I was to have left at 8AM yesterday.. but I changed my flight to give me at lest a half a day at home with family. I ended up spending the time doing some early spring cleaning.. I must have taken 25 trips up and back to the attic hauling stuff up and down .. Going into the attic is quite an emotional experience for me these days . So many wonderful memories locked away in all of those boxes.   I talk to Sam when I’m up there with all of his stuff…  it makes me feel good.

My next task was to take down the interior storms.. It’s quick work to take them down..They are 4’ by 7’ huge glass plates.  Half of them are harmless safety glass, the other half are deadly untempered glass.. I never remember which one’s are which.. it keeps the job interesting.. Here too, signs of Sam are everywhere.  He’s still so much part of our life

Here’s ’during’ she looks like an entirely different species when wet..

Diane took me to the Airport around 2 to make my 3PM flight.. Turns out my flight was delayed. My lovely Diane volunteered to run to the University mall and buy me a new set of Khaki’s.. .. She dropped them off in plenty of time for me to make my delayed flight.. Is she a sweetie.. or what ?

We finanly took off anout an hour and a half late… It was a beutiful flight.. here’s a shot of Camel’s Hump.. and home.. as we swooped south.

One thing about flying jet blue is the TV’s.at every seat. . I need to be careful around TV’s because I get so sucked in. I can’t turn away !  I ended up watching a great documentary about the evolution of Heavy Metal…   Gabe and Sam would have loved it.. I now know how to relate the Sex Pistols and the Clash to Heavy Metal.. I learned more than I could ever want to know about Black Sabbath., Motely Crue, Megadeath, and Iron Maiden !

I must say I’ve always really liked Ozzie !

The trip down to Orlando wasn’t so smooth.. My Burlington flight was so delayed that I missed my 4:50 flight to Orlando. I waited in line with all the other folks who missed their flight and finally was told that the next flight out was all sold out. I asked to go standby.. they said I could try but I was 9th on the standby list or a sold out plane. Turns out I was lucky.. I was the last person taken.. !

I got down to Orlando about 9:30 PM a few hours later than expected. It was absolutely pouring.. I waited for a half hour for the rental car bus.. then caught the ride to the Hertz center..Oh-oh.. bad sign.. there was a long line sticking out of the Gold service office.. the rain was causing a huge back-up in car turn around. We were told it could be an hour until we each got cars.. grrrr.   Well… I say ’grrrr’.. but actually I now seem to be able to look at stuff like this kind a funny diversions/adventures..

Anyway. I waited my turn and was talking to the person behind the desk when another Hertz employee walked by. My draw dropped. It was my old friend Gus !.

Gus, who’s from Brazil  was an intern at Disney many years ago when I used to bring the kids down here while I did science shows at IBM’s Epcott exhibit.. I did it 5 years running. One year, I brought only Sam down with me.. I remember it was his Birthday !  Gus volunteered to take Sam to Disney for the day while  worked. They had a great time.. Then we all hung out that evening.. The next year I had the whole family in tow and we met Gus and his then fiancee Julie, who’s from Peru,  for dinner. We stayed in touch… Gus left Disney and started workign for Hertz in Del Ray.. then I lost track of him. He heard about Sam’s death and wrote us a nice heartfelt letter.. but then we sorta lost touch..I’d asked my friend Linda about him.. but no one knew where he was.  And .. here he was.. I gave him a big hug and dragged him outside to talk.. we spoke for a long while about him and about us. and Sam. I called Diane for him to say hi… I leanered that he and Julie are expecting their first kid in August !!!!. It was so very cool running into him..

We talked and talked.. unitl it was pretty clear that he had to get back to work.. I  said goodbye with a hope of seeing him later this week. I went to my car rental stall and found a nother guy about to drive my car away.. we’d been given the same car.. and he had the keys.. I walked back into the Hertz place.. and there my buddy Gus took care of me. I probaby shouldn’t go on record here witht eh details of my rental.. but suffice it to say.. I’ve never driven anything like this car in my life !!!!

By that point it was getting near 11.. I had agreed to meet my very good freind Bruce for dinner when I got in.. and he was still up for it.. I drove the 30 minutes to teh Wilderness Lodge and found Bruce..

By the way.. I had my first beer.. actually my first alcohol of any kind in a month. I’d given it up as part of the Ayurvedic diet I’m on. Sharon.. my Ayruveda practitioner had actually told me that it would be OK to have a beer or wine every so often . but I wanted to go a month to see how it felt.. It felt good. .. but boy that beer tasted good last night..   I’m going to keep it down to a beer or glass of wine or two a week to see how the whole Ayruveda thing plays out

Bruce and I hung out on the porch of his room and talked. It was so good to catch up with him. He’s been a close friend for several years… He and our friend Jim came up for the week after Sam died an really took care of me.. I’ll never forget that.> We talked about our families, life and work.. too much work,. I’m afraid. He’s such a great guy..

One of the things that makes him really great is that he’d ordered a pizza.. I was starving.. so it was heaven

I took off from there about 12:30.. Got to my hotel, the Coranado at about 1.. and worked a bit until 2.. That didn’t leave much time for sleep.. So that was yesterday.. This is today..
I’ve been in the conference all morning.. seeing tons of friends.. having some really good business discussions. Tonight we’re going to a reception at Animal Kingdom.. I was last there with my whole family I’ll take a SamStone..  OK
I’m going to try nd fit in a nap before I go.. Talk to you later folks.. talk to you always, Sam
-me