I know my blog has been sparse lately, but I spent Wednesday through Saturday evening (late - like midnight) in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, at the Computer Assisted Legal Instruction conference, totally devoid of a computer. I have a desktop at work and just one laptop at home that belongs to Pooteewheet because it's her business laptop, so when I go on the road, unless I can scam time at an internet cafe', I'm s.o.l. I'd ask for a Blackberry, but that seems to be social and familial death, so I'm holding out until they force the thing into my cold, dead hand.
Fort Lauderdale and NOVA Law School - damn nice. We were on the beach (school was about 15 minutes away) at the Bhaia Mar and the temperature there ran about 91 degrees...so did the humidity, for the first two days. If you went outside, you walked as slow as possible and always kept your eye on the next source of air conditioning so that you could leap frog without breaking a sweat, because once you broke a sweat, your clothes were done, sweated through right to your underwear. If you didn't keep your room temperature at 60 or less, nothing dried out, and work clothes actually started to accumulate moisture. Fortunately, there were blankets so you didn't freeze to death, but this did nothing to lessen the 50 to 91 degree shock as you stepped out of the hotel. This is bad enough on your body, but on your digital camera it amounts to outright abuse. Per the next picture, it wasn't actually foggy there - it was just impossible to get the camera lens to defog. Thirty minutes later it was still taking pictures like this and 45 minutes later the shutter quit working until it had an hour in the hotel room to readjust while I tapped the aperature to get it over the sticky condensation.
On the last day, however, the humidity dropped (not the temperature) and I got some pictures. I've spared you pictures of the millions of beach goers in their thongs, including the manthong on the 50 yards of beach that appeared to be the gay beach. We (coworker Dan and his wife Mary) wandered the beach the last day and at one point the beach just looked different. I was the one who figured out it was the total lack of women on just this nondescript portion of sand. Of course, on the way back, we saw the manthong - if you're a dude hanging with another dude in a manthong, you're probably on the gay beach. Here's the beach from three stories up - where there was beer and a nice breeze. Way down toward the end - that's where I was swimming in the evening, though not too far out, I didn't want to disappear without a witness. I did meet the tech guy for William Mitchell Law School and he was swimming, so maybe he'd have reported the shark that nabbed me.
Taken from almost on the gay beach. If you look closely, you can see where my footprints disappear, and Jesus carries me through the gay beach. I'm pretty sure he was just trying to impress the girl in the foreground looking for shells. [Image]
This is Dan and Mary. They went to a Mariners game for fun. Mary asked if the all beef hot dog was 100% beef. They assured her it was. It was mostly beef, and a little pork - so after 15 minutes of lying on the cement at the stadium during the first inning, they hauled her back to the hotel room to be ill. Mary is the first person I've ever met that can actually sit around in Florida sunshine for whole days at a time, to the point where she has to get a cap to prevent sun poisoning. I wasn't even aware this was possible unless you passed out in the sun. I burnt after 20 minutes, and Dan after 5, so her stamina amazes me.
Speaking of bad food - don't eat at the Oasis Cafe. I had ribs and chicken - the ribs tasted like they'd been cooked on a dirty grill. The banana cream pie dessert was pudding and tasted chaulky. Nasty - if you're going to eat on the company dime, it should taste good.
Did I mention there were movies on the beach? Bagpipe weddings? Weddings with just two people and the minister? Belly dancing and mariachi music? Absolutely a great place to retire if you have 1.27 million dollars for a nice condo.
In addition, I got to meet some very nice AAMs, tech people, and profs, including some locals I hadn't met before (the William Mitchell tech), some close to locals (the Michigan Tech for Ave Maria that I met because I gave up my seat to a newlywed on the plane - newlywed dude should be leaving a plaque to me somewhere in Steven's Point as I gave up a cushy seat next to his very cute wife to sit between two large guys, one of whom was eating egg rolls, drinking soda, and watching Scary Movie # on his laptop while laughing so hard the egg roll came out of his mouth), and some far from locals (tech guy from D.C.). I also scored a righteous piece of swag for She Says - honestly, there were Law Librarians virtually offering me carnal pleasures for rights to the piece that didn't come in a box. I'll get it in the mail in a day or two - you can live in suspense until then.
Finally - I took this picture with Mean Mr. Mustard in mind. This was in a bar where I was eating. It is indeed one of those crane machines where, for $2.00, you can try to grab a live lobster. I think this would horrify his wife. I found it slightly nauseating, so I imagine she'd be livid. I can deal with the lobster once it's cooked, but I can't bring myself to taunt the thing by repeatedly poking it with a metal claw - I guess the challenge is they move and wiggle. They should be able to operate a counter claw that pinches you while you're trying to grab them - that would be more amusing.
"CALI - Computer Assisted Legal Instruction"
1 Comment -
Scooter, you rock!
10:41 AM