days_unfolding

I've been impressed by the people of Orlando: the lines of people donating blood, the restaurants donating food to the families of the victims, etc. That jibes with my memory of Florida. I went down there to visit with my grandmother in Fort Lauderdale and then to drive down to Key West, and everyone with whom I talked was really nice. New Orleans is like that too; there's something to be said for the South.

So I did some research into Orlando. It's a cosmopolitan, LGBT-friendly, tech-friendly city that's relatively small and has a reasonable cost of living. Exactly what I'm looking for. The University of Central Florida hires librarians fairly often (although that might not be a good sign -;)), and I'm impressed by what I learned about the University. Rollins College interests me too. So I'm planning on taking a trip down there sometime and check the place out. (I was there with my mother a few years ago, but we basically went to the theme parks.)

Which brings me to the child snatched by the alligator. There's a raging battle going on online about whether the child's parents should have known that there might be alligators in the water. I remember the "No Swimming" signs, but I think that I would have assumed that they were because Disney didn't want the liability of people swimming, not because of alligators. I didn't realize that they couldn't keep alligators out. (OTOH, when I drove down to Key West, I stopped in a park to use the washroom, and there was an alligator sitting in a tiny little pond. I didn't bother him and he didn't bother me. If I had known how fast they can move, though, I might have been more scared.) Anyway, I think that Disney should make the danger of alligators more explicit. Though as someone said, everyone knows about it now.