Saturday, June 14, 2008

2008 West Palm Beach Alzheimer's Conference

On June 5th and 6th, Alzheimer's Community Care had their annual conference.  It was a great event and has become so popular nationally through the year that Dr. Todd, our keynote speaker from the Broward Neurological and Memory Center announced that it is the largest Alzheimer's event in the U.S.
The speaker were great, the people we met and got to talk were wonderful.  Sometimes Larry and me went to breakaway sessions together, other times we split up and went to sessions we had individual interests in. It was great to see my neurologist and give my nurse care manager Jo Ellen a hug. She's such a wonderful person and I could kick myself for not asking Larry to take a picture of us together.
We both attended both research presentations on the two days and learned alot. One thing we learned that was breath taking is that it looks like the vaccine will be out in five years or less.
The picture about is one I took of Larry on a break. We were outside on the upper terrace of the West Palm Beach Convention Center looking over to the Kravis Center of the Performing Arts in beautiful West Palm.

Obama Nomination Party

The night of the Montana and South Dakota primaries, Palm Beach Obama supporters gathered at Abbey Road restaurant in Palm Beach Gardens, hoping that Senator Obama would have enough pledged and super delegates to put him over the top.
When the headlines came on the multiple televisions in the room, the crowd roared and the news media arrived a few minutes later.  Channel 5 interviewed Larry which aired on and off throughout the next day.
It was a great event and we also got to meet the 3 fulltime staffers from Obama headquarters assigned to work full time in Palm Beach County.

Obama's Fort Lauderdale Rally

It's been six weeks since I've posted a blog entry. May was a busy month of working on the Obama campaign. It culminated on May 23rd when Senator Obama came to the Fort Lauderdale for a rally at the BankAtlantic Center. 
I got off work at noon that Friday, came home, changed into my Obama tee shirt and cap, got Larry and our neighbor Carmen and off we went to Sunrise for the rally.
What impressed us was how organized it was. Everything went like clockwork. After clearing TSA we got into the stadium kind of looking around to what section ramp we were going to go up when a young man approached us and said that we've been selected for seating behind Senator Obama. He let us make a bathroom stop and then escorted us to our seats. 
One of the things done differently at the Obama rally which I never saw done at Kerry rallies, was that hundreds of Obama volunteers were getting names and email addresses of people not signed up to volunteer and getting folks registered to vote. They went through every row in that arena.
The Cuban reggae band was fantastic and everybody clapped to the music. 
My congressman, Rep. Robert Wexler served as MC and gave a wonderful speech. 
As the time got nearer for Obama to arrive, people had their cameras fixed on the entrance where the speakers had come thru. 
But then, out of nowhere, Obama is walking the circumference of the arena walking toward the stage and the crowd went wild.
It was a great event. Afterward, we went to the Wilton Manors area of FTL to eat dinner at the Old Florida Fishhouse which was fantastic.