So I know it’s been forever since I posted here. I just want you all to know I’m still alive.

Janey and I came back from florida with over 2,000 photos, and she has a good chunk of them up on her onilne photo album. Click here to check them out.

As you can imagine we have all kinds of stories and good stuff to talk about. I will try and get it all on here very soon.

I also have some really really great stories to tell about this weekends events. It’s something that has never been done before at Disneyland, and we actually pulled it off, with only a few hiccups.

I’ll be back with more.

I’ve been taken by the Milano cookie. If you can belive it, tonight is actualy the first that I have ever had.

Janey and I were at the grocery store buying up goodies for our trip when I spotted the distictive white paper packaging of the Pepperidge Farm cookie. I decided to throw them in the basket for a taste, and they really are quite fantastic. Its a satisfying combination of rich, dark chocolate sandwiched between two exquisite cookies (as described on the Pepperidge Farm website).

Thats all… I just found a new favorite sweet snack.

So my terrestrial being is T – 48 hours from leaving on a wonderful fun-filled vacation to Walt Disney World in Florida… and I’m quite sure my brain is already on its way there.

I have mountains of things to get through before I leave, but trying to get me to focus right now is a little like trying to get nessie on film. Lots of people around think it might be happening, but the reality is that it’s impossible. I look like I’m in a very serious creative development mode, with my eyebrows crumpled and my fingers flying across the keyboard. But my brain is on a plane. I’m already going over the conversations Janey and I will have as we park the car and head for the terminal. I’ve planned out my strategy to make sure she is fed and un-cranky (she has a plan to – but I’m keeping a plan B just in case). The trip is going to be fantastic.

Here on the homefront things are totally nuts. I have a small event tonight, and I’ve actually planned 3 that will happen while I am gone. Well, I really shouldn’t say ‘planned’ in the past tense. As is the nature of events, these ones are very organic, and seem to be changing by the hour. I’m still sort of putting the finishing touches on things. I’m quite nervous about this, but I’ve left them in the capable hands of some very talented folks so maybe the worry will subside.

Anyway… so I’m going to be on vacation very soon, and I’m really excited about it.

As you may already know there is a major power outage in LA right now. Now I know I’m not in LA, but many of the data systems I use in my daily work are served up from there.

So everything is at a big standstill right now. Events like this always remind me how completely reliant I am on my PC in so many aspets of my life. Very funny and a little frightening.

Here’s more:

LOS ANGELES, Sept 12 (Reuters) – A major power outage hit Los Angeles area on Monday, knocking out electricity to thousands of customers as officials scrambled to determine the cause and police declared a state of emergency.

“The city is on a tactical alert and obviously traffic is going to be impacted,” Los Angeles Police spokesman Kevin Maiberger said.

Maiberger described a tactical alert as “what happens when the city goes into a state of emergency. Police officers will only be responding to calls where there is a threat to life.”

Maiberger said there were no evacuations planned and no reports of injuries.

“There’s a major disruption,” Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman Jim Wells said. “It’s a widespread power disruption.”

A Los Angeles Department of Water and Power spokeswoman said it was not immediately known how many homes or businesses were without power, though it was known to be in the thousands, but that the utility was trying to pinpoint the trouble.

“We are trying to get a handle on it,” spokeswoman Kim Hughes said, adding that heat was not thought to be a factor on a relatively cool September afternoon. “We think it’s a transmission problem.”

Outages were reported across downtown Los Angeles, Koreatown, North Hollywood, Burbank and in the San Fernando Valley. Officials said power had not been lost at Los Angeles International Airport.

Television stations showed scenes of confusion unfolding at major traffic intersections as motorists tried to navigate through stoplights that were no longer working. Traffic from the area’s freeways was reported to be jammed as stoplight outages caused backups onto the freeway exit ramps.

In the financial district of downtown Los Angeles office workers huddled in groups outside their buildings.

Many workers were stranded outside their buildings, which occurred during lunch and stalled elevators in the high-rise district.

A spokesman for the California Independent System Operator, which manages most of the state’s power grid, said the outage in Los Angeles appeared to involve transmission lines within the control area operated by the city’s Department of Water and Power, a big municipal utility.

The ISO said it had no further immediate information.

It’s 2:10AM and here I am in front of the computer. I was asleep, though not for long. I got to bed early so I could be ready for a very early event day. I’m planning on being at work around 4:00 AM (I’m telling myself 3:00 just to make sure there is no chance I’m any later then that).

Even though I have this event staring me in the face, that’s not what’s keeping me awake. Somehow over the last week or so, worry has found it’s way back into my brain. I did so well for so long at not sweating the small stuff. And even now i’m able to fend off the real trouble much better then I used to. But that doesn’t disguise the fact that I’m awake… and work worry is to blame.

I think today I will find a solution to that.

More to come.

I had a terrible bout with some sort of stomach bug yesterday. It was not good at all.

I had decided to go into work on the holiday for a few reasons…
– Holiday Pay
– I’m up to my eyeballs in un-competed tasks
– I really really really wanted to dig out from under the mountain of paperwork facing me since it’s the end of the our fiscal year.

I arrived at my desk a little before 9AM with a Diet Coke in hand ready to face the day. The entire office was deserted save one person clickaty-claking on their keyboard way down the hall. I logged in to find my email inbox brimming with new messages all having arrived the previous Friday afternoon. At least 25 of the 30 messages were concerning an event I have coming up tomorrow. It’s been a very last minute thing, and I’m praying that all comes off well. It’s a fairly good sized event for an incredibly hard-to-please crowd, so cross you fingers for me.

To get back on track with the story… I spent the better part of the first two hours at work returning emails and digging up various bits of information for folks in need. Then completely out of the blue, and with no warning at all my stomach bubbled and gurgled for about a second and my whole body was taken with a sudden heave. I had little more then Diet Coke in my system that morning, but the whole of my morning beverage found it’s way into the trash can just underneath my desk.

It was the strangest thing I have experienced in a very long time. I didn’t feel sick or strange. It just happened with no provocation or warning. I hung my head over the garbage can for a few minutes while this fit of stomach voodoo ran it’s course. Then when it seemed all had subsided I walked down the hall to get a sip of water to wash the terrible taste from my mouth. I was no more then 3 feet from the drinking fountain (and coincidentally the restroom door) when my stomach made the same gurgling sound. I wasted no time in bolting through the restroom door where I wouldn’t make a terrible mess.

So after that I never made it back to my desk. I had developed a terrible headache and I decided to get to a pharmacy then go home. I spent the day with cold shivers and sweaty naps. It was miserable. Then almost magically around 4:00 I was fine, with little more then the remnants of a headache. It was a very strange day. I spent the evening with a temperamental stomach, but it kept my dinner down…

… very weird. But I’m glad it’s over.

On a happy note, I did wake up in the middle of the night last night and write some more. I cranked out about 5 pages before I even knew what was happening. It’s kind of fun 🙂

So my dear sister sent me an email yesterday that started something like this.

Okay, so we’re ready for another update to your blog!!! It’s been almost 2 weeks! So do it!!!

So here you go Jac… I’m going to try and be on the ball and get this damned site updated.

I took a short day at work today since I have to go in over the weekend for a quick b-roll shoot for our friendly press and publicity folks. This particular event is all too much like the whole of my September events in that they have all started with seemingly very small ideas, and ballooned into big fat events. So what began as a plan to tackle a month of a larger number of smaller parties has turned into a plan to execute list of large very involved events. As much as I would like to go into specifics, I’m afraid that’s not info I can go into online. But the coming month holds some very challenging weeks for me, and I’m going to be leaning on everyone around me to keep me sane. …so what got me on that little tangent? Oh right… short day at work today.

So anyway, I will be checking on the set installation tomorrow then going in for the shoot and event on Sunday. There is also some atmosphere art going into some of the common areas of the resort to announce Sunday’s events, so I will be just checking in with my stage managers most of the day. Not a bad gig at all, I just have a feeling we’re going to get several last minute requests to make things happen (this is a very normal thing) that will keep me on my toes.

Here on the home front there is some big news as well. My wonderful girlfriend has a pretty little cat named Sadie. She’s a funny little tabby that sometimes drives Janey to the brink of insanity with midnight pillow urination and sleeping on the clean laundry. But she’s a part of our little family so we have to make sure she is healthy… to that end yesterday we took her to the vet for her last round of shots and various other tests. She’s came away with a clean bill of health and an appointment to be spayed. So early this morning Janey, Sadie, and I ventured back to the Vet to check her in for her big operation. The place we took her to is very nice and feels like a real live doctors office. It’s clean and the people are always very kind. But with all that TLC comes a pretty good sized price tag, so Janey and I teamed up on the bill for this visit. In the end I always remind myself that the peace of mind that Sadie is being well taken care of is worth the few extra dollars. We’ve been to a few other Vets in the last year or so, but we always end up back at this place.

Around 2:00 Janey started to worry about Sadie. When we checked the cat in this morning they told us the operation would be completed around this time and we should get a call confirming that all went well. She waited till about 2:30 and decided to call them. Sadie was still in surgery but all seemed to be going well. By about 3:30 Janey had spoken to the vet once again and all was complete and Sadie was doing just fine. She has to stay overnight, but we will be picking her up around 9:00 AM tomorrow. I’ve never been much of a cat lover, but things are pretty quit around here without Sadie to bug. 🙂 It’ll be nice to have her back.

As much as I have to worry about in the coming month, I can’t stop thinking about the wonderful vacation that Janey and I have planned. Exactly 30 days from today we will be on a plane headed for Walt Disney World in Florida. This trip has been a long time coming, and has taken a lot of scrimping and saving to be able to pull it off. We will be staying in Disney Hotels (not the cheap ones mind you, the super cool deluxe ones) and that is something I have never done before. I’m very excited. I really don’t remember the last time I took more then about 2 days off of work… even more so then that, I can’t think of the last vacation I took that was more then a weekend jaunt that wasn’t family centric. Living away from both our families, it’s hard to justify the expense of travel when it doesn’t involve at least a short stop to see the family. This time it’s just not possible though. We both feel guilty, but in the end I hope everyone understands. This is a trip I’ve wanted to take for years and years… long before my move to work for Disney.

Well I think that is about all that is on my mind for now. I will see if I can get some more things down in ‘ink’ before the weekend is over.

Till next time…

For the last several weeks I have become increasingly dependant on centralized web apps to get things done. I remember not too long ago when I scoffed at any product that I could no own or operate from my own web server… my stance has changed oh so much.

• I’ve completely fallen in love with Gmail. I have gotten to the point that my old primary address at this domain is almost never used. I see a few messages here and there, but almost all the regular daily traffic has moved over to my gmail account. I can get a full featured interface from home or work, unlike the old and clunky squirrelMail that my host uses. Very useful, I highly recommend it.
• Many of you already know that in addition to my Disney gig, I do contract consulting work. Accounting and invoicing is something that I hate with every bone in my body… but in recent days it has become strangely enjoyable thanks to Blinksale. It’s not an accounting system, it just does invoicing. I tried to get QuickBooks to just do invoicing, but it has a million other useless (to me) features that I just couldn’t understand and kept getting in the way. Blinksale actually makes me look forward to sending and receiving invoices.

As of today I have spent two wonderful years loving a wonderful girl.