Orlando

Last summer, my friend Elizabeth called me and asked if I'd like to do a half-marathon with her at Disney World. I figured, why not? So, this morning Ginger and Norman picked me up before dawn to take me to the airport, and now I'm sitting by a pool in Orlando. I was most impressed with the Orlando Airport's level of preparedness for Ash Wednesday. As soon as I got off the terminal monorail, there were two airport chaplains with a table, a modest sign, and ashes. As you can see, they fixed me up:

Tomorrow I'm going to the Kennedy Space Center to look at stuff at the Kennedy Space Center. Sunday is marathon day, so to prepare and scope out the scene, we're going to do Disney theme parks on Friday and Saturday. Fortunately, Elizabeth is a Disney World veteran, and I emailed her a list of my points of interest in advance so she would have time to develop a strategic plan. Of course, I have a research agenda, which is to see lots of historically-significant 3D film installations at Disney World, such as the Michael Jackson science-fiction music video Captain EO. This film hadn't been screened for years, but I gather that with Mr. Jackson's demise, the film was resurrected.

What Elizabeth doesn't know is that I've brought a special present for her. We used to be roommates in Chicago, where she developed a taste for my macaroni and cheese. Over the years, she has periodically phoned me from her kitchen to guide her through making it herself. Last weekend I made a big vat of it for the vegetarian co-op, so I froze some of it and managed to get it past the TSA. This is my contribution to our pre-race carbo-loading. Not that it's hard to find carbohydrates in Orlando.