Ponderings and Musings

A picture of Dad and me, Christmas 2008. His yearly Christmas gift was a case of wine from the Finger Lakes. This picture makes me smile a lot. Great memories.

As we all know, 2024 is just around the corner. A brand new year is on the horizon and people make lists and resolutions and turn a page in their personal journal. It’s a milestone on their journey.

I’ve wondered why the 1st of January is situated where it is. I mean, I know the history of the months and all that, but in reality, on the 1st of January the planet Earth is in a random spot in the universe with relatively little astronomical uniqueness to mark the date.

I’ve decided to start my personal New Year today, the first day after the Winter Solstice. Last night, for just a moment, the Northern Hemisphere was turned to its farther point from the sun, resulting in the shortest day of the year. The days are now getting longer.

To me, this seems like the perfect time to turn the page, flip the leaf, start anew. Maybe I’m suppose to flip the page and turn the leaf.

Happy New Year!

We are on our layover at IAH Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport. We are enroute from MCO Orlando to TUS Tucson International. Our layover is 4 1/2 hours.

One of our United cards give us a few United Club passes each year. We don’t often have a layover long enough to enjoy the amenities, but with this 4 1/2 hours we’re ready for a little bit of the Club Life.

I know of two United Clubs here at IAH; we are in the Terminal B location. I suspect the Terminal C location is a little nicer, but this isn’t bad.

I always feel compelled to have champagne or something similar when I’m in an airport club atmosphere. I think I’ve been watching too many Trek Trendy videos.

It’s a very rainy day here in Central Florida. Today was a quiet day on the itinerary. We still went out and had some fun shopping at Disney Springs. We have dinner reservations later tonight.

In the meantime I went out for a walk.

The current radar map. Not horrible, just a little soggy.

Back in 2000 and again in 2007 the entrance to EPCOT was adorned with large, stone panels with metal plates. These plates featured photos of folks participating in “Leave-A-Legacy”. With all the rearranging and renovating that has gone on over the years, “Leave-A-Legacy” has been relocated to areas near the park exit.

We were excited to find our 2007 panel as we were walking back to the buses yesterday.

Here’s a blog entry from 2010 that explains it more in detail.

A quiet day at Walt Disney World today. We didn’t have park plans today so we decided to take a boat to Port Orleans Resort and walk around where we first stayed here together in 1997. We then took a bus to the Magic Kingdom and rode both monorails, first passing through the resorts in the Magic Kingdom Area and then taking the monorail to EPCOT. Our intention was to then try the Disney Skyliner gondolas, but they’re not near the monorail stop so we didn’t do that.

We’re back from “Drawn to Life”, the Cirque Du Soleil-Disney joint adventure replacing “La Nouba”. We’d seen “La Nouba” several times and always enjoyed it; “Drawn To Life” is similar but not as focused on the Cirque Du Soleil part. The acrobats and other feats are not as plentiful as in the first show, and I didn’t find the musical score as memorable, but we still had a great time.

I was surprised to see the audience only half full. In fact, the attendance in general seems a little low; perhaps it’s just that time of year.

Tomorrow is suppose to rain impressively, with some high winds and thunderstorms thrown in for good measure. That should keep things interesting.

I am back from a two mile walk around the resort here at Disney. The weather is windy and cloudy but still quite enjoyable. On this side of the country they have this thing called humidity. It’s making me sweat.

Walking along the parking lots I’ve noticed a huge increase in the number of pickup trucks, very large pickup trucks at that, parked here and there. It would appear that a decent number of families have opted to drive very large pickup trucks as their family vehicle. A part of me wonders if the trucks are larger than the homes some of these people own.

I don’t see the Tesla CyberTruck being adopted by these types of folks anytime soon, though that prediction could be way off base because I’ve completely lost touch with the way American society thinks these days.

Many of these pickup trucks seem rather large for their purpose. I guess it was just crazy that my grandfather managed a beef farm with a late 1970s Ford F250.

In today’s world he’d probably be chastised for using his truck as a truck and not the family station wagon.

We are enjoying our time mostly off the grid. Today was a lot of fun, with an excellent dinner, lots of laughs, and some rides we hadn’t been on before.

We are off to Disney World for the next six nights. It’s been a long while since we’ve been to WDW and much, much longer since it’s been only the two of us visiting the House of the Mouse. We have just a couple of days at the park planned, and a few other goodies in between, but the focus of this vacation is relaxation.

I always snicker at the fact that when you live near a non-hub airport you need to get up at 4:30 in the morning to start a relaxing vacation. We’re both in good spirits despite the early hours. Truman is ready to spend the week with the rest of the family and will do his best to maintain law and order in my absence.