Some of you asked about last week's short trip to Florida. Others didn't ask. In either case, here's more about it, probably more than you wanted to know. It started when my parents decided they would try to get tickets to the Bills-Dolphins game in Miami on 1/2. This was Monday, 12/28. I said I'd go if they got them. I wanted to go somewhere interesting and this sounded interesting. They got the tickets. You're not going to get affordable plane tickets on that short notice, especially not when you're returning on a holiday weekend. So we had to drive. We left here (Troy) a little after 6 PM on Wednesday the 30th. It was a smooth ride all the way down, and we made it to Orlando a little after lunch time. We kept moving all night with three drivers. Radar detectors are useful, but illegal in Virginia. We checked into the Hampton Inn in Kissimmee for Thursday night. This was New Years Eve, but we were very tired. None of us saw 9 PM. I actually woke up and saw a replay of the ball drop around 12:15 AM. On Friday, we went to Disney. We started at Animal Kingdom, which I'd never been to. My parents knew which things to do early so we avoided all the crowds and saw everything by about 1 PM. After lunch, we went over to Epcot. I think the only thing we really went in was the American Adventure. I did bring up a picture of our dog on one of the World Net kiosks in the Innoventions display and left it there. I always think how sad their computer and network displays are when I have a better computer and faster network in my own apartment. After Epcot, we went to Disney/MGM, mainly so I could see the new Fantasmic show. But we were there a few hours before the first show, so I decided I wanted to ride Star Tours (yes, C3PO's right leg is half silver when you see him while waiting in line) and went to the Indiana Jones stunt show. I would have liked to do a few other things but there was no more time before the Fantasmic show. That was pretty good, with lots of fire and water and all. That took us to about 8 PM (nearly 13 hours after we entered the Animal Kingdom). The Magic Kingdom was open until 11 and I really wanted to head over to hit the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but it was just too much. Instead, we went back to the room, now the All Star Sports at Disney, where I worked on my CS135 lecture for Monday. My brother who had to work but wanted to go to the game arrived late Friday. He got a cheap flight down but would have had to pay $800 more for a round trip, so he rode back. Saturday was football day. We got up early to make sure we got to the game on time. Miami is not especially close to Orlando. At breakfast at the Disney hotel, there were many people in Buffalo Bills stuff. It seems a tour bus from Western NY was staying there too. We headed down to Miami and got to Pro Player Stadium before 11 AM. After lunch, we went over to get our tickets at the will call window, and that's when it rained. A very heavy. warm, tropical rain. 3 of us found a ledge to hide under, but my father, in the will call window line, had to be out in it. Seems you can't bring umbrellas into NFL games. We went in and found our seats on the home side, at the 5 yard line, second row from the top. It was really a pretty good view from there. Most of the people around us were OK, but you always have idiots. If you watched the game, you know we saw an outstanding game. We were on the good side of the field in that the Andre Reed non-touchdown and the game-ending fumble were on our end of the stadium. The weather held off too, and it was in the low 80's the whole time. We finally got everything together and got out of the traffic in the parking lot around 5 PM. Before long, it was dark and raining. This does not make for an easy drive. That, and the forecast up north sounded really bad with snow and ice from Virginia all the way home. The first real test came with me driving north of Jacksonville, just across the border into Georgia. We ran into a storm with about the worst combination of heavy rain and strong winds I've ever had to drive in. At times, we were down to 20 MPH and still probably going too fast. It really seemed like there was too much wind and even some debris for a normal storm. When we got home the next night, I turned on the weather channel, and sure enough, there were two tornadoes reported in Camden County, GA, right around the time we were driving through Camden County, GA. How nice. From there, things weren't quite as bad, although there was plenty of rain and wind. Fortunately, the storm was really pulling in some warm air, and the temperatures were near 60 all the way up into New Jersey. You can use NY Thruway EZPass in Delaware. Only when we got into NY did it fall into the 30's with evidence of the ice storm with just ended. By the time we got to Albany there was plenty of ice, but the roads were in decent shape. I was back in Troy at 4 PM. 23 hours from Miami to Troy in bad weather. Over 3000 miles in about 95 hours overall. So then I went to Schenectady for a hockey game, just to make sure I'd be wide awake and well-prepared for my first lecture on Monday morning.