OK. Installment number two, the day I had to kill before my flight left for Seattle. This was my room number at the Rosen Plaza. How about that? For once I had no trouble remembering what my room number was. I did lock myself out of my room once on this trip, though. That's the first time I remember doing that in quite some time.
My room window is in this picture, partially obscured by the top of the palm tree that is just above and to the right of the center of the picture. It was the first room on the wing, right next to the elevators, without being right next to the elevators, so that was cool.
The hotel has a nice fountain, and generally a nice entrance, landscapingly-speaking.
The WonderWorks building seemed to attract a lot of attention and a lot of picture-taking for some reason. Some people actually appeared to be seeking it out. It was not too far from my hotel.
There was a business that gave helicopter rides near my hotel, too. I didn't feel like flying in a helicopter, but I am sure it is fun. Don't see the helicopter? Yeah, I kind of messed up taking this picture.
This is more like what I was trying to do with that last picture.
A better picture of the helicopter. I think it's interesting that my camera is fast enough to stop the main rotor but not the tail rotor.
This is a female Brown Anole. These little lizards were all over the place. They are not very skittish around people. In fact, they need to be a little more skittish because I nearly stepped on some of them.
A closer look at this one.
This is where she was headed.
What was she looking at, you are wondering?
The answer is: this guy.
This is a male Brown Anole. If you look just under his chin you can just catch a hint of skin that he can extend. It's called a dewlap and is bright colored, I remember it as like red or orange. I tried to get a picture of it, but I could never get the timing right. You can follow this link if you want to see pictures of other Anoles inhabiting Florida. I had no idea what these things were called before I looked it up to write this. My blog is educational as well as pictureful, no?
I encountered these critters at the remains of an establishment that I gather from this sign was once known as Race Rock. Race Rock is no more. There were some very clear signs.
Clear sign 1. What amazed me about this was that they had themed auction pick-up signs. Why would anybody do that?
Clear sign 2. There is something interesting to me about this picture, but it's not a good sign for business.
Clear sign 3. Yeah, business is slow when birds are decomposing on the porch at the entrance of your building.
You can't really see in the picture of the whole bird, but the shiny spots in it are the backs of flies, which appear metallic. So here's a closer look. I believe these are Lucilia sericata, a.ka. Phaeniciae sericata, a.k.a. green bottle flies. Sorry, no maggot pictures. I got to this bird too late for that I guess. Interestingly, green bottle fly larvae are being used therapeutically to debride necrotic tissue from people. Feeling bold? Do a Google image search using the terms "maggot debridement."
This is the entrance to Pointe Orlando, which right now isn't looking too much better than Race Rock. The doors at the bottom of this building are boarded up, and the windows have sheets of plastic hanging in them with holes in them. There is building going on here, and I suppose that next year there will be businesses lighting up this building.
Lulu's Bait Shack . . .
. . . apparently will not be one of them, sadly.
These were the hours it was open I guess.
Who knows what this looked like lit up. I encountered the remains of a number of businesses along International Drive. In most cases, construction crews were performing roles analogous to green bottle flies. I'm not making light of these places going out of business. I don't like seeing any business fail. I just thought it was weird that these properties would be idle for so long along I-Drive, which is like the most expensive real estate in this part of Orlando.
One place in Pointe Orlando that is definitely not going out of business (right now, anyway) is The Oceanaire. I had one good dinner out in Orlando, and this is where I ate it. I had Maryland Crab Cakes in Orlando. Go figure. We'll hear more of The Oceanaire in installment four.
Winding down my time-killing walk around Orlando and circling back to my hotel, I decided to check out The Peabody. I found that it had tennis courts. If you hit a ball over the fences, it's going to drop a few stories before it bounces again. The pool is on the other side.
If you're taking pictures in The Peabody, I think you're required by law to take pictures of the ducks. Here they are.
One last picture in Florida. Goodbye to the West Concourse (and the North, and the South) of the Orange County Convention Center. Installment number three of the series will resume in Seattle.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Category: Jobs, Work, Careers
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