Epcot Resort Area Dining

We had a blast going to EPCOT yesterday, walking through the back and going over to the resort areas of Disney's EPCOT Boardwalk, Yacht Club, Swan, Dolphin and Beach Club along with the little lake.

We got Dinner at Big River Grille and Brewing Works. I guess they may be a small microbrewery. Small is relative I guess, most things Disney gets involved with are kind of difficult to classify as small, maybe. But I like the boardwalk, promenade area, and the sunsets are terribly impressive.

Since we had the lap-band surgeries, we don't eat as much. We ended up getting an order of the meat loaf (made with ground beef and italian sausage) with two portions of mashed potatoes, and we split it.

In fact, we ended up getting a to-go box for about the other half of the meal and we started back to the car, It was at that point that the heavens opened up, and rain started to fall. It wasn't a torrential rain, but it was more than just an annoyance. I commented to my wife that it isn't a cold rain, and the temperatures were pretty nice.

We've found that Outback Steakhouse has a verynice carside to go service. We've only used it a few times, but it was very nice, and it might be used more in the future.

I've heard that the burgers are made from grinding up the extra pieces of the steaks which are cut away in order to make the 7 ounce steaks, or whatever.

I love Florida

Here was a picture of Taylor Dayne in Concert at EPCOT's Eat to the Beat that co-incides with the Wine and Food festival at EPCOT. Living In Tampa, we can go over to EPCOT on the spur of the moment and it generally isn't too big of a deal. An hour and a half of travel time each way kind of makes it a bigger deal, but there are people who deal with that as a daily commute.

Whale Tail Fountain

I thought the whale tail fountain in New London, CT was pretty awesome. This was near downtown New London, near the waterfront. I was impressed.

me with hotel background

Here I am in a picture with the Mount Washington Hotel at Bretton Woods in the background. That was the place of the meeting which set up the International exchangability of money. We didn't stay at the Hotel this time around, nor did we ride the cog railway up to the top of Mount Washington, but who knows, someday, we might.

Chickens

When we were staying in North Conway, there were chickens at the Bed and Breakfast. Most of the time, the hens were in the hen house, but once, they were out when we came by. I guess I was fortunate to get this close up shot. It was pretty cool. Most of my involvement doesn't involve much interaction with farm animals.

ski wildcat

We had a pretty fun time at the wildcat ski resort in fall. Granted, there was no snow, and no skiing. but we rode the gondola up, and got some pictures of the trees with some color on them. Fran was dissappointed that the leaves weren't quite at the most colorful, but all in all, I still think they were pretty cool.

Ziplining near wildcat ski resort

This picture is one we shot of four ladies coming down the ziplines. It was a pretty neat experience. Not really something that would be done lots of times, but something to cross off of the bucket list. It was mostly just a straight shot down the easiest part of the slope, but it was pretty cool. A ten minute trip up the ski lift, and a one minute trip down the zip line. I guess we were pretty securely strapped in, on our ride down the side of the mountain.

Josh died on September 11 2001. Possibly at the Twin Towers. It is sad that he has a bench by the beach near Stonington Point to help people remember.

A T-shirt depicting a wildcat in the harness seat flying down the zipline.

A better pic of the ladies ziplining.

Ziplining at Wildcat Mountain

Here, some ladies went ziplining after we had just finished our own ziplining adventure. My wife and I went ziplining, and it was a pretty cool experience. It was a ten minute ride up the easy hill, and then a one minute trip down, sitting in a seat along with some straps keeping people from falling out. It was pretty fun. Perhaps it could be more fun if a pass system could be worked out allowing for additional rides down the mountain, but I think there are probably other ways to seperate people from money.

Ye Olde Harbor Inne, Mystic, CT

We were in the First Mate's room, at the Ye Olde Harbor Inne by Claude. Claude was the Innkeeper. Our room was small, but we enjoyed the location near Downtown Mystic, CT. We walked downtown a couple of times. We got some sundaes at the drawbridge ice cream shop. We also on one of the days we were up there, went to Hartford, CT to see the state capitol, and we walked around downtown for a bit. It was pretty neat. We went to a Jewish naming ceremony for a great neice, and that was interesting. I suppose that involving the community in the child's life is important, and having some details about why names were selected makes one feel slightly more connected.

More of the guy by the lighthouse (rough seas)

A guy by his lighthouse on a particularly rough day at sea. I don't know how this shot could be captured, or why a lighthouse keeper would subject himself to such conditions, even to open the door in order to get the shot, but it might have been photoshopped, or otherwise altered. The forces of nature represented by this photo are impressive.

Welcome to Legoland Florida

This is one of the first lego creations seen when entering Legoland Florida. Legoland Florida is not yet officially open. I believe they are aiming for October 15th as a grand opening date. It most likely is very exciting for the teachers in the area. There were some teachers getting special educator passes, or whatever, who were located directly behind us in line as we got our passes. Supposedly, there are signs up (Billboards) saying how far away Legoland is located (20 miles to Legoland, 15 miles to Legoland, etcetra...)

bird outside my window

I have to say that I am phenomenally impressed by the exceptional pictures that I achieved using a different, newer camera. To be fair, this camera was using the intelligent auto setting, and it was using pretty much a maxed out zoom, but I am impressed by the photo of the bird I got. The details are astounding. Perhaps I'll need to contribute more pictures of back yard birds. I should also clean the outsides of the windows.

Anyway, the new camera is a Panasonic ZS-8. My prior camera was a Nikon Coolpix s8100, which did reasonably well, just wasn't as good at doing the zooms.

I'll need to continue using the camera, to get better shots, but I think this is pretty good.

(also, since I'm using a macbook pro, I have parallels running windows 8 so that I can resize the photos making them easier for web consumption)

I hope that others see the nice picture.

Shuttle Atlantis lifting off

This was a pretty awesome sight.  We parked at the Cocoa Beach Pier, and walked for quite some distance from the pier.  We got a better view, I suppose being closer to the launch.  But it was still at a distance. 

We might have gotten a better view if we had spent more time and energy trying to get Titusville.  As we figured it though, Titusville was probably packed with too many people.

We had a good time walking on the beach, and into a Cape Canaveral neighborhood.  We met a guy from Colorado who was down here for a week just to see the shuttle go up.  We also saw some other guys with pretty nice digital cameras with interchangeable lenses.  They were younger, apparently still employed with the sale of consumer electronics, or at some point in the past were.  The guy from Colorado was with some electrical engineering firm, or something.  

That was the original shot from which the above shot was cropped and resized, I guess within my digital camera (Nikon S8100).  Several of the pictures of liftoff were not good, due to the auto-focus, but what the heck, all it takes is one good shot.

We had an enjoyable time getting back to the car, and traffic was consierably worse leaving the area than when we arrived, but we stopped for lunch at Friendly's, and stopped at Florida Institute of Technology's campus to walk around the Botanical Gardens some.  We asked at the library how many students were on campus, and there was a number about 6,000, but it was unclear if that included the online students or not, apparently, there is a rather large number of online degree seeking students.

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/12/using-google-maps-to-find-foreclosures/67773/

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/12/using-google-maps-to-find-foreclosures/67773/

Locally acquired case of dengue fever turns up in Miami

Locally acquired case of dengue fever turns up in Miami

Apparently, the mosquito borne illness has made a comeback. There have been a feew other cases of mosquito borne illnesses this year, and there have been larger numbers of people from Haiti dying due to Cholera. Things could get worse, but then again, things aren't particularly bad out now.

We were talking with one of the plant people at the University's Gardens about why they were selling a plant that said it is for zones 10 and 11, when we are in zone 9b. She said we have the heat of zone 10, but occasionally we get the cold of zone 8. She thought that we would eventually get reclassified as zone 10. I am not too sure about our planting zone changing.

The background image was distracting

I changed it to a relatively simple water mark layout.

In other news, I guess my Father has gotten a 2011 Subaru Outback Limited in Ruby Red Pearl. The vehicle looks nice. It appears to be larger than what I remember his previous Outback as being. But that was a while ago. I guess my Father rationalized this as my mother's car. For when they are up in the mountains of North Carolina. Just like he rationalized the previous car, a Mercedes Benz 320, or whatever as her car.

The Ruby Red is fairly dark. It is not Fire Engine Red.

Supposedly, my dad saved some $2500 by buying the car from a dealer over in Clearwater, as opposed to a dealer in Tampa. I was not really aware that the difference would be that significant.

I think Dad does a pretty good job of negotiating with car salesmen.

We are happy that our car is still running pretty good. We've had some rather big expenses lately, but it is still running pretty good, we hope to keep it several more years.

New cars are nice, but I guess we are seriously happy to not have car payments at present, and we like being able to pay off our balances during most months. We'll probably keep looking at getting a new bedroom set.

Listening to the times Cast for Today, part of it was about how various brands were trying to tie in with the movie "eat, pray, love" and make it into a pro-consumerism movie, even though it is more about a spiritual journey and shunning the consumeristic nature of the modern world.

Retail Therapy

I saw something on Discovery Channel, or TLC, or somewhere about Hoarding: an obsessive compulsive disorder. I guess there are people who have very crowded houses full of stuff. My grandmother's house was like that when we visited a few years ago.

I suppose that she would buy stuff from QVC, or Home Shopping Network, or one of those TV sales channels.

I'm sure that the number of people who buy stuff in order to feel better, happier is probably significant. I kind of wonder why people get caught up in that cycle. Maybe some of it is just to have interaction with others.

Perhaps some people going out shopping can be pleasing. Making a purchase is a way of rewarding the sales people, but it should be for stuff that actually gets used.

I guess my father's desire for an SUV could be thought of along similar terms. There isn't really a need for an SUV, but maybe living up in the mountains will be more comfortable if he gets an SUV.

Hmm, I guess background images are cool.

I think I want some downtown-y like pictures. I looked on that istockphoto site, and they appeared to be selling photos. Maybe using a background photo would be too busy and take away from the blog. I can try this for a little while, and maybe if I later decide that it's not working, I can change my mind.

Yesterday, we went looking for bedroom furniture, a bedroom set. We currently have my parent's old bedroom set mostly with a somewhat newer mattress and box springs. Even that is older than 8 years, and as such, probably should be replaced. There are commercials on the radio station about how after eight years, the weight of most mattresses practically double due to dead skin cells, dust mites and sweat, etcetera.

I guess we have good taste. We went to Ethan Allen and we liked a couple of styles of the furniture, the sales lady/interior designer was pretty good while being enthusiastic about how much quality goes into their furniture.

We also went to Scan Design and some of their stuff looked pretty good as well, but both were kind of expensive. Still, on an expected lifespan basis, I guess the furniture isn't that unreasonably expensive.

My father is looking at different cars

We are still driving the 03 Honda Accord. It recently had the air conditioner go on it, so we paid to have that fixed. In Florida, the A/C is pretty important. We had the oil changed and other fluids and maybe some belts changed (engine mounts fixed) recently as well. It is paid for, so we can afford to spend money on other stuff.

My Father is looking at Accuras and Lexuses. Life is good. Perhaps my father will get a newer vehicle. The economy should start recovering, people may continue buying vehicles.

I guess many of my co-workers have greater debts.

Maybe I tend to be cautious, concerned about what could go wrong. I try not to focus on what could go wrong very much, but peerhaps some might call it a healthy dose of realism.

I like our house.