Day Two Hundred Ninety Five...

So far today, I had a networking breakfast (we all had little cartoons animals on the backs of our name badges, so we were required to sit at tables with that cartoon character). I am a monkey...a sad little monkey...but it was fun, and it got us all to meet and interact with folks we might not have otherwise. I walked away from that session with ONE REALLY GREAT idea that we will implement when I get back to the office. Then, after that, I hosted a break-out session on 'The Green Property Management Office'. The first photo is of the class setting, with a really good attendance. The speaker was very informative and I will walk away from this with lots of good ideas. The second photo is of the same class, and you should be able to see Carrie in the far left hand corner of the photo, sitting in the back row. After the green class we had a networking luncheon (same cartoon animal thing) and I met lots of other nice folks from all across the country. The lunch speaker was an economist from one of the local colleges, and he spoke about the national economic forecast for the US, and I have to tell you, that is not nearly as cheery and upbeat as the economic forecasts we get concerning the Austin area. No wonder you guys are so freaked out!

OH NO! SAY IT AIN'T SO! In the immortal words of Judy Holiday (I think) in Guys and Dolls, I think it am coming down with 'la grip, la grip, the post nasal drip'. I made this terrible assumption last night and I am not a bit happy about it. Irritated throat, not exactly a sore throat (yet), but I am really trying to be extra careful. Let's see, I have been on an airplane, been touching things (elevator buttons, etc.) that have been touched by virtual hoards of the great unwashed, shaken hands with and hugged literally hundreds of people that are potential virus carriers...I should never have left the farm. Whatever...

I will be taking an Ethics class from 3 until 6 PM, and by that time, my friend Mike should have arrived from Miami, okay really from Del Ray Beach. We will have some dinner and then we will all go to a 9 o'clock Cirque du Soliel show at Downtown Disney. So, that give me two or three things at least to be excited about, and to also hope I am not REALLY getting sickly! Before he gets here, I am going downstairs to get a couple bottles of Coke...on my floor the ice/vending area is ICE ONLY. Whatever...AND I am sure the cokes will be about $3.50 a bottle. Oh well, captive audience!

Okay, well, we are all back from Downtown Disney, and I still have about 45 minutes to finish my blog (or longer if you this I am on the West Coast). So, about 7 o'clock, we decided to go up to the 27th floor where they were giving away free food and free booze...REALTORS just seem to be drawn to that stuff. Anyway, I had another glass of wine, and we had some fingery type of food. We quickly left to go to Downtown Disney, where we shopped for a while and then left to get to Cirque du Soliel. It was a good show, and as always, there is too much going on to catch all of it, but overall their performances are always visually stunning. Lots of interesting things going on. We shared a couple of pretzels and sodas, and watched the show. It was great, and I recommend it to anyone looking for something d=to do on a Thursday evening.

After that we walked around Downtown Disney for a while longer and just looked around and bought little trinkets for people back in Austin. There are so many people and so much CRAP that is available for purchase, the mind boggles. Capitalism at its finest. One of the best things we saw the other day is the place where they make candied apples, and it's all done in the window. I think this is a great photo...have you ever seen an apple with mouse ears before? I have seen apples with 'mouse stuff' before, but never mouse ears.

Then we went through Paradise Island, and looked at the cool stuff at the Lego place. Amazing things can be done with Legos, just look at the photo one up from the last one. They can really do some neat stuff. and there are lots of samples there. I will leave this all up to your review and judgement. What do you think?