HankStrong

Low cost airlines are funny. It really depends on who you are to determine what you think of them. My niece flies everywhere and only flies low-cost airlines. She doesn't seem to mind in the slightest that she flies highly inconvenient places at inconvenient times in bad seats. She'll fly with 3 stops. She'll fly in a seat outside the toilet in the middle of the row. Of course she lives at home, she's 21, she's "bohemian" (that's her quote, which is in response to me calling her a little, dirty hippie), and she works for her dad making time less important. Allegiant, Avelo, Breeze, Frontier, Spirit, RyanAir, easyjet, it doesn't matter. She does them all. Scratch that for me. Give me nonstop, major airlines all day and I'm picking my seat.

That's exactly what I thought. WOW, that dust.

I have seen no trains, but I've seen the lights on a few times over the past few days

I've heard that I'm all-around way too large for it. I wear a 38"-40" waist depending on the pants. On another note, I had a hard time getting my feet into the Mummy ride. My body fit, but my feet did not. I wear a size 13 shoe, so I'm not Shaq or anything. A very skinny man with bigger feet couldn't ride it either and we both got the boot. My wife and friends said I didn't miss much. ETA: the bar closed, but the worker said my feet weren't flat on the floor. I tried to move them and there just wasn't anywhere to move them. She was shining a flashlight down there, but I couldn't really see anything. She made me get out. I'm not sure what happened. I'm a big person, but not a rolly-polly person.

You guys are going to be shocked when you see 20 port-a-potties show up on site. Mark my words!

Time flies. I just checked and in March it will be 15 years for me, too. As this becomes more likely I am really going to miss him. He'd shoot me DMs every now and then when something fired him up and we'd chat until he came back down. Even though we often agreed in opinion, I'd still get on his case for his methods which meant our agreement became a partial disagreeent. That didn't mean I didn't enjoy everything he contributed. A true internet Orlando historian is hard to find.

I hope so too.

How is the port-o-potty situation? Do we have confirmed sightings yet?

I know old Spense would huff off and take a few days off here and there when he got worked up, but I do seriously hope he's ok. Maybe ditching this forum was his New Year's Resolution? He hasn't even logged on since the last couple days in 2022. I'd say I tended to agree with him more than a lot of folks (although, I still detest injecting politics from either side into every thread) but that dude knows his history and I've learned so much from him.

Yeah. I was being generous for the people that always claim to be super fast and saying "roughly 4 hours" for them. I've done speed runs in my younger days where I only stopped for gas, peed in widemouthed Gatorade bottles, and went a wee bit ()over the speed limit. That's really abnormal and not something you should ever factor in for normal travel. I did Orlando to DC in less than 11.5 hours once as a younger man and Louisville to Dallas in about the same amount of time. Those were serious speed runs. Literally only stopping for gas and getting immediately back on the road. The Dallas trip my gf at the time got in the backseat of the car, fell asleep, I shook her awake at a gas station to get up and pee, and she fell back asleep back at the car. She didn't even but barely remember the pee break and the trip was instantaneous for her. That Chevy Cavalier wasn't luxurious, but it got near 40mpg on the highway and had a 15 gallon tank. I could easily go 500 miles on a tank without pushing it and almost 600 miles if I pushed it. Those were the days. I slept all afternoon and she packed the car, we left about 9pm and arrived near sunrise. Not being that boy anymore, I'm taking the train every time.

It would be nice if (in my lifetime) there was a circular loop from Miami to Orlando to Tampa to Naples to Miami that someone could take.

Interesting note on someone completely unlike you. I had a conversation with a guy I know the other day who said BL trains are just about useless. There is no one in either Miami or Orlando that will take a train when they could just drive it. First, that's not true at all just because he believes it. Second, it's probably not going to become the #1 way to travel between the two cities, but it will make a difference. It's roughly 4 hours from MCO to MIA on a normal day. The train is supposed to take just over 3 hours and you should save an hour each way. Even if it takes 4 hours and there is no difference on time, there is a difference in experience. You don't have to drive. You don't have to fight traffic. You don't have to pay $30 in tolls. You don't have to buy $50-$100 in gas. You don't have to put 450 miles of wear on your car. Some people's daily driver is limited (in trust) to local commutes and they would never drive it out of town voluntarily, so they rent a vehicle if they travel by car. It opens up travel from MCO, MIA, FLL, and PBI. That is a lot of options. It opens up cruising from Orlando to the Port of Miami & Port Everglades, instead of just Port Canaveral. Not to mention when the Tampa leg opens and if they really do a leg to Jax.

We've all been speculating for about a year now. There are 3 rumors (at least that I've read) guessing what it might be: Ghost kitchens (hopefully rotating) or basically food trucks minus the truck part An outdoor collaboration with local breweries for beer where you could sit outside (like Hourglass Brewing provided at the old location) and drink with food coming out to you from F&D A pickup only location where you could just drive up and grab To-Go options I hope you were talking about the F&D news you quoted and not the Shell station. I know nothing about the Shell except I see it when I go to La Fiesta.

I hate that this happens, but I appreciate the headline being correct. Nevermind. The text in the LINK is correct. The headline is wrong. 2-people-dead-after-car-collides-into-brightline-train-in-delray-beach is what the link says. That's correct. 2 people killed after their SUV is struck by Brightline train in Delray Beach is what the headline says. That's incorrect. The train is on a fixed track and cannot go anywhere else. It didn't skip the tracks and jump into traffic attacking the SUV. The SUV knew where the train was and went anyway. Nearly all* train incidents are not the fault of the train or the conductor or the tracks. Very rarely it's a signaling error. Usually, they are the fault of a person, cyclist, or driver who hits the train. It doesn't matter that the train wins 100% of the time, it's the other person's fault. *Of course there is a massive incident in Eastern Ohio right now that disagrees in a big way.

A couple of weeks ago I saw a guy on a bobcat out there, but I haven't seen a lot of action.

I'm going to take wild guess and assume a multi-year worldwide pandemic slowed the pace a little. I wouldn't know, but that's a reasonable guess.

On this job, I think you are very wrong.

Never heard of it.

Those pavers have been 1/2 pulled up for 6 months now.

I should add that the one occasion when I waited about 30 minutes in the Pre-Check & scanning line, the main lines were well over an hour or more. I still came out way ahead.

I have Global Entry (which includes Pre-Check by default) and my sister had a trial period of Clear. Clear was interesting because it's only advantage over Pre-Check was that you get to the actual security part faster. You do the biometric part and walk straight to a scanner. With Pre-Check you get checked by a TSA agent and then walk straight to a scanner. My sister didn't see the value as her home airport out West isn't as busy. However, when we flew out together she beat me by a long shot through security. So much time she had time to take the Buddy Train over and order coffee before my wife & I got through. I have only flown about a half dozen times in the last year, but all but one occasion I had to actually wait in a line at Pre-Check. Prior to COVID I had never waited more than 2 or 3 people. A few weeks ago I waited for 20+ minutes to get to the agent and another 10+ minutes to be scanned. Oddly, at MCO I haven't done any scanning except the metal detector since COVID. I haven't been in the giant x-ray spininator2000XL since. Are they closed? I can't emphasize enough how nice it is to come home to America after an exhausting overseas flight and see Global Entry kiosks. You just walk up, press some buttons, answer a couple of questions, walk up and hand the receipt to the agent, and you are done in a couple of minutes. The rest of the people are in lines hundreds of people deep forever. It doesn't make your bags come faster, but it certainly does make it so much nicer.

Technically you pay for the TSA with the 9/11 fee on every airline ticket. However, the question of who allots that money is something I don't know. I did a quick Google search and didn't see the answer. If you need more TSA agents does the airport, the airlines, or the gov't say they are needed and release the money? When Pre-Check & Clear were less popular at least you had those options. I find myself waiting in those lines more and more these days. Although, that sweet, sweet feeling of landing from abroad and using Global Entry to scoot through customs with almost no line whatsoever is still a perk worth its weight in gold.

It just feels so crowded every time I fly. So, so crowded. That's not a compliment to the airport.