Home Again, Home Again, Jiggety Jig!

The journey is officially complete, and the transition from the humidity of Florida to the familiar air of Colorado is finally settled. The flight and the drive home were singularly uneventful. Which is always a good thing!

Homeward Bound Under a Florida Sunrise

 

A quiet, hazy sunrise over the tarmac as ground crews prepare for the day's first departures.

A Launchpad for the Future

 

Dr. Alexander N. Cartwright:
President Cartwright detailing the $3.5 billion vision for the university’s next twenty years.

Orlando Interlude

 "I don't know about you," I said to Tim over a leisurely breakfast in the hotel, "but with all the dashing to-and-fro around Central Florida that we have already done this week—and the fact that we have the event tonight and have to fly early in the morning—I would be just as happy doing nothing today!"

A Day at the Resort

 While the cat's away, the dogs will definitely play. Lev and Neshama have been making the most of their stay at the Overland Pet Resort here in Denver, Colorado. It is always a relief to see them so active and engaged, trading the living room rug for a proper sprint across the yard.

Lev leads the charge across the artificial turf with Neshama keeping a watchful eye from the background.

Sarasota Sunsets and Family Reunions

 After a morning of academia and automation talk at the University of Central Florida, the scenery shifted from the blackboards of Orlando to the coastal charm of Sarasota. The day was a whirlwind of strategic meetings at the College of Sciences, but the evening offered a much-needed pivot to family.

A Reunion and a Feast in Oviedo

 After a busy day, the journey led to Oviedo for a wonderful dinner at Yao's. The evening was spent catching up with Melodye, a friend from school, and her brother, Tim. While the conversation was the highlight, the food certainly held its own. The portions at Yao's are famously generous; even after sharing a fried rice, there was still plenty left over for Melodye and Tim to take home. It was the perfect way to wrap up the day with good company and even better flavors.

 Don, Melodye, Tim, and Tim enjoying the vibrant atmosphere and great food at Yao’s in Oviedo.

The Glass-Bottom Perspective

Florida's Silver Springs State Park: 
The iconic entrance arch welcoming visitors to one of Florida's most historic natural wonders.

A Tradition in the Scrub

 We kicked off our Florida trip this week with a bit of a "sightseeing first" strategy. With a full slate of meetings at UCF on Friday and the big campaign event on Saturday, we carved out Thursday to head north into the Ocala National Forest. For me, a visit to Juniper Springs is more-or-less required by tradition—it’s a place that feels like a homecoming every time I pull into the lot.

Juniper Springs Water Wheel c. 1965:
The historic CCC-built millhouse and waterwheel, which once provided electricity to the campground.

Painting the Prairie

 The first lesson of agency life is that the world actually stops turning between December 24th and New Year’s Day. After decades in broadcasting, where "dead air" is the only mortal sin and the signal never sleeps, the discovery of a paid company closure was a shock to the system. With the calendar wiped clean and the office lights officially dimmed, Tim and I decided to take advantage of the rare winter lull. We pointed the car south, leaving the familiar sprawl of Lakewood behind for the high plains of El Paso County to explore the Paint Mines Interpretive Park.

Vivid bands of oxidized iron and selenite clay create a natural rainbow across the soft Paleocene-era formations.

Christmas 2025

 

The Bergquist Christmas Eve Story

There are a few things that are more-or-less given at the holiday season. One is that you will get socks and underwear from your grandparents (if you are lucky enough to still have them around to give you gifts), another is that someone is bound to wax nostalgic for the movie A Christmas Story, and the third is that every theater guild and television station will insist on trotting out Dickens in one or more of its incarnations.

To that inevitable list, I wish to add the perennial return of The Bergquist Christmas Eve Story.

This story has been with me for a long time. It first took shape back in 1985, when I was a traffic clerk processing commercial copy at WFTS by day and a stand-up comic by night, performing for drinks at the local bar across from the station. Back then, I used to tell the crowd I was making "six-thousand a year and all the food stamps I could lick." While the income may have been slightly higher and the food stamps were purely metaphorical, the desperation of a young comic was very real.

Over the last forty years, the story has evolved. I have refined the dialogue, updated the legal understanding of my six-year-old self, and polished the rougher edges of the pacing. But at its heart, this is the tale you would have heard on that Christmas Eve in Tampa, 1985—a bare, unvarnished recounting of exactly what happened on Christmas Eve in the Village Green section of Miami in 1969. Plain, simple, and utterly true.

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A Quick Dash Up the Saddle

 Sometimes, the best plan is simply having no plan at all. Finding myself with a rare free Sunday afternoon, the lure of the foothills became impossible to ignore. We traded the suburban sprawl of Lakewood for the winding curves of Lookout Mountain Road, eventually pulling into the lot at Windy Saddle Park.

A Golden Consolation Prize in Denver

 The plan for the evening was a simple one: head downtown to capture the annual holiday glow of the City and County Building. Unfortunately, the display was dark, leaving the night feeling a bit hollow.