Fun Times in Florida

As you may already know, I am on a "surgical strike" in Florida right now, to see the Daytona 500 and Van Halen. Chelsi was in Orlando for business, so we went to Busch Gardens and the Daytona 500 together.

Then I took a Greyhound bus from Orlando to Miami. I do NOT recommend traveling by bus. Spend the extra money and take a plane like normal people do. As I say to myself whenever I am in WalHell... "Oh, the humanity". Feeling down on yourself? Having a bad day? Think life isn't fair? Frustrated because you can't find your favorite pair of shoes, or you get bad cel reception sometimes? I have an easy solution: Go hang out at a Greyhound bus station... you don't even have to book travel. Just go hang out at the station for, say, 30 minutes or so. Check out the people.... listen to their woes. Smell the smells.... watch the filthy toddlers run about unsupervised. Absorb the scenery. When you leave, and get into your clean SUV headed back to Starbucks, Dr.Steve predicts you will be overwhelmed with gratitude and will have forgotten whatever insignificant problem you were fretting over beforehand. "Oh, the humanity".

I digress...

I am now at Miami Steph's, really diggin' her hospitality, and just chillin' out, preparing myself mentally for Van Halen to give it to me in the earholes tomorrow night. Here's some footage of Orlando adventures with Chelsi. Thank you, Chelsi! You rock!:

Funnels, anyone? (no, we didn't):

Our seats had a great view of pit road:

Hi, Junior! Yup, he's waving right at me! We go way back.... he's yelling "Hey, Steve!" as I snapped this picture.... look closely:

Hi, Chels!:

Hi, Tony! (booooooo):

Hi, DJ!:

Busch Gardens parking lot. We didn't wanna carry the camera all around the park, but we wanted documentation, so..... this is what you get. That's the coaster "Montu" in the background. For those who haven't been to Busch Gardens in a while, they have some GNARLY-ass roller coasters now! The Python is gone, The Scorpion is there but antiquated, and there are other newer scarier ones now.... really intense ones. We rode them all:

Here's the view from her condo balcony. To quote Chelsi - "You should see the balcony at the condo..... you can see where the people go boing boing boing..." - She was referring to the bungee slingshot ride in the background. Her quote was to reverberate throughout the weekend:

Fishies in a pool outside a Japanese restaurant we went to. They are really packed in like.... umm.... sardines:

Funny Daytona 500 story - During the race, Chelsi was asking why everyone kept boo-ing Jeff Gordon. I couldn't really explain, for two reasons... A) It's a long story, and you couldn't talk every time the deafening pack of cars raced by and B) You have to be very careful when you talk about drivers controversially in this environment, lest you incite a riot, or at least a drunken verbal tirade from a hardcore fan. I'm not joking.... they take this stuff SERIOUSLY down here. It's like a religion. So... as we were walking back to the car after the race, Chels says... "NOW can you tell me why everyone boo's at Jeff Gordon?". I couldn't right then, due to reason B above. But I had an idea... There were two hardcore local semi-intoxicated race fans walking right in front of us. I tactfully and carefully tapped one on the shoulder... "I have a question... could you please explain to my friend Chelsi here why everyone hates Gordon so much?"

His reply (in a thick southern drawl): "Cuz he's a f*ckin' faggot."

We laughed our asses off. I could not have summed it up any better with twenty minutes of college vocabulary. It took a local who talks good.