I just got back from a little unplanned trip to Barnes & Noble. Normally it’s a place that I enjoy just hanging at. I know that makes me sound like a total idiot… yes, I like to just hang at the bookstore. I rarely buy anything, but always come away with a list of subjects I want to research. It’s sort of just like an inspirational source for me. I will very often come straight home and hop online to delve into a list of search terms that caught my eye while skimming through the rows and rows of books.

Anyway, lets get back to tonight’s adventure. I was walking slowly through some of the sections that usually interest me. American History, Biographies, New Fiction… I was just looking over the shelves waiting for something to jump out at me. Next I was ready to start looking at some of the ‘promo’ tables. You know those tables that are piled with 7 or 8 layers of books. Some are 50% off, some are “teen reading”, and still others might be “staff favorites”. They are usually just sets of books from several sections that have some running theme. Well in the store that I frequent, there is one particular table that happens to interest me very often. I don’t know why it’s always that one table. Every time I go there it carries a different theme. I’ve purchased both “Devil in the White City” and “Wobegon Boy” from this table… they are like polar opposites of the literary world, but they were both found on that table at different times in my life. I guess you could say that it’s become my favorite part in that store.

So I was heading for my table to see what treasures it held. On my approach it was clear that all was not normal. There was folders and notebook paper strewn about, pens and a backpack in the center, and a chair pulled up to one side. Now understand that this was a table with a book display covering the entire horizontal surface. A person had setup their own little workspace ON TOP of all the books. The very books that I wanted to look at. This person seemed to believe that she had the right to use this area as if it were her own little office or homework area.

The chair was empty when I arrived, which annoyed me even more. I made the assumption that this was some college kid to stupid to understand that they didn’t own the world, so I hung around to confirm my beliefs. NO It was a middle aged woman! So… I was pretty annoyed. She was old enough to know better. She just sat down and started writing then digging through her backpack as if she was sitting on her living room floor.

What an inconsiderate little shit! She took the opportunity for other patrons of this store to even see the merchandise on display. It was really as if I had gone into the grocery store and laid down in cheese freezer area. I get warm, so when I need to cool down I will just lay on top of all the products to use this as my own personal cool-down station.

So I’m presented with two problems. The first, of course, is just an affront to my basic sense of decency and how-to-act-in-public-for-grown-ups. And the other was that I really wanted to look at the books displayed on this table. I wanted her to move.

Since I had nowhere to be, and just felt like taking on a little project… I decided to make this woman get her damned stuff off the display table. (okay, so I know I could have just gone to an employee to ask her to move… but I wanted to try something more interesting. call it an experiment with the human condition)

My first course of action was to just stand close to her… close enough to be uncomfortable and see if that would make her move. I pretended that I was looking at the books that could be seen through her little mess. She looked up at me, and I pretended not to notice. I flipped through some pages, and even moved one of her notebooks to see what was under it. She snatched it up and put it in her bag. I thought I was making headway. but then she gave out an annoyed cough and planted herself back on the chair. I got a little closer, but all I got was another throat-clear.

It was pretty clear that this woman wasn’t going to be bothered with any mere space-bubble invasion. I was going need to pull out the big guns. And that I did….

I stood right next to her and let out a silent, but quite deadly, fart. That was the ticket my friends… in a little under a minute after my gass pass she was cleaned up and outa there. Normally I would feel regret for sinking to a new low… but this time I was just satisfied with the success of my experiment. I happily wiped the stink-tears from my eyes and browsed my favorite book table in peace.

There wasn’t really anything interesting on the table this trip…

I made my last entry from Orlando. I was mid-trip, and I had no idea how busy I was about to become. The trip ended well and I had the chance to meet a lot of great people, see a lot of shows, and learn a ton of much needed information. The plane trip home was fairly uneventful. I remember just being so done with being alone on the road. I really should have been on cloud nine being that I was in Walt Disney World for an entire week, but it just has a different feel when your there on business and my girl is way too many miles away. I just really wanted to get home and get some rest.

The plan was for me to be home for three days before Janey and I were going to be on the road again. This time we were headed to Utah to spend some time with my family. No real plans for this trip… it was just a time for us to hang out and catch up with everybody.

Those three days back here in CA were completely crazy. Work had stacked up for me, and I had a million things I needed to get done before I was out of town again for a week. Inevitably, the day came that it was time to get going… so ready or not, we left.

We spend a little under a week up in Utah. It was a great time. It’s just so nice to see everybody and just be together.

I’ve sort of run out of steam to go into detailed stories. But we did have a great time.

Now we’re back in SoCal just settling back in. I went back to work the very first day we were back in town. I just couldn’t let another workday slip by. Too much to do. Not surprisingly I returned to a pile of papers on my desk and requests from all over the place. I did my best to get through them before the weekend… even went in on Sat. I took today to rest then I’m going to hit it hard again tomorrow.

I think I’m going to write a little bit more later tonight… so, see you in a bit.

You know, I really did have every intention of blogging every night of this trip. At various moments every day I would say to myself “I’ve got to put this on my blog”! As you can see though, I failed miserably… now I’m going to try and play a little catch up.

So lets pick up where we left off shall we?

I woke up on the morning of day 3 and headed straight in to that ‘event’ I spoke about in my last entry. I think I’m safe to say that it was a call-back audition for several roles at the various parks of Walt Disney World. I sat in on the call-back conferring with the audition panel on a few things. It didn’t take long for me to get the gist of how they do what they do.

(If you are an aspiring Disney performer and you read this, please do not contact me about casting… I am not a casting director, nor do I play one on TV visit disneyauditions.com)

From there I headed into a few meetings with the other half of the team to hammer out the finer points of how my work will affect them. Again everyone was very nice, and surprisingly very receptive to possible change. So lets be done with the business stuff for a bit and talk about the rest of day 3.

When work was done my goal was to make it to Animal Kingdom before it closed.

These “Where Dreams Come True banners are showing up all over the property since Oct 1 is the kickoff for the new campaign.

The new Expedition Everest has been calling my name from the horizon since I arrived in Florida, and I hadn’t had the chance to get a little closer. I wrapped up work a little early that day (since Animal Kingdom closes at 5:00 most days) and boogied over to the mythical village of Serka Zong.

For me Expedition Everest lived up to every bit of the hype, and then some. I decided to go through the regular queue instead of the single rider line because I wanted to see all the wonderful stuff that Joe Rhode and his team gathered on their trips to Asia. The visual detail in the queue alone was breathtaking and, I hate to say it, even surpasses the richness and realism of Indiana Jones in Disneyland. At every turn I was greeted with some nugget of scenery that both supported the story of the attraction, and taught me everything all sorts of little factual tid-bits about Everest and the legend of the Yeti.

Then the ride itself. It is awesome! Of course the backwards coaster, and killer caves were wonderful. But the real standout here is that giant, and I do mean GIANT audio-animatronic Yeti! It is freakin’ huge and moves so naturally that even a Disney vet like me can’t help but scream when it’s swinging it’s massive paws at me.

There are reviews of this attraction all over the internet so I won’t go into too much detail… I will maintain though that this is the absolute coolest mountain at any Disney theme park (at least that I’ve been to).

The rest of the night was pretty boring. I headed back to my hotel for a recharge nap, then grabbed some dinner at Downtown Disney.

Thats all for now. Stay tuned for the rest of the story.