My trip to Orlando

All work, little fun.  For excitement, I rented a car.  The first night I drove to a hotel near the airport, the Sheraton Suites, which I scored for $59 off of Hotwire.

I went running around a barren area of corporate America, filled with every shade of middle tier hotel you can imagine. There was a Holiday Inn with a Hooters in it. Just the thing for the kids.  I ran past an Oracle building, where I came to the end of the road, and a big field next to the interstate leading back towards a runway or something.  I ran across the field, and the air got cool and fresh, and I could sense some of the original charm of Florida, though there was a menacing looking trailer off in the corner of the field which looked a little too Texas Chainsaw like for the kid.

I also saw some "development coming soon" and "this office building for rent signs".  The most unexpected thing, though, was that a Starbucks along Rte. 482 was closed when I went past it this morning at 7:30 or so.  Starbuckses are supposed to be open at that hour.

For the conference I stayed at the Loews Portofino on the Universal World (or whatever it's called) property.  The whole place was a little cheesey, but they could have messed it up a whole lot worse, and would surely have, if it had been built in Vegas.  In fact, when the sun was going down and after, it didn't look all that fake.  And, in fact, it was possible to get confused about where you were from within the many piazze within the hotel, just like in the old country.

What I don't understand for the life of me is how hotels never have the Fox Soccer Channel or, quite often, Comedy Central.  What else are you supposed to watch?

There was a CNN news store at the airport.  I wonder where the Fox News viewers were supposed to purchase their news?  Oh yeah, they don't read.