**Updated Update from Key West**

Happy New Year! I've been keeping busy down here in Key West for the last two weeks. The airport is small, but there are only 30 TSA employees here (1/2 are NSF) and eight to eleven of them are working each shift. Also, there is no x-ray machine in baggage so we have to screen everything by hand and there is only one checkpoint lane. That means long lines (depending on the time of day, 5:00-7:00 and 10:00-12:30 are pretty bad on my shift). In between those times there is not much going on.

When I'm not busy at work, I'm busy moving my luggage from one hotel to another. Some of you may have heard about the problems we've had. For everyone else, here's an update. Originally, we were staying in the DoubleTree Grand Key Resort, but that hotel got shutdown. They had 2 separate incidences where guests suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning. On December 28th, one guest died so the entire hotel (216 rooms) was evacuated. This is a very busy time of the year so NSF is having trouble finding rooms that are all in one hotel and will give us the government rate. We stayed in a place called the Banana Bay Thursday and Friday night. Then we moved in the Days Inn on Saturday. Sunday, I had to share a room with a co-worker. Tonight I'll get my own room, but in the near future we might be moving to yet another hotel if the NSF can find one with vacancy, internet, etc. Days Inn doesn't have internet so I don't have much time for email.

Last night I only slept for 2 hours so I could experience the Key West New Year celebration. Here's a few pictures of the Conch Drop on top of Sloppy Joe's Bar. I heard about 2 other major celebration areas. One was suppose to be at Mallory Square right on the water where they dropped an anchor on the New Year. I walked to Mallory Square, but there didn't appear to be anything going on except some dancing at a Cuban restaurant. There was also suppose to be a drag queen dropped in a red shoe, but nobody seemed to know exactly where that was so I didn't bother wandering too far.

The area around Sloppy Joe's reminded me a little of Bourbon St. in New Orleans (on a smaller scale) with the streets closed off, big crowds, balconies with people throwing beads, and performers painted all in silver.



I also wanted to share some pictures I took about a week ago of Mallory Square. It is a popular spot to watch the sunset and there are also street performers there every night. A very popular phrase is "the southernmost ______(fill in the blank)." This man claims to be the Southernmost Bagpiper in the United States (I thought you'd like this, Dad). I haven't done any research on the topic, but I'd say that's a pretty safe bet.