June 2002 Archives

Another week in the books. Monday night I had a brief celebrity encounter: Full House and America's Funniest Home Video former host Bob Saget was on Mr. Toad. Tuesday was particularly nice as I spent the entire day on Tom Sawyer's Island telling people that the caves were closed. Apparently, there are plans afoot to redo most of the island, including closing the injury-plagued caves. Most people visiting the island seemed disappointed upon hearing the caves fate, but the island remains a nice getaway from the hustle and bustle of Frontierland and New Orleans Square.

Wednesday saw me extolling charm as Fantasmic! Guest Control. Fortunately only one guest really got upset that we were not allowing him to cross over the bridge against the flow of traffic.

Thursday night, I finally went out and saw a movie. This time it was Steven Spielberg's Minority Report. Overall, I rate it ***/**** and I will post a link to the review I wrote for the Ahwatukee Life website once they have posted it.

Tonight I am trying to recover from Bad I Can't Believe It's Not Good Butter. Here is the scoop. I had a bagel at my father's work, and was offered some spread from the refrigerator. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the spread dated back to the elder George Bush's administration. Needless to say, I am still trying to get the bad taste out of my mouth.

Work progresses on the new Daily Update. The format is all set, now I am just plunking the archives into Movable Type's database. I only have about a year of entries left to do, and it will get to be more time consuming since my entries were way more frequent last year.

Another hectic week. Last week, I did not manage a single day off of work, and thus the lack of updates. It was particularly rough since I was rarely at home except to sleep. It also didn't help that summer is here and along with the warmer weather comes the psychos at the park. I had a near run in on three different occasions with people who were one taco short of a combination. It was not all lost due to the kids. Anytime I let the adults get to me, I just had to start talking to the kids and everything worked itself out. On particular girl at Casey Jr. was hilarious. I had been asking her about the characters she had seen during her day at the park. I then joked with her, "Have you seen Charo?" She of course looked confused at first while her parents snickered. Then, out of the blue she says, "I didn't see Charo, but I had a Churro!" I nearly fell on the floor laughing.

Independent confirmation about the upstairs neighbor. Apparently the apartment complex manager shares my suspicions about her occupation.

For Father's Day, Kevin went and jumped out an airplane. I am not sure what the fascination is, but he is the third one in my family to do it. As for me, I can't even stand at the top of the Matterhorn without getting extremely dizzy, let alone jump out of a perfectly good airplane.

I am convinced that our upstairs neighbor is working for a porn web site. Really. One of the disadvantages (or advantages if you are a pervert) to living downstairs from someone is that occasionally you end up listening to them having sex. Now, this has happened in every apartment that I have lived in where there has been someone else upstairs (Thankfully in Davis, my bedroom was above the living room). Normally, sex alone is not enough to think that the person - in this case a female - works for a porn site. I have noticed that whenever she gets to the point of screaming certain phrases out (i.e. give it to me now, ohh yeah, etc.) and finishing, it is always less than 5 minutes before the top of the hour. Her most frequent sessions end right before noon. It has become a game to me, where I join in and start yelling back at her. Next stop: I will start blasting the Bloodhound Gang's hit song "The Bad Touch" (You and me baby ain't nothin' but mammals So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel).

It has been a hectic few days. Thursday night, I worked a Grad Nite at the Power 106 party at the Festival Arena. There is nothing like the sensation you get when a group of 300 people start to rush you. At one point we even had to clear out the Arena because there were too many people inside (capacity? 1500!). I didn't get home until 7am and fell asleep, only to wake up and go back for a night shift on Friday. I think I caught a slight cold at Grad Nite, because since then I have had a minor sore throat and some sniffles, although it is hard to tell because of all the germs I get exposed to on a daily basis.

Saturday brought the no-holds barred rematch between me and the mountain. Despite such challenges as an Auto E-Stop on B-Side while I was brushing up on the tower position, I managed to pass and officially get certified to work at the Matterhorn. I still need more practice at grouping people since it can easily get away from you. I feel much better about the ride and ready for the challenges it will bring.

Saturday night, Roger and enjoyed a nice leisurely evening out at Disneyland, which is a rarity these days since I usually work nights. It is always good to sit back and enjoy the park as a guest, I think it makes me appreciate what I do.

Monday night, Roger, Chris, Cory, and I headed out to the Skybar at the Mondrian Hotel in West Hollywood. Now, this is supposed to be one of the best hangouts to go to in town, but we were far from impressed. The drinks were watered down and the best we could do for celebrities were some ladies who looked like the Dixie Chicks. I'm sure a Friday or Saturday night would be much better in terms of atmosphere, but Monday is definitely not the night to go. I did like the layout, despite the fact it was nothing more than a glorified pool with some cool patio furniture and some mattresses lying around. I would like to give it another shot, but I think I'll have some drinks before they go. Oh yes - $50 for four watered down drinks - not exactly for those on tight budgets.

As for the Matterhorn, well, I'm still trying. After a eight hours, they still don't feel like I'm 100% ready for it. In their opinion, I am at 90% and just need a little bit of work on Saturday. Hopefully, my patience and ego-bruising will pay off in the end. I feel like a total bonehead for not making it, however the powers that be have told me that they have great confidence in my abilities and that I will have no problem getting signed off. Stay tuned!

Well I almost made it. I was in the middle of getting signed off on the Matterhorn when the mountain decided that it had other plans for me. In a matter of minutes, I inadvertently caused a Sled Escape (infernal Sled Escapes - the bane of my existence), and my co-trainee was having problems getting a sled aligned on a transfer table. The result? Cascade back-up, thumbs-down from the tower. That wasn't the worst part. Once we got the ride back up and running, and my blood pressure went down, there was some drama with a guest and another cast member, resulting in the people who were doing our sign-offs having to spend time dealing. So now I have to go back on Wednesday to get signed off on the last few positions on the ride. I was so depressed that we didn't get to finish (not that it was really our fault, I just wanted it over with) that I ate a whole quart of Ben and Jerry's Chocolate Fudge Brownie Ice Cream in bed (Reed wouldn't think eating the whole thing in once sitting is unusual).

Today, Roger and I escorted Chris on a trip around L.A., pausing to take pictures at the Hollywood sign and Santa Monica. I managed to get a good shot of the CR-V at the sign, as well as two new Gorn pictures. I'll try and get them up on the site tomorrow.

I've successfully tested Movable Type, now I just need to work on the template and decide on a look. That way people will get to make comments on my Daily Updates. Just a note, when it gets up, all of the pre-June 2002 entries will have fake post times. Most of them will say 12:00 noon, unless I had mentioned in the entry when I was making it. I hope to have it all up and running by next week. I just hope my 7 days of work next week don't wear me out too much.

Day Two of the training. by the end of the day we had learned two new positions - grouper and tower. Grouper is the person who keeps asking "How Many" and its their job to keep the people lined up and ready to get into the sleds. It can be one of the toughest positions at the mountain, especially when you get a lot of groups of five. Fortunately, one of my managers gave me the secret: Party of Five? Rows 2, 3, and 4 - then look for a party of two for the first row. Tomorrow is practice, breakdowns, and then the final test to get signed off on the attraction. I feel that I'll be able to get through it without too much difficulty.

Still no David Lynch, but (you knew that was coming didn't you?) today I saw Lex from Survivor: Africa on one of the B-Side sleds. Go Lex. It looked like he was there with his family. I was running the tower at the time so I didn't get to interact with him. It has been quite the week for recognizing people, who knows who will show up tomorrow.

Day One of Matterhorn training went pretty well. It is defiantly a challenging ride to get the hang of, but once you do, it is a lot of fun. We walked the mountain twice (once on each side), and spent time learning the Belts, Load, and Unload positions. I think Unload is the toughest position - you are always on the lookout for a sled in Hold 2 and then another in splashdown. Towards the end of the day, I was getting the hang of it, and even had time to begin to interact with the guests.

Still no David Lynch, but the first person that I loaded onto a bobsled was Haley Joel Osment. He came complete with his own Disney tour guide and seemed to be having a fun time. One of my fellow Cast Members informed me that the Matterhorn sees a good number of celebs, since it is a Disney Original, and one of the most popular rides in the park. Now if only I was able to put Walt on it back in the 50's and 60's.

Well he is no David Lynch, but yesterday at Baja Fresh, Roger and I stood in line in front of Thomas Ian Nicholas. It is one of the few instances where I recognized a celebrity before Roger did. I remember him from Rookie of the Year back in 1993 and I know he was in the American Pie movies, and a quick perusal through the IMDb revealed he's still busy working with one movie coming out next month and another two in production. He was with someone (I assume a friend) who proceeded to ask for chips over the Baja Fresh PA system. I thought it was funny, but the manager looked a tad bit annoyed.

Tomorrow is the big day, and I can tell you I'm excited and still nervous. I am sure everything will be fine, I just hope I don't end up hurting myself or anyone else for that matter. If I am lucky, I might even get a peek at the top rooms.

This weekend, we are playing host to Chris from Boston. We had just viewed an episode of "Everyday Elegance" hosted by Colin Cowie that was entitled "House Guests" and featured many ways to make your guests feel at home (you can catch Colin on the Women's Entertainment Network and sneak peaks at the network on AMC). Colin ironed the sheets, gave them a spare lap top to check their e-mail, set out gifts, candles, and most importantly an itinerary of things that were planned. I think Roger is going to try and out-do Colin, though I don't think he has a sea-themed dinner aboard a yacht planned.

Tonight's big excursion was to the famous Bob's Big Boy on Riverside Drive. We try to get there once in awhile, since Bob's played an important role as chef during my childhood. While I was waiting for Gina to ring me up at the register, I asked her if she had seen David Lynch. I know David frequents this particular Bob's since he had a recent contest on davidlynch.com to have lunch with him at the Riverside Bob's. Gina told me that she sees him all the time, and that according to the waitresses, he is no Drew Carey (another frequent Bob's patron) when it comes to tipping. This is the same Bob's that I once saw Fred Willard dining, and given its close proximity to NBC, Warner Brothers, and Disney, I am sure other celebs are there often. I would love to catch David Lynch in Bob's though. I'd even buy him a milkshake.


I am really keen (yes people still use that word) on the idea of moving the Daily Update and other sections of Club Josh into Moveable Type. Dan seems to like it for his blog, and it seems pretty easy to manage. I just need to make sure that I will still be able to produce the Cell Phone and PDA versions of the Daily Update. I know it all will have to do with my Style Sheets and such, I just need to determine if it is really any better than my current system, or if it is even easier to maintain, and might enable me to publish my Tellme site again.

Well the apartment on the street of yesteryear was directly out of yesteryear. Needless to say, we won't be moving there anytime soon. No AC, smallish rooms, and no garage as promised pretty much shot down this apartment. One of the other oddities - no cable in the front room - only in one of the bedrooms. I think if there had been an AC, we might have overlooked some of the other items. The building was built in 1948 to house Warner Brothers employees, so it had cool history, but when the rental guy says the power in the building isn't able to handle something like even a window AC, you tend to get worried about your computers and TV.


Mandel's big party was a success. I even managed to eek out a win during the Hollywood Squares segment of the party. Me and my fellow contestant tied at one game a piece, and then he missed the tie breaker sending me into the bonus round. Since this was a Match Game/North Hollywood Squares party, the bonus round was a Super Match. I managed to do OK, ending up with enough cash to get something from the small box. I was happy as all get out. Someone later in the party managed to score something from a bigger box, and a great time was had by all.


It did make me wish that I had more time to hang out at people's parties. I've missed my fair share of events in the last month or so due to the busy schedule at the park. Hopefully, as my seniority improves, I will get some more weekend nights off. Or at least, I'll move into something else that will give me the weekends off again.