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A visit to sunny Florida...

 
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timecruncher



Age: 73
Joined: 23 Dec 2008
Posts: 456
Location: Louisville, Kentucky

PostPosted: Mon Apr 25, 2011 8:45 pm    Post subject: A visit to sunny Florida... Reply with quote

The old timecruncher, along with a lot of other timecrunchers, attended the Trapeze Software User Conference last week down in toney Boca Raton. Didn't get out to ride Tri Rail, which I really wanted to experience, but I did get to see a few buses.

Chartered Van Hools were used to run shuttles from FLL to the conference site, and while not brand-new, these things didn't look too bad inside or out:



Even the host agency couldn't provide a "free" bus for us, so we rode Van Hools on the "Technical Tour" over to Palm Tran's northern division, where I was able to get a few photos and a close-up look at their equipment. Not suprising, they have all three sizes of Gillig low floor models:





The newest stuff has the dress-up kit, but are standard transit inside and out:





Every now and then, someone in transit marketing gets an idea. I could put this on the front of my car and wear it proudly. Alas, they didn't have any lying around -- it was from an ad campaign several years ago:



The three of us who attended from TARC included our IT Administrator for our paratransit and fixed-route scheduling software, our paratransit scheduler and yours truly, the fixed-route scheduler. When sessions were over, we dutifully headed out to visit restaurants reviewed by Guy Fieri on Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, finding two of the places with a little Googling.

A little off-topic, but --
The IT guy had driven down -- planning to head south to the Keys to do some bike-riding with his wife, and he graciously offered to provide transportation. The conference resort was a bit high-end for us (cheapest of seven restaurants had 'burgers for $14.00 -- yeesh), and from the dash of his '01 Dodge Caravan, you can see the kind of cars parked at the valet station:



Yeah, that is a Maserati 4-door 'family' sedan! That, the Rolls Royce and the Bently all cost more than my house did. There was money at this hotel!

We visited a dive raw bar called "The Whale's Rib" one night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJXeJH1GY7w

And a grass hut Cuban place called "Havana Hideout" the next night: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os-fk00pMm4&feature=related

The oysters I ate at the Whale's Rib tasted as if they had been swimming that morning and the Cuban fare at the Havana Hideout was worth the trip (and only ten bucks)! Both joints had beer cold enough to keep the typical Florida heat and humidity at bay.

Oh, and yes, I suppose I did learn some stuff about the next upgrade that I'll need to know in a month or two. No graphical scheduling here, no siree!

timecruncher
Schedulers give you the runs

The Cuban place has a plate called "Get what Guy Got" for $10.50. Two fish tacos, a Cuban sandwich and Konono. I don't even like palantains, and this dish is superb! Gotta eat it sitting at a picnic table under a palm tree with an ice-cold Yuengling. Ahhh... Cool
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