I need to introduce you to Peter Dalsgaard. He lives upstairs from Ginny and has one of the neatest jobs you can imagine. He is Vice President for Design in a company that makes Dark Rides for Amusement Parks.  The original Dark Rides were the "Tunnel of Love" rides. Well, they are getting fancier all the time, and Peter is in the forefront of creating real fun, using the latest in technology. It's called Animatronics. They also do high quality museum exhibits.

I got an invitation from Peter to come see his place of work. It's way down in Jacksonville, so I got on the web, and looked up the Transit Authority. Armed with a bus schedule downloaded from the web, I made my way down town and easily found The Sally Corporation.

First, it was time for lunch.  Peter's wife, Laurie joined us at Worman's Deli. It's popular at lunch... A great deli in the NY style... there even seems to be a Yankee accent in the place. The Reuben I had was in the top 10% of ALL Reubens. We made plans for a weekend cruise.
 

Getting a one-on-one briefing and tour is always a treat. Peter didn't tell all of the company secrets but I got a good idea about the process they go through in creating animated exhibits. On the tour I saw how they build animated creatures of all kinds, Dinosaurs.. frogs ... mythical creatures and even Presidents. This is Sally the Dragon.  She looks threatening even standing still.  She moves and makes noise.  >>>

Peter turned on a Tyrannosaurus Rex and it came to life with full sound effects. He said it's one of their more popular animated creatures. They have sold several T-Rex, and have a capability to rebuild and replace parts in case of failure.  Like a T-Rex for your garden?

He took me to their shooting gallery/theater and introduced me to shooting targets with a light beam. It was lots of fun.. In their newest dark rides you can ride along and shoot at the monsters and villains that are threatening to do you in.  You are shooting the targets with a laser beam encoded with your gun's identifier. That way the computer can keep track of your score and tell you how well you did at the end of the ride.

Thanks, Peter for a great trip.