If you've been paying attention to my photo stream, you've probably noticed that we had a jam packed vacation. 8 days and 250 photos of Key West and Miami Beach.

Man, it was a great time. Jeff and Teresa took us down there as part of a giant celebration trip. Kari, Victor, and I got new jobs. Jeff and Kari graduated with bachelors and masters degrees. Vic got a house. Jeff and Teresa celebrated a 30th anniversary. It was a big year that deserved some celebration - and that, we did.

So, it's going to be nearly impossible, but I'll try to keep this as short as I possibly can.

Saturday

• Flew to Miami from Cedar Rapids with a stop in Chicago. GPSs totally work in airplanes, btw.

Sunday

• Drove to Key West. It was quite a cool …

So... Back to Kevi's wedding weekend. Friday after we got to Orlando, we checked into Hawthorne Suites, which rule btw. Kitchen, living room, 2 queen beds, an amazing free breakfast, open bar from 5:30-7:30 daily, free wifi, and a nice pool - all for only $90 a night.

So after checking in, Kevi gave us some pretty rad gifts. Kari and Amy got wine and Zach and I got branding irons for stamping steaks, etc. I might use it to stamp some of my woodworking things as well. He also gave us some nice grilling spices and such - I'm excited to try it all out.

Later, we went to rehearsal and dinner at Ohana's where we got more gifts. I got a bottle of Glenfiddich 12 year scotch and Zach got some Effen vodka. <3 Kevi. Dinner was …

I really hate to rain on someone's wedding, which I won't do. But I'm totally about to blow up about traveling to Kevi's wedding. Omg.

So first of all, Thursday, Zach, Amy, Kari, and I were scheduled to fly out of Des Moines around 5pm and show up in Orlando at 10:30pm. So we arrived at the DSM airport around 3:45 to check in, when we met an NWA employee named Betty. Imagine Betty as the bus driving Chris Farley in Billy Madison - only thinner, older, and more female. She was totally stressed out, mumbling things under her breath, and yelling at people. There was one point when her glasses were falling off her face and she had 2 phones - 1 on each ear. I completely missed a golden photo opportunity. So anyway, Betty informed us …

Whoops, I forgot to blog again.

So yeah, last week I was in Orlando for an RFID Conference. It was really nice. The resort I was staying at (Disney's Coronado Springs) was much better than I thought it'd be. I was sorta worried because...

1. I don't like Disney
2. I don't like kids

But, there really wasn't much disney parafanilia and there weren't many kids. Just a really nice resort that served good drinks and held a pretty incredible conference.

As far as the actual conference goes, I learned a ton. I saw some really nice applications, and I met some cool peeps who knew what they were doing. It's going to be exciting to implement a solution at Pioneer - which leads to a funny story. Every time I was talking to a …

Ok so, kevi totally changed everything in his life up again with a new place to live, new job, and new gf... Imagine that. In fact he still owes me a case of dewski for winning this bet...

how long were you at yellow book?
2 months
how long were you at the hospital?
3 months
how long were you at stamats?
1 year 4 months
ok, i'll bet you another case of mt dew, you quit your current job within 2 years
ok
haha
should i quit my job here at geolearning before april 7, 2007, i will give you one case of mt. dew
Derek R Brooks
Kevin E Switzer

So that said. We had a mini going away party at my house last wednesday. Fun time.

Then I somehow managed to let kevi talk me into helping him move to orlando. He sold it by saying …

ok. this is the most messed up, no-sense making trip ever. seriously, i am so baffled by it that i had to blog it, haha.

kevi's gf is flying up here from florida and kevi is picking her up from the airport. this is where normality stops.

from the airport, kevi and his gf are driving straight to florida. and by "straight to florida" i mean that they're stopping in texas to pick up kevi's mom, haha. then, once they get to florida, they're hanging out for 4-5 days. after that, kevi's mom is flying back to texas and kevi and his gf will drive back to des moines.

obviously this doesn't make a whole lot of sense so i tried to figure it out mathematically.

~700 mi - dsm to mt vernon
~1,140 mi - mt vernon to orlando
~1,400 mi …