So I think I have procrastinated long enough on putting this blog together. I’ll put this blog together in order to procrastinate going to the gym before work this afternoon. I’ll have overtime this week and that is awesome. Things are going great and all the bosses are impressed with my work. Hopefully I will be moving up the chain of command once I hit the required service time. Anyways, on to the Florida trip.
We were hoping for a small passenger load on the plane on the way down to Orlando. We chose a 10 am flight so we could have time to do things when we got in to Orlando on the Thursday afternoon. It was a packed flight. How packed? We had to sit at a different terminal cause the seats at the gate were full. Southwest goes by number that you checked in now instead of a free for all. We were 20 and 21 so we got great seats.
I have a future as a Southwest flight attendant if the banking business doesn’t end up working out for me. They were such sarcastic asses during the safety announcements. “In case this flight turns into a cruise, you can use your seat cushion as a bobber until the sharks come.” “If you have more than one child, pick the one with the most potential and save that one and let the rest fend for themselves.” etc. After the safety announcements, the flight attendant announced that they would be coming around and taking drink orders. She said “we are all out of ‘I don’t know’ and ‘what do you have?’ but we do have…” and then she listed the drinks. She comes to me and asks what I want to drink and I couldn’t resist. My response, “I don’t know…what do you have?” She looked at Stacy and said, “there’s always got to be one and it is always a MAN.” The rest of the flight was ruined by all the bratty kids on the plane. Stacy and I made the decision that it would be awhile before we went back to Orlando now that we have gone twice in a little over a year.
We land in Orlando and go to the car rental place. I decide to upgrade to the brand new Chrysler Seabring convertible with a GPS unit. We go into the garage and pick a bright blue one. Overall, I liked it better than the Ford Mustang convertible in Arizona but the Mustang had more power and quicker giddyup. As a refresher, here is a pick of the Mustang from the Arizona trip. I will get to a semi pic of the Seabring later in the blog.
We plug in the address to the time share “welcome center” into the GPS and take off to find out where we were going to be staying. We arrive to the welcome center attached to a TGIFridays and go inside. The guy starts talking to us and it reminded me of a comedian that we had just watched on Comedy Central. Can’t remember his name but he was Italian and kept saying that his uncle owned all these places and it was always named “—- this” but he also had a joke about how when you ask someone if they know a “Mary Smith” and they respond with “No but I know a John Hornsby” and you are like “how in the hell is that even close to what I said?” Well the guy asks where we are from and we say “Chicago.” He starts talking about Pittsburgh. We were like “what the hell does Pittsburgh have to do with Chicago?” Anyway, the guy upgrades us to a nicer hotel if we agree to sit through another time share. Sure thing. So we go from Quality Inn to Extended Stay Deluxe Suites. We arrive at the suite and it is great. Kitchen, couch, king size bed. Very nice.
We decide to make Thursday a “Chicago” day. We go to Giordano’s for supper. I guess Orlando is the only place outside of Chicagoland with a Giordanos. A photographer came around and took our picture at the table and then tried to sell us a huge package including a 5 x 7 picture, 2 keychains and a magnet for $20. Instead we buy the magnet for $6. He isn’t happy but he throws in a keychain as well since they were already made. I still have to get the magnet from Stacy or the keychain whichever. Since I don’t have it, no picture for you.
We follow up Giordano’s by going to Howl At The Moon. Yep, like I said, all things we could have done in Chicago and instead we flew to Orlando to do it! Howl at the Moon was a fun time. I hadn’t been there before. We went to the Red Headed Piano Bar in Chicago and I liked that. Stacy likes Howl so she knew I would like it too. There was definitely some good ignorance going on in there. They had a “Spin the Wheel, Make the Deal” (old WCW fans will get that) gimmick on the stage. Pay $20 to spin the wheel and have to do whatever it lands on. One woman got a bucket of ice poured down her shirt. One guy was celebrating his 21st birthday and the wheel landed on “lap dance.” He was all excited until they made him give the lap dance to some random woman from the crowd. He was grinding all up on her while her friends were laughing their asses off and taking pictures. She flipped off her friends and got revenge by getting one of them on the stage. The woman had to have some hairy dude take a body shot off of her. Lick the salt off the stomach, swig the shot and then get the lime from the chick’s mouth. She was ready to have the guy lick the salt off her cleavage at first but the piano guys went with the stomach. Crazy stuff I say. Crazy. The music started going downhill and we were getting tired so we went back to the hotel. Before moving on, here are a couple of pics taken at Howl At The Moon.
The next day was pretty much ruined by the time share presentation. The previous time share presentations we went on lasted about 90 minutes tops. This one? 4 FCKING HOURS. They started off by talking to us at the table like they always do and “getting to know us.” The guy was a former minor league hockey player. He knew a little bit about wrestling. Then we had to go watch a video that was just ridiculous. People talking about how time shares changed their lives and made them happier people. Anyway, when we came out of the room, the tour guide comes back to greet us (we were in there by ourselves) and shows us a map of where all there properties are located and then he comes off with this doozy “but nothing in Muscatine, Iowa.” The guy fcking googled me and saw I was on a show in Muscatine, Iowa and thought that I would think it was merely a coincidence that he pulled that town out of his ass. He also googled Stacy and came up with some stuff. Unbelievable. Anyway, we continue on to the tour and the time share property was really nice and it was a points system instead of being locked into a certain place and a certain week. We weren’t about to sign up but it was definitely better option than the others we have went to. The boss comes over to offer us a discount and starts talking about Stacy’s “hypnotizing deep blue eyes” and offers her a job on the spot to sell timeshares. Good grief. He leaves and then a skinny chick named KAMALA…not this KAMALA…
Kamala image gone
Kamala tries to get us to sign up for a “trial run” where we get points without having to pay to own. During presentation they talked about using points to get airfare, food etc and basically traveling less times for free than if we just used the points for the room. Stacy said she would do the trial run thinking that we could get the airfare and whatnot with the points. That isn’t available though on this plan…just using the points to stay at the resort. The lady wouldn’t take no for an answer after Stacy learned airfare wasn’t included. Stacy finally yelled at her that she wasn’t going to do it and was about ready to jump the table and kick Kamala’s ass. Tired, hungry, cranky Stacy is an asskicker I tell ya. They pay us our $100 cash and give us the coupon for our next free 3 day 2 night hotel stay and we go to the car and realize that we were in there for 4 fcking hours. GRRRR.
We head over to the Half Marathon expo so Stacy could get her stuff for the race the next morning. We go back to the hotel because it is going to be an EARLY wake up call for the race.
We wake up at 4:15 am to start getting ready. I fill her camelback backpack with the propel water so she can keep hydrated during the race. Stacy was ready to go.
They put a chip in your shoe so they can track your progress during the race and they can text updates to family and friends to let them know how far along you are in the race. I was signed up to get these reports. I got a 5K update and a 10K update. I didn’t get a 15K update so I began to get worried. I was waiting by the finish line and I knew about what time she would be finishing but was getting worried that I didn’t get that 15K update. Finally I see Stacy coming across the finish line. She then goes to get a couple of bananas to start replenshing her potassium. No bananas left. She then goes to get her medal for finishing the race. No medals left because they have “misplaced” the last batch of medals (for the second year in a row according to others that didn’t get the medal). We then go to get my “Champion” medal for being there to cheer her on. They only gave them to the first 10,000 to finish so they were out of those too. Now I get an understanding of where the term “Mickey Mouse organization” comes from. How in the hell do you run an event and know how many people are signed up and run out of food and medals for that number of people especially when you are a billion dollar company?
Stacy was in a world of hurt after walking the 13 miles and we went back to the ESD so she could shower and then we had to check out. She used her reward points to get us a free room at the Clarion Water Park & Resorts in Kissimee for our last night. We ate at Hooters before heading to the new hotel. I have a great girlfriend that will go to Hooters with me. Unfortunately, the playoff games hadn’t started yet so there really wasn’t anything good on television there. We then get to the new hotel and partake of the Lazy River for a couple of hours until it closed. We then went to eat at some Mexican restaurant called Cinco De Mayo. What a dive that place was. Dark, dingy, creepy people. Stacy loves to take in local places. I love to stick with the chain restaurants so I know what I’m getting. We then went back to the room and used the jacuzzi. It was then nap time because it was such a long day with getting up at 4:15 am. The jacuzzi had a different idea in mind though. It kept turning on randomly and I would have to go shut it off. After the third time that it started up on its own, I had to pull the plug on it. Then we had some rowdy ass teenagers in the rooms around us for some kind of convention or something. I had to go outside three times to tell them to keep it down. Yes I’m that guy. I wanted to the guy that runs out of the room and starts throwing people over the edge of the balcony since we were on the second floor. I was just the guy that politely requested they move their party the hell away from our room. It worked. Sleep time was great time.
Sunday was such a fun day. We started the day off by going on an airboat ride through the Everglades. While waiting for tour to start, they had a live gator for those brave enough to take pictures with it. I was not only brave enough to take a picture with the live gator, I was also brave enough to use my brute strength to hold the gator and not only that, to hold it around the dangerous sharp mouth region. Here is proof of the bravery I claim in the above sentences.
Don’t let the size fool you. That thing was ferocious! We then got onto the boat and took the tour.
The tour guide was showing us all kinds of birds and explaining different things to us. He showed us cypress trees that only grow in the water and that all the birds sit in to stay safe from their landlocked predators…except for when the gators lift themselves out of the water with their tails and snatch up the birds that aren’t paying attention on the bottom branches.
We also got to see a bald eagle even though we couldn’t get close enough to get a good picture.
The tour was 30 minutes of awesomeness however and then we decided to head to Downtown Disney Marketplace since it was about the only free stuff to do with Disney. It was raining like crazy though so I had to wear Stacy’s girlie jacket to stay dry since it seperates into two parts.
I did find the greatest clothing item though when I was in Disney Marketplace. I think it fits my personality perfectly. And now you will get to see the tail end of the Seabring.
I think it is great that Grumpy was made in 1937 which is the inverse of 73 which definitely makes Grumpy my favorite Disney character.
We then went to Ponderosa buffet for supper and grabbed a couple of pictures of tourist places that we drove past on the way to Howl at the Moon but couldn’t take at that point.
Here is Stacy at the the leaning building for Ripley’s Believe it or Not.
Then for my favorite…the upside down building of Wonderworks.
Well then we had to get back to the airport and fly back to the cold ass Chicagoland area. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
There is the Florida blog ladies and gent. Definitely worth the two week wait if I do say so myself lol.
Good Day.
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