After lunch, we headed over the pool area’s community room in order to make “vacation pillows”. The girls picked out two pieces of fabric and then cut some fringe along the sides and tied to together. They stuffed the pillow and closed up the forth side.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at the pool. Where Abby had the quote of the day. They were getting ready to start “Pool-Side Karaoke” and she said, “When are they going to start singing so that we can judge them.” I’m already judging them by electing to participate in pool-side karaoke.

The evening was “Kids Night Out”. We took the girls back up to the community room where they had some pizza and then went out to the movies to see Nanny McPhee Returns. While they were out, we went out to eat at a local restaurant, CQ’s. Afterwards, we walked around the harbor before heading back to the resort to pick up the girls.

We woke up early and boarded Austin at the local kennel, getting there right as they opened at 8:00 a.m. and then we the road. The route was pretty simple: I-4 to I-95 out the north end of Florida and down the east coast of Georgia. The whole trip took us 4 1/2 hours. Not too bad.

We arrived and went to check out our room. While the girls played around the outside of the condo, Jennifer and I planned out the next four days from all the pamphlets the person at the front desk gave us.

Next, we spent the whole afternoon at the pool. It was a good sized pool with a slide the girls loved sliding down. The girls swam around while Jennifer found the bar and ordered a couple of margaritas for us and we just hung out at the pool relaxing.

It’s traditional that we eat pizza on Friday night. Looking around on the Internet, we couldn’t find a local joint that had good reviews. So, we headed to the Mellow Mushroom,which is a great pizza joint we know from Winter Park.

We ended the day with a campfire sing-a-long and marshmallow roast. The two sing-a-long leaders were dressed in 70’s style clothing and led us in various camping songs, which Jennifer seemed to know well from Girl Scout camping.

Another going back to school event is that Jennifer is going back to get her Bachelors in Interior Design at Seminole State College. She received her Associates Degree back when we started dating over twelve years ago and now that the girls are out of the house, she’s taking the opportunity to take a few classes.

Down below in the street, GameSpot had tents set up where people could get their first hands on Madden NFL 11. There was also a stage with a band playing. People were playing games trying to win Madden Gras t-shirts.

In the afternoon, it was my turn to get interviewed by our live USTREAM coverage of the event. There is a video of the recording and my part starts at 02:35:00. I gave a “shout out” to the server team back in Orlando who was still hard at work trying to make sure our servers wouldn’t melt down on launch night. I talked about various features on our server driven features and that was it. It went pretty quick, but I had a fun time doing it. Would love to start doing more media events like this in the future.

After a late lunch, the floats arrived and we got on board the last one in line. The football player guests we had, Marcus Allen, Deuce McAllister, and Marshall Faulk, were in the lead float. We rode on the float for several blocks, down Bourbon street, ending up in Jackson Square, where another huge stage had been constructed. The floats were loaded with boxes full of t-shirts, beads, cups, and koozies. We threw them out to the crowd as we rode down the parade route. It was awesome. Phillip Holt, the General Manager for EA – Tiburon said it best, “Riding a float and throwing beads down Bourbon Street needs to make your bucket list.”

Thanks to Seth Christie for the first photo above of all of us on the float handing out beads.

We told everyone to send money and we did a quick tally before heading out to IKEA. I settled on the Galant desk system which allows you to put together several pieces into a very sturdy desk. We added a couple of bookcases and some red paint and started to work. I’ve received many questions on “why red and not burnt orange”. While burnt orange would have been a great color, I do have to work in the office and I’m not sure I could stand such a bold color for that long. I tell myself that it’s Houston Astros “brick red” and that’s enough for me.

Jennifer spent all day Friday and Saturday painting and did a great job. Late Saturday, I started putting the Ikea furniture together and quickly the rest of the room came together. I would like to thank Jennifer for all the hard work she did in painting and also that she gave up her share of the office so that I can have my own space. It’s a great birthday present. I love you, Dear. Thank you.

Meanwhile, Emily and Izzy have been attending swim lessons for the past three weeks. Izzy has already “graduated” up one class. Although that isn’t saying much, for her age group. I think the different is whether or not they get their head wet. I can tell Emily has gotten a renewed confidence in the water. She used to not go anywhere without hanging onto my back. Now she’ll jump in and swim back to the ledge no problem. She didn’t have near as much confidence at the beginning of the summer when we were hopping down to Disney to go swimming in their pools.

We decided to just have a part at the house and invite some of the neighbors and Izzy’s classmates from pre-school. We didn’t have much of a turn out, only about a quarter of the kids that were in her class were able to make it, but Izzy didn’t seem to care. They had fun playing various games like Pin the Tail on the Donkey. We ordered some pizza and then had some cake. Izzy was all smiles, which she usually is. She is very excited about turning five and going to her sisters’ school next year. She can hardly wait.

It’s amazing how much a little bit of paint will help a house feel more “homey”. The house we bought last year had just the basics when it came to paint and fixtures. We had to put in all new mini-blinds and ceiling fans when we moved in. All the walls were painting a plain old builder’s-grade white. Now the house looks like someone actually lives in it now. Slowly we are transforming the house into our home. We are really loving our new house here in Oviedo.

I’ve been a fan of David Letterman since I was 13 years-old. Back in 1986 David Letterman’s 4th Anniversary special aired in place of Saturday Night Live. He was flying an airplane from New York to Miami and had the show on the plane with clips from previous episodes, as those types  of anniversary specials used to always have. From that moment, I was hooked. I would use our BetaMax in order to tape the show, which came on at 11:30 p.m., way past my bed time, and would watch it in the morning before school. For some reason his wacky humor really struck a nerve with me. I would write down his Top Ten Lists and would even try and write some of my own.

It’s now 24 years later and I’m still a Letterman fan. I don’t have as much time to watch it, but I have my DVR record every episode and try to at least watch the monologue in the morning.  I’ve never gone to see Letterman live in New York, though it is one of the things I’ve always wanted to do. I keep saying that I’m going to do it I even wrote to NBC for tickets way back in High School. There’s always a long waiting list and it’s never come to pass. I just hopped over to their web site and signed up for tickets, we’ll see if it happens. I guess I need to do this soon. Dave is now 63 years-old. Not sure how much longer he’s going to be doing it. His current contract runs out in August 2012.

This all leads to this past Thursday. It was a dream come true when the video game I’m working on, Madden NFL 11, was featured in a Top Ten list. Drew Brees was announced that day as our cover athlete to coincide with the start of the NFL Draft. So, he was in New York and our marketing department was able to get him on the show. I think it was a great coup to not only get him on the show, but have a Top Ten List which basically advertised our up-coming game. It was great to see Letterman holding up a box of the game before the Top Ten was read. Perhaps one of these days I’ll get there to see his show live.

On Saturday, EA paid for the whole company to go to Universal Studio. We could pick either park and then they were going to have a “picnic” lunch in the Universal CityWalk. We chose to go to the Islands of Adventure this time since we had never been there. Last time EA did this we chose the Universal Studios park because we thought the kids were too young for Islands. It turns out there was plenty of things for them to ride.

We started off in the Dr. Seuss area of the park, which had a few very tame rides, which the girls liked. We then headed over and saw the area where the new Harry Potter section of the park will be opening up in a couple of months. We split up so that Jennifer and I could take turns riding the Dueling Dragons roller coaster. It’s a couple of coasters which are intertwined where your feet are dangling free. It was pretty intense, several corkscrew 720 spins and a couple of full 360 loops. Both Jennifer and I were dizzy when we got off and it took us like 15 – 30 minutes to recover, but it was still fun.

When we got over into the Jurassic Park area, we decided to take the whole family on the River Adventure ride. The first part was pretty tame, just floating around looking at giant animatronic dinosaurs. Once you go into a building and start climbing way up into the air, it gets more intense. The last part of the ride has a giant T-Rex and you are heading right for it and then you drop. Needless to say Emily and Izzy weren’t too thrilled. Perhaps we should have warned them, but then we wouldn’t have gotten such a good picture as we were falling.

Overall, it was a great day at the park and we are thankful to once again be working for a company who will occasionally spring for such things.