Working from Florida

When we visit Florida, we rent a house and I convert one of the bedrooms into an office. Working from this office every day is very important to me. I need to prove to myself and my employer that I can be productive from Florida. This will encourage my employer to continue approving my trips to Florida. It will also help me make the argument that they should let me relocate to Florida someday and keep my current job.

I take this very seriously. My goal every year is to make it so my global colleagues have no idea that I am in Florida. As far as they know I am still in New York because I am providing the same level of dedication and effort while in Florida that I provide everyday.

While I work? The family plays. Video games, pool, club house, mini golf - whatever they want! Most years we get the annual Disney pass so they can go to Disney while I work, and I catch up with them in the evening.

I have a very important criteria for when we rent a house. I require the house to have a street facing bedroom with a palm tree in the front yard. While I am working all day, I want to look out the window and see Florida. This year is perhaps one of the best views I have ever had. The window looks out onto a garden of three palm trees and a variety of plants.

I usually like to see some kind of activity out the window: people walking their dogs, joggers, baby strollers, etc. There is some activity in the morning, but for the most part - the street is very quiet.

When we return back to dreary New York, I won't have the palm trees and blue skies. I like to set up a video camera and record several hours of video out the office window. Back in my office in New York I have a "digital window" where I loop the Florida shots and it is almost as if I work from a Florida office all year long!

Hollywood Studios: ABC Commissary Review

It has been years since we last ate at the ABC Commissary. We always found the menu too fancy (lacking pizza or hamburgers) for our kids, and way too crowded. You can imagine our surprise when we looked at the menu and found.... hamburgers and french fries! But not only kid fare, but some nice adult options too. We decided to give the ABC Commissary a try in hope it could be an air conditioned destination that would make everyone in the family happy.

The boys got a pile of kid burgers and fries. My wife got the BBQ burger and I got the ribs and chicken.

The kids burgers came with cheese, even though we asked for no cheese. Luckily it didn't melt, so, we were able to remove it. My wife gave her fries to the boys, ate half of the giant BBQ burger and said she was full. The ribs were fantastic. The half chicken was good, but, it is a lot of messy work to get chicken off the bone. Half way through the chicken I wished for some BBQ sauce or something to use with the chicken. Nevertheless, I would definitely get this again!

We also ordered the Olaf Cupcake: a chocolate cupcake with a marshmallow frosting topping. The chocolate cupcake had no chocolate flavor. All the flavor came from the delicious frosting. Unfortunately, the frosting is sweet and 'gets to you' by the end. A little more chocolate flavor would have been nice.

The best part of the experience was after our order, we sat down and they brought the food to us! The restaurant was not crowded at all - there was ample room between the tables. When we were done we could just walk away and they clean the tables for you.

When they delivered the food, they also delivered plastic silverware that looked like it was made with metal, wet ones to cleanup afterwards, and hard candy.

The cost (after our annual pass discount) was around $14 per person. If that sounds like a lot of money for dinner in Disney World? You may need to adjust your expectations because $14 is not a bad price for an adult dinner (teenage boys eat more than adults do).

Disney Springs: Deluxe Burger

We decided to see what the long lines were all about and eat dinner at Deluxe Burger in Disney Springs.

Deluxe Burger is a walk up counter service. After your order they bring the food to your table.
First thing you have to know: they keep selling burgers regardless of whether there is available tables. If the line is out the door? You may want to scope out a table first.
Cost was around $15 per person for large burgers, ample fries, and a drink.
The dinning area is rustic with additional seating on the porch (there is probably more seating outside than in).

We ordered our burgers "well" and they were a little dry, but that was fixed with some ketchup. I ordered the BBQ Burger that was topped with lettuce, bacon, onion rings, and BBQ sauce.

Conclusion: downtown Disney was filled with sit down restaurants and was sparse on affordable (affordable in Disney terms) family dinning options. For my family, Deluxe Burger is a welcomed addition to Disney Springs.

Bonanza MiniGolf on Rt 192

Bonanza is a mining themed mini golf on Rt 192 in Kissimme.

The theming of this miniature was excellent, but we visited after a rain shower and several of the holes were flooded.

 We got into the evening and the large flood lights attracted swarms of  bugs that attacked us.

 The bugs were so bad that we decided to skip some holes and end the game early.

 Therefore, I would recommend two things if you visit this miniature golf. (1) don't visit at night ad (2) don't visit after a rain storm.

You can watch us play a little of the game by clicking here.

Ohana Pineapple Drink

If you have ever visited the Polynesian Resort at Disney World you might have seen guests drinking from a pineapple.

We had to learn what the attraction was, so we ordered one.

It has two kinds of rum, fruit juice, and a ton of ice. The combination makes a very freshing and chilly fruit juice flavored beverage. My wife and I split one because they are very large. The perfect drink for a hot humid summer Florida say!

Squidlips Review

After our trip to Fishlips for dinner, we decided we had to try the original: Squidlips.

There are several squidlips to choose from in the Melbourne area. We picked the one right off route 1A1. This is a large restaurant with a big covered outside deck that was being remodeled during our trip.

 The deck connects to a long dock that extends out into the water.

You can feed the fish from the dock, which show up by the bucket load!

 

There were so many fish, you could have easily reached down and grabbed your dinner.

Humans aren't the only ones to realize that. We had a family of dolphins some up to the dock to get some dinner before swimming back out to the waters.

 

The restaurant itself was being remodeled, so, I can't be too critical of it. There is some necessary updates, and it appears those are getting addressed. The inside of the restaurant has two "wings", one with a bar and one that is just dinning room. The bar had a good crowd in it. Our area was completely empty.

 We thought it odd they couldn't make a mudslide drink, nor did they have salsa and chips (two staples).  I ordered the clamboat platter that came with fries.

 

My wife ordered the shrimp

 

Both meals were excellent. The waitress was excellent. The view was excellent. I would enjoy returning to Squidlips someday after they get finished with the construction.

Cocoa Beach Pier

We spent an evening at the Cocoa Beach Pier

 The pier stretches a long ways into the ocean and is filled with restaurants, bars, and shops.

The beach area has six sand volleyball courts and is watched over by life guards (although we arrived at 5:30 and the life guards had left even though there remained plenty of people on the beach).

The surf is different at this part of the ocean versus the ocean in front of our condo. At our condo, the beach slopes deeply quickly, causing the waves to break around fifteen feet out. At this part of the beach it is much more shallow. You could be thirty feet out into the surf and you aren't at knee deep. That means the waves break way early and then roll up onto the shore.

The long wave breaks were enjoyed by the surfers. There were dozens of them around the pier trying to catch really good waves.

 

The pier itself has bars, restaurants, and a gift shop. There is also an arcade, although most of the games in the arcade were broken. There are plenty of places to sit at tables on the pier to dine, or benches to sit at to watch the surf. If you take the pier all the way to the end, you'll find the outside tiki bar.

 

 

We decided to eat dinner at Pelicans and got a great window seat overlooking the water. My wife ordered the shrimp skewers, which came with "sidewinder" French fries.

I ordered a cheeseburger with bacon and a fried egg on it.

 The boys had hamburger and fries and grilled cheese. The restaurant was very nice, but a little pricey. I get it - we are paying for the view, and the view was magnificent.

Fishlips Review

Our plan was to go to Squidlips for dinner on Monday, but we arrived and they were closed. So... we went to the next best thing: Fishlips in Port Canaveral.

Fishlips is a two story restaurant sitting right on the water's edge at the port. 

 I ordered a French Dip with potato chips. The sandwhich had cheese melted over the over the meat, which is an oddity I'll never understand - but it was fine. It came with enough Au Jus for half the sandwhich. That aside, it was very filling and very good.

 My wife ordered coconut shrimp with fries and had them add a crab cake to it. This was her first ever crab cake and she described it as being very similar to tuna fish.

 For desert we ordered the bread pudding. The desert was supposed to have been made with rum, but I detected zero rum in the desert. Honestly, the desert was underwhelming. It was some crouton like pieces of bread pudding with a large scoop of vanilla ice cream, and then caramel and walnuts over the top.

The meal was OK, just nothing great. The  best part, I suppose, was the fantastic view of the port (with the sand recycling facility across the water). If I were to do this meal again? I would pick a different seaside restaurant. Perhaps Squidlips.

Sand Gets Everywhere

I have decided that I prefer pools to beaches. I prefer to look at a beach - I could look at waves crashing on the beach for hours and hours. But when it comes to recreation and play time? I prefer the clean smell of chlorine and red burning eyes to sand any day.

We have been taking the beach chairs to the shore and letting the waves run over our feet this week. That is a lot of fun. As the tide comes in, the warm waves start at my feet and work their way up to my knees. Before I know it the waves are at my waist! The sandchair is buried in the sand! And I have become part of the beach, buried as well.

It is time to leave and we take half the beach in our bathing suites and the other half of the beach stuck to our skin. Luckily, there are showers at the pool to wash the sand off. But all that does is just move the sand to other parts of my body.

Back at the condo I can shower to get the sand off. But every shower in the US has a water restricter built into it, which means all I get is a drizzle coming out of the shower head. The water pressure isn't enough to move the sand, much less take it off my body. And sand gets everyone - and in places I am sure it is not supposed to be!

Even after scrubbing and scrubbing to get all the sand off, I still fill itchy as if there remains sand on me. For the night and into the next day, I continue to find sand in the oddest places that I know for a fact that I cleaned. The itching is probably justified - do you know how dirty sea water is? Dead fish, fish poop, crabs, rotting sea weed, and who knows what else might be bathing you. Sea shells that litter the beach are the dead remains of sea creatures. Sitting in the sand at the beach is not very sanitary.

I don't like sand. I know that without sand there would be no beach, but the sand takes away the fun of going to the beach.

I think I'm going to stay a pool boy. I'll watch the beach. I might even walk on the beach. But my goal is to make sure nothing more than the bottoms of my feet ever get sandy. You'll find me at the pool.

Coconuts on the Beach Review

We had lunch at Coconuts on the Beach on Cocoa Beach.

Coconuts on the Beach is literally right on the beach. If you step off the deck we were on you were walking on sand. There was a constant flow of people heading to and from the beach passing by the deck. The restaurant offers showers along the side of the building, so, it was a popular stop for people washing off sand before heading back to their car.

 At first it was a little odd to see a waitress in a bikini head out to the beach to deliver drinks, and the security guard (bouncer) walking around in a bathing suit... but we were really on the beach. And people were coming up on the deck to order a drink at the bar or a snack and then heading right back out to the ocean.

 The beach in front of our condo is, for the most part, deserted. There is rarely anyone one it. So, it was a departure for us to see all the people on Cocoa Beach It reminded me of Myrtle Beach in South Carolina with wall to wall people.

It was lunch, so, we ordered fairly tame food. I ordered a grilled chicken Caesar salad, my wife ordered the chicken Caesar wrap, and the boys had hamburgers and fries. Everything arrived quickly and was very good.

It was ninety-five degrees in the afternoon, and even with the slight ocean breeze the heat was oppressive. My oldest son abandoned us to go inside the restaurant where it was air conditioned.  We stayed outside and enjoyed the beach scenes before finally leaving.

I thought Coconuts on the Beach was excellent and I wouldn't hesitate to return. I might suggest returning on a slightly cooler day, but return nonetheless.

Exploration Tower at Port Canaveral

We visited the Exploration Tower at Port Canaveral for the purpose of getting an excellent view of the cruise ships leaving port. I had incorrectly read the cost of admittance was $2.50. It was $6.50, which is a total rip off considering how small the tower actually is.

There are six floors and an observation deck on the seventh floor. Each floor provides an excellent view of the port. 

The first floor is the gift shop. Second floor talks about history of the area. Third floor shows a 20 minute movie about the port. 

It also has a surf board photo op

Fourth floor is just for meetings. Fifth talks about the boats in the harbor.  It has a simulator that allows you to try your luck at navigating the port.

The tiny sixth floor talks about NASA. But the real reason we went was for the seventh floor: the observation deck.  From the observation deck you can see NASA off in the distance and I am told it is one of the best places to see a rocket launch. You can see the beaches southward down the coast. And you can see the entire port.

We watched two massive cruise ships leave port and go out to sea. One of the ships was the Oasis of the Seas, the largest cruise ship in the world! It is five times larger than the Titanic was. There are cruise ships leaving the port every day (one to three of them) and they usually leave between 4pm and 5pm. 

The tower is small and there isn't much to do. The tower's main focus is to promote tourism and there is evidence of corporate sponsorship around the building. I could understand if window space might be a premium during rocket launches (which do not happen very often), but we were the only people at the tower.  Therefore I do not understand why it is so expensive to visit the tower.  

I do not recommend the Exploration Tower. If you want to see a cruise ship up close and leaving the port? Just go to one of the many bars and restaurants along the port's shore. Drive past Exploration Tower and keep going to the water's edge and you'll see an entire line of restaurants.

My Florida Office 2017

Our exploration of Florida is to see what it would be like to live here, not just vacation here. I work, pay bills,  grocery shop, do laundry,  deal with pests, do light house repairs, and many of the things we would have to do if we lived in Florida.

An important aspect for me (since I work from home) is what I see when I look up from my computer screen and look out the window.

I am expected to put in a full day's worth of work whether I am poolside, on the balcony, or wherever. My work is demanding and I need to be at the top of my game. At times, work is stressful. Inbetween the demands and the stress, I get moments of relaxing peace when I can gaze out the window.

Where ever we rent, I like to take one of the rooms and convert it into my office.

 I try to set things up so that when I look out the window I see Florida. 2017 was the best because I looked out my office window to a garden with three palm frees and flowering plants.

Now that we are on the east coast, I look up from my desk and I see the ocean.

 

Some people who lack work discipline would be too distracted and would rather lay on the beach instead of take that ringing phone call. I guess I'm different. I am driven. And I find these scenes and experiences engages me and I am actually more productive during the Florida trips. What would you rather be? Stuck in a cubical maze lit by failing florescent lights? Or have your office lit by Florida sun shine?