meinen Reisen MY TRAVELS mijn reizen mes voyages meus cursos mis viajes minhas viagens mo taisteal mine rejser mina resor i miei viaggi

On Saturday, I went to Downtown Disney and went up in Characters in Flight (the tethered hot air balloon ride). Andrea bought me a Groupon a few months ago, so it was free for me. The hot air balloon ride is regularly $18. It was neat to see the construction of Disney Springs, but it wasn’t worth the $18. The construction is massive, but one doesn’t notice it too much when walking around on the ground.

Later, I walked around Epcot and walked over to Hollywood Studios. The semi-iconic hat at Hollywood Studios is now gone. I guess it has been for a few weeks, but I haven’t been there in a month or two.

I went home this past weekend for my college roommate’s wedding. I was also able to go to Machine Shed where I met Jonathan, Andrea, and Dad. On Saturday, I had lunch with Melissa, Aunt Doris, and Uncle Michael. Later that night, I was able to hang out with the Murphy’s on their porch where Andrea and I were able to test out their new hot tub. On Saturday, we had a porch lunch/ Thanksgiving in May.

On Saturday afternoon, I went to First Christian Church. I saw my friends, Allison and Joe walk in, so it was nice to sit with them during the wedding. The reception was at Barn on the Ridge.  It was really nice to see many friends from high school and college though almost all of us live in other states from each other, it was like no time had gone by since college.

On Sunday, I was able to see my German professor for breakfast where we played a game called, “Map It.” Before heading to the airport, we met Molly’s family and Aunt Debbie at the mall.

Whew. I saw a lot of people in a few days. It was great.

A lot has happened this week and it is only Wednesday!!!!!

1) There is a new online arm of the Orlando Sentinel. It is called, “Growth Spotter.” A reporter interviewed me and I was listed on the new website.

2) I woke up on Monday and took my car to a mechanic at 8 a.m. By Noon, I had my car back with air conditioning for $269 down from the $2000 Pep Boys quoted me! I have been suffering since October without air conditioning for so long. I still drive my car without air conditioning, because I forget that I have it now!!!!!

3) I received my tax return and another check

4) The Princess has my name — well, at least a middle name

5) I bought some balloons for Kelly’s birthday party and they only cost $5

6) I bought 5 pounds of apples at PUBLIX for $1.99

On Tuesday, we were going to surprise Kelly for her birthday with a party, but she didn’t make it to the staff meeting. We were able to celebrate today. This morning the NEC had an event entitled, “Building a Business that Lasts a Lifetime” where three companies spoke about how their family businesses created in the 1940’s and 1950’s have adapted and survived to today’s world. Steve Miller who toured the Brazilians through his hardware store was one of the panelists. It was very interesting.

Tonight, I went to two events: 1) Asian American Chamber of Commerce Celebration of Culture and 2) Enterprise Florida had all their international representatives in Orlando tonight.

At work today, it was a colleague’s (Lisa) birthday. Birthdays are fun.

We got Lisa a hamster as a joke. Lisa has a daughter who wanted a hamster. She got two for Christmas. Now Lisa has 20 hamsters. Lisa has created hamster condos in little sterilite containters to keep all the hamsters separate. I didn’t have a sack, so I folded a piece of paper and put some printed out hamster graphics on it.

I also registered Andrea for a half-marathon in January 2016. I was able to register last week as a benefit of my annual pass. Some of the races sold out in 2 or 3 hours. The half-marathon sold out in less than 5 hours! You can see my office and registration was open on both monitors to ensure success. I got in at 11:59 a.m. and was done by 12:06 p.m. At 12:10 p.m., I looked again and I received the “more than 100 users” response.

My boss went to Flag World to get the flag display. The Mayor sent me a picture and a nice card celebrating the office.

This is probably the last post until next week as I am headed back to Iowa on Thursday!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had a good weekend. A friend from the MBA program was in town from Guatemala. We did the tourist things, so what I do most weekends: shopping at the outlets, going to Downtown Disney, and walking around the Boardwalk area. On Saturday night, we met Mireya at Lime to catch up on life. We also went to Park Ave where we had huge pieces of carrot cake. I was doing so well avoiding unhealthy food until this weekend.

Aunt Polly is in town. I met her at Epcot after work. I scheduled a Soarin’ FastPass. They let us both ride even though I only had one FastPass which was really nice. I asked her if she were scared of heights forgetting I had heard she had been in helicopters over Denali and Banff.

She has just returned from three weeks in South America. She toured Santiago, Chile and also visited Peru, Ecuador, went through the Panama Canal to Cartagena, Colombia and to the Bahamas.  I enjoyed hearing about the trip and seeing pictures.

We ate at the British Pub in England, walked around world, and saw IllumiNations.

(I know I am posting this on the 28th of April, but I am now going to try to keep the dates accurate of when the event occurred.)

Today, we had the Baltic Business Club from Kaliningrad, Russia. Kaliningrad was once part of Germany, but it is now an exclave of Russia — meaning it is part of Russia, but it actually doesn’t touch mainland Russia. (Alaska is an exclave of the U.S.). I have been to Warsaw, Minsk, and Riga, but I missed even knowing about Kaliningrad as those cities surround it.

The club really enjoyed learning about the Orlando marketing campaign and even clapped after the commercial played. The director of the NEC, Jerry Ross, spoke about entrepreneurship and they loved him. They asked him to speak at an event in December in Kaliningrad. Nancy Simmons, President of Aero Industries, spoke about her experience with the space shuttle and how she turned to exporting to Russia to save her business. The Russians very exceptionally nice.

(I learned from the Orlando speaker that there are 500,000 students in the Central Florida area!!! How does anyone get a job?)

On Saturday, I went to see the Village People. They have a few songs I know.

Always nice to eat sushi in Japan. It does eat up money quickly though. (I celebrate most holidays, so if anyone wants to send a Disney gift card, I accept all forms.) 

I drove up to Tallahassle, April 7-9th. The capital is a complete hassle to get to. It takes so long. I can’t believe Pensacola is three hours west of Tallahassee. Anyways, I learned a few statistics: like the Post-Panamax ships will be the size of the Empire State Building if it were floating on its side. The ships will be able to hold 111 million pairs of shoes!

But the event is really just to see and network with all the people around the state involved in international trade. We did not go to the Governor’s mansion this year.

Here are a few pictures from the 1st year Anniversary Celebration. I am cutting the cake with the Orange County Mayor.

Happy Easter! I went to Amway Center as First Baptist Orlando doesn’t have enough space and the church is undergoing renovation, so the Easter service was held there as it can hold 18,000 people. I think around 10,000 to 12,000 were there. It was nice, but the music was contemporary. I watched two year’s ago Easter service on TV at 9 a.m. and I heard more traditional Easter music. The Pastor spoke about this article: http://nebraskafca.org/the-greatest-comeback-ever/