations including hotels, motels, resorts, condos, and beach homes. Numerous restaurants, bars, and nightclubs offer food, beverage, and entertainment to fit any budget or preference.