Post by jptheprofessor on Feb 12, 2007 19:48:30 GMT -5
Long time no blog! Well, if you consider two weeks a long time...
My vacation was a good time. Too short, as always. The weather in west-central Florida was nice for almost the entire week I was there, with lots of sunshine and daytime highs in the low 70's. I was wearing shorts and T-shirts outside for much of the week; only last Monday was cloudy and chilly, only reaching the low 60's (still beats the single digit temperatures happening up here in PA last week). I was glad to enjoy some warmth, and central and southern Florida was one of few places that was warm last week. In fact, both on our trip down and back from Florida, it was cold almost everywhere! Anyplace north of southern South Carolina was freezing last week; on our trip back home on Saturday night, it was only 20 degrees at our hotel location in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina (near the North Carolina/Virginia border). So Pennsylvania wasn't alone in the cold misery last week, a large part of the eastern half of the country was freezing as well!
We arrived in Florida about 2 days after the killer tornadoes hit. The tornadoes went through about 60 miles north of where we were staying; we saw a little bit of tree damage near Ocala as we were heading south to our destination in Zephyrhills. (The tornadoes started touching down east of Ocala in the town of Lady Lake, about ten miles east of where we went through.) When we started back homeward this past Saturday, we saw where the tornado crossed Interstate 4 near DeLand; trees were stripped and broken off where it went through (the tornado knocked several big rigs off the road and blocked the interstate for several hours).
As I said, we had a good time. While we were in Florida, we visited Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Big Cat Rescue near Tampa (a sanctuary for wild cats such as cougars, bobcats, lions, tigers, leopards and more), Epcot, and the Florida State Fair near Tampa. Yes, Florida holds its annual state fair in February, because during the summer it gets too hot to do a fair in that part of the world. We also made our annual pilgrimage to Parksdale Fruit Market (strawberries are in season this time of year in Florida, and the strawberry shortcakes and sundaes at Parksdale are to-die-for!), and also visited Downtown Disney (where I blew a wad of dough on CD's and DVD's at Virgin Records' superstore, a two-story complex with just about every CD imaginable and then some!).
Hopefully I'll post some pictures from my vacation in the next few days.
Oh well, back to work...The prize this week on the 4:15 PM "Classic Rock Clip" contest is a pair of tickets to "Comedy Night" at the U.S. Hotel in Hollidaysburg this Friday night, featuring funnyman Bill Scott and a special guest. Today's correct answer was "Bad Company" by Bad Company. (Special note - the "Classic Rock Clip" will air through Wednesday this week; there will be no "Classic Rock Clip" on Thursday or Friday.)
Today's 5:15 PM "Lost Classic" from the back of the rack was "When the Heart Rules the Mind" by GTR, from their 1986 self-titled album. GTR (which is a sort of abbreviation for "guitar") was a short-lived mid-80's 'supergroup' featuring two guitar greats from the progressive/art-rock realm; Steve Howe of Yes and Steve Hackett of Genesis. The latter Steve, Hackett, celebrates his 57th birthday today.
My vacation was a good time. Too short, as always. The weather in west-central Florida was nice for almost the entire week I was there, with lots of sunshine and daytime highs in the low 70's. I was wearing shorts and T-shirts outside for much of the week; only last Monday was cloudy and chilly, only reaching the low 60's (still beats the single digit temperatures happening up here in PA last week). I was glad to enjoy some warmth, and central and southern Florida was one of few places that was warm last week. In fact, both on our trip down and back from Florida, it was cold almost everywhere! Anyplace north of southern South Carolina was freezing last week; on our trip back home on Saturday night, it was only 20 degrees at our hotel location in Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina (near the North Carolina/Virginia border). So Pennsylvania wasn't alone in the cold misery last week, a large part of the eastern half of the country was freezing as well!
We arrived in Florida about 2 days after the killer tornadoes hit. The tornadoes went through about 60 miles north of where we were staying; we saw a little bit of tree damage near Ocala as we were heading south to our destination in Zephyrhills. (The tornadoes started touching down east of Ocala in the town of Lady Lake, about ten miles east of where we went through.) When we started back homeward this past Saturday, we saw where the tornado crossed Interstate 4 near DeLand; trees were stripped and broken off where it went through (the tornado knocked several big rigs off the road and blocked the interstate for several hours).
As I said, we had a good time. While we were in Florida, we visited Lowry Park Zoo in Tampa, Big Cat Rescue near Tampa (a sanctuary for wild cats such as cougars, bobcats, lions, tigers, leopards and more), Epcot, and the Florida State Fair near Tampa. Yes, Florida holds its annual state fair in February, because during the summer it gets too hot to do a fair in that part of the world. We also made our annual pilgrimage to Parksdale Fruit Market (strawberries are in season this time of year in Florida, and the strawberry shortcakes and sundaes at Parksdale are to-die-for!), and also visited Downtown Disney (where I blew a wad of dough on CD's and DVD's at Virgin Records' superstore, a two-story complex with just about every CD imaginable and then some!).
Hopefully I'll post some pictures from my vacation in the next few days.
Oh well, back to work...The prize this week on the 4:15 PM "Classic Rock Clip" contest is a pair of tickets to "Comedy Night" at the U.S. Hotel in Hollidaysburg this Friday night, featuring funnyman Bill Scott and a special guest. Today's correct answer was "Bad Company" by Bad Company. (Special note - the "Classic Rock Clip" will air through Wednesday this week; there will be no "Classic Rock Clip" on Thursday or Friday.)
Today's 5:15 PM "Lost Classic" from the back of the rack was "When the Heart Rules the Mind" by GTR, from their 1986 self-titled album. GTR (which is a sort of abbreviation for "guitar") was a short-lived mid-80's 'supergroup' featuring two guitar greats from the progressive/art-rock realm; Steve Howe of Yes and Steve Hackett of Genesis. The latter Steve, Hackett, celebrates his 57th birthday today.