As always things are busy. Janey and I just returned from a fun filled four days in Las Vegas. The primary reason for the trip was to see her family, but we made sure to mix in some good Vegas fun.

I started putting together a little play-by-play of the trip and only got about halfway through day one when I totally lost interest… I’ve decided instead to just hit some of the finer points:

• Because of my love for JetBlue, I will do my best never to travel where they don’t fly. I will save money and my sanity while I travel.
• I will never again rent from Dollar Rent-A-Car thanks to the excessive hidden fees and last minute mark ups on the invoices.
• The Stratosphere has gained several points in my book on this trip. Later I will explain why I hated it, and why now I don’t hate it so much.
• The Bellagio is the most elegantly beautiful hotel/casino that exists.
• The Palace Station is a rather crappy hotel/casino that has killer room rates and a very kind staff.
• Cirque du Soleil shows take my breathe away every time I see one. Totally amazing.
• I need to take more vacations even when things at work are busy and I think there is no way I can get away. It does wonders for my brain.

Continue reading Take a little trip →

Alrighty… what have I got to say today. As always life has been full of twists and turns and fun stuff all around. I’m getting settled into the new gig at Disneyland and slowly but surely getting buried in a pile of work. It’s all pretty fun. Lots of proposal and budget writing for upcoming events and such. I talk on the phone a lot and just run down details to make sure the events go alright. Anyway…. I’m getting settled. I’m now kind of used to the pace of things after a totally nuts weekend of 5 (yes count them 5) events in 3 days. I almost pooped my pants when I woke up in a cold sweat Sunday morning thinking it was Monday. I was totally sure I was late for a morning event and I had a set of Mini-Discs in my pocket that they needed. After two phone calls and making a poor hotel operator track down some tech folks on radio I finally came to the realization it was the wrong day and I was a complete idiot. (I’m still trying to live this one down with the friendly presentation svcs. guys at the hotel) So yeah. now that I’m in the groove all seems to be going well.

In other news I got a call from my friend Cody yesterday. We were just shootin’ the breeze. His wife is expecting so he was shopping a bit for that. I think that the shopping trip was also for a wife present so I won’t go into the the conversation. He just called to ask me some geeky questions about the stuff he was going to buy.

I’ve been looking around at a lot of web designs I really like and it makes me think I really need to put some time into my site. There are some really really cool things out there on the web. I LOVE this design. All those lines are totally amazing. I emailed the author and I think I’m going to attempt something like it.

Anyway. Thats all I really have for now.

Some fun things to note:

1. HALO 2 is finally here. (House Of Pain… Whicker will make a return!)
2. Netflix is my new best friend
3. The freaky guy upstairs who grew all sorts of plants and didn’t like to close his door has apparently vacated his apartment
4. The cat that lived in the hole in the hallway has dissapeard and the hole covored
5. The carpet that the above mentioned cat soiled has also dissapeared (this is the hallway carpet in front of my door… not the mat mind you, the actual common area carpet. gone for four days. Maybe they are going for a “projects” look)

Some things to be aware of:

1. steam that comes from an iron is hot enough to cause blisters
2. Laundry hidden under the bed does not in fact dissapear as previously belived

Got an email this morning about this guy. It’s a real story.

TAIPEI, Taiwan – A man leaped into a lion’s den at the Taipei Zoo on Wednesday to try to convert the king of beasts to Christianity, but was bitten in the leg for his efforts.

Read the rest HERE

I’ve been working like crazy lately. Between my real gig at Disneyland and all these little side projects I’ve hardly had time to breathe. Today Janey and I decided was our day to go play. We headed out around noon to run some errands and ended up at The Block At Orange (it’s a big mall-ish thing). This was really the plan all along since we really really wanted to see The Incredibles.

In we went for 2:45 show… It started with all the usual trailers that we have seen over and over and then the Pixar Logo hit the screen. Both Janey and I got all excited because we were both looking forward to the short subject that always accompanies new Pixar movies. We were surprised to see that it was in fact a new trailer for next years feature “Cars”. It doesn’t look all that impressive… but I’m sure they will wow us again when it comes out.

So… I have to say that The Incredibles is now my favorite movie and on my ‘must see again’ list. I was totally amazed with everything in this film. It has a wonderful story and looks fantastic. It was really just super jaw dropping impressive. Gave me warm fuzzies all over.

After that we went out for sushi and ended up at Disneyland. We hit a few attractions and then found a wonderful spot for ‘Believe… in Holiday Magic’ (fireworks). As always a wonderful show made even more wonderful by the company (meaning my Gf… not the Disney)

So now I am totally beat and I have a week FULL of events starting tomorrow. So I’m going to sleep.

Till Next Time

R.

It’s very late so I probably won’t write about everything that’s on my mind.

Lets start with tonights event:
I mentioned in my last post that I was a little worried that everybody didn’t really do their job. It turned out to be more true then I could have imagined.

Upon my arrivail to the event venue I found out that our great friends in F&B (thats Food and Beverage) had completely changed the layout the client wanted for their party. While they did have valid conerns about traffic and the flow of guests through the buffet area, it was simply not what the client asked for. When somebody comes to us and pays a goodly sum of money for an event, I can only imagine how frustrating it is for them to be delivered a product thats almost like what they planned on. In addition to that there was actually sections of the building the client thought they paid to use, but were shut down for the night. Now… when you have an event in one of these attractions it’s very important to be very clear about what parts will be visited. First thing is they are lit by show lighting… it’s not just like flipping the switch to make them habitable. Several different parites have to get involved. It also takes staff. These are shows just like any other. They have to be run by folks who know what they are doing. These were just a few of the 7 large issuses of tonight. I’m not going to go into them all… mostly because they really didn’t have to do with my areas.

I handled the entertainment and decor for this event. I used these wonderful linens for the first time tonight. Up close they look a lot like crushed velvet, but they are super light. I wish this photo really did them justice. They shimmer wonderfully with all the moving lights in this room. Really fun looking. I will be using them again for sure. Anyway.. I will just let the picture stand and not babble on about this. It wasn’t really a big event and went off just fine on my end. The poor sales manager is going to hear it from all involved parties in the morning. We all have some words about how communication was handled.

OK so I’m being really scatterbrained. Let me move forward by listing the last min. changes we made. And by last min… I mean as guests are coming in the door.

• move entire food staging area out of the entrance to theater
• open said theater to run every 20 min. through the evening
• move an entire bar and bar-tender to another area of the attraction
• turn on all regular show elements of the main show area and coordinate with the DJ so they didn’t step on each other
• do all of it with a big disney smile

You’ll notice the big stuff was not part of the entertainment… why didn’t my parts need to be changed? Mostly because I’m totally anal and plan too much. This time it paid off 🙂

OK I’m totally falling asleep at the wheel here so I’m heading for bed. comment if you would like more info on this event.

I have a really big event coming up this Sunday and another on Monday… actually.. I have two events on monday. One BIG and another only kinda big. One of them will be entertianing the pres. of Disneyland Resort… so I’m making sure I get that one right.

ok till next time
R.

Janey’s got some great new photos in the Hollidays section Click Here