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Despite a bit of rain this afternoon (and a bit more yesterday afternoon), Kelly and I are having a great time with our days-off here in Orlando. We visited the Magic Kingdom on Thursday… It’s been a long time since I climbed through the Swiss Family Robinson’s tree house or saw the castle brightly-lit under the nighttime fireworks show. Unfortunately, the “Small World” exhibit was closed for renovation, but we did get the check out some new attractions. “Stich’s Great Escape” was a riot, and the “Mickey’s PhilharMagic” show was truly exceptional.

Yesterday we started off the morning hitting two geocaches, including 2 miles worth of walking, then lunch at LuLu’s Bait Shack, followed by a nap and a trip to “Downtown Disney” for the evening. We had dinner at Bongo’s cuban restaurant, and made sure to visit the Ghirardelli store before heading home for the evening!

Today started out with a time-honored standby… 18 holes of mini golf, because you can’t visit the I-Drive area without some putting! We snagged a couple more caches, then headed over to the I-Drive mall for a visit to Bass Pro Shops. We wanted to hit the pool this afternoon, but it got cool and looked like rain, so instead we headed over to the Peabody Hotel. Which brings me to right now – we’re sitting in the bar, sipping drinks and catching up on homework and e-mail…

Tomorrow, we head for Sebastian to visit Aunt Kathy and Uncle Bob – and hopefully see Uncle Bill as well! And tonight, we’re off to Paradise Island for some dinner and a comedy show…

Things have been pretty busy here in Orlando – stopping to blog has (understandably, I suppose) not been a terribly big priority!

We’ve had a great 3 days so far at the show – tomorrow is the final day, and if it goes as well as the previous three, we should be able to call it a pretty big success! Despite plenty of technical issues, most of them stemming from the plethora of access points in the convention center, we’ve generated a lot of interest.

Of course, evenings have been busy too – between phone interviews, dinners with family and the rest of the DICE folks, extensive drinking and even an aborted emergency Radio Shack run, I haven’t had much free time!

So far, so good!

What happens when you think your flight leaves at 12:25, and it actually leaves at 11:20? You get there 20 minutes before departure, and you get to run from check-in to security to terminal to gate… And what about when they decide to de-ice the plane 10 minutes after it was supposed to leave? That’s when you hit JFK 35 minutes after your connecting flight was supposed to depart.

Well, fortunately they held the plane for us, and as a result I’m blogging from a springy hotel bed in Orlando. Had a nice dinner tonight – sushi works well when it’s dinner-for-one!

Tomorrow will be prep-day for PMA 2005, and Sunday starts the show… Keep an eye here for updates, when I can manage to get away and post!

That was what we saw scrawled with a fingertip in the dirt on a van in Dayton, Ohio. When we visited the web site, we found a picture that looked a lot like the van we saw…

But today’s dust-writing was even more amusing. I was minding my own business, cruising along on Interstate 390, heading into the city. As I approached a FedEx truck, I noticed something written in the dust on the back liftgate…

1-800-CALL-DHL

OK, so the process of ridding myself of anti-freedom Microsoft software has begun. I’ve got my iPod mini (a Christmas present from Kelly) working happily under Linux using gtkpod. And I just posted a new gallery chock full-o-images from the 2004 Stonehurst Regatta. They were resized, color corrected and sharpened exclusively using the open-source Gimp software package.

Chalk this one up to the “how very interesting” file…

It started out just like any other call. Our tones dropped a few minutes after the shift’s start, and we hit the road for a little girl who drank a little too much cough syrup. We arrived to find the fire department already on-scene, and were greeted by a very slippery driveway. Wait… Make that a very slippery driveway on a serious incline.

We tried backing in, and made it nearly to the top before spinning the rear wheels. The driver (whose request to remain anonymous has been denied) set the park brake, and we headed in to greet our patient. All was stable, so we returned to the truck to get the pediatric transporter set up. But then a funny thing happened.

We heard a pop. Then a creak. Then the sound of crunching snow. And that was about the point when we realized that the truck was moving away from us! A quick glance through the open rear doors revealed an empty driver’s seat – and resulted in a prompt “Oh Shit!” from us!

As the fire fighters yelled warnings to the people below, I held on to the doors to keep from falling under the rear step. Barry – the one to save the day – ran around the side of the bus, jumped into the driver’s seat and promptly brought the runaway ambulance’s descent to a halt.

How very interesting indeed…