August 2002 Archives

Quite the parade of the stars at Disneyland. On Thursday we had both D.L. Hughley and Jamie Foxx on the Matterhorn within 10 minutes of each other. One has to wonder if they were together or if there was some WB promo going on somewhere.

Also on Thursday, Jim paid a visit from Northern CA. He was down in the area visiting some relatives out in Irvine. It was good to see him again, I think the last time we saw each other was at least three or four years ago. We met up at the Block at Orange where we ended up participating in some market research for the new Charlie's Angels picture. Our task? How did we feel about the titles. Let's just say most of them sucked (Charlie's Angels 2, Charlie's Angels: Second Coming, etc.) and the one I picked (Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle) was the least sucky. Well at least at the time it was. I still think they should have picked Charlie's Angels 2: Electric Boogaloo.

I managed to get the Mobile Club Josh working, and the PDA version should be just down the corner. My main concern is still the PDA archives, but I am sure I can get it formatted with no problems.

After much bemoaning and general laziness and procrastination, I have finally finished porting the Daily Update into Movable Type. It is not 100% where I want it to be, but I think it is good enough to get the ball rolling. The biggest issues I have (and maybe there are some people out there who can help me) are:

1) Permalinks - I haven't quite figured out how to put the anchor link on each entry.

2) Calendars - The main index page has a groovy calendar that shows all of the entries for the current month - I want to put that on each of the month archive pages.

3) Navigation - I'm not enamored with the built in template nav, me thinks if I get some time I will make it bigger.

4) Spellcheck - You would think they would have built one in. Maybe it is in there and I haven't found it yet.

5) PDA and Cell Phone compatibility - PDA is pretty easy to accomplish with the exception of the archives. I have no idea how to start with the cell phone conversion. One of the benefits of the old system was that they all fed off of text file includes. I should be able to start replicating them soon.

Other than that, I think it is pretty cool to be able to get some feedback from people on the entries. Another cool feature is the ability to divide entries into categories and also to get statistics like the fact this is the 297th Daily Update Entry.

Now that I have wasted some good time on this, it is time to get back to working on my freelance work.

Apparently, this month is destined to be the month of anemic update entries. I am not sure why it has been slow. I think part of it is the lack of anything exciting or interesting to say (not that any of the entries are really that exciting to more than 5 or 6 of you out there). What can I do? August has been a dull-as-dishwater month. Another factor is that I have been busy with some freelance web design work. And sadly, when I am working on other web sites, time at clubjosh is reduced to a minimum.


In the good news/bad news department, summer season at the park is coming to a close this week. Those of you out there wanting to ride the Matterhorn had better hurry since it closes on Tuesday for two months as they finally fix the elevator. Personally, I like having to have guests hike down the mountain when they get stuck, but I'm sure Tinker Bell will like not having to climb all those ladders. With the closing of the mountain, it means I am back on the Routes - whee. It will be a nice change of pace, and maybe if I am super lucky, they will give me something else to do as well. The park will be closing at 8pm again during the week, so it will mean more time at home - woo hoo!

The month keeps zipping along. It truly is the dog days of summer. Even though the weather seems to be more like June here than August, the attitude of August is in full force. It is that "School is around the corner, but my brain is still on vacation" feel - even though I am not in school.


I finally managed to get my defunct car alarm fixed at the Honda Dealer. I have had the CR-V for three months and the alarm only worked for the first one. I also picked up the dashboard cover that Dianne had picked up when she got Sarah's. I need to give it time to unroll before it will fit exactly in the window, but I think it will help the car in the long run. Another surprise? My old Xterra is still sitting on the car lot at the dealership. Man, are they taking a bath on it. 3 months is a looong time for a car to sit on a lot.

As visit Josh week continues, Joe, Jody and Noah made their way up to visit the sites of LA and Beverly Hills. I had the chance to drive their new 2002 Honda Odyssey, which still is the best minivan on the market today. Joe has installed a DVD entertainment system into the van which triggered some serious consumer lust. There is nothing worse than having consumer lust and no budget for it. Wendy and Mice didn't help by sending pictures of the birthday celebration at Disneyland from their muy-boffo camera.

Other things I have been lusting for lately include a new digital camera, and for that matter, a digital camcorder, and a nice fire wire connection and some editing software for the computer so I can remaster all the old movies. Oh and I better just get the DVD-R so I can master the movies onto DVD so I can watch them in the car. Or something like that. I have some serious comparison shopping to do before I get or even think about getting anything. I am happy with my Olympus digital camera, but I haven't seen a 4+ Megapixel camera from them that I like.

Fall TV Season is nearing. How can I tell? CBS has introduced the new Survivor group. I hope they are fun and not dull like the Africa group. Next up: I am sure they will be updating the Amazing Race site soon as well.

This week it has been visit Josh week. In the middle of last week I was visited by Mom and Gary who had my grandparents from Northern California in tow. We met up for a bit at their hotel and went out to eat at Art's Delicatessen in Studio City. On my way to see them, I ran into the Sprint PCS guy sans trench coat. I wanted to ask him if he wanted to go hiking tomorrow, but before I could he had rounded the corner and disappeared. Apparently, he had dined at Art's right before we did, because when I was mentioning my encounter to the relatives, the waitress said that he was just there.


Over the weekend, Wendy and Mice dropped into Disneyland for Wendy's birthday. I hadn't seen them since A-V Day and since they bought their condo. It was good to catch up. I am still waiting for Wendy's report on the Birthday cake from the Plaza Inn.


This week, the Coopers are in town for an extended vacation. I saw them briefly on Monday and hope to get together later this week. This weekend I get to spend one of my off days at the park entertaining some friends.


All in all, not the busiest of weeks, but enough to keep me on my toes, and sadly lagging in update entries.

Thanks to Mandel's suggestion on his site, I picked up Abba - The Definitive Collection on DVD. I spent most of Friday night going over the Lasse Halstrom directed videos and laughing myself silly. Some of them were bad, some were "Oh my God what were they thinking!" and buried in there were a few gems like "Mamma Mia" and "Money, Money Money".


Spent Saturday with Jeff and Brian down in Anaheim Hills. Brian is a recovering Disney CM and dug out his box of goodies. One of the prized finds was the Disneyland Master Plan from 1991. This was the plan that outlined WESTCOT and the Diseyland District (later to become California Adventure and Downtown Disney). It was interesting to see how grand the plans were and how much actually made it into the resort. I still think the fountains between the park would have been nice, but also a traffic nightmare. Same with the 6 acre lagoon that the Disneyland District would have been around. Most of that site was converted into the Grand Californian Hotel. I am gonna try and scan the photos and post them somewhere if I get a chance. While up at Jeff and Brian's we went up a bit on the hill and were able to watch the Disneyland Fireworks from a good 10 miles away and still hear them.