
In Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, there’s a notice board with several messages on it, written in Aurebesh.
For fun, I translated it!
Continue readingIn Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, there’s a notice board with several messages on it, written in Aurebesh.
For fun, I translated it!
Continue reading(I facebooked this when it happened to me three years ago. Apparently the story has become legend around the office. I’m putting it into my blog for posterity.)
You say the message you’re seeing on the site is ‘we are out of duck.’ Are you absolutely certain?
“Yes.”
You’re completely sure? That’s the wording? ‘we are out of duck?’
“Yes.”
That is the EXACT message? You can reproduce it?
“Yes.”
Send me a screenshot.
Last week my parents treated the whole family (me, Jill, Mom, Dad, Brother John, his wife Jen, and their nine-year-old Claire) to a cruise on the Disney Dream.
This is my second cruise. I sailed on the Disney Wonder ten years ago and very much did not like it. I resolved this time to keep an open mind and try to experience all it had to offer, especially because Mom was looking forward to a great vacation with the whole family, and because Jill really loves cruises and wants me to enjoy them with her.
So let me tell you about everything we did! … No, there is too much. Let me sum up.
Jill and I just saw the new Beauty and the Beast in the theater.
It was … regrettable. Came across as “an adaptation of Beauty and the Beast starring Hermione.”
Jill runs (or walks) a lot of 5K and half-marathon races with her posse, the Sparkle Sisters. (See sparkleskirts.com.) A few times each year, she’ll go away for a weekend at Disneyland or the Space Coast or even at the nearby Disney World resorts with her friends.I stay home alone with the cats and the dog, and I take advantage of the time to tidy up and tackle some home projects.
This is the first time we’re doing it the other way around, though. She and her friends ran the Pro Bowl 5K at the ESPN Wide World of Sports this morning, and they’re running the Celebration half-marathon tomorrow morning. So Jill and seven of her friends are staying at the house … and I decided it was my turn to get away.
Our annual trip to Disney’s Vero Beach Resort.
I was maxed out on vacation time at work (couldn’t accrue any more until I used some), so taking the week off worked out perfectly for me. Jill and Eve had walked the Space Coast Half Marathon together on Sunday morning, so they were definitely ready for plenty of relaxation too.
A long while back, I took the “Magic Behind Our Steam Trains” tour at the Magic Kingdom. The guide told us what the various steam locomotive whistle signals meant, and I jotted them down. I finally decided to post them here so they no longer take up space on my notepad.
A few months ago, I attended an interview with Floyd Norman. Floyd is a Disney Legend – “the first African-American at Disney,” he says. He got his start in animation, but his career really took off when Walt himself asked him to help with the story on The Jungle Book.
During the interview, he said a lot about the creative process. I took notes. (My notes weren’t exact, so most quotes below are paraphrased.)
Creative people are more willing to take a risk, he explained. “Creativity is not being afraid to be different, and to be a little bit nuts.” He talked about his job being a collaboration between art, creativity, and technology. “Walt and his colleagues were just making stuff up. The painters, the cameramen, et cetera – they learned and made it up as they went along.” His career has spanned from Sleeping Beauty all the way to Monsters Inc.; he explained that Pixar is very much like the Hyperion studio in the 1930s. Because no one had done it before, there was nothing telling them they couldn’t do it.
I feel like I’m always doing something, always trying to keep up with my schedule. I read a book once that described a character running around “like someone always late to a meeting,” and that sums it up. Jill says that it’s because we tend to have a lot going on as the holiday season gets closer.
So I decided to keep a log of what we did in our free time on each day of October.
Kristy was down here for a few days, so of course she made the most of it with a side trip to Disney World with friends, and of course I came with!
Friday evening she, Kate, Tina, and I went to Kona Cafe at the Polynesian for dinner, then we went to the Magic Kingdom just long enough to get Dole Whips and ride a ride. Pirates was closed so we went on Jungle Cruise. “Does anyone know what kind of snake this is? … starts with a P …?” Someone yelled PLASTIC! “No! That’s wrong! This is a python! You want to see plastic animals, go ride Kilimanjaro Safaris at Animal Kingdom, those are the most fake animals I’ve ever seen!”