Day 6 - Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2010

With a little (no a lot of) saddnes I must report this is our last blog from sunny Florida. Wednesday is here and it is our last full day in Orlando. I went to part of one class today – I read the time wrong and had to leave early, my class was “Developing a Line-of-Duty Death PIO Protocol”.

Today we went to Sea World. We took a shuttle from the hotel to Sea World and arrived there 10 minutes or less later. Sea World is a blast. Noah loved the Journey to Atlantis ride. First time was no wait, second time we rode it later in the afternoon the sign said we had a 30 minute wait; 10 minutes later we were boarded and ready to go. Noah and Rita were in the front row and got soaked. Ha Ha, they were wet for the rest of the day!

Rita and I went on the roller coaster Kraken and had a great time. We also rode the new coaster Manta twice. Neither time had a wait, hopped right on the ride. That is SO much fun! We also watched the Sea Lion & Otter Stadium show, Dolphin show and Shamu. Shamu was a little disappointing; they don’t have the trainers swimming with the whales anymore. The show was still a lot of fun, but…..

We also ate at the Sharks Underwater Grill. This is the high-end restaurant at Sea World. Last time we were here (6 years ago I think) I really wanted to go but it wasn’t in our budget. This time around I planned it out! The food was just great and the service was outstanding!

We walked out at 6:00 pm or so and saw an I-Ride heading our way. On we went, it got packed at the next stop and we were off the bus 10 minutes later and back in the room ordering some food from Flippers. None of us wanted to anyplace, didn’t want to eat at the hotel restaurant because the service sucked so bad.

Noah and I went for our last night swim in the pool and Rita hit they bed and fell asleep very quickly I assume. Noah and I were back in the room about 10:10 pm and I plan on being asleep by 11:00 pm tonight. And for those of you asking, "Yes"; Noah did his homework. Now for a couple of photos....Sorry, we have everything packed up and Rita is sleeping and darned if I am gonig to wake her up to try and find the camera - sorry gang. But, check our Facebook pages for photos late this weekend. I will try to send out a wrap up blog Thursday evening - if our house is still standing.

Scott

Day 5 - Tuesday, Oct. 26, 2010

After a long day on Monday today was a partial relaxing day. Today I only attended one class, "Career Killers for Police Chiefs: Avoiding Costly Mistakes".

I had most of the late morning, afternoon, evening with my wonderful family - Rita and Noah (of course you know the girls and their respective men were unable to join us). Rita and I had a late breakfast. We then hopped on the I-Ride (with Noah) and went to the conference center and walked around a bit. We had to stop at the Lexis-Nexis booth to pick up our invites to their vendor party later in the evening. I also wanted them to see an illusionist at this booth. Noah went up with him on his "stage" and was somewhat amazed. He used my ring and put it in a small purse and hooked it onto a clip in someones pocket among many other things that were very cool to watch.

We then went back to the I-Ride and went up the street about 1/2 mile to Air Orlando or something like that for Rita and Noah to take their helicopter ride. They had a blast! See a photo or two below. Back to the I-Ride and to the hotel. We all went swimming for a while. Then Noah and I played mini-golf and foosball then went swimming again and Rita took a well deserved nap. We found a pizza place that delivers and ordered pizza and wings for dinner. Then Rita and I headed out for our "date night". Noah was suppose to do some homework, but he said he fell asleep then forgot to do his homework. Guess what he is doing tomorrow when we get home from Sea World?

Around 5:45 pm Rita and I left to catch the I-Ride to stop 22 and go to Tommy Bahama's for our Lexis-Nexis vendor party. It started at 4 pm and ended at 7 pm - glad we showed up late. We still got cool light up glasses, drank free beer and booze (they made the best Mojito) and a killer Captain and diet, and when we left, we got a free schwag bag. All the free booze and food you could drink and eat. It was wall-to-wall people. There we talked with a few chiefs and people from WI, met the Sacramento, CA, Galena, IL and Fremont, IL chiefs. Had a good time talking about the Packers with all of them and Brett Favre - they are all interesting.

We moved on to our second vendor party sponsored by Harris, they were about 100 yards from the first place. We only had one drink here (the Captain and diet was really weak). There were hardly any people over there, but we did get a free t-shirt. We walked around the shops in the area looking at some very cute dresses. Then walked about three or four blocks to the third and final vendor party of the evening.

I2Cop sponsored this one in the Peabody hotel. Very fancy, elegant (and huge) hotel. Once we arrived at the location we registered, ordered our drinks and sat down. Stayed until after 8:00 pm and watched someone else win the IPad they were giving away. We left shortly after that.

Now we walked about 5 blocks to a Walgreens to pick up some stuff. One more block to the I-Ride stop. The folks waiting there said they had been waiting for about 15 minutes so we decided to give it 10 minutes or so. We struck up a conversation with a young couple from England for 10 minutes or so. They are driving to Fort Lauderdale on Friday for a 7-day cruise. He is a little scared about driving on the right side of the road! While we were talking to them a family (Grandma, mom and child) were there as well. The little boy, 7 years old or so, came over to us and said he was from Germany. We excitedly told him he was the first person we met from Germany this week and let them know we were proud Cheese Heads. Very cute.

Well, the green line I-Ride bus came and said the Red line (the one we wanted) was only 5-10 minutes behind. We waited. The couple from England thanked us saying they would have gotten on the bus and would have had to walk from Sea World to the hotel - which they said wasn't a bad walk. The bus came and we finally got on the bus. Well, we started talking with the couple from England, who happened to be staying at our hotel and completely missed our bus stop. The young England girl said something and I quickly told the driver we forgot to pull the cord for the stop and asked him to stop. He did - Thank you Lord! It was really very funny.

Once back, Noah was pretending to be asleep. Then we went to the pool (the one by the hot tub) and it was like 100 degrees. We swam for a while and went to the hot tub which was like 108 degrees. Too hot to get in, but we soaked our feet with a bunch of other chief's from WI, NJ and OH. We talked for a while, went swimming for a while again then came back to the room so I could blog and get some sleep.

Well, that was the day for Team Gregory on Day 5 of our Orlando, FL trip. If you have been reading from the beginning you should get a prize, but you won't. Sorry, I wrote too much and Rita turned off the light and is near sleep, so there is no editing again this evening. Here are a couple of photos for you to enjoy.

Day 4 - Monday, Oct. 25, 2010

WOW, what a day. As we were just walking back to our room at 11:30 pm, I asked what Noah had for breakfast forgetting that he and I had a breakfast sandwich - thinking that was yesterday.

My day started at 7:00 am with my first class at 8:00 am. Today I attended; "Strategic Planning - Successful Implementation for the Smaller Agency", "What's Twitter? Do You Need Facebook? What Police Agencies Are Doing Using Social Media", and "Background Investigations: A Key Part of Hiring But Are We Doing Them Legally?"

Noah and Rita hooked up with Jeff, Marcy and Rachel and spent some time at Magic Kingdom today. I was not there, because I had to work and Rita is almost asleep already, so hopefully she can fill you in on their day today our last "wrap up" post after we get home. If Jeff or Marcy checks out the blog, maybe they can add to it too.

They arrived back at the hotel at about 6:40 pm, we then stood in line for our buses to take us to Universal. Our hotel had 10 coach style buses - the conference has 11 hotels. We arrived at Universal at about 7:15 pm. It was very cool, the buses dropped us off in the back so we got in the park right away. Some, but not all of the restaurants were open with a limited menu (all the food you can eat at no charge). They had beer and wine stations set up all over the place, all the beer, wine, bottled water and soda you can drink at no charge. Not all the rides/shows were open, but I don't think we would have had time to get to everything in 4 hours anyway. They really treated us (and about 15,000 other people) right.

Our bus left at 11:07 pm and we were back here at 11:30. And now, we are back to the beginning of my blog. Writers call that something, but I don't know what it is. I will be asleep 5 minutes after I hit "Publish Post". Sorry for any errors, this post had to go out without my editor's review.

Day 3 - Sunday, Oct. 24, 2010

I am continuing my Superstar status for Day 3. Wow, it is so late and I did so much, I hope I can share all that occurred today. My day started at 8 am, really 1 hour earlier, but my first class was at 8:00. I attended; "Murder in a Small Community: Multi-Agency Case Collaboration", "How to Train Officers That Police Chiefs Desire and Citizens Deserve", and "Shift Scheduling: Does Shift Length Matter?". Sure it may not sound like much, but each is about 2 hours in length.

I also spent time in the vendor area. This isn't a small vendor area (see one of the photos below). Rita and Noah both joined me because they both LOVE the SCHWAG (vendor give away crap). I had a blast and I think Rita and Noah did too.

We ate lunch in the vendor area - it was 5 star prices with 2 star quality. I had my last class at 3:30 pm that went until 4:45 or so. I was back to the room a little after 5:00 pm; the conference offers great shuttle service - not like the I-Ride Trolley which really sucks - but that may be a story for the last blog.

We were going to go to a steak place, but the Trolley sucks, as previously stated, so we ended up going to an Italian place close to the hotel. At first it was good - the service was great - but the food fought back later in the evening. We ended up throwing Noah's leftovers away, too scared to eat them.

By the time we arrived back we went to a Packer/Viking party sponsored by 3M and later by CrimeReports.com and UMA (can't remember what they are, but the vendor's name was Dave and I see him at every conference I attend). I say later, because 3M paid for the beer, food and room. The beer and food were gone by the end of the first quarter and CrimeReports.com and UMA stepped up and bought another half barrel.

Well, we spent the first half at the conference drinking some free tap beer!

We left at half time to enjoy some time in the hot tub and each other's company. As we were walking there we saw that there was only one person in the hot tub (Yippeeeee!). But, there were 8 people sitting around the hot tub talking. Weird. Three of them were from the UK that we met on Day 2, the others were family. Except for 3, that they befriended today that were from the UK. This place is full of them!! We thoroughly enjoyed talking with them and learning what they thought of their police, the US police and their thoughts on US politics. I let them buy me a beer, because Rita was taking so long to drink hers.

Back in the room watching the last of the game - crap what a good game. Hope we win. (Note: We Won!!) Anyway, thank you Julie and Dawn - at least I know someone is reading my posts! Here are a couple of photos from today.

Day 2 - Saturday, Oct. 23, 2010

Wow, day 2 and I am blogging again - I am a Superstar! I only had a part-time day today. I oriented myself with the conference area (it is huge) and had one class (Tired Cops: Strategies for Promoting Officer Safety by Managing Fatigue and Work Hours). Sounds exciting doesn't it? I won't bore you with more than that.

Rita speaking now - While Scott was doing that, Noah and I had breakfast at this place where the waiter sounded just like Donald Duck. Then we came back to play chess outside with huge chess pieces. OK. Now back to Scott.....

We had our confernce shuttle running today, so getting there and back wasn't an issue. At about noon we hopped in our rental car to head out of Orlando (isn't that what everyone does when they come here on holiday?) We were going to head to Ponce Inlet to a Mantatee cruise. But, last night we called to confirm because we didn't get our email tickets and they told us their boat is down for emergency service and closed until Tuesday. So, we headed to Tampa in hopes of seeing Lexi, but that didn't work either. :-( We did go to the Tampa Zoo, which was totally awsome (see a couple of the photos attached that Rita took. We bought a card reader just for you Dawn!

After a few hours at the zoo, Noah was feeling worse - he was getting a little ill on the way there. We decided to head home and stopped at the Flying J on I-4. They tried to overcharge me, but I did't let them. The bast(*%^s. Once we arrived back in Orlando we went to the Prime Outlet Mall at the north end of International Drive to see whats what up there. This is a very touristy area - like WI Dells. At the mall Noah bought a watch and almost bought a t-shirt, but took a photo of it instead and saved $12. Rita bought a spring coat because she was cold (it was 75 degrees).

We tried to find a grocery store, and found one, but it was tiny so we kept going and decided to stop at one about 1/2 mile from our hotel. So, we headed south on International Drive. Of course, the first block had a souvenir store (one of many on I-Drive). We bought a few souvenirs and Noah bought a t-shirt and I bought the card reader. Funny story here; I asked the guy if they had one and he told me it was $14.99. The sticker was $49.99. I told him $15 was more than what I wanted to spend, so he said how 'bout $10 - so I said "Ok".

The road was very, very busy for about 15 blocks then opened up, but we all thoroughly enjoyed the sights and sounds of Orlando. At one point we had a very hot Ford Mustang in front of us. They kept revving their engine, and I finally put our 4 cylinder PT Cruiser in neutral and revved my engine a little bit. I was very cool there for a second - NOT.

We found our grocery store, picked up a few items for breakfast and to snack on. The store was attached to a bar/restaurant and we ordered some food to go. So, it took longer and Rita found a pair of shoes to buy (again, is anyone surprised?) Still waiting for the food so we had a drink (2 for 1 special going up you know). Put $10 more of gas in the car, pick up a 6 pack of Stella and back to the room.

Time to relax, blog and get Noah in bed. Rita and I might hit the hot tub quick and take a long earned sleep. Again, thanks for reading and letting me share our adventures. Now, for a few of Rita's photos....