Saturday, June 30, 2007

Passport

I FINALLY got my passport today! I am so glad. It's just one LARGE weight off my shoulders to worry about. I'm still, uh, not exactly ready. :P I semi-know what I'm packing or how I'm packing. I still need to hunt for a travel backpack. I've researched some kinds and all that, I just need to find a place I can go and look at them in person. Or should I take the risk and just order on-line? That's my problem. I don't want something to bulky or big, but you really can't tell that from seeing pictures on-line.

2 weeks from this Monday is when I head for Europe. It's getting VERY close and I just don't have enough time to do everything!! My life is just busy and I'm TIRED! *sigh* Oh well. What are ya gonna do? Not a whole lot, except to get excited about everything happening. Then again, I'm so tired (at least right now), I can't even get excited. I just need to dig down and figure out my capstone project (I e-mailed my advisor once, but she hasn't responded, need to e-mail again), figure out my travel backpack situation, get a packing list going, and clean my room before I go. :P

Anyway, with that, I'm off. I'm tired and it's 1:30am and I have to get up for church and head right from church to work. Yay...

Laters

Friday, June 29, 2007

PotterCast in San Fran

PC was fun! It wasn't necessarily seeing/meeting John and Melissa (that was neat); it was the energy. Anything live is always better than hearing/seeing it recorded, you know?

It was great seeing and meeting Laurie! She is SUCH a troublemaker! LoL She randomly called out to Melissa when they arrived and getting ready and Melissa turned around and was all "what?" I had to give Laurie a "behave yourself" look. :P And she said some other things too to get some "what are we going to do with you?" looks from Melissa. :P Nancy showed up, albeit a bit late since she got lost. Nancy works on the myspace page. It was great meeting her too!

We did the 5 questions, picked a CC question, did questions, did impersonations, and some other things. My mom bought me a PC shirt and pins. Melissa tried to GIVE us shirts. When she found out we bought them she wanted to return our money. We wouldn't let her. They're pretty cool shirts. I'm debating whether I want to wear mine tomorrow at work or not. :P

Kathy Meengs, our former District Marketing Manager for Borders, was there helping to set up. She's supposed to attend any store functions. Anyway, I saw her there and at the end I introduced myself and she recognized me and all that. We started to talk and she said she tried to get them to go to Sand City, but they couldn't. I couldn't believe it! Anyway, when we went up to Melissa/John to introduce ourselves Kathy comes up to Melissa and starts gushing about me how I work at Borders and I'm one of their best employees and yaddy, yaddy, yaddy. I couldn't believe it! LoL Kathy also remembered that I worked or did something for the site too. I was so amazed. Anyway, that was my interesting Borders meets Potter moment. :P

With that...pictures!

More on Potter...My passport is in the mail! I'm excited about that! I'm expecting it around Monday/Tuesday. We leave in a bit over 2 weeks (2 weeks exactly on Monday). Do NOT remind me or tell me about the car bombs in England. Really don't need to hear it. :P Especially since we're staying somewhere close to Piccadilly. I need to seriously get my butt in gear about packing and making sure I have everything.

Anyway, with that, I'm off.

Laters

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Flickr vs Picasa Web

Well, I got mad at Flickr.

Flickr only allows 500MB (I think it is) or 200 pictures to be uploaded! When I uploaded my Kennedy Space Center photos some of my Animal Kingdom pictures got bumped off. BOO!

Since I was mad at Flickr and Photobucket wasn't working for something else I was using it for, I noticed google had a photos thingy called Picasa Web. So I checked it out and I get a bit over 1GB of space or 500 pictures. SWEET! Anyway, I reuploaded all my photos to my google photo acocunt instead. :P

Kennedy Space Center/Frog

Disney World

Animal Kingdom

Another nice thing about Picasa Web, it has nicer links (no random characters and such compared to Flickr; Photobucket is fine with links). Granted, when it's all said and done, I only lost about 10 pictures off of Flickr. I use photobucket still, but I've found they down grade quality sometimes and uploading a lot of pictures isn't - well - fun on Photobucket.

Anyway, with that, I am off.

Laters

Home Sweet Home

I'm HOME! It felt SO nice to be in my own bed for a number of reasons, but one being I was in a horizontal position and not a vertical/sitting one. 13.5 hours I spent in airports or on planes. I was SO glad to be home and in 30 degrees (F) cooler weather. :P

The flight was delayed about an hour when leaving Florida, but I didn't mind. We made up about a half hour in the air, but I had a 5 hour wait anyway so it was cut to 4.5. In fact, my flight was so far in advance it wasn't on the departure board in Denver. :P I had to wait about an hour/45 minutes before it showed up and I knew which gate I had to go to. I had to walk a LONG way. I went from gate 20 to gate 81! I think I walked at least 4 people-movers and went down an esclator. It was WAY out there. I was going stir crazy too. I would stand up and just walk around or just stand there moving because I was going nuts sitting in the airport. I was too tired to read and I couldn't access Denver's wireless internet. So I was just going nuts.

We had to fly in over the bay because the marine layer was too thick. It was kind of creepy. It's this SOLID, semi-dark mass of clouds EVERYWHERE. You couldn't see below it it was so thick. So they went in over the bay to avoid hitting a hill. :P It was kind of cool, though.

Anyway, I'm home now and have a little more than 3 weeks before I head to Europe for the Harry Potter book release!!!! (30 days from today the book comes out!)

With that, laters

Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Airports & Computers

It's 11am in Florida and my flight was supposed to depart in 14 minutes. Except, I'm still sitting in the airport with the monitor saying "delayed" on my flight.

Why you ask? Apparently the computers have gone down and most flights aren't taking off. I'd say all, except I see planes flying and landing. Joy for me. At least I won't miss my connecting flight in Denver that has sa 5 hour wait. It's at moments like these that I'm glad for a long layover.

I'm debating right now whether I should go get some food. I'm kind of comfy in my spot and don't feel like getting up, but I'm getting hungry and a lady in front of me is eating and it looks good. I think, at this moment, I'd rather just sit and wait. I'd rather be sleeping right now, but I don't get that luxury.

OH LOOK! It's our plane pulling up! Sweet. I'm off.

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Disney World/Kennedy Space Center

Welcome to my last night in Florida. It's been a LOT of fun and it's been fun seeing Jamie and all that.

Yesterday Jamie and I went to Disney World (pictures). It was fun, but it wasn't the same as Animal Kingdom. We're just gettin' too old. :P It was hot! Probably hotter than Animal Kingdom, but we weren't in the sun as much. We stood in line for many of the rides, but the longest was the Jungle Cruise. It said a 40 minute wait. Well, someone screwed up the fastpass line and the "normal" line and we stood, stuck, for about 20 minutes while the fastpass people zoomed along. FINALLY they fixed it and we sped up some. So we stood in line for about an hour (give or take a few minutes). Our jungle cruise guy kept making bad puns and we were a roll-your-eyes group. We hardly laughed. :P We hardly even played INTO his jokes. It was sad. We went on Splash Mountain. That wait said 90 minutes and we were on and off the ride in about 80 minutes. It was nice, though, because it was underneath a canopy of trees. We were going to go on POTC (next to Jungle Cruise), but the line was outside the building and Jamie and I couldn't fathom waiting the 40 minutes in line for it OUTSIDE with no shade over us. We went back after Splash Mountain and the wait said 50 minutes, but it took us about 30 minutes. We sort of rushed in and RIGHT when we got "stopped" by the line of people in front, a LOT of people came in after us. So we missed the rush! PotC was fun because of the new Jack Sparrow installments (3 of them). It was also different (for me) because when you enter it has this project/steam (looks like water) entrance and it had Davy Jones saying something to us (couldn't hear it or wasn't paying attention). It was pretty neat. Unbeknownst to me, there WAS a small drop and it scared the daylights out of me. Totally wasn't prepared for it.

We went on the carousel, tea cups, NASCAR ride, Buzz Lightyear ride, Peter Pan, Stitch thingy, and the train. Jamie said we went on the Peter Pan ride for our Senior trip to Disneyland, but I don't remember that at ALL. We were laughing and talking about that Senior trip where I fell asleep on Main Street. :P It was fun. The tea cups was hilarious because we were spinning really fast and when they stopped us it was a jolt. It sort of felt like when a cartoon character stops really suddenly and their eyeballs bounce around in their heads. That's what it felt like. When we stopped and looked around everyone around us was looking at us like we were insane or really good about how fast we were turning. Jamie and I walked around a bit like we were drunk. :P It was insanely funny. The Buzz Lightyear ride was fun because you get a controller to spin around in circles, but a "gun" to shoot the targets. Jamie CREAMED me, but I was controlling the spinning and my thumb started to really hurt midway through the ride. :)

We left RIGHT before the fireworks, I was tired and so was she and we were just sitting on a bench on Main street at 9:15pm and we had about a 45 minute drive home. So we left. We saw the VERY beginning and tail end of the new lights parade too. We mostly spent it on the train around the park. It started to rain while we were there too! It only lasted for about an hour, but it was nice to walk in the rain. It did thunder and lightning a bit, but only a bit.

Today we went to Kennedy Space Center (pictures). We only went to the visitor area. The ticket is good for 2 days (within 7 days), but I'm leaving tomorrow and we got a late start so we didn't make it to the Hall of Fame area. We went on the tour. Took us a bit more than 3 hours! That was neat. Jamie wasn't impressed, but I liked it. We went on the new "space launch" ride. That was not what I expected, but fun none-the-less. Jamie and I laughed saying our cheeks hurt by the end. It was a fun simulator ride. We didn't have much time to look around, though, so we didn't. I didn't find the mars rock to touch (bummed) and the moon rock you could touch was GONE! I was bummed to say the least. We saw no gators either, which was also a bit sad. They have gator fences since gators can climb over a 6-8' fence. :P The chained linked fences bow out so if they climb over they'd fall down. They also have the biggest runway in the world! From Tuesday, it's 2 more days before the Atlantis lands. It started to rain when we left too. It's not raining now.

We just hung out in her backyard after dinner and such tonight. We found a frog (see KSC pictures) in her backyard and tried to catch that and took its picture. We'll probably head to bed in an hour or so (she's playing Kingdom Hearts while I'm on the computer). Tomorrow I depart back for Monterey, California. I tell you, I will be glad for the weather! I've been doing well, but this heat thing is just - well - weird. :) I depart around 11:15am from Orlando International and arrive back home close to 7:40pm. I'll probably try to be at the airport between 9:00 and 9:30am. Then I have my wait, take off, and my LONG wait in Denver. Hope they have wireless!

For now, laters.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Blue Man Group

OH MY GOSH!

BLUE MAN GROUP ROCKED!!!! I must admit it has probably been the best $60 I've spent in a LONG time.

They have those moving text reader thingies (you know they have the text on them and the text scrolls across). And it was hilarious to read. Before it began it talked about no cameras and videos and it said if you took video the ejectors mechanism in the seats will have to be used. It was just funny stuff. When it started, it would tell us things to do. So it said like "so-and-so just won a gold medal. Let's all say congratulations on your medal so-and-so." Or it'd say someone's birthday and we should SAY happy birthday not sing it. One time it said for us to all say hi to Sam (after telling us to say something for other people beforehand with a purpose) and it said Sam is just a normal person and there wasn't anything special about him. It cracked us up and then it said "all the more reason to say hi to Sam." It'd ask for these people to stand up too, but no one did. Then it said that a person in the 4th row is going to sing for us and two spot lights shone on this guy. The guy just sat there and it said, "Just kidding." It was funny.

Before they started too, they gave everyone crepe paper (white) to do whatever they wanted. Most people (like us) put it on like a ninja.

Then the show started and they started up with the paint drums, which were pretty neat. They poured paint onto them and one of the guys would hit it. Then they did this paint ball thing. One of the guys would throw it to another guy and he'd catch it in his mouth (they threw marshmellows beforehand into the audience). Then he took a canvas and bit into the thing and paint would come out. The third guy would try to get them, he missed a few times and went to go put one on the canvas, but nothing happened. So he just stuck it to it. Then he caught a TON in his mouth (probably 15 at least) and just kept shoving them into his mouth. He couldn't put it onto the canvas so he got this table and pushed them all out of his mouth into a mound and put a $4,000 sign in front of it while the other guy held up his painting. It was HILARIOUS.

They did some musical things with PVC pipes. It was pretty cool. The band was in these suits that with neon lights would make them look almost like a dummy or movie, but they were real people. They brought out boxes of Cap’n Crunch and they did a musical thing with crunching it. It was FUNNY.

They came out into the audience and actually walked right passed us. One of the guys in the audience had been given a Tolberone (spelling?) chocolate thing and so the blue-man-guy gave it to another guy on the other side of the aisle and he non-verbally asked him to toss it to him so he cough catch it in his mouth. That was hilarious. The blue-man-guy was RIGHT next to us and he didn't always catch them in his mouth and they'd drop on the ground, but he'd put them into his mouth anyway! At the end of it, the blue-man-guy goes up to the gentleman who was throwing the chocolate and took his hand and put all the chocolate pieces on his hand! The fun part about this too was they had a camera following them around and we were on camera! LoL

Then the other two of them walked near the "power switch" and got this other guy to stand up with them. They put his hand on top of another blue-man-guy and the moved his hand around to the switch. All the lights went off! So we're just sitting there and third blue-man-guy comes over with a flashlight and shines it on the switch and one of the others (not the one with the guy) was eating something out of a bowl relaxing agains the switch! So he kind of gives him a look and he sort of jumps and turns the switch back on and then just randomly hands a person in the audience the bowl!

Then they three of the prowl around the audience and found this lady. They pulled her up. So the go onto stage with her and this HILARIOUS routine. They put this blue type vest on her and sit her down and then the others all sit down. There are plates in front of them. One of them pulls out some flowers in a vase and they do something that was funny. Then another guy pulls out some jell-o. He jiggles it and they all look at it intently and then look at her. She has this look of “what?” Then they jiggle it again and look at her again. Then the guy who took the flowers out picks up the vase and tries to get it to jiggle or makes a motion like it’s jiggling. They all look at her and she has that look again! Before that they also put a picture on the wall. And they try to move the picture like it’s jiggling. So then they start to play with the jell-o and he hits a slate in the table and sends the jell-o flying into the audience. They look all shocked. Then one of the guys brings out a lamp and points it over the flower. He claps his hands and it turns on. It cracks us all up. So then, of course, the audience all starts to clap and it spazes out. So he puts it away and brings out a lantern light and hangs it up. Then one of the guys brings out a box of twinkies. They each get one (including the lady) and they’re trying to figure out how to open it and at first she was too and then she just opened it. The guy sitting next to her looks at her like she’s amazing. He takes the twinkie and puts it onto his plate. So he hands her his twinkie and she opens it and puts it on her plate. As she’s opening each one, the guy next to him is showing the other guy. So eventually she opens the 2nd guy’s twinkie. The last guy, though, brings out an electric cutter and cuts his open! One of the guys brings out a vacuum and vacuums up the wrappers, the lion on the painting, and one half of the last guy’s twinkie! Then they bring out silverware (plastic) and cut up their twinkies and share them with each other. It was funny. Then they start to eat it and the guy next to her made it look like he wanted her piece so she goes to give it to him, but takes it away. The look he gives her, though (funny!), stops her and she feeds it to him. So then they all wave the twinkie around in front of the other’s face before they feed them. Then, one of the guy’s suits spurts out pasta or something (looked GROSS!). He starts to eat it and then the others try to steal it from him. Then the other two also do that and they’re fighting over the stuff. It was gross, but funny. Then, suddenly, HER suit does the same thing. It FREAKED her out! It was SO funny. Then they scoop up all the stuff and put it into a take-out box. One of the guys gets up to get her up and take the vest off. They hand her the take-out box of pasta and also a picture (one of those fast developing ones). They send her back to her seat. It was SO funny. I haven’t laughed that hard in forever. I was crying SO much I couldn’t wipe up the tears fast enough.

They did some more musical routine stuff that was pretty fun, but you had to be there. They also did some more things with some people in the audience. They brought up 3 people from both sides and the center and sat them down on chairs. They did this whole video intro about the ear and how it works and how there’s this one part scientists don’t really know what it does or how it works because they can’t find volunteers for the very painful experiments. So then you start to laugh for the guys. They attach like a drumstick with a hook to each of their ears. Then they pull on it and different forms of “ouch” come out and when they pull it different ways, it makes different tones and such. They did a musical thing to that and it was hilarious.

They also brought this guy (teenager) up and put him into this white suit and put a black helmet over his head and they lead him off stage. Once they do that, they start to play on some form of drums and you see this backstage camera and they paint the suit with blue paint all over. Pouring it on, squirting it on, etc. Then they put a loop over his feet and they pull him upside down and plaster his front to a canvas! So it makes an imprint of him! They turn the camera off and you see the Blue Men. A box with jell-o on top comes out. They play with the jell-o, but it makes this sound (like a mic inside of it). So they tear through the jell-o and there’s like a black upside down bucket. They pull it off and it’s the guy! He’s in a blue painted suit. They lead him off and it was funny too.

They did some other cool things too. Like make fun of the internet saying millions of lines connect us and whatnot and you think it’s the Internet, but they say “plumbing” and that’s when you get your first glimpse of the PVC pipe music/drums. They also did a thing on netspeak, that was hilarious. They also talked about animation. They did a whole skit with that and this white (almost like shaving cream, but not) stuff. They also talked about how animation will never be as good since it’s 2-D images and not 3-D. So they had this what we thought was just bronze (odd) statue around this water column (they made tornadoes in it). Well, they spun it REALLY fast and it turns out it makes an image (in 3-D) of this person dancing! They changed the lighting so you can tell it’s the same thing underneath correct lightning. It was cool!

Then they did this whole thing with, what looked like, a large outlined person (you know, the outlined people shape like you see on movies when someone dies they outline the person). They had them sitting on a computer alternating between typing and drinking coffee. Then they stand up! They have these whips and they make sounds and then the guys come out with whips and do this whole routine. The slight of hand stuff between what is a person in a suit and what is just a projector or TV was AMAZING.

They did the TV screen thing. Their heads are behind/in TV screens. That was funny too.

The coolest part was the end, though. We had the crepe paper each person was given earlier and they had this thing at the beginning on the scroll bar thingy saying “all paper is from 100% recycled paper.” We were all “what? Why’d they say that? Because the stuff they gave us?” They also gave a strobe light warning. WELL. The guys put on a THIN mask and they turned the neon lights on and everything started to glow! They had these colored tube things come down from the ceiling I was noticing before the show started and they spun around and the guys had the thin masks on to make their head “glow.” They ran around the audience again and at the back of the room they had ROLLs and ROLLS of wider crepe paper and it was just pulled off and sent down the back and across the front. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN! Oh my gosh! They put the strobes on and the neon and you have all this paper moving from the back to the front. It was SO much fun. I couldn’t believe it. Strobe light was wacky and it was just so much fun. It was close to the end so they did a few other things, more paint drumming and that was neat. They had everyone come out and bow and it was just AMAZING.

The other funny part was when we were about 10-15 minutes in they were going to do something but the big screen goes through an “attention everyone” thing and says “late arrivals!” They had a camera and light on the late arrivals and a song saying “late arrivals” or something like that plays. It was hilarious! If I was late, I’d be SO embarrassed. EVERYONE knew you were a late arrival.

If I had the chance, I’d go again. It was definitely worth the $60. It’s almost a full 2 hour show (about 1 hour and 40 minutes long, though almost 10 minutes of reading the scrolling thing and telling people things). There’s no intermission, but they warn you of that before hand. Lots of audience interactions and they were just fun and funny.

Well, I think that was all the big stuff I can really say. All I have to say is, they were HILARIOUS and LOTS of fun. It was amazing. They had this “splash zone” where everyone wore ponchos (or most) and it cost more, but no one got wet or anything. *shrugs*Maybe for another show routine they do.

Jamie got a Blue Man Group CD called Complex. She and I both got shirts. I didn’t want to, but they were too amazing to pass up on the shirt. So I’m into +2 shirts for going to Florida. Somehow I’m going to pay for Europe. :P

I’m just having a blast here. Tomorrow we’re going to the Magic Kingdom. Tuesday (if it doesn’t rain) most likely Kennedy Space Center unless something comes up. :)