It’s been a busy little month at the House of Meyer. We took our first ever cruise near the beginning of the month, which was awesome. But then we also had visitors come to us!

Scott’s mom and younger brother came to town for a few days, so we showed them a good time. That good time included visiting Disney parks:

I took this with a HDR camera app for my phone. The results aren’t as good as real HDR work, but it still comes out pretty cool. The colors seem more vivid, and everything is super-sharp.

I was also able to take the four of us on a surprise voyage — a fireworks-watching cruise out on the lake in front of the Magic Kingdom. I, a person who never wins anything, won it! It’s part of the “magic backstage” program, which provides nice little thank-yous for cast members. We set sail from the Contemporary Resort.

The weather was a bit drizzly, and there were a lot of pesky bugs down at the Contemporary marina, so the pool wasn’t being used by any people. Good thing, because a dozen or so ducks made it their home base.

We headed out on the water, and we were given drinks and snacks.

Neither Scott nor his Mickey-shaped “crispy cereal bar” are actually that creepy.

The fireworks show wasn’t the usual Wishes, but a special Halloween presentation. Awesome as always.

Our little boat had the soundtrack piped in. It was a load of fun!

At one point in our Disney-goings, we went to a cast-specific store. It used to be just merchandise, but now they have a section where you can shop from a limited selection of groceries. The prices were great! I just don’t need a restaurant-sized can of marinara sauce. But I did get some produce, because the Granny Smiths looked excellent.

And indeed they were. Fresh and tart, as opposed to a lot of the cold-storage stuff the groceries have at this time of year.

You know what else is delicious?

IKEA chocolate. I’ve never been much of a dark chocolate person (really, the bulk of my experience has been the miniature Hershey’s Special Dark bars that come in the Xmas assortment), but I’ve heard that it’s good for you, so I tried out IKEA’s Choklad Mörk. And it’s surprisingly tasty!

Also apparently delicious: grass.

I planted a little patch of grass for the cats to enjoy, since their main outdoorsy time is on our 2nd floor deck. So far Commie is still scared to come out on the deck, but shy Trouble loves it. And she loves to eat her greens. It’s surprising how fast this Bermuda grass grows.

My lemon trees are doing well as well. The Eureka still hasn’t bloomed, but the Meyer went through a lovely bloom (and those flowers smelled fantastic). I’ve been warned to not expect lemons right off the bat, but it sure looks like I have almost a dozen little guys growing. They’re tiny so far, but making nice progress.

They’re just adorable!

Now that I’ve sidetracked like crazy, back to the visiting Meyers. We also went to Sea World! It was my first time, but everyone else had already been a couple of years ago. Still, we three young’uns got to ride Manta for the first time together.

I really loved that coaster. You kind of dangle downward on your belly, so there’s none of that bashing and smashing of my head like I get from a lot of looping coasters. Compared to Manta, the old Kraken coaster was painful and kind of boring.

Had a surprisingly good gluten-free meal (roasted chicken) there, and I was also impressed at the upkeep of the park. Everything was neatly maintained, freshly painted, and very clean. I went in with Unversal-level expectations, so Sea World kind of blew me away.

Except the penguin exhibit was kind of eerie. They just stood around in groups, staring at each other. (This is another picture from the HDR app.)

All in all, it’s been a great fun month!

I’ll leave you with this warning sign that appeared one day at a busy intersection in our neigborhood. Simple, but a message that motorcyclists would love more drivers to keep in mind.

We just took our first ever cruise.

And it was awesome!

I put 84 pictures up on the Flickr, which is a few too many to put in a blog post. But let it be said, I ate a lot of:

And we did a lot of:

And even partook of some:

And it was totally and completely:

I stayed gluten-free the entire time, and despite stuffing my face with all sorts of deliciousness (and ice cream after almost every meal), I gained less than half a pound. It was only a 4-day cruise, and here it is the next day and I still feel like the world is gently rolling. Hey, vertigo! Cut that crap out! At least while on the boat itself, I didn’t have any problems with motion sickness.

Here’s a link to the Flickr gallery — most pictures by me, but a few by Scott and some by my dad. (You’ll see him and my mom in a few shots, but my mom hates her picture, so I went easy on her.)

Even though our last day’s excursion to Norwegian’s private island was cancelled due to heavy wind and waves, we still had a great time. I read three books, and got some much-needed relaxation done. And now that we know we can handle cruising and we like it, we’ll be keeping our eye out for future voyages. We’re also thinking about JoCo Cruise Crazy in 2013.

I see I’ve been remiss on blogging lately. But I’ve had a really good reason: we moved.

Yes, we just moved back in January. But here’s the thing — in mid-July, we got new neighbors downstairs. Those new neighbors had a loud party with massively bass-heavy music on their very first night. They then proceeded to play music that would make our walls and floor vibrate on a regular basis, often after midnight. The apartment complex encouraged us to call the police, which we did. Repeatedly. The apartment office sent them a series of letters, each more strongly-worded than the first, but the music continued. We were also treated to the occasional screaming fight — the one at 4am merited a call to 911, not the non-emergency number we’d used for the noise complaints.

The apartment complex is in the process of evicting these neighbors. But they warned us that the eviction process is a long one, and it might take months to work its way through the legal system. Seems like in an eviction, the people being evicted have more rights than anyone else involved. And as soon as that process started, the music was turned up to 11 on a nightly basis.

We asked about moving to another apartment, because we like the location, we like the apartments, and we like the management company. They had a “carriage house” apartment available and gave it to us at our current rent, even though it rents for a higher rate. The carriage house units sit above a garage, with no third floor above, and no shared walls with any other units. They also waived the transfer fees and deposit, and gave us a generous two weeks to move everything. So yes, it was a pain to pack up and move, but we’re now in a place with no neighbors above, below, or to the sides. It’s SO MUCH more quiet.

This new apartment has a very similar floor plan to the old one, but it’s not exactly the same. I have a little less kitchen space, but it’ll still be great. The carpets are new, and not the off-white of the old place — these are a really nice brown, kind of in a Commie-ish color pallette:

We got cat food in a color scheme that matches the carpets. That, combined with using our Bissell Little Green cleaner, is keeping our floors free of barf stains so far.

As you can see, we’re also getting more sunlight than before. The windows and deck of this unit face west, as opposed to the north-facing unit before. Since we get some hours of sunlight on the deck, I’ve acquired some new plants.

In the box planter, I have a jalapeno plant and a strawberry plant. I’ve grown peppers successfully before (in Seattle even), and that baby is already starting to put out some flowers. The strawberry is an experiment, since the only other time I’ve tried strawberries, Trouble ate all the leaves immediately and the plant died. This one is well out of her reach.

I also got the plant I’ve always wanted: LEMON!

In fact, I got two lemon trees. The far one is a Meyer lemon, which was the obvious choice. It’s a dwarf variety of lemon tree, well suited to growing in pots. The nearer one is a Eureka lemon, also a dwarf variety. Not only is it a much sexier plant (the Meyer lemon tree is a twisty, awkward thing), but apparently having more than one variety of lemon tree makes both produce more fruit.

After a little more than a week, the Meyer is already starting to bud. I’m guessing I’ll have blossoms in another week or so. I totally don’t expect to get actual lemons this season, but you never know.

We’re mostly settled in to the new place — only a few more things to hang on the walls, a couple of boxes left to unpack, and some light rearranging. My desk is now close to the couch in a way that makes it easy to get onto, which means I sometimes have company at the computer:

Commie’s eye is doing great, by the way. It’s occasionally a little winky and full of tears, but most days it’s delightfully normal.

We’re sleeping like the dead, which is awesome. This is the kind of apartment we could stay in for years. And hopefully that’s the case, because I don’t want to go through moving again for a long, long time.

We took a wee road trip today. Recently we finished off our ginormous bottle of Red Robin’s seasoned salt, so I proposed a lunch voyage to RR. Not only is it a source of seasoning, but it’s also a chance to have a tastes-like-home meal. Since Red Robin is from Seattle. I also feel homey in Costco. But strangely, I don’t head off to Nordstrom that frequently. Hmm.

There are now six Red Robin locations in Florida. But the closest one to Orlando is around 55 miles away, in Port Orange, which is on the east coast out by Daytona Beach. So off we went.

There’s a new restaurant going in just down the way from Red Robin. At least I’m guessing it’ll be a restaurant. Bottom line, I think “sauce box” is our new insult.

I had the regular old Red Robin classic cheeseburger, with cheddar. And wrapped in lettuce leaves instead of a bun. I don’t know what it is about Red Robin, but there’s a very distinctive flavor to their burgers. You know you’re eating an RR burger when you’re eating an RR burger.

The lettuce wasn’t so much wrapped around the burger, as it was on top and bottom like a bun. Each side was 4 or 5 leaves of iceberg, which was a bit much lettuce. I stripped a leaf or two off each side, which made it easier to bite through. The last quarter or so of the burger, it was so messy and falling apart that I had to go in with the knife and fork. I have to say, I think Fuddrucker’s may win for presentation by just putting the patty on a plate.

The steak fries were fantastic, as always.

After lunch, we headed over to Daytona Beach. We’d never seen it, and since we were right there, why not? We took the main exit off the freeway, which put us on International Speedway Drive. We got to pass by the ginormous racetrack, which was busy as heck because of the “Gatorade Duel”, whatever that is. Anyhoo, it was cool to hear the sounds of the cars as we passed by, and we got to see a few really bitchin’ mullets.

We drove down International Speedway Drive until it ended at the beach.

Daytona Beach is, apparently, the world’s most famous beach. Is it? According to whom? What about Waikiki? Or Malibu? The sign didn’t give a source for the claim.

It’s a really unique beach, in that it’s incredibly easy to walk on. You can see the high tide line, and from the water to that line, the sand is packed hard and flat. You can stroll all the way down to the surf and not get any sand in your sandals! Of course, we had to check out the water temperature. The verdict: flippin’ cold!

Lots of seagulls everywhere, primarily hanging out in packs down near the waterline.

Lots of dead jellyfish everywhere, with all of their (arms? tendrils? stinging-bits?) broken off.

And lots of love for Beap.

What a way to start 2011 — moving the house. Or, well, the apartment. At any rate, we moved all of our stuff from one off-white box to another off-white box.

Our reasons for moving were manyfold, but the primary one was the fact that we were paying too much at the old apartment. The market is soft here in Orlando, and everyone everywhere was lowering their prices. Our complex, however, offered to generously keep our too-(damn)high rent the same for another year, so we generously decided to move elsewhere.

Here’s the new living room, pre-move. We hit IKEA first and got a new couch, since our old one was old and hurtin’. Guess that’s what you get for buying a $180 loveseat. Although we loved that loveseat, so we just replaced it with a fresh $180 loveseat. For the record, it’s the Klippan with a discontinued zebra-print cover. I’m glad we bought an extra cover when they were closing them out, because it’s all solids and one weird cross-stitchy pattern right now.

We moved a ton of stuff on Thursday, with help from our fantastic friend John. Between him and Scott, it was like having two powerful gorillas hauling most of our stuff. Of course, I mean “gorilla” in the nicest possible way. We’ve been really gung-ho about throwing out or Goodwill-donating as much as we possibly can, because we’re total packrats who live in a thrift store in a Russian submarine. We left even more stuff at the old place, which will be sorted through during next weekend’s cleaningfest.

The last step was bringing the cats. They mewed pitifully all the way, then found a dark place to hide immediately. I anticipated their yearning for a dark place, so I cracked open the door of the linen closet for them. The first night, they were pretty disruptive, what with the meowing and scratching at boxes and constantly hopping up and down on the bed, but last night they settled in pretty well.

Most of the living room is now set up, as well as our desks. IKEA again, here’s my Expedit desk. I’ll fill the cubbyholes with books and such as we unpack them, but I’m guessing someone will insist that I leave one cubby open for her. And yes, that’s a screenshot of Bioshock as my desktop background. Bloody splicers.

I’m still going strong with gluten free January, and even though we ate out for several meals, there was always a great option. Here’s what I had at the always-tasty Fuddrucker’s. The lettuce is hiding the truly embarassing number of pickles I piled on the plate. They have some really good pickles.

Our moving-mate John introduced us to a new place, Greens & Grille, and I’m seriously sorry that you probably don’t have one in your neighborhood. It’s like a salad place meets a Mongolian grill — you pick what salad veggies you want, from carrots to artichoke hearts and anything in between. Then they toss it, grill up some fresh meat of your choosing, and it’s totes delicious.

We’re headed back to work today, after a 3-day break, so it’ll be interesting figuring out our new routes to and from Disney. Already it looks like I have three exits to choose from when coming home, so there will be some experimenting.

It’s been an eventful December.

We’re packing to move house these days. We’re just going about 10 miles away from where we are now, and we’ll be paying less money for a little larger space. Win/win.

We’ve known that we would be moving with the expiration of our current lease, but it’s as if our apartment is telling us over and over again to get out. First it was the new neighbors across the hall, who moved in a few months ago and haven’t learned that you don’t need to slam the door every time. They also like to prop their front door open and have loud conversations. Then last month the apartment next door, which we thought was vacant but was actually being paid for but left unoccupied, finally got an occupant. He likes loud music, thumping on the walls, and jogging. Which involves grunting stretches outside his door. Lots of grunting stretches.

Then there’s been the December FireAlarmPalooza. Last week, just as we were going to take a load of stuff off to the thrift store, the fire alarm went off. We dilly-dallied in gathering ourselves together, because it’s never an actual fire. Except this time … it was an actual fire. Two apartments below, the occupants had some sort of kitchen grease fire, with billowing grey smoke pouring out their door. Fortunately, the sprinklers didn’t get triggered in our apartment. And it was kind of entertaining watching this really doddering old lady who also lives on the 1st floor asking everyone what was going on.

Then last night, the fire alarm went off again. No smoke from anywhere, just the shrilling (which got us out of bed). The same doddering old lady came out of her apartment on the phone to 911, shouting that the alarm was going off in her apartment, and she hadn’t done anything! Why was this happening? She didn’t touch anything!

The dozen-plus of us from this building stood around in the parking lot, waiting. Our roaming security guy came over, and the old lady dragged him down the hall into her apartment. Because the alarm was going off in there, and she didn’t touch anything! She came back out to the parking lot while the guy looked around to see if any of the alarm boxes had been pulled. She then looked out at all of us and said, “The alarm is going off in MY apartment! I didn’t do anything!”

I couldn’t take it any more. “It’s going off in ALL of our apartments.”

“Really?” She asked.

“Yes. That’s why we’re ALL STANDING OUT HERE, ma’am.”

“Oh!” She gasped.

I think I blew her mind with that one. And I honestly don’t think she realized that the entire building’s alarms were going off. I wonder why she thought we were all standing out there.

In other news, for those who want an update about Commie, his eye looks a little worse every day. The mass keeps growing, and you can’t see his eye in there anymore. But he still seems happy, purring and cuddling and eating and pooping and having little smackfights with Trouble, so that’s good. He sleeps a little more than usual, but that’s the only real sign (other than the eye) that anything’s wrong.

He’s also helping immensely with packing, by placing himself in, on, and around boxes as much as possible. He’s a huge fan of the lids to these office document boxes, the corner of one which you can barely see under his loafy form. He’s a good, good boy, and we tell him so many times a day.

I’ll admit, a staycation is probably a lot more fun here in Orlando than it is in a lot of other cities. Scott’s younger brother visited us for a few days, so we took time off and checked out some places we hadn’t yet visited. We also got in a good little chunk of Disney, of course.

I’m hosting these snappies over at Flickr — I’ve been receiving notices that my site is going over some allotment of something, since I’m on the cheapest possible plan. It’s probably my penchant for pictures that puts me over bandwidth, so hopefully this will ease the pressure on my tiny site. Anyhoo, onward!

Our first day was Disney. We hit the Studios for the big three rides there, then moseyed over to the Magic Kingdom. After a half-dozen rides, we stopped at Aloha Isle for some Dole Whip. While there, we saw this foursome. Now, it was my understanding that adults weren’t allowed to wear costumes inside the MK, except during Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. There was no party this particular night, so I was surprised to see a quartet of crazy getups. The hidden girl is in a full, actual Snow White costume. Next to her, I’m calling the girl “Sexy Minnie”. Following them were the boys — a cowboy with butterfly wings, and what I can only describe as a sexy Nazi costume. Perplexing!

Day 2: Universal! We visited both parks when we came down to find an apartment, almost 4 years ago. Hadn’t been back since. And there were several rides that were new to me — on our last visit, we rode Dueling Dragons first and I was queasy the rest of the day, so I didn’t go on Spiderman or The Hulk. This time we Hulked (which was awesome), and hit the all-new Harry Potter section of IoA. Welcome … to Hogwarts castle.

The warnings list for the new Forbidden Journey ride is massive, and yet they didn’t include a very important one. I think arachnophobia should be among the warnings. Seriously. Also, this ride (as well as most big Universal rides) requires you to put your whatnot in a locker before riding. I’m glad I remembered the locker issue, and just loaded my crap into my pockets and safety-pinned my pockets shut.

The ride was well-themed — the most impressive job I’ve seen Universal do. But I won’t ride it again anytime soon, since a goodly portion of it was motion-simulator, and as such made me queasy. A shame.

They did have plush shark hats over near the Jaws ride, which I forced Scott to put on. We didn’t buy one — I don’t think he’d be able to find many occasions to wear it. We went back out to CityWalk for lunch.

I saw signs for the BK Whopper Bar, and thought, “I HAVE to check that out!” I had visions of a full Fuddrucker’s-style toppings bar dancing through my head. Sadly, the Whopper Bar turned out to be a smallish Burger King. That’s it. I opted this day to not have it my way, and eat elsewhere.

Day 3 started at Disney, where we rode Expedition Everest and Dinosaur. Is it just me, or is Dinosaur better-lit these days? Seems like for a while, when something broke, they’d just turn the lights off on it. This time through, I could see almost everything. It’s still a pale imitation of the Indiana Jones ride out in California, but it’s all right.

Then we went to Gatorland! We’ve lived a mile away from this place for three years, and never visited before. Did we like it? Well, we upgraded our one-day admissions to annual passes. It was cute! And quaint! And chock full of fascinating animals. Especially …

TINY BIRDS! A room full of lorikeets, parakeets, and budgies, where you can buy a popsicle stick covered with birdseed for a buck and get covered in tickly cuteness. And yes, you really do need to watch your step — the birds walk all over the floor and up on your feet, so you have to kind of shuffle around.

Even Scott, who has a self-documented fear of birds, enjoyed our new avian overlords. This beautiful orange guy even got on Scott’s shoulder and licked his salty face. And now, thanks to annual passes, if I ever have a bad day I can just pop over to Gatorland, pay a buck, and get covered with tiny, happy, tickly birds.

We ended the day at Epcot. Scott observed that this mural at the front of Spaceship Earth looks like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel. To which I say, a thousand times yes! The annual Food & Wine Festival is in full swing, but we did the German buffet at Biergarten instead. And it was a delicious sausage festival. (Heh heh.)

Today it’s back to work! Which means … back to Epcot. Love it!

I put my pictures in a separate entry. Here’s the deets on the reason for the trip.

Back in January, I took the online Jeopardy! test. I’ve taken it the last couple of years. Don’t know if I’ve passed it before — usually there are too many sports or bible questions, which are my Kryptonite. I think I lucked out this time with my standard “if it’s a basketball question, the answer is Kobe Bryant” approach. Because I’m pretty sure it actually was Kobe Bryant.

Anyhoo, got an email back in March letting me know I’d passed the test, and I’d been chosen randomly from among the test-passers to go to the in-person audition. I immediately wrote back saying yes, please, thank you. Booked the vacation time, booked a cheap hotel (well, cheap for the Miami beach area) and this past Thursday, we hit the road.

We killed thousands of lovebugs on the way down. The trip was a little over 200 miles each way, and I have to admit, I’m not up to distance driving anymore. It’s hard to believe that back in 2007, we drove anywhere from 9 to 13 hours per day to get from Seattle to Orlando in 6 days. Even 4 hours on the road (we made several stops to clean off bug bodies) is too much now.

Got to our hotel, checked in, scouted the area. Hoofed over to the Atlantic:

Then we rustled up some dinner, and visited a local mall so I could look for a shirt. I’d brought a shirt with me, but I wasn’t entirely happy with it — the paperwork asked for us to dress as we would if we were appearing on Jeopardy!, so I wanted to make sure I looked the part. Happily, I found a great item on the clearance rack at The Limited — a dark blue button-down. Plain and classy.

Back to the room, and then we suited up and visited the pool for some night swimming. Not only did we have a pool and a whirlpool available, but there were also ladders down to the Intracoastal Waterway. Scott wouldn’t let me even climb down and dip my toe in, since it was 8 to 10 feet down a slimy ladder into questionable and very dark public waters. Full of wildlife. Oh well.

Friday, we kicked around the room for much of the morning, and managed to catch some Lazy Town dubbed into Spanish (WTF that show, I don’t even know) and part of The Abyss (in which the effects don’t hold up). Then I put on my fancy pants (and new shirt, and shoes with heels), we checked out, and we ambled down to the Westin.

Scott set up with his gadgets and headphones in the beautiful lobby, and I headed upstairs. There were a couple of guys there already, but I was one of the first, since I’m always way too early for everthing. I filled out my application form, with full disclosure that I work for WDW (the rules state that nobody can be on the show who works for CBS/Sony Pictures, but this application also asked about anyone working for ABC (Disney), NBC (Universal), or any local TV stations. So I don’t know what kind of grey area I’m in as far as eligibility.

Eventually, there were 20 of us. Some dressed appropriately, some not so much. A t-shirt with a cute skirt? Not good. Ren-faire-inspired clothes? Not good. A ratty, beat-up golf shirt — well, at least it had a collar. But not good. We got checked in, had our Polaroids taken, and moved into the conference room. The casting folks, all very nice, talked a little about what to expect in the audition, and then we took the written exam. Just like the online test, it was a 50-question exam, with 8 seconds to answer eash question. They collected our tests, went out to score them, and the room exploded into “what was the answer to this one?”

We’ll never find out our scores, by the way. It’s totally pass/fail — get 35 or more right, you pass. 34 or less, you fail. Period. And I think I cut it pretty close. I aced the pop music and movies stuff, but there were some sports and poetry and such that I know I got wrong.

Either way, pass or fail, nobody found out their results. We all moved on to the mock game, and they explained that the audition process used to have everyone who failed go home, but they decided to invite fewer people and let them experience the entire process instead. I applaud the choice. So onward to the fake game! We got up in groups of three, and got to use the genuine buzzers. I’m delighted to say, I got the country music question correct. A fluke!

At the end of a dozen or so questions, we got to do a little one-to-two minute interview. And I know I aced this part — clear eye contact, enunciation, personality. It was kind of shocking to me how many people mumbled their answers while staring at the wall above the casting peoples’ heads. But I guess the ultra-smart sometimes aren’t known for their social skills.

They asked me what I do at WDW, and I told them that I host a game show about Velcro. At which, the other woman in my group laughed out loud and said, “Oh my god, that’s where I know you from! We did that show when we went to Epcot for my birthday!” As they say, it’s a small world after all.

It took a little over 2 hours for everything, then we were set free. I gathered up Scott, changed out of my fancy duds into shorts, and we hit the road back to Orlando. We could have stayed another day, but we opted to get back home so we could have a leisurely Saturday off here. And happily, there were a LOT fewer lovebugs on the way home. I don’t know if the swarm moved on, or if they’re more active in the mornings, or what. But we didn’t have anywhere near the same death counts on the return trip.

So now, the waiting game. None of us will know if we passed the test or not, or if we made the contestant pool or not, until we maybe possibly get a phone call at some point in the next 18 months inviting us to LA to appear on the show. So for all I know, I’m in. But for all I know, I failed the test. Or it may be that my employer eliminates me from consideration. I’m not going to wait by the phone with bated breath; if a call comes, it’ll just be a fantastic surprise.

In the meantime, we had a fun road trip with many a laugh, and I got to walk on some beach. And have a fun experience that few people get a chance to have.

So we just got back from a quickie trip down to Miami (Well, okay, to Hollywood. Which is right next to Miami.) for reasons I’ll explain in the next text post. I figured I’d make a seperate entry for my snappies.

First off, BUGS! The first 100 miles or so of our trip from Orlando to Miami was through lovebug country. If you don’t know about lovebugs, count yourself lucky. You could look them up on the Wiki, but the short version is that they’re pairs of bugs joined at the junk, both of them trying to fly at the same time, which ends up in a staggering, shambling trip through the sky. I don’t know if it was time of day or location, but the bugs were heavy over the turnpike.

This was just after the first stop. We had to wash the windshield, and I scraped corpses off the bumper. 40 miles further along, we had to make another stop for another wash-n-scrape. My car looks like it has a flame job from all of the bug guts. We’re hitting the car wash this morning.

We stopped at a couple of service plazas along the turnpike on our way down. They’re so much more than a rest stop — it’s like a rest stop meets a food court meets a truck stop. A few quick-service restaurants, large restrooms, stands selling perfumes and belt buckles, and tons of brochures and coupon booklets. We were surprised to find Earl of Sandwich representing, so we had that for lunch.

Our hotel was the Crowne Plaza at Hollywood Beach. I priced it out at $170 per night, then managed to get it for $75 at Hotwire. This may well be the first hotel I’ve stayed at that supplied fluffy white robes. I think the only problem is that there aren’t enough pillows.

Here’s our view to the east. Our room was on the top (10th) floor, on the north side of the building. As you can see, we’re right across the street from the Atlantic Ocean. Faboo!

And our view off to the west of the Intracoastal Waterway. There’s our hotel’s pool down below, too. Nice pool, nice hot tub, expensive pool bar beers. I mean, five bucks for a Miller Lite?

And there was Friday’s goal: The Westin Diplomat. About 5 blocks to the north, on the beach side of the road. Man, that place was nice. But I wasn’t about to pay $300/night to stay there.

After all, we were already staying someplace with the gall to charge five bucks for a bottle of water.

We did walk over to the beach and got our sandals full of sand. Which I guess is what they’re made for. I find with the Atlantic, approaching the beach is prettier than the beach itself. Because the beach itself is just a uniformly wide strip of sand, lined with hotels and condominiums.

So yes, Miami was lovely. Well, not actually Miami, but Hollywood. And more technically, Hallandale beach. Did we have fun? This sign says it all:

Next month, we’re going on a little road trip down to Miami. I’ve been invited to the callback audition for Jeopardy!*, which is very exciting for me — I’ve tried out for it several times, and this is the first time I’ve made it to the second round.

The callback will last from 2 to 2.5 hours, and will consist of playing a mock game and taking an additional trivia test, as well as some light interviewing. I don’t actually expect to make it into the contestant pool (I’m a fairly terrible auditioner) but I’m definitely doing it for the experience.

I just booked our hotel room this morning, and here’s what tickles me. We were looking at booking a room at the Crowne Plaza hotel — it was the cheapest of the nice hotels. Which still means that rooms were going for $160 per night. The other options were the ultra-fancy resort where the callbacks are taking place ($280/night) or the little mom-and-pop questionable-quality beach resorts ($40/night). We’re not fans of questionable quality, so we were going to splurge.

Enter Hotwire, which is one of my former boss’s favorite travel booking sites. They give you an ultra-cheap price, but they don’t show you the name of the hotel until you book it. In this instance, Hotwire offered a $75 room in a 4-star resort. Since we were already going to pay $160 for a 4-star resort, we decided to be bold and booked it.

Turns out the room is at the Crowne Plaza, exactly where we were planning on staying. But for 60% less. Man, I love the internets! And living in the future!

* You may be wondering if a Disney employee can appear on Jeopardy!, since the show airs on ABC. Turns out, the show is produced by Sony/CBS, so it’s those employees who are ineligible. Sadly, Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? blocks out all Disney employees, so I won’t be able to be on that show. And merely mentioning it makes me miss the Millionaire attraction here at WDW.