Greetings. As you know, I've beenMIA since Friday afternoon. Down in Orlando (yes, Disneyworld, Universal, et al) at another of the "geezerpalooza" gatherings put together by my wife LIsa and her college friends.
The theme park isn't my kind of thing, in fact it's probably the opposite, but you know how it is when you have a kid. Lisa and her friends used to do these get togethers at places like Key West, or the New Orleans Jazz Festival, so you can see how the baseline has moved.
What is nice, though, is being here in this big group where you have things to do beside chase your offspring around, spending the day telling him "No, we can't buy that," or "No, you just had ice cream." And with of us here at the Sheraton Ventana resort, the adults get time to relax, catch up, read, while the kids do their customary tribal things. The resorts in and around this city really have it all figured out when it comes to family/kid stuff, and unlike the theme parks they don't blow out your wallet.
The lines at the theme parks can be brutally long, and crowding and heat can be a problem - or so I'm told - but on Friday we were treated to a VIP-tour courtesy of one of our friends (if you attended MIT just on the leading edge of the technological revolution, you were pretty well-positioned to benefit from the dot.com boom), which includes "fast pass" access to the rides and attractions - and in our case a quartet of minders dressed in white shrts, red-and-black plaid vests, and blue slacks.
Yesterday, it poured rain all day - in fact, it set a new record for single-day rainfall. That was an enormous gift, though. The climate here is so warm that even if you get soaked, you don't really get cold, at least not for a few hours, and the near-tropical storm conditions ensured a relatively low turnout at Universal.
If you Go: The dragon roller coaster at "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter" is absolutely terrifying, but the entire Hogwarts castle and village are incredibly well done. And the Jurassic Park "River Adventure" has some beautifully constructed, ultra-realistic, life-sized superstars of the Jurassic era, including the obligatory ferocious T-Rex. By the end of the day, were were absolutely soaked, even under our vinyl ponchos. The kids took it like champs, though. That's the power of fantasy, I suppose.
Of course, because of the time zone differences, I had no idea what was going on far across the Pacific in the Wizarding World of Andy Murray - nor Agnieszka Radwanska or Tomas Berdych. But I'm catching up today. We'll be doing a podcast tomorrow and I'll have a post later in the day. Meanwhile, enjoy your Sunday!
-- Pete