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

I forgot to post the rest of the weekend.

Chuck and Tammy ordered the best warm chocolate cookie with ice cream and everyone sang, “Happy Birthday” at the pizza place.

On Monday, we went to the new outlet mall. We also went back to the Mall of America and ate at Twin City Grill. We walked around the amusement area too.

At the airport in the waiting area, Delta had Ipads and charging spots for everyone waiting. I also had a seat back tv on the plane. I played this quiz type game for about 3 hours. I kept getting between 40,000 and 50,000 points. The high was 97,000. I hit 75,000 at one point. I was in the 3rd and 5th, 6th, 7th position in the rank. Finally, I hit 113,000 points. I felt I had accomplished something. It was challenging as it asked a lot of British questions about Parliament, Cricket, etc.

Dad gave me a new camera for my birthday (as I said a few posts ago).

I took it to Epcot tonight where I pretended to be a photographer. It rained until 8:50 p.m., so I did not have enough time to really take many pictures. Here are a few.

(Oh yeah, Maelstrom broke down while I was on it. My boat was on the ramp going up to the one-eyed man. The one-eyed man turned out to be made of chalk when the lights came on and I was led down a ramp by a Cast Member. I wish I would have been further along in the ride, so I could have seen more of it with the lights on. Oh well. I got a FastPass to ride it again which doesn’t matter. It was a fun experience.)

Today, we went to a Renaissance Festival. It was quite cool. We saw jousting skills. There were many different artisan stores, joke tellers, and jugglers. Chuck and I both played a catapult the frog game and we both made it in the barrel once. I think the whole experience is best explained by the video. We also saw Chuck’s workplace which is a really neat camera studio. We finished the night by eating with Chuck’s daughter and family. The first chicken pizza we ever had was at this restaurant. It was a fun jammed-packed weekend and we still have tomorrow!

(I took a movie of the joust, but I forgot to put it in the movie).

After a lightning delay, I made it to Minneapolis/ St. Paul late last night and met my dad and my sister. Today, we went to the Mall of America and the Minnesota State Fair with my Minnesota relatives. I have also included the final Brazilian video. If you haven’t watched the one in post below, watch this one as it is more complete with a few other store visits.

PS I received a new camera for my birthday. I played around with it at the fair and beforehand.

Here is a draft video of my week so far:    (I have to include three more store visits, but I am waiting on pictures. I spoke to a student Brazilian group instead of going with my Brazilian group, so other people have the pictures.)

I looked at “Entrepreneur” a hundred million times and it is still spelled incorrectly. I will post the final and correct version in the next week or so.

Here is an assortment of pictures from the last week. I created a flyer to hand out at a Home Builder’s Conference. We are hosting a Brazilian delegation of construction store builders and owners, so I went to the conference at the Rosen Center to see if I could attract some of them to our Expo. Bad news: no one wants to deal with Brazil’s protectionist taxes. I think I did get one company to come and a few to put in our catalog we created.

For lunch one day, we went to Hawkers which is Asian Street Food. It was really good. I had Roast Duck Tacos. It was a lot like Asia but American prices. I received a free entree from First Watch, so I went there and had pancakes.

The three pictures are just preparation for the Brazilian group that arrives tomorrow. I might meet them at their hotel tomorrow night or I might just see them early Monday morning.

I went to Typhoon Lagoon today. Then, I went to Earl of Sandwich. When I left Downtown Disney, the temperature was 101. When I arrived at Epcot, the temperature was 73! It was storming. I actually would say raining hard. I guess it was storming as lightning struck two rows in front of my car. I thought it hit a tree. It was the closest strike I have ever seen. I text Andrea, but I remained in my car. My car was foggy due to the difference in temperature. I saw a few people wandering outside and then, I saw security. A car was on fire. I guess the lightning hit the car. A fire truck showed up shortly afterwards. I did not see an ambulance, so I think no one was in that car when it hit thankfully.

I met an old friend at Epcot tonight. I had fun, so I decided to create a reunion of Disney friends. We are going to the Food and Wine Festival in October.

Today was probably one of the best days I have had here in a while minus when family was in town. I actually saw a lot of friends. Mireya, Mike, and I had brunch at BOMA. I saw a good friend from French Quarter there cooking. Then, we went to Downtown Disney. Mireya had never been there, so it was fun to show her the free stuff. Downtown Disney has so much construction. It has a nice new bridge from Marketplace to Saratoga Springs and a new boat dock. It was lightning, so we couldn’t ride the boats. We walked from Rainforest Cafe to Saratoga and around to House of Blues. Later, Mireya and I went to French Quarter where I saw a few good friends including Brandon and Ethel. Brandon didn’t know I was in town. One year, I showed him the pumpkin mousse at Food and Wine, so we are going to go this year again. He is going to remind me when it is Cast Preview Day, so my UCF friends can get in for free. Ethel remembered me also. She remembered that I had made her cupcakes and posted a picture of her on her birthday. She says she looks at the flyer a lot. I do miss the people there.

Afterwards, Mireya and I rode bikes at Fort Wilderness and saw four or five deer. I took a picture of the bathroom that I used when I was “homeless” in my tent. It brought back memories. I was amazed to see how well they reproduced the pools at Yellowstone at Wilderness Lodge.

A guy from Google came by and filmed my workplace. You can click all around into various rooms and across the hall. Double-click on the arrows and drag the screen around to tour the facility.

Take Tour

You can find more pictures here and here. 

Today, my office held two events, one on financing exports and the other on doing business with Florida’s aerospace industry. I didn’t take too many pictures during the event. I might post more if I can get better ones from the photographer.