Didn’t I tell you I had hours of classic car footage?  Well, I do.  So here is another 5 minute clip from my trip to Daytona Beach on November 28. The sun was so bright that day and the cars so shiny that I scorched my retinas!

Mrs. Howell and I went to Sea World on July 4th. Here is a video that runs 6:40 made up of clips of everything we saw that day. And yes, it was crowded.

Topless woman says God told her to direct traffic. This is just one in a series of “only in Florida” type stories. I lived in Columbus, Ohio for 35 years and we rarely got a great story like this one. This story courtesy of the Orlando Sentinel.

It looks like some theme park visitors got a little more than they bargained for in the first quarter of 2008. This snippet from the Orlando Sentinel,

…a 50-year-old man who said he injured his neck and spine on the Mach V ride at Wet ‘n Wild in January; a 28-year-old woman who suffered a seizure after riding The Incredible Hulk Coaster at Universal Orlando’s Islands of Adventure in February; and a 39-year-old man who had a seizure after riding Big Thunder Mountain at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom in March.

No serious injuries were reported during the quarter at Busch Gardens or Adventure Island in Tampa, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, DisneyQuest, Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon, SeaWorld Orlando, Discovery Cove or Universal Studios.

That’s good because Mrs. Howell and I are scheduled to be at Busch Gardens this weekend.

What does it say about the world we live in and the people we live with when someone gets punched out in line for the teacup ride at Disney World? There’s been a story in the local news and a courtroom trial here regarding a woman who allegedly punched another woman at Disney. This excerpt is from an Orlando Sentinel story.

Lori Tamplin and her daughter Darby, 10, both of Louisiana, told the jury in Orlando that they saw Victoria Walker, 51, repeatedly punch Aimee Krause, 35, in the head at Disney’s Mad Tea Party ride.

Jurors also watched the videotaped testimony of Ashley Mayeux, also of Louisiana, who was unable to attend the trial.

“Victoria Walker had Aimee by the ponytail and had taken her head and was slamming it on the side of the teacup,” Mayeux said in the video. Walker, of Anniston, Ala., has been charged with aggravated battery and battery.

This is turning out to be a “she said” “she said” type of case. They offered Walker a plea deal which she turned down. Now if she’s convicted, she’ll get up to 16 years hard time. If she’s convicted I predict there will be cries of racism.

When I came home from work last Friday one of the top stories on the NBC Nightly News said the space shuttle Columbia could have been saved. The story said that NASA could rush the shuttle Atlantis into space as a rescue ship, transfer the Columbia crew to the rescue ship, and return safely to earth.

I knew that a rescue like this was possible, but dangerous. The TV
report made it sound almost routine. Well, it turns out to be NOT very
likely.

From an Orlando Sentinel report:

“It’s nice to say we would have done something,”
former shuttle commander Rick Searfoss said, “but you get killed in
this business when you wing things like that.”

It’s easy to slip into these kind of thought experiments about what ‘could have’ been done to save the Columbia crew. There are always things that are possible. But that’s not the same as ’safe’.