on’t have much to tell you for this one. Wasn’t the best start for me – got up at 4:30, bought donuts at 5am (and got the shit panhandled out of me by a Colonial Drive bum who kept asking for more – what, car keys next?). Then a long drive down to Bill’s where I got lost in Walt Woods. And then another long drive down to Tampa where the show was.

But we had the gold team in for setup, the old sweats who know how everything goes together. The layout was running in fifty minutes and we were just loitering for the show to start.

Problems with the new power feeds – the signal system is muffed up and will have to be retuned. So since the system was wonky, the kids wern’t really following it. And that meant that all our old favorites (tailgating, jackrabbiting and rail-skidding) were in full effect. One set of kiddies (brother and sister) seemed to think it was their layout and that they could back or run as rough as they could – they were just below the level of bootage. After an hour of watching all my reefer couplers (and my own psyche) get stressed, I was ready for a drink.

But yes, we held a good show and earned our gate.

Drive home was miserable. Two hours with on-off traffic before I could get into town. I don’t think I-4 has a working signaling system, either.

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