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.

Alrighty… so here we are on day two of this wonderful whirlwind adventure. Today was my first real workday here at Walt Disney World, and boy what a day it was. I put faces to many names that I have traded email with for many months. It was really fun to compare the real version with the version I had cooked up in my head.

Before I get into the work day though… I want to start from where I left off in my last blog post. The dinner meeting with the team.

(in case you’re wondering, I’m purposely leaving out details of just who I’m working with and why. Those of you who do know those details from real life conversations can understand that if it was public knowledge it could put me in a tight spot. )

My dinner with the team went great. We at at Flying Fish. It’s a very sassy little restaurant at the Boardwalk resort. The decor is this really interesting mix of contemporary colors and textures with prints and visual references from a coney island boardwalk type place. The kitchen is a big open air operation centered around a huge wood-fire grill. Prices were pretty high but portions were good and every bit of food was absolutely to die for. It’s the sort of place that strangely is perfect for both a casual (but nice) dinner, as well as something a little more formal.

Right away I knew I was going to click with this team. They were so wonderfully inviting made me feel right at home. We talked industry gunk for a while and that led into the project that brought me to WDW. We didn’t linger on that too long since we’d have plenty of time in the office for that. We really spent most of the time talking about “a day in the life” for all of them. It’s important that I know how they work and the particulars of some of the road-blocks they currently have. We dug right in… they told me what they thought, and I told them what I thought. We learned a lot about each other (as much as can be expected at one dinner) and then we called it a night. It was very enjoyable.

So lets skip forward to today.

I got on the road at just about 8:45 AM (my body clock thought it was still 5:45 AM so that was a kick in the pants). My destination was something called the Maingate Office Complex. It something I’ve seen many times on paper, but really had no concept of. I had pictured it like our Team Disney Anaheim building, but I was dead wrong. the operation is so huge down here, that if they tried to shove everyone into one building like we have in CA, it would have to be immense.

I spent the morning meeting everyone who will have something to do with this project. It’s a big team. after that it was in to meetings and such to refine scope… and then more learning for me on how everything fits together.

Before I knew it 3:00 had rolled around. I have no idea how the day went by so fast. I was taking in so much new information that I just didn’t notice so many hours fly by. I did my best to finish up quickly, because one main thing I’d like to do while I’m here is see as much of the atmosphere talent that is currently out in the parks. The last show of the new High School Musical was at 5:00 so I had to boogie.

I finished up what I was doing and headed back to my hotel to change. Luckily, this hotel is basically in the front yard of the Magic Kingdom so I was there in a flash.

I actually got in the gate just in time for flag retreat (something I love in CA and will always make time for). I stopped to watch. They did a fantastic job. I’m not partial to the very military style the WDW Band drum section takes. They are clearly from a Drum Corps background… while I see Disney bands as something different entirely. So my beloved Disneyland Band is still #1 in my book. One cool thing they do for flag retriet is naming a veteran of the day. They find Guests with military history and allow them to participate in the ceremony. It was heartwarming and very cool. I had good Disney chills for this moment.

When that was done I cruised down Main Street toward Tomorrowland to catch the HSM show. I arrived just about on the last line of the show, just in time for a streamer blast. DAMN! I would have made it if I didn’t linger so long in town square. Ahhh well. I’ve got a few more days to catch it.

I did see this cute little bunny running around the grass between the Liberty Square and Adventureland entrances.

I think that’s about it for today. Tomorrow I will be attending an ‘event’ to help me better understand all the things I learned today… to see it all in actual practice.

For today though friends, it’s past midnight and I am beat. I’ll see you all tomorrow.

Have a magical night 😉

I had every intention of being asleep by now. I unpacked (even hung up all my shirts and pants), showered, returned email, made some calls, phoned a goodnight to my girlfriend, and laid down in my bed. I stared at the ceiling for a while and realized that my body just wasn’t on the right schedule to make this work. So you shall be the beneficiary of my insomnia…

I’m in Florida… Walt Disney World to be specific. I’m here on business, but I make no bones about the fact that I am planning to fit fun in anywhere it’s possible. I do have a pretty tight schedule lined up but I think I’ll be able to fit in a show here and a ride there. So far the trip has been quite an adventure.

Here’s the readers digest version of the day:

It all started about 4:30 this morning when I got up and finished the last bit of my packing. On my way out I stopped by Janey’s place to say goodbye then I was on the road. The trip to the airport was fine. I had a bit of trouble with security but it was no big deal. I flew from Long Beach to Salt Lake in a VW Bug with wings. The main cabin was hardly larger then my apartment (and those close to me can attest to the miniscule size of that). I had a 30 minute layover in Salt Lake and boarded a much more sturdy Boeing 757 for the remainder of the trip to Orlando.

Upon arrival I headed for baggage claim only to find that the wonderful TSA had rummaged through my carefully packed suitcase. I hate this, and think it’s very very very stupid. I could go on for hours about why… but I won’t. From their I headed to the rental car area and spoke to a very cranky woman named Elise who took my credit card information as if I had spit on her first. She handed me some paperwork and when I asked if she could give me driving directions to Disney Property she says “There’s a map in the folder” and turned away. She must have had a rough morning. But I was in a fantastic mood. A little tired and ready for a shower… but happy.

I finally did get some driving directions from the very nice girl working the exit booth at the rental car lot and I was on my way (although about 30 minutes behind where I wanted to be). While driving the 30ish miles to Disney property I was slammed with this amazing downpour of rain. It actually made me a little shakey. I haven’t driven in real weather like that in some time. Nothing like that happens in So Cal.

I got a little lost along the way and must have missed my turn because before I know it I was pulling up to the Animal Kingdom Lodge… but I was shooting for the Contemporary. A very nice security guard turned me around and set me in the right direction. 10 mintues later I was standing in the Contemporary lobby getting checked in.

Fast forward a bit… I had just enough time to throw my suitcase in my room, splash some water on my face, and it was time to go out to a dinner meeting with the team I will be working with down here in FL. They were great folks and it was fascinating to hear stories of the kind of volume they work with down here as compared to Disneyland. It was a setup to what promises to be a fun and very challenging week.

So dinner was over and I made it back to my room… now here I am not sleeping when I should be.

Alrighty, now that I’ve got it all down on paper I’m actually tired.

This is the beginning of what I hope will be a good string of blog entries this week. Who know’s how tired I will be… but I will do my best. more to come…