Gators, Catholics, and Giulianis in Florida

After the ISI donor seminar in Ft. Lauderdale, my colleague Judy and I ventured into the Everglades to find some alligators. The easiest and quickest places was an alligator farm and small zoo at the Sawgrass Everglades Park. When we got there, it had just closed, but the shop was still open. One of the nice young ladies there brought out a small baby alligator for us to touch. It was maybe a foot long. Judy got a photo with it (which I'll try posting when I get back home). We did get some glimpses of gators popping their heads up and back under the water in the canals nearby.

After that adventure, we departed and I traveled across "Alligator Alley" to Naples, where I met up with the former ISI Membership Director and now a current ISI Campus Representative, Tom Harmon, who hosted an ISI soiree at Ave Maria University. Students at the soiree were interested in applying for the honors program, hosting an ISI lecture on campus, and possibly associating a campus group with ISI. It's a very conservative, Catholic school that will soon be moving to its permanent location later this year about 10 miles from the temporary campus in Naples. The new location will be in the new town: Ave Maria, Florida.

After the soiree, I traveld about 2 1/2 hours north to Tampa, where I crashed at my hotel. The next morning, Friday, February 16, I had lunch with three students at Florida College, a small Christian-based liberal arts college in Temple Terrace. ISI Campus Representative Joseph Bingham brought two other students to lunch to introduce them to ISI (his girlfriend and younger brother). By the end of the lunch, they were talking about the possibility of starting an ISI Group at Florida College, where they said most students were Christian and conservative – except for Joe, who leans libertarian.

Later that evening, I met up with former ISI Campus Representative at CU-Boulder, Ian Vanbuskirk, who is now an ISI alumnus living and working in Tampa. He's working hard and we got together for a happy hour meal in Tampa. It was good catching up. Ian tried to convince me why voting for Rudy Giuliani would still be considered a prudent choice for conservatives in 2008. I'm not so sure about that, but I heard him out. I'm still touting Brownback, I told him. If that ship goes down, my next guy is Newt. And I think with Newt, not only can Republicans win, but conservatives can as well. If both of those guys go down, I don't know who I'll vote for.

Well, enough contemplating that... my 8 days in Florida were now closing to a halt. It has been mostly in the 70s, slightly getting up to the 80s for a day or two. But it was cooling down in Tampa to 40s/50s at night, but beautiful during the day. Now it was time to head to Texas where the temperature looks to be about the same.