Publix

...is a super-
market chain in Orlando.

I liked it. Better than Denver's Safeway, King Soopers or Albertsons. Think Target for groceries.

I have not been in the States long enough to give you any price comparisons, but I can tell you that I like their generic packaging more than Denver's chains.

And oh yeah, their generic Pecan Sandies taste just as good as the name brand. (Note the subtle humor: "Flour Power" just below the "flower". Pretty cute!)

I am back in Colorado

I just wanted to clear that up for those of you who might be confused.

However, I still have lotsa material from the post-Kenya/pre-Colorado period that I haven't posted yet. So it will be a week or two until I start blogging about the "now" phase of my life.

Great to see Hyatt again

It has been a while since I have seen Hyatt Moore. He's probably my favorite living painter. Several of his works are hanging at Wycliffe's Orlando headquarters.

This one is in a sub-lobby that I passed through nearly every day while we were there. I guess another reason why I like this one so much is that the lady and her child are in and from Africa.

Remember records? As in vinyl?

Well ladies, I'm taking you a place you may have never been before - inside a men's room.

One of San Antonio's Half Price Books stores uses genuine cardboard record covers for its mens room wallpaper. I thought it was a creative idea. And as you can see, there are some gems there.

Half Price Books is a great chain, by the way. All of the major cites in Texas have them. One good reason to live in Texas, if you ask me.

I was sad they didn't have the National Geographic issue from 2005 or 2006 that features Africa. (It has a great article on Nairobi. One photo shows a matatu with a flat-sreen TV inside. That may be the only one. I felt special to have seen it one night - driving past us at breakneck speed. I always wanted to get some video reflecting the urban train that was photographed for the article. It passed very near to our apartment. Alas, that was one of the many things that was an intention that never came to be.)

Note to self

(Be less critical.)

Maybe five years ago, I was visiting a friend. She asked my opinion on a particular subject (an area of personal choice). I launched into a ten-minute heated expression of my opinion, pointed one way. Then she quietly told me that she believed the other way.

Oops.

Then I proceeded to try to dig myself out by apologizing about twenty times. How much easier my life would have been if I had been careful in what I said!

I had to be critical

While we were in Orlando, we visited the Campus Crusade headquarters.

My fault with them? Not the fact that gators are found on the grounds - but that it seems like a mile from the guard-gated road entrance to the main building's entrance... the grass-mowing for the stretch of lawn along the edges of the aforementioned road must be more than our family's annual budget.

Why such a long entrance? No idea!

Recaro on a plane

AirTran is an airline that is totally new to me.

During our 2 years away from the USA, it appeared.

And it's pretty good. We flew their planes down to Orlando. They bill themselves as a budget airline. The only evidence of that we could see was the meal: pretzels and a Coke.

Yes, the seats were Recaro. (Car enthusiasts will recognize that name as a manufacturer of racing-class seats for cars.)

My only fault with the airline is their name: AirTran... it should be AirTrans.

So yes, I'd recommend AirTran. Remember that you must go through Atlanta, however, to go anywhere.

Bigger than the house - almost

I had never seen these before - giant outdoor screened-in porches. They seem to be all over the part of Orlando we are visiting.

This particular one is almost larger than the house itself. (It covers a swimming pool.)

I haven't quite figured out the purpose - mosquitos don't seem that bad to me. Heather said she talked to a transplanted new native, and she told her that they drop the temperature out there by 10 degrees. That would be a good thing.

Update: a friend here told me they are almost exclusively used to cover pools.

T-shirts... and rock-n-roll

Have you ever been to the Ron Jon Surf Shop? Saturday was our first time.

We have been in Orlando, Florida, for a week of intensive training for our work with Wycliffe Bible Translators. We had to get away, just to clear our heads a bit. The first break in the schedule was Saturday, after a training session that ended at 10 am. Some of us elected to head for Cocoa Beach - only about an hour away.

Lo and behold, as we pulled up to the beach parking lot, the skies opened. We ate our lunch standing under a small gazebo-type pavilion. Even then we got wet. So we decided to head for the only dry space around - Ron Jon's. It's a mega-mart of surf wear (and a few surfboards). T-shirts start at about $20. (We walked away empty-handed.)

But I was amused to hear some surf-rock played by a band inside, live! They were pretty good.

After spending some time at Ron Jon's, we decided to do what we came for - swim in the Atlantic. It was great! Very few people ventured out onto the beach, thinking they would get wet. We wanted to get wet, so we frolicked in the waves - and thankfully were not struck by lightning.

Botanical Gardens in San Antonio

My brother lives in San Antonio. When he retired from the Air Force, he stayed planted.

It's a beautiful city. It's a little too hot and humid for me. (I prefer the dryness and temperatures of Denver.)

We visited the Botanical Gardens. Amazing place. Some of the plants reminded us of Kenya.

They set up different zones in the Gardens, reflecting the different parts of Texas. (Remember that Texas is big enough to be a country, so it has a lot of variety!)

We walked around a pond that was in the piney woods section. Visiting the log cabin reminded us of how much life has changed in the last 150 years. (What would those dwellers have blogged about, if they could have even found time to do so? Well, I guess there were writers back then. And painters.)