this florida thing

This is the last of my work trips for this year.  Another week of classes.  This time it's Source Selection: The Best Value Process.  I know, I know, stimulating and informative and well, yawn...But not really.  It is a good class for my line of work.

The flight was uneventful, except for the storm that hit between the time we touched down and two seconds later...lightning, immediate thunder, and Florida cloudburst instantaneously.  Which caused a delay in getting to our gate since the crew had to move the metal ramp away from the building until the storm passed.

But not a big deal really since the crew let us get up and move about the cabin until it was time to move that last 100 feet to the gate.

I checked my bag this time.  The part about not having to drag it everywhere and hoist it overhead?  I like that part.  The part about having to wait to check it and then wait wait wait to get it from the baggage carosell?  Not like.  And then I had to drag it through the airport to the rental car parking garage. 

Where I picked up yet another white Impala.  This one already had the air conditioning blowing full speed on high when I got in.  Sweet blessed coolness escape from the 85% humidity and 85 degrees.  Yes, that is me whining about being in Florida.

Or perhaps it isn't really me, but is instead my companion, the stye.  If it's still here tomorrow morning, I'll be taking suggestions for a name for it.  But boy howdy am I saving time getting ready to go out in the morning not having to bother with eye makeup.  (See that was me, not the stye.  It is cranky because I'm going out without eye makeup and Lord knows how scary that is to everyone around me.)

While we're complaining, let's just say how much we don't like driving in Orlando.  How in the hell is anybody supposed to know how to get anyplace?  The signage sucks.  There are no mountains to help determine which way is east and which way is west.  And it's been overcast so I can't use my mountaineering skills to determine directions based on where the sun is in the sky.

(Yep, that was the stye again.)

We're tired of spending 90 minutes driving here and there, round and round, turning the wrong direction every single time we turn.

(Uh, yes, stye.)

As soon as I start to figure out the roads, I'm going to find a beach.  I'll be sure to allow myself plenty of time to get back to homebase before dark.  Being lost during the daytime in places where no one speaks English is not so good.  Doing that in the dark might just reduce us to tears.  That is me.  And the stye.

Oh.  One more thing.  The lizards?  Still here.