Hilary Booth... of course!

After using up my camera on local snow photos, my photos from St. Augustine are up on Flickr. I do wish I'd captured more of the wacky architecture but they're not too bad. I'm still deciding which snow photos to share. None of them really convey how bad the storms were.

The weather has turned even warmer and muggier here in Florida. My allergies are not liking this development. My throat woke up feeling like it was being strangled.

We had Christmas Eve dinner out at a local restaurant. We were seated next to a large family gathering which got very loud and boisterous. I think I'm developing my father's sensitivity to sound, less in the ears and more in the making my head hurt. It's hard to hear yourself think in that din.

Otherwise it's been a fairly uneventful trip thus far. Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all on my list.

So I am in Florida for the Christmas holidays. The plane trip was surprisingly uneventful, considering the horror stories I kept hearing. I landed in concourse A and took the train over to concourse. Of course they changed our gate number later. We only left about forty-five minutes late, but again not bad, at least we got there, unlike some of the people stuck in Chicago.

The weather varies between balmy and cloudy. The sun couldn't decide whether it wanted to come out today. But it's a welcome change from DC hovering in the early 40s.

Today was mostly shopping at the local mall. One of the stores was in the Christmas spirit. Instead of calling for a particular salesperson, they apparently had codenames. So we heard "Prancer and Vixen to the customer service counter..." (For some reason it makes me think of Hilary and Jeff in "Christmas in the Airwaves":

Hilary: "Oh, Jeffrey!--why every Christmas do you start acting like Santa's reindeer?"
Jeffrey {puzzled}: "Reindeer? Ah, what--like Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen?"
Hilary: "Yes. You start dashing out with some dancer and prancing around town, you vixen."

Probably not the image the store was going for...

Well, it wouldn't be Christmas without some excitement.

The weather front with all those rain and tornadoes blew through here. Fortunately we appear to have missed the worst of it. Some of the other Florida counties were not so lucky. My parents have a skylight and the rain against that makes a horrible racket. And I was only here for a mild storm by Florida standards. Tomorrow it'll cool down right as I'm leaving. Hopefully the rain will clear out of D.C.

The Christmas loot was the usual variety of clothes. I miss the fun gifts. Christmas has lost a lot of spontaneity, especially now that I ask what they want ahead of time. I managed to score "Bones" and "Supernatural" season dvds courtesy of Circuit City's little sale, so all is not completely lost. I suspect my Dell DJ is going to acquire more classic rock in the near future.

Hope everyone had a safe and pleasant holidays.

I made it safely to Florida for the Christmas holidays despite a rather trying day. I arrived at Reagan National a little behind schedule only to discover my flight to Melbourne was delayed by an hour. That delay increased to three as the day wore on. The door seal on our plane was having issues, so they were busy getting it fixed. Unfortunately we had a mumbler giving announcements for our gate. I swear I could understand every other departure in that corner except mine. And every time someone mentioned it, she'd blame the surrounding noise. So needless to say, I was just happy to board the plane and get on with it. We actually had to go outside to board the flight, rather than use a gangway.

Then I discovered that to my horror I had seated in front of a babe in arms and her parents. A rather vocal one, in fact. I could deal with that. I could even deal with her jostling and occasionally hitting the back of my seat. To their credit, the parents did try to shush her. Unfortunately, when the flight started, they opted to use a portable dvd player to entertain her... without headphones. Isn't there supposed to be a rule or something about that? Someone objected and they did turn it down a little, which was fine for the people five rows back, but I could still hear it. At least the child was quiet. Then came the descent. She was having inner ear issues. I sympathized whole heartedly. I am told I had many inner ear infections in my youth. However, my adult ears could have done without the wailing and screaming.

I definitely don't need a heavy coat here in Florida. Yes, hate me all you like, even in short sleeves, I'm sweltering. It's December. I don't do late 70s this late in the season! Still waiting to hear word on Discovery's return. For some reason I feel like quoting "Space Camp"... "It seems I remember reading something about the shuttle landing in White Plains or something..."

So I'm in Florida. The temperatures are only in the 60s. Since I left Virginia hovering around the freezing mark, I'll take what I can get. The flight was fairly uneventful. No screaming banshees behind me this time around.

I had dinner at Legal Sea Food at the airport. The security gate was right there, so I could get in line afterwards. Next door the Olssons book store was having a signing by Eleanor Herman, author of Sex with Kings. She dresses up for all of her signings, so she was in a beautiful red 16th century gown with a gliterring snood. Absolutely stunning dress.

I'm here in Central Florida visiting my parents for the holidays. I've gone from the highs in the 20s to highs in the 60s/70s, so it feels like heaven. The humidity doesn't, but at least it's moderate.

Getting to Dulles and going through security was far easier than establishing exactly where my flight was leaving from. The express bus from Rosslyn worked out great. There were two Orlando flights from Independence Air and one left from one gate and one left from another. So there was a lot of confusion from my flight about the second one. To add to that, we ran about an hour late, so the second later flight actually arrived in Orlando before we did. The flight was fine, except for a screaming child. He wailed the entire way, much to everyone's annoyance. Some other parents or guardian had one of those singing Elmo dolls for her child. Thankfully the doll only played at the airport and not on the flight.

*meep* The local CBS affiliate just did a report from Melbourne, FL, where my parents live. Frances certainly looks like she's going to take a piece out of the East Florida coast. At least I know they've evacuated inland already. And my parents wonder why I didn't want to move with them.

I was bored and came across some of my old photographs from my last two trips to Florida for Christmas. So I decided to scan and share with my flist.

( Kennedy Space Center and Trains )

I've been interested in the space program for as long as I can remember. The following will date myself nicely and I don't care. My parents grew up with the moon race, but I'm from the shuttle generation. My mother recalls being in school and informed not to change classes so Shepard or Glenn could go safely into space. I remembered being a sophomore in high school hearing that "something" had happened to the shuttle. That something was Challenger. I remembered the shuttle launch after Challenger when everyone watched numb-knuckled hoping upon hope. I went to Space Camp/Academy for two summers, flying on the Columbia team.

Now my parents have moved to the Space Coast. They were watching the last Endeavour landing on the NASA channel when they heard the twin boom. Yes, that was the shuttle landing not quite in their backyard. We visited the Kennedy Space Center today which is an impressive place, drawing several million visitors a year. And all several million seemed to be there today! The lines were long and the Florida weather was brisk and windy. By some coincidence, the next shuttle was on the launch pad ready to go up in January. The shuttle was my old friend Columbia. Unfortunately the lookout point didn't give a really good view of the orbiter, just a little orange bit of the solid rocket booster sticking up. The Apollo Center was much more interesting with the massive Saturn V rocket and presentations on Apollo VIII's launch and Apollo XI's moon landing. Mom and I had forgotten how many problems the moon lander had encountered during that trip. Usually history books remember they landed on the moon, not how many times they lost radio or computer contact.

Over dinner, we talked about what had happened with the space race. Dad honestly thinks that they lost something when they got to the moon. We send up the shuttle but nothing seems to come of it. The moon has been forgotten, although the Chinese are talking about going. I pointed out the Hubble telescope and other scientific discoveries, but he was right. We weren't trying to explore new planets, sending little drones and robots. My own thought was that Kennedy gave them one goal to the moon, but no one thought to extend that further to the next goal. After you've scaled the mountain, where do you go from there?

Oddly tonight, I'm wishing I could watch Apollo 13 again.