Ever dream of being within feet of a Bobcat, Cougar, or Tiger? At Big Cat Rescue all that separates you from these cats is a fence. At Big Cat Rescue, 100% of the donations go toward the feeding and upkeep on the sanctuary. All of the cats that are there have been taken in from circuses, people keeping these animals as pets, people breeding these cats for fur, etc.
The day tour is a hour and a half walk around the sanctuary. It is a guided tour where your guide will point out what the cat is, why it has their certain markings, and lots of facts about the cat.
Some of the cats you may get to see on this tour of the sanctuary are Ocelots, Cougars, Bobcats, Servals, Lynx, Tigers and Lions.
For children, there is a special tour on Saturdays at 10AM. It is a hour tour and is specifically for all kids ten and under.
Our guide was telling us that on the night tours you actually take flashlights out and walk around in the sanctuary to see the cats.
For a chance to get to see all of the cats, your best best would be the feeding tour. You get to watch the sanctuary keepers feed the cats, which means…the big cats will be out!
I would LOVE to go back and take a hour to do one of the photo tours. The entire place was amazing and all of the volunteers were very helpful!
Big Cat Rescue is located in Tampa, Florida. To find out more information or to donate, please visit bigcatrescue.org.
CFNews13.com (@CFNews13) held a tweetup right across the street from their downtown building.
One Eyed Jacks was a good location, but it seemed like the rain kept everyone away
(expect Rowan, she was prepared!)
It was nice to see Jen Cook with her producer hat on and News 13 reporters out and about.
The tweetup even made it on the ticker again!
About 15 minutes after walking in, I kindly had a camera shoved in my face. And yes, yours truly made it into the lovely CFNews13 Tweetup segment. Make sure to listen closely for the Casey Anthony shout out (don’t ask me what I was thinking).
Even though I had read about the Florida Conference for Women, I wasn’t 100% sure what to expect. I knew who was talking, what they were going to be talking about, and what time. But with it being my first conference ever, I was a little nervous.
The morning started with Barbara West (WFTV-ABC Orlando) and Alex Sink (FL CFO) welcoming everyone and Alex Sink hinting that she may be running for FL Governor (which we all know is true now).
Then the opening keynotes. Tory Johnson and Ariane de Bonvoision. Tory Johnson is the founder of Women for Hire and is on Good Morning America as the Workplace Contributor. From giving quotes like “Women think negate is the same thing as a root canal.” to three things we should all do in our daily lives: Self Promotion, Networking, Negotiation, made her keynote wonderful. Ariane de Bonvoisin is the founder of First30Days. Ariane is all about change. Positive change. With a quote from Plato, “Be kind, for everyone is fighting a hard battle.”, Ariane is very inspirational.
My 1st session of the day was “Actions Speak Louder Than Words”. We learned about non-verbal communication from an expert, Jan Hargrave. She has written books called “Let Me See Your Body Talk” and “Judge the Jury“. Her talk was amazing. Funny. Informational. Tale-tell signs. If I see you next time and ask you to hold your hand up..don’t be surprised!
Session number two was “The Tools of Change”. Keynote speaker Ariane de Bonvoisin ran this session. As I stated before, she is the queen of change. Ariane went through the 9 Tools for Change, which come from her book The First 30 Days.
1. People who are good at change are open-minded.
2. Change guarantee. From this change, something good will come.
3. People who are good at change are stronger. Everyone has a change muscle, which has a memory, which will get stronger as more changes come into your life.
4. People who are good at change do not get stuck in an emotional circle. People who are good at change allow themselves to be human. The emotion you’re resisting is ruining your life.
–Antidotes: Fear is faith, anytime of faith. Doubt is surrender. Impatience is endurance. Blame is responsibility. Shame is honor. Guilt is forgiveness, who and what are you forgiving for?
5. People who are good at change let go of resistance. We are all moving in the river called life. Some of us flow down the river and then cling to a rock, and others start flowing down the river and start rowing back upstream. Don’t worry! The river will take you in the right direction. “When you argue with reality, you only lose 100% of the time.”
6. People who are good at change know what they can control and what they can’t control. We can all control the words that we use, instead of being negative we can say, “What can I learn from this?” If you drop the story that you’ve been telling forever, you WILL get change.
7. People who are good at change know that there is something bigger going on. The answers are on the inside. We have the answers inside of us.
8. People who are good at change are not alone. You don’t show up naked to your change. We’ve all had changes, maybe even that SAME change. Ask yourself “Who is on your team?”. It probably isn’t your parents, spouse, friend. It’s going to be people that want to help you change. Who are your 3 go to people?
9. People who are good at change take action. We need inspiration, not information. Take care of yourself! SEED – Sleep, Exercise, Eat well, Drink water
As you can tell, we got a LOT of information in a very short hour session.
During lunch, we had another two great keynote speakers. Julie Stav who is a financial expert, whom just so happened to drop her pants at the end of her talk. And also the author of The Middle Place, Kelly Corrigan, talked about her life, her battles and then read us two chapters from her book. Any author that can right about battling cancer and also make someone laugh in the same sentence is amazing to me!
“What Happy Working Mothers Know” was my third and final session of the day. The moderator was Cathy Greenberg, who wrote the book “What Happy Working Mothers Know”. The panelists included: Lisa Hein (author, “I’m Doing the Best I Can!“), Jayne Rager Garcia de Valseca (speaker), and Renee Trudeau (author, “The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal“). All 4 of these women told stories about their lives. The hard times and the worst times. The one that sticks out the most is the one about Jayne’s life and husband (see video below).
We ended the day at the career fair with a windstorm (literally!) All day was wonderful. Had a tweetup with good friends Melanie (@modernmami) and Susan (@eggmarketing). And made friends with twitter-ers: Tara (@taralamberson), Kim (@momsatwork), Elsa (@elsaodette) and Elizabeth (@elizabethb).
Were you there? What sessions did you attend? Who was your favorite speaker? Are there any changes that you would make for next years Florida Conference for Women? Would you attend next years?
On Monday, May 4, 2009 (one day before Manta was opening for the public preview!) the Manta Fever VIP Preview happened.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, everyone that has a strong urge to fly like a manta and a strong stomach, you MUST get yourself to SeaWorld as fast as your wings can fly and get on Manta! It is an amazing ride like no other.
Now that I’m a pro at it, having done the ride 4 times that night, I can officially say — Manta is the BEST! I love all roller coasters in the Central Florida area, but NOTHING compares to the feeling of laying down and flying over SeaWorld!
Here is my video of that night which includes the SeaWorld President talking about Manta and the whole attraction and also video of the ride! Yes, the WHOLE ride! Here’s ALL you have to do to watch this video:
1. Put your computer on the ground (or somewhere where you will be able to see it from the ground.
2. Lay on the ground, on your stomach, and make sure to lock your feet into the leg harness.
In today’s Orlando Sentinel there is an article on higher fees for the state of Florida. I completely understand that fees need to be raised. It’s normal. Things happen.
But when you compare one thing that’s being raised & how much it’s being raised vs. another. It just doesn’t much sense. Law bidding citizens get hit harder than others.
Like this for example:
Renewing your driver’s license goes from $20 to $48, that’s a $28 difference vs. DUI admin fee that goes up from $115 to $130, only a $15 difference.
I know that between the two it’s not that big of an increase amount, but I just think it’s crap that someone that breaks the law gets an increase of less than something that every Florida driver HAS to do every so many years. You HAVE to renew your license. There is no way around it (okay there is, but then you’re just being bad!)
Am I crazy to think that the amounts just don’t seem to add up? Why? Can anyone tell me? I’d really like to know.
For the whole article, please visit Aaron Deslatte’s write up in the Orlando Sentinel.
Thursday, April 30, 2009 – @OrlandoTweetup and @OrlandoSentinel put on the second major tweetup for Orlando. I got to see friends again and then met quite a few new faces (even @JustinEdwards, whom doesn’t have a twitter face!)
About a hour into being there, @IAmGonzilla spotted @TomSorrells walk in and she immediately went over to chat. Great photo opp if I do say so myself.
I am quite a few days behind on my one picture a day (I have the pictures..just need to post), I have audio to edit and I have some pictures to go through from the Orlando Job Fair.
I spent all day/night in a Hospice room with my Grandpa. The last of my grandparents. One of the men in my life that would love to pick at you and yell at you, then turn around and do whatever he could for you.
Yes, I know life does not get put on hold when people get sick/are dying, but my “work” life has slowed down. Jeff and I will be at Bar Camp Orlando tomorrow and then meeting with some friends for dinner tomorrow night. Sunday is a full day at home (hopefully) and I will be doing nothing but work, work work.
As for my grandpa, I hope that he goes sooner rather than later. He has been in and out of Hospice and has had Hospice at his house for the past two and a half years. His kidneys have been failing and then amazingly, he has gotten kidney fuction back. I swear, both of my grandparents on my mom’s side could kick anyone’s ass in a game of death. They both were/have been such troopers, been through so much, and now Grandpa is ready. He is not my grandpa when I see him and I don’t want him to be like that. He would have been yelling at us to go home today and stop hanging around him all day. But hey, that’s him.
I know we all have to deal with death. But death….I am SO over you!
Angela and I arrived at Universal Studios around 4:00. I was quite sure there were going to be lots of people, but wow. I underestimated. The line was already zig-zagging back and forth at least 4 times and we were back by the ever-so-horrible Twister “ride”.
Around 5 they started letting people in. I must say, that’s the ONLY thing Universal did alright with. It wasn’t a free for all. They let in small groups at a time and everyone got to find their spots that way. Angela and I found quite a good spot close to the stage, so I laid out the towel and we had a seat. Oh no! Don’t do that! Security was making everyone stand….”MUST MAKE ROOM FOR EVERYONE!”
After 4 extra hours of standing around, yelling at someone for getting in front of us and our new friends (which included Lindsay — @littlehuff, who came all the way from Atlanta to see her 16th show of Kelly Clarkson!) and the parade to finish — 9:15 came around and Kelly came on.
She was amazing. High energy to ballads to just being someone that you would want to go hang with — the show was wonderful. After taking over 550 pictures in a hour (that might be my new record) and going through them to find the best ones — here are some.
Kelly did quite a few songs songs, which included: I Do Not Hook Up, My Life Would Suck Without You, All I Ever Wanted, Break Away, Miss Independent, Since U Been Gone, Behind These Hazel Eyes, Because of You, Beautiful Disaster (rock version), Addicted, How I Feel, Walk Away, Never Again.
As I said, show was great. But Universal is HORRIBLE! Getting out was the worst. They are so far below Disney standards it’s not even funny. Entrances CAN turn into exits. Everyone should not have to be shoved out of 6 little tiny turnstiles all the way over to the right. Barricades should have been taken down and employees should have been in the middle of the road keeping people moving. It doesn’t take a genius to figure this stuff out. I did this..I know it’s possible! Clearing a FULL park does NOT have to be a difficult thing.
Here are just a select few of what I took that night. The rest of them are in the gallery and also for sale in the store. I am working on doing a giveaway, so check back!
Jeff and I went on the last day of the show, Sunday, March 17th. We walked around for a bit looking at everything that there to be looked at. The best part was — since Jeff and I look “so young”, I guess none of the vendors thought that it was possible for us to be homeowners..so none of them bothered us with, “Would you like to see our wonderful, smart, excellent, awesome product that you can only buy at THIS home show for half price!”
About half way through, Jeff spotted Tom Sorrells at the WKMG area, so he stopped to talk him to about Twitter.
I remembered seeing that Louis Petrozza from Hell’s Kitchen was going to be there! Sure enough, we walked around the corner and there he was! I cut through all kinds of companies’ set ups and headed straight to where Petrozza was doing a cooking demo. We walked in when he was almost done with the cooking, but then he passed out the dish that he cooked. So I figured it was my opportunity to get some pictures of him — AND get one with him..which I DID!
A couple of week ago I decided that I was finally going to rent a camera lens. I started going through a couple of sites and came across the perfect first place for me to rent from. RentGlass.com. Not only were the prices very reasonable, along with the shipping, but I found out that they were located in Kissimmee, Florida (which is only about 15 minutes away from our house).
I sent a message from the website asking if it was possible to pick up a lens and got a response 25 minutes later stating that I could pick it up Monday-Friday. Thankfully it was Friday and I have the day off.
After searching through the website and trying to decide what lens I wanted to try first, I decided on the Canon EF-S 60mm f/2.8 Macro USM. Here is some information on this specific lens:
–Closest focusing distance is .65 feet
–Auto and Manuel Focus
–Maximum Aperture is 1:2:8 (Aperture = limiting the amount of light passing through a lens; hole, gap, or slit; larger the number the smaller the opening vs. smaller the number the larger the opening; Depth of field is larger when the number is smaller)
I placed my order, called my friend so she could go with me and went on the search for this place.
First of all, Google Maps gave me directions that took me, no joke, about 20 minutes out of the way. After driving around in a great big square, we finally made it to the plaza that it’s located in. Well, from there it got even crazier. There aren’t many offices/stores in the building, so there weren’t many signs. But after walking up some stairs and following the inside signs we made it. The office seemed neat and clean. Daniel, who e-mailed me back, was very nice. I signed my paper, was given the lens and the package to ship it back in. And off we went.
I spent the next few days taking pictures of really anything that was laying around the house and the office. From my cat to the filing cabinet. The lens was very quiet and quick to focus in automatic. Manuel focus may be a bit more “work”, but always seems to work a bit better no matter what lens you use (in my opinion).
The condition of the lens seemed near perfect. Didn’t really see any scratches or markings on it. Seemed to me that it was quite a new lens. The week rental cost me $21.00. Since I picked up the lens, it cost me a mandatory $5.00 to ship it back, even if I wanted to take it back. (Fine with me, I saved some gas!) With the rental, shipping and tax, the lens cost $27.82. I wish I would have had some more time with it. Had I had planned to go somewhere and take some pictures I would have definitely rented it longer to get some really great pictures. There is always next time.
Thank you to rentglass.com for a great lens and a wonderful first rental. I will most definitely use them again!
