Fort Lauderdale

The Flamingos on the roof of this hotel van kind of demonstrate the subtlety that is prevalent in Florida, at least the tiny part I've been in .
I'm actually here:

About seven blocks from the port.

The flights out here were about the smoothest and most peaceful I've been on in years. Mellow people, arriving early on both flights, TSA actually quite easy to get through, wow!

Well, the peaceful nature won't be carrying through on this trip. I've met most of the people I'm traveling with. In addition to my cousin, and Glen Worrell, who is now a very old man (I was a classmate of his oldest son in the gifted classes I was in during elementary and Jr. High back in the last millenium), there are some seemingly heavy drinkers and a rich guy. I'm not sure what to make of all this.

The first place several of us went to was "Wine Mart," which is sort of like a Costco for mostly wine. I'm not kidding. It's not Costco size quite, but about the size of a supermarket, with thousands of varieties of wines, some liquors and associated, and about four soft drink-type refrigerators used as cigar humidors. I counted 27 types of corkscrews, seven different attachments to put on the top of a wine bottle to make it pour better (?), and oh I don't know what else.

The sales guy seems to be a sort of Somalier. Karen and her hubby were trying to buy a case of different wines for the next two weeks, and he was happy to make suggestions. "Would you like more 'vanilla' or more 'apple'? Would you like more smoothness, or a bit of character? For Christmas, I served eighteen different wines at my house. This is the boujelais that I prefer."

Me, I know nothing about wine. I really wish I had brought my camera though, just because of the scope of this place. I really never knew that there were so many wines in the world.

But then on to dinner, meeting Uncle Joe and Keith. Who Joe is the uncle to, I'm unclear, but Keith is one of his daughter's husbands, and they like to travel all over the world on cruise ships. Joe is apparently "comfortable," owning something like seven companies, and for Christmas, he gave each of his children $4k each.

I don't know these people, and haven't seen Glen in several years, so I'm trying to keep my mouth shut mostly. Fortunately, I don't really have to say anything. All I have to do is add occasionally punctuation to the conversation. Still, Karen seems worried that I'm so quiet. Oh, there's no need for me to tell stories:

Joe and Keith have recently returned from a cruise to Argentina (and some other places) and spent most of the dinner (lubricated with Bourbon) telling a story about how, just for the hell of it, they decided to pretend that Joe was a diplomat and Keith was his security. They swear that this is true, but Keith carried a satchel that "could" have contained a weapon, they made demands including a wheelchair and to go through diplomatic passport control, etc. etc. and going into Argentina, they were taken seriously.

Then there are the detailed stories about which BBQ style is better (western, Kansas, southern, South American; who knows?) the joys of grass-fed versus corn-fed beef (this would be Argentinian vs. Omaha), which of about six kinds of bourbon I've never heard of works with which BBQ, and most incredibly, some suspicion that Karen is running a sex tour, apparently created by Joe's daughters. Really, no offense intended, but of all of the people in the world that I would NOT want to have an orgy with, this group is pretty close, if not at, the top of the list.

And with that unpleasant thought, I need to get some sleep.