Monday, March 30th, 2009 (Day three in Disney World)

As I may have mentioned in the last post, we will be heading to Disney's Hollywood Studios theme park today. This is Molly's favorite park and is definitely one of my favorites. The main ride we're looking forward to? The Tower of Terror. Today is the day when we will coerce Caleb into riding it.

It may not be that easy since he started getting upset in line for Splash Mountain but I'm of the mindset now that it's too bad: you're riding. Does that sound mean? I don't think so. If we went along with Caleb everytime he said, "I don't want to ride that", he would ride almost nothing.

Anyway, we just had a healthy breakfast of dougnuts and cookies and we're getting ready to head out. Like I said before, I wish I could upload more photos but the connection here is just too slow.

The weather looking good for today. Right now, it's probably just barely sixty degrees and it's supposed to only get to about 76 or so. Yesterday was a different story. It poured down rain up until about 1:30. It was okay since we had ponchos to wear. They were definitely life savers. Or clothes and camera savers I guess.

Well, I'd better click "Publish Post" before my 24 hour internet access time expires.

See you soon.

In Disney World

I'm sitting in bed in our hotel room at Disney's All-Star Movies Resort. Caleb was just awake a second ago watching an episode of Spiderman. Joy, Molly, and Sophie are all sound asleep. I won't make this long: I am super tired and my legs are killing me.

We spent today at Epcot after getting a sort of nice late start mainly due to rain. It turned out to be a really beautiful day. Yesterday when we arrived we headed on over to the Magic Kingdom and, man, it was packed.

Anyway, I really wanted to upload a lot of pictures but, apparently, the connection here at the hotel isn't so hot. I'll most likely just stop trying to upload stuff until we get back home. It's really that slow.

The plan for tomorrow is to go to Disney's Hollywood Studios Park, which I keep calling "MGM". Hopefully the weather will be as nice as it's been so far.

Heading to bed now.

Molly and Caleb at the airport, waiting to head to Disney World.

Two More Days to Disney

After working 2am until about 11am yesterday, it was nice to get some sleep last night. Work today wasn't too bad. I was just in the office processing a couple of jobs but that can really make the day drag sometimes. Especially when I'm about to go on vacation. I'm sure tomorrow will go by even slower.

But work isn't the point of this post. The point of my posting this is to celebrate just how close we are to hopping a plane to Disney World. It's really hard to believe but somehow, I believe it.

All that really remains right now is for us to go through a checklist and make sure we have everything. Not just the essentials like toothpaste, toothbrushes, etc., but the other essentials like our reservation paperwork and the Disney's Magical Express tickets. What is Disney's Magical Express, you ask?

Disney's Magical Express is an airport shuttle program. All we have to do is put the special tags on our checked luggage before we take off. When we arrive in Florida, we just hop on the Magical Express and go to the hotel. No need to wait and claim our luggage. Walt Disney himself will personally deliver our luggage to our hotel room. Or so I think...

So basically, Disney's Magical Express is a bus.

Anyway, two more days!

Six Days To Disney

We are nearing the departure date: Saturday, March 28th. It's hard to believe that next week at this time we'll be totally exhausted from walking all day in the heat. Well, hopefully not totally exhausted. Maybe the adrenaline rush, which presumably lasts for six to seven days, will keep us going.

Anyway, we tried packing today just to see what we could or could not fit in the luggage we're taking with us. The plan is only to check one bag since the airline charges $15 for the first checked bag, $25 for the second checked bag, $50 for the third, etc. I think we'll be able to do it since our carry on stuff is all going to fall under the size/weight requirements.

Once again, I'll be using blogger in conjunction with flickr to keep the updates from the park rolling in for all of my fans. All two of you: me and possibly my sister.

Have a great night. Here's couple more shots from our last trip to Disney.

This is from our first night in Disney World back in April 2007. We spent the evening at Downtown Disney instead of going to a park that night. Not sure if we'll do that this time...

This is another picture from Downtown Disney. Not sure why they keep the Christmas stuff out in April but hey, who cares?

Twelve Days to Disney

Well, like the title says, we have only twelve days until our trip to Disney World. I'm holding the baby right now and trying to type so this will be a short post.

Anyway, I was reminded that about two years ago, I had a blog post with the same title as this one. It all comes full circle at last.

Within a couple of weeks, I'll be posting pictures from Disney World.

See ya!

Disney 2007 Trip

Continuing my irregular 2007 Disney World trip photo series, here's a picture from the Star Tours ride at Disney Hollywood Studios (formerly Disney MGM Studios). Yes, this is the ride that Caleb was terrified of since he sincerely believed we were actually going into outerspace and he didn't want go.

Anyway, this isn't the best photograph of the ride but it does highlight the quality of the stuff you get to stare at while waiting in line for the various rides in Disney World. (I am not stating this sarcastically; the quality of the stuff in Disney is quite high.)

See you later.

27 Days to Disney

Well, it's official. We are going back to Disney World at the end of this month. We're all pretty excited about it. To be honest, we've been seriously looking into it for a while but we just booked it last week.

I am personally excited about convincing Caleb to ride the Tower of Terror. I think he's going to do it. We've been watching various videos of the ride on youtube. Yesterday, in fact, I ran across a video of a Half-Life 2 mod that someone made to look exactly like the Tower of Terror ride. It was very accurate right down to all the correct Twilight Zone audio that you hear right before going on the ride. Below is the video and a couple of pics of the kids.

The countdown has begun.

Shot of Molly before she knew I was going to take her picture.

Caleb showcasing his lost tooth.

Beautiful picture of Sophie taking a nap.

First Loss

Today, Caleb lost his first baby tooth. Joy was having him brush his teeth when he spit some blood out. Upon seeing this he, naturally, freaked out beyond reason. He was screaming and crying so loud that Joy had to tell him he would either have to calm down or one of the neighbors would end up calling 911.

Sadly, I was at work so I didn't get to witness any of the chaos. Eventually he calmed down and Joy was able to pull the tooth out without incident or any violent outbursts.

Ah, how we cherish moments like this long after the years have softened our minds' focus so we can look back and laugh.

In honor of this event, here's a picture of Caleb before he had any teeth and when he enjoyed chewing on plastic toys.

Big Wheel

For my own personal enjoyment, here's another picture from our much ballyhooed Disney World trip of 2007.

Another picture from the Pop Century Resort. In this one, Joy, Molly, and Caleb are walking up to the larger than life Big Wheel (non-functioning, I think...).

Another Two Year Old Picture

For some reason, I suddenly enjoy posting pictures from my flickr site to my blog. It's sort of like a "double post" since I am "posting" information along with a picture that I already technically "posted" almost two years ago.

A view at the Pop Century Resort Hotel in Disney World. Although slightly obscured by trees, you can still make out the gigantic Mr. and Mrs. Potato Head and the (very) cool huge Rubik's cube.

A Flashback From My Flickr Archives

I just felt like posting one of our pictures from our uber-great Disney World trip from April 2007. Man, that was a good time. This particular one is from our first full day at Disney World which we spent at the Animal Kingdom. (Plus, I just like the way photos look against the background of this blog. Did you know the background color is called ocher?)

Birthday Eve

Joy went to work this morning and I got up with her. Of course, instead of doing something really productive, I decided to work on organizing some of my photos on my flickr site. I've been putting photos up on flickr for almost four years now but sometimes I wonder, what if flickr suddenly just goes away sometime? I'm sure it won't be that sudden but that would really be irritating considering all of the pictures that I have on there, all tagged and organized. I mean, it wouldn't really be too devastating since I'm not really using it as a real back up plan but I do like the way all my pictures all fairly organized.

On another useless note, I finally adjusted the width on the main body of this blog. Now it won't cut off pictures that I happen to post (which always irritated me).

Anyway, tomorrow is Michelle's and my birthday. I'll be 35 and she'll be 35 minus 7. We're not planning anything extravagant other than going to lunch today with our parent's after church. Also, we played Rock Band 2 last night for a while which was pretty fun. Especially when Caleb was on drums and really started freaking out that he couldn't do one of the songs since it was too hard (he was able to do it by the way).

It was also funny that, while we played the game, we had Sophie lying on her little playmat and she has really started trying to roll over. So much that at one point, we thought someone had repositioned her since she ended up 180 degrees out from where Joy had initially laid her but, no. She is rolling herself around. Although, not really rolling around. It's more like rocking back and forth and slowly moving around. Kind of like the minute hand on a clock: you don't see it move at a glance but if you really watch it, you can tell it's moving.

This weekend has been pretty nice. I don't know if it's just because I'm getting more and more boring but I really like the weekends where we don't have anything in particular to do aside from just hang out.

Good times. Goood tiiiiimes.

Baby Grabbin'

Sophie, three months old, is now grabbing at things. While this may not seem monumental, consider this: her usual hand pattern is a clenched fist. So I was pretty happy to see her to be (apparently) voluntarily opening and closing her hand when she her hands were resting on the table.

Of course, I could be wrong about all of this. Maybe it's just some automatic response. Who cares? It's still pretty cool.

Anyway, here's some photos that I recently uploaded to flickr.

Here I am talking some sense into sense into Sophie. "Listen to me, Sophie. Listen to meeeee!!!" I was really just trying to support her so Joy could snap this piture. Cute, right?

Molly in her creepy plaster mask that she made at school. Creepy.

That's all for now.

Countdown?

Yes, I am looking forward to getting our tax refund. No, it's not just basic materialism. It's just that we rarely get tax refunds. Praise the Lord Joy wasn't self-employed last year. That's what's killed us for the past six or seven years: self-employment tax.

I guess I'm anxious about getting the refund because I want to make sure we get it before the U.S. government goes totally broke. Also, I just want to do my small part in stimulating the economy. So, really, it's not about me. It's about my country. I'm just trying to help.

Honest.

Just a Post

Well I haven't made any entries since something like January 3rd of this year. Not that that is a problem. I was just on my blog reading the posts I made from when we went to Disney World in 2007 so I decided to post something.

Here's my real issue though: should I even bother with the blog? I mean, I want to keep a journal I guess, but I could easily keep one on my laptop. There are plus and minuses to both, I suppose. If I use my computer to store my journal, I have total control over the journal but it's only available when I use my computer.

If I use my blog, there is always the risk that Google could shut it down, effectively erasing my journal. On the other hand, I really like the format. Maybe there's a "journal" format or template available for Open Office. Hmmm...

Until next time...

Bye.

Anomaly or Harbinger?

The following pictures show a dark chocolate M&M (a.k.a. M&M Dark) in its exact condition when it was extracted from the bag. At first I was repulsed by this misshapen mass but I was soon drawn to it. Could this be in the shape of some dead president or other famous person (living or dead)? I wish. It did not seem to resemble anyone, or anything for that matter, so I threw it away.

Do you think it shares any features with anyone? If so, please let me know so I can fish it out of my trash can and list it on eBay.

Thanks in advance.

Check out the cool grey area. I think that's where the words "M&M Dark" were supposed to be. Creepy.

Silence Is Gone

Everywhere I go I see people walking around with something in their ears: earbuds, cellphones. Perhaps it's mainly due to the Christmas season. I'm sure a lot of people got iPods or some other MP3 player for Christmas this year. Maybe this is why I keep seeing so many teenagers with earphones walking around with their parents at the grocery store.

In all honesty, I haven't been around to too many places to draw these conclusions, I just believe it's a growing trend. Regardless of this unscientific method, I have to ask, How many people spend any amount of their waking hours in quiet? I would guess not very many. I'm guilty of it myself.

I've been off this past week (which I've been thoroughly enjoying) and not long after getting up, the computer is on. Not much longer after that, the TV is on (usually for a video game). Why is this? Is it because of habit? Is it because, since I'm off, I think the only way to truly enjoy it is to constantly be doing something? I hope not.

With all this noise in our houses, in our cars, even when we are out walking around, can anyone really ever stop and think? Can anyone ever really ponder anything, meditate on anything? I believe that's difficult now, especially for younger people, and it's only going to get worse. Technology, for all of its advantages, is steadily becoming ridiculously ubiquitous.

We are losing something and soon we won't even be able to remember what it was.

Using Ubuntu

So this is my first post using the Ubuntu operating system. I'm totally new to this platform, but so far I really like it. It was a bit of a challenge to get my wireless network card up and running but figuring it out was actually kind of rewarding.

Anyway, just felt like typing.

See ya.

Happy Thanksgiving

So, we're watching the annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or, as it should be known, the extended NBC lineup commercial. Seriously, it's getting kind of old seeing Al Roker interview one NBC tv show actor after another. I know I could turn it anytime I want but, in a way, doesn't this qualify as one of those 'captive audience' situations. I mean, I just want my kids to see the parade. Specifically, I just want them to be able to see all of the giant floats and balloons.

Which reminds me, I really don't care to see yet another Broadway show translated into street-parade format. Yuck.

Anyway, back to the three hour long NBC commercial (that's an exagerration, I know).

Happy Thanksgiving.

All Smiles

Here's a great (in my opinion) shot of the new baby.

Pretty cute, isn't she?