Vulcan Con Day 2!

Friday, April 30, 2010 With a quick walk around the corner we enjoy breakfast at Waffle House. After our breakfast we stroll over to the West Shore mall, Sears is the anchor store, with some restaurants and well that’s all we see, because we have just received a message from Mitch of the Daily Buzz and he needs us to reach him ASAP!Oli has been trying to contact Mitch for a possible story on our return trip home and Mitch is excited to host us at 6am Monday morning. The Daily Buzz has been a favorite morning show of ours for years!

The Vulcan registration won’t open until 5pm, but the hotel is loaded with guests, most of them firefighters here for an Olympic type competition, but when I asked one hung-over-looking fellow how it was going he said ‘not so good, it’s more of an Olympic drinking type competition!’

We do take some pictures of non-Vulcan guests. And some Vulcan guests. We have a DVD playing on the cars TV but it’s skipping so Oli starts work on a back up while I make a call to my Tampa connection. Mike Womack, a friend of ours for years now, (he’s only 15) lives in the area and came to our rescue and picked up some blank DVDs for us. We visited with him and his aunt. Both were kind enough to sit in the car for a photo, which led to a rush of other guests wanting their picture taken too. Thank Mike and Aunt Karen for being our demonstrators!

The evening for us ended around 8:30 when the lobby became so crowded and loud you couldn’t hear yourself think. We packed up our gear and said our goodbyes and headed out to Charley’s Steak House next to the hotel. They’re famous for their aged steaks and rightly so. Dinner was great and now it’s time to rest up for day 2. Over 800 guests expected with about 100 registering today. That means we’ll hopefully be taking a lot of pictures and raising record awareness and funds for Team Fox!

Vulcan Con!

Thursday April 29^th, depart for Tampa, 5:30 am. Driving under a full moon, bright in the early morning sky. Roads are clear except for some patches of fog. I’d like to say the sunrise was beautiful, but I can’t because this trip found me nodding off a lot! Oli drove like the mad man he is and I slept. He even took a picture of me catching flies! Well, I took one of him after our first gas stop enjoying a banana; re-fuel, as he would say.

Our regular path is 95 south to 4 to Orlando. This time we veered west at Jacksonville to 10 – 301 – 75 and we were in steamy hot Tampa. After a bit of hunting we found a self serve car wash and gave little D a bath. Then on to the hotel, where the crew at the Double Tree were waiting and ready to load the car into the hotel lobby via the rear entrance, (through two banquet halls and one heck of a 180 degree corner into the lobby. Oli drove most of the way, until ‘yellow shirt man’ let it be known that you cannot run an automobile in a hotel in Florida. So we pushed it the rest of the way, yes pushed it around the tight turn. After some clever maneuvering and the moving of the lobby furniture, she was in place. A quick plug-in and clean up and we were ready for guests.

Javier and Fernando were happy to see the car in place as they arrived, unloading their gear. The hotel staff has been great and we really look forward to meeting all the Star Trek people, Klingon, Vulcan and more!

After a dinner of Papa John’s pizza we relax to some TV and well-deserved sleep!

Parkinson's Unity Walk Video!

Central Park Unity Walk!

We're off to New York City for the 16th Parkinson's Unity Walk.
It is the largest grassroots event raising Parkinson's awareness and funds to find a cure, and Terry and I have registered! We're more used to slipping into a time machine than a pair of walking shoes, but we're going to give it a try! Terry is excited about meeting some folks she's met online, and aside from the MJFF Round Table Discussions we've attended, this will be the first large gathering of Parkinson's interests that we've been to. Every time leap is different, and this one is no exception. There will be stories to blog about, I'm sure. -But that will come, -in the future! :)

Vulcan Events

We have been invited to attend this event in Tampa, Florida! Christopher Lloyd will be the featured guest, and it will be great to see him again. The BTTF.com DeLorean Time Machine will be on display and we will be raising awareness and funding for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research. Come have your photo taken in the drivers seat! The limited edition 'Back to the Future 25th Anniversary' posters will be available for autographs too!

Celebration Exotic Car Festival

We're excited about attending this upcoming festival. This year it is benefiting the Special Olympics and there will be several new movie cars including the Michael Keaton Batmobile!
The car show part of the festival is free, so come and enjoy!