Well here we go with hurrican number 3 in less than 2 months. Hello Jeanne!

I was listening to the news this morning and one of the broadcasters was mentioning how some people in Volusia county (that’s the beach area just east of us) just got their power back LAST WEEK from Frances. Poor beach people.

But to me… this is the amazing part, and kinda shocking at the same time. The news was also reporting all the mandatory evacuations and then showed the traffic cams for the major roads that lead FROM the evacuated areas. Unlike Frances, these roads are EMPTY! Empty people!!! That means one of two things. Either they are already gone (still evacuated) or they aren’t going anywhere. I’m betting on the latter.

School closures announcements have started… here we go again!

This must be the worst time to buy a house. Not because of interest rates or anything like that, but because another hurricane is coming.

So what are my husband and I doing? Buying a house. We just agreed on a price with the seller and now we have to go through inspections. Our realtor advised waiting until AFTER Jeanne came through to inspect, but I think that’s an idea I would have come to on my own.

The house is in Deltona and while we were looking at houses with our realtor last week we noticed a few with standing water in their backyards or on their streets. This particular house did not appear to have any hurricane damage, or if there was it had been fixed already.

The sellers have capped the repair money (at a reasonable rate I think) EXCEPT for the roof, so at least if anything happens to it we know we’re covered. I just really hope nothing more serious happens because we really like this house!

We’ve got a good little community going here at the Orlando Metblog site. I have been lax in my posting duties, but the rest of you are taking up the slack nicely. And because I have so much slack to give…

We need more bloggers!

If you know someone in the Orlando area that would be willing to contribute at least one post each week here about Orlando-specific stuff, have them APPLY HERE.

I saw a couple of mentions about meeting folks, either at the Jazz Festival, the Breast Cancer Walk, or at various events like Bookcrossing or Weblogger Meetups. I think that’s a great idea! We should plan something soon!

What’s that? I’m the captain, you say? I’m supposed to be organizing this crap? uhhhh… Look! Over there! It’s John Kerry! *runs and hides*

Seriously, we need to do something together soon (other than nail up plywood on the windows). Let’s ponder it, shall we?

Everyone leave up your plywood, keep your charcoal supply and propane supply intact and get ready for round… uhhh…. 3?!?!? I’ve lost count.

I CANNOT believe we are looking at yet ANOTHER hurricane. Oh well.. at least we are veterans now.

It’s the first day of Autumn, and it actually feels that way in Orlando. We are usually still very hot and humid this time of year, but all this week it has only been in the mid 80’s. Nice. I hope this weather holds out for the weekend! We are going to the Jazz Festival at Lakeridge Winery this weekend. It’s one of our favorite hang outs. Good wine, and excellent food and music!

Event: Saturday, October 2, 2004
Registration: 7:00 am Walk: 8:00am
Location: Lake Island Park, Winter Park, Florida

I’ll be taking part in this event, walking the five mile walk, and raising money for the fight against breast cancer. Better late than never. This gives me two weeks, so I must get moving.

It would be awesome to see you all there! Walk with me?

For more information you can visit Cancer.org, or contact me.

We went to the beach yesterday and I can’t tell you the last time I was in Daytona Beach. Generally I like to go to the less crowded, less “touristy” places like Cocoa.
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While we are all here breathing a sigh of relief that the monster Ivan missed us… and missed us in a big way, I hate that it hit Florida and that it hit Pensacola so hard. I used to live in Pensacola and lots of family and friends there. I’ve had sporatic contact with them and while initial reports seem like everyone did ok, they are some of the lucky ones.

Meanwhile my delayed moving and closing BECAUSE of hurricanes is finally here and I’m up to my eyeballs in boxes. I hate moving! I hadn’t moved in over 11 years and now I remember why!!

Since my husband is on vacation this week we wanted to do some things (other than look for houses to buy) so we decided on Sea World today after our son got out of preschool.

It was the deadest we have seen it since Spring Break. We got Silver Passes last November on our honeymoon and I used to love going over the winter and into the early spring. But once Spring Break hit, it was crazy, not to mention hot.

Today was cloudy and it did rain a little, but not so much as to spoil our fun. And for the first time ever my son crawled into the water tubes they have in Happy Harbor. For 10 months now he has only stood on the outside and even with coaxing from us (I have even gone so far as to go in) he would not go inside. Today, without ANY coaxing, he decided to go. We were quite pleased.

The penguins were in rare form also, doing these amazing dives, flying up out of the water and then diving back in. There were about 20 of them going back and forth doing this over and over. We had to ride through twice because it was such a spectacle.

And as usual, the polar bears were sleeping(has anyone EVER seen them awake?). But we did get an up close encounter with a HUGE walrus. Mikey thought that was hysterical.

I know where I will be on September 25th! The free concert series has returned to WMMO!

America live. Awesome.

Okay, I know I gave my age away with this post, but who cares? *wink*