Days 49 - 52 - Scrabble Struggles

July 29 - For most of the last four days I've been secreted at the Loews Royal Pacific Resort in Orlando competing in the National Scrabble Championship. Twenty-eight exciting games in four days - what could be better? Winning a few more would help. After 25 games, my record is a poor 9-16. I'll write a comprehensive report tomorrow, but until then, check www.photoblog.com/dadlak for some pictures and stories.

Days 45 thru 47 - Cooling It

July 21 - 23 - I spent most of the week relaxing at my parents' house living out an expressed desire to go nowhere. I made a couple trips to the pharmacy and one to a medical clinic, but otherwise stayed at the house posting pictures, playing Scrabble online and watching Monty Python on DVD. My big trip out was to O'Shucks again for a second night of Karaoke. This time I sang four times in about three hours.

Watching Monty Python was great fun. Do you remember the Spanish Inquisition, cheese shop, Crunchy Frog and Scott of the Sahara sketches? I watched the bicycling tour of Cornwall twice. I'm still trying to find Spam and a couple others. The originals are much funnier than Spamalot on Broadway.

Day 44 - Life Without Tiger

July 20 - Despite Tiger Woods being home recuperating from knee surgery, we organized our day around watching the final round of the British Open golf championship on TV. Tiger's place in our hearts was filled in part by 53-year-old Aussie Greg Norman, a champion of 15-years past who inexplicably led after three rounds of a tournament he entered only as a tuneup for the upcoming British Senior Open that he had a realistic chance of winning.

With the action happening in England five hours ahead of us, the TV coverage started at 9 a.m. We watched just long enough to see Norman bogey the first two holes to squander his lead, then went to church to pray for the rest of his round. We got back at about 12:45 and watched the rest of the competition in wonderful DVR-delay mode. After the first nine holes, Norman's main competitor, Irishman and defending champion Padraig Harrington, had faltered a fit, allowing Norman to hold a one shot lead going into the last nine holes of the tournament. The regained lead lasted not at all as Norman made more bogeys to give the lead back to Harrington. For awhile it appeared that Englishman Ian Poulter, the self-proclaimed "next Tiger" with his own marketing company, would best both leaders, but Harrington took over on the last six holes, making three pars, two birdies and a sensational eagle on the par 5 17th hole, where he ripped his 240 yard second shot to within three feet of the hole. Our DVR tape ran out before Harrington could play the 18th, but by then he had a four-shot lead that he couldn't possibly lose. Norman finished in a tie for third, behind Harrington and Poulter, but I don't think he was too disappointed, given that his expectations ahead of the tournament were "nil", and that he could find solace in the arms of his new bride of three weeks, retired tennis star Chris Evert, who looked great for a 50-year-old woman dressed in three layers of clothes. She dressed that way because the whole tournament was played in winds ranging from 20 to 50 mph, sometimes accompanied by a cold rain, making Norman's contention and Harrington's finish even all the more remarkable.

Back to church. We attended services at the First Unitarian Church of Orlando. With their minister newly retired, the service was lay-led. A retired therapist gave an interesting talk on his life experiences with the theme of "necessary but unwelcome change". I always have a great time chatting with fellow UUs, and other congregations appreciate my hymn singing, though they included one hymn that neither they nor I knew. After the service they served a nice vegetarian lunch. We ate a bite and headed home for golf before we could learn about the program that inevitably accompanied the nice meal.

Turkey Day 43

July 19 - The girls made it back safely to Baton Rouge by late afternoon. I enjoyed a lazy day in front of the TV, watching first the British Open and then the FOX MLB game of the week between the Angels and Red Sox. In between, I took a nap.

With all that rest and a couple of meals I was ready for an early evening walk around the neighborhood. This turned out to be an unexpected delight as we encountered the neighborhood flock of wild turkeys. Two walked across the street right in front of us. Another seven or so looked on bemusedly as I took pictures. A smaller group of egrets scrounged for food on the other side of the neighborhood pond. Neighborhood lawns provided a variety of flora shots, including my mom's fruit trees, one of which has a basketful of grapefruit hanging from it.

Day 42 - So Long, Farewell and Other Songs

July 18 - Despite staying up until 2 a.m, the girls got up and out in good shape, though the desired 8:30 a.m. departure time for home got pushed back by about an hour. After the first time out of the garage, they came back at least once - to pick up Kay's cell phone and charger - and maybe a second time - to give me some cash - I'm not sure if they made it out of the driveway in between. We got a call from Kallie in Alabama at about 7 p.m. telling us that they were safely at Erin's house, where they'll spend the night before continuing on to Baton Rouge on Saturday morning.


Mom and I had a quiet day. After the family left, we watched golf until it was time to leave for her MRI appointment. The imaging center had golf on TV in the waiting room. On the way home we found a couple of locations of interest - the Royal Pacific Resort where the National Scrabble Tournament will be played, and O'Shucks Pub, home of Karaoke every night.

After the gruelling schedule of riding around and watching golf, I took a nap. We ate leftovers for dinner, nicely served at the table. At our house, leftover dinners are often "every man for himself."

We headed back out into the world a little after eight, this time back to O'Shucks for Karaoke. We didn't know what O'Shucks, located in a strip mall off International Drive, would be like, but hoped for the best, and had the backup plan of going to the Rising Star club at Universal, a clear second choice because of the $12 parking fee and long walk from the garage to the club.

O'Shucks turned out to be pretty cool, albeit smoky and eventually crowded with tourists, many from overseas. Buzztime Trivia helped kill the downtime between numbers. There were even a few regular trivia players to compete with. We got there early enough for me to be the second singer after the hostess - I opened with The Beatles "I Saw Her Standing There". Everything clicked and I got a nice hand from the small crowd. More than an hour later I got the call for my second song. I'd submitted "Wonderful World" ('don't know much about history...'), but she lost my slip (but fortunately not my place). She asked me what I wanted to sing. I switched to "Eddie" from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show", the song I couldn't stay long enough to sing in Savannah. This is such a fun song because you get to sing in about six different voices. I'm not sure how many in the crowd knew it because almost no one joined in on the catchy chorus, "Eddie, when he said he didn't want his teddy / you knew he was a no good kid. / But when he threatened your life with a switchblade knife / What a guy! / Makes me cry / Und I did". The role and appearance of Eddie in the Rocky Horror Picture Show is very poorly explained, even though there's a song about him and he sings a song ("Hot Patootie" - my least favorite song in the show.) In any even, I pulled off "Eddie" pretty well and the crowd seemed to like it.

The wait for song three was long and anxious as the 1 p.m. closing time for Karaoke approached. Finally, at about ten til one, a third rotation began. I went back to "Wonderful World". It took a verse for me to figure out the accompaniment and to sing in the right octave, but the rest of the song was pretty good. Mom said I sang on key, a step up from many other singers, but then again, she's my mom, what's she going to say? I think I'll try for a midweek return to O'Shucks, after we see if our smoke-infested clothes can be reclaimed. I have six request slips already filled out and next time I might even bring a camera with charged batteries.

Day 41 - Downtown Disney

July 17 - We had another "off day" before Kay and the girls head back toward Louisiana on Friday. I watched the British Open on TV while they slept in the morning. In midday, Dad and I went out for an oil change and wash (for the CRV) and a haircut (for both of us). We got the haircut at a shop in the nearby town of Kissimmee, which so far seems to have mostly avoided the Disneyfication of the area. Its old-fashioned downtown street looked like a lot of other small Southern towns. The haircutters were barbers instead of stylists, all guys. My barber actually shaved my neck with a straight razor--I can't remember the last time that happened. All that was missing was a red-and-white barber pole. Back home we emptied the CRV and vacuumed it. It will be nice for the crew to go home in a clean car.

While we were out the girls went shopping - Kallie came back with a couple of outfits. After a lasagna dinner we all went to Ghirardelli's in Downtown Disney for a chocolate something - Kallie and my mom live for this. They do it at least once on every trip - probably more often. My chocolate milkshake was fine, but the highlight of the outing for me was taking pictures outside the Lego store. They've created a garden of Lego sculptures outside and a series of Lego dioramas in the store windows.

Kallie got her Florida driving in when we got back home - just around the neighborhood with her Grandma and Grandpa in the car. If she can pick up Alabama and Mississippi on the way home she'll have driven in 19 states - almost unique, I suspect, for a 15-year-old with a less-than-two-month-old learner's permit.

Kallie, Kay and Mom all worked on a portrait of me to submit to the National Scrabble Tournament. Here's the one we sent in.

Day 40 - Doing Nothing

July 17 - After almost six weeks on the road, we took a day off at my parents' house in Orlando. My big effort was to take a prescription to the local CVS pharmacy. The girls watched old episodes of Project Runway all day. Kay read her book.

In the afternoon we had a taste of future travel as I drove my parents' RV in a training session for our August trip to Sanibel Island. Successful driving requires taking everything nice and slow, no matter how hard the other motorists are cursing and shaking their fists. The big challenge of the campsite will be hooking up the sewer line. I'm not sure I can bend down far enough to do the job. More flexible Kallie refuses to get that close to the filth. We'll figure it out.