I've been in Florida for 48 hours now.
I have to detail the first 24 though, because it was awesome and action packed.
We landed in Orlando at about 11:45 and met our Uncle and then drove two hours North to Gainesville. After that we went to the grocery store to get potatoes (more on that later), a couple of snacks and then to my Uncle's Power Plant, where he works at.
I like getting tours, and it means more when a family member is there. He works the night shift usually, which is from 7pm to 7am at the University of Florida. The people he usually works with were there. The power plant is a co-generation plant. It powers most of the Florida Campus by firing a jet engine inside a room and the exhaust hits water (exhaust at about 1500 degrees I believe) which creates steam which then gets converted into power. The room he works in is full of screens. Screens with so many important gauges and temperatures. All he does is sit and monitor them most of the time. A boring, but necessary job. It does take it's toll on him health wise though.
The tour was awesome, even at 2:30 in the morning.
After that we went to Krispy Kreme to get a dozen donuts at 3 in the morning. That's awesome.
After that we went to my Uncle's house in North Gainesville, in the middle of nowhere. I loved where his house is, but it's remote. His road is not paved, it is dirt and sand. I had never been to his house before even though he has lived there for 15 years. All I knew is that it was remote and that he caught snakes often in his yard. I was a little cautious when getting out of the car in the pitch black. On the way in we hit an animal and killed that by accident and passed by the Bacardi Rum (named something slightly different) but it had to do with the Bat Conservancy.
I loved his house. It is a single guys dream. He has an old phone booth in one of his rooms that came from a place just outside of Chattanooga, Tennessee. He bought it on EBay and then went and got it and put it in his house. The thing could actually be used for calls. He also has a Slot Machine in that room. He had just built a bed that folds down out of the wall which I slept in. I finally got to bed around 4:30.
I was up again at 7 and then was on and off asleep until 10am. I had some doughnuts and then we got a tour of the outside of his property. He has a nice workshop with saws so he can do wood work and make things. He also took us on a walk on his 10 acres, down to his neighbors and their 30 year old horse.
The highlight of the day was shooting things. We spent most of our time shooting his homemade potato gun/launcher. It's a homemade device. You buy a few parts, get a spark plug/ignition switch and put in a flammable gas and a potato that is tight to the barrel for more power and you let it rip. These potatoes go absolutely flying. They could clear the big oak trees in his yard and would go well into the woods. It was a lot of fun.
Then we shot his shotgun. My mom and I had never shot a gun before so we did (my sister had on a previous trip to see my uncle) and it was awesome. I'll admit I was really aware of the power I was holding in my hand. I didn't treat firing it lightly. My uncle loaded the weapon and handed it to us and we aimed into the woods. When I went I decided not to hold it properly and tight to my shoulder because I didn't want to get a bruise from any kickback, because that had happened to my sister. Next time I shoot I will do it properly. I aimed towards the woods and I kept the shot pretty close to where I wanted it, but I wasn't as accurate as I could have been. I was surprised on this gun with just how little was needed to get the trigger to fire. It was fun shooting, and loud. I would like to shoot again, but this time at a target. Targets or clay discs would be fun.
So anyway in the first 12 hours I shot guns and potato cannons and went to Krispy Kreme at 3am. Off to a great start.
On the way out I stopped at the University of Florida Athletic Department in their football stadium, Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. Florida has a nice set-up. Their offices seemed clean and professional to me. I went there to meet a friend of our assistant coach and it was good to meet him because it was a new contact for me to use in sports.
I was told that networking is 50-70% of finding a job.
After shooting we drove to Tampa to see family, the same families that came to the USF game. The boys were full of energy as usual and with two of the boys I spent time with in the pool at their house. We got into a water fight and made water balloons, or atleast I tried too.
After they went to bed I saw my cousin in-laws game room again and this time I got to hold the old game used bats of Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Shoeless Joe Jackson and David Ortiz. I saw a game used Thierry Henry jersey from his Arsenal days as well. My cousin has game used jerseys and all of sorts of neat sports memorabilia, that I really appreciated it. All soccer fans could also appreciate my cousins in laws book on Arsenal. He is a huge fan so he bought a Opus book. It's an 80 pound book. It takes up most of a card table and is full of amazing photos. The book is covered in wood and once you open up the wood frame you can read the book. The book was signed by Wegner and maybe 700 or more pages long. Each page was turned using gloves provided by the book manufacturer and each page was plated in gold.
His room was amazing. Add Babe Ruth's bat to the shooting and it was an amazing day.
We got up early and I had a pool fight with my cousin at her house with my sister and mom and uncle. I tried to learn how to dive into a pool properly and head first. I'm getting it...slowly.
Then we came to a hotel to see more family. We tried to go deep sea fishing, but then it rained like I have never seen before so we couldn't go. We ended up going mini-golfing after everything cleared. I got two hole in ones on the last two holes to end up winning by a stroke.
Vacation has been great. It never needs to end.
So happy I was exposed to the potato gun and shotgun though. That was awesome!
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