October 2002 Archives

Let's face it, we all can be in apathetic moods at certain times where we are procrastinating and generally avoiding the responsibilities of life. When you realize that you really have to get back to work, what song(s) can get you going no matter how urgent the deadline and no matter how much you have put it off?

For me, there are several songs that can get me going:
"La Parada de Tettas" by the Vengaboys
"Chronologie 4" by Jean Michel Jarre

So what gets you goin?

One week left before the big Euro trip. There is lots and lots of things to do before we get going. At the top of the list is making sure we have enough warm clothes. The weather forecast is for the low 50's for next week and the news reports have been talking about high winds so hopefully they will be gone before we get there.

I am still unsure about how I am going to present the trip in the Trip Diaries section. I want to use Movable Type so people can comment on the different sections and also allow me to present the photo galleries in an uber-cool way. One problem: I am not sure I have enough time to get it all figured out before I go.

We have pretty much decided on which tours to do while there. I was a bit disappointed that there was no Inner Circle Stonehenge tour during November. But we are going to try and see Edinburgh, Stonehenge, and a nice city tour of London while we are there. When we get to Paris, we are going to try and get a good city tour as well as a trip to the Loire Valley with all the cool palaces. The problem with booking them online is that there is still some doubts about confirmations and such. I want to wait until we get to London to actually book the tours, that way I can get the receipts and such in person.

To honor my trip, the schedulers at the park have given me next Sunday off. Now of course, I was startled when I went to check my schedule and I was not on it at all, but since I am not working any days next week they saved themselves an extra line. My next off days are Thursday and Friday, so that means I have to go back to work for Saturday only before my trip. Hopefully, It will allow me to finish my looming web project before then.

Watched the new DVD of Disney's Beauty and the Beast last night. I must admit, my memories of the movie were basically "Chick Flick" and that I liked Aladdin better. So when I watched it, in probably the first time in about eight years, I really enjoyed the movie. It definately belongs in the group of Disney classics that I can stay interested in for the entire 90 minutes. Trust me, for some of the older classics it is tough.

The new musical sequence "Human Again" really didn't add anything to the plot of the movie. The liner notes talk about how it further develops the supporting cast and their desires for the Belle thing to work to break the spell, but frankly, I thought it was a superflous musical sequence.

I only watched a few of the DVD special features. The one adventure game to replace the glass around the enchanted rose was fun for the first five minutes, but after the level of frustration rose due to my lack of patience at video games, it got old real fast. The "Stories Behind the Stories" were a waste as well. The celebs they got to tell the SBTS spent more time on telling the story than the SBTS. I hope the rest of the material is better, but I am currently not very inclined to venture through it. I think the Monsters, Inc. supplementals are much better.

Night of 100 Stars Photo Gallery is here - take a look.

Of course don't forget the complete Night of 100 Stars site!

In case you missed yesterday's recap here is the link. Thanks again to everyone who showed up and sent birthday wishes electronically. It might seem like a small thing to send a birthday email, but I always am grateful and happy to receive messages.

Now that the big party shin-dig has come and gone, I can look forward to the next couple of weeks which include Cory's Halloween party, and of course Europe 2002!! I'm glad all of our reservations are taken care of, now I just need to get the Tube and Metro passes and get some guide books for Roger to skim through to see what he wants to visit.

The big annual birthday party was a big hit. The decorations came together at the last minute thanks to Roger, Alex, Mark, and Cooper. Having them around came in handy, especially when Alex's present was revealed: The official Club Josh Disco Ball. Another highlight was the cake courtesy of Solley's Bakery in Sherman Oaks. They provide the cakes for Jerry's Famous Deli, and the cake of choice was their Chocolate Fudge Cake topped with some Vanilla Bean Ice Cream. Mmm Mmm Good!

The party was a mostly low-key affair, with everyone socializing and not too much scandal. Our guest total was 24, a respectable number with about 50% of the invites showing up. Vickie Lawrence was put in one bathroom and Tattoo was put in the other. As the night progressed, people would say "I'm going to see Vickie" or "I'm going to see Tattoo". I think the strategic black lights, the disco ball, the black wall coverings and the stars provided the best decorations since Cuchi Cuchi Hawaiian Style. Susie did let me know that I need to scan more old photos for Cuchi Cuchi. Besides Alex's Disco Ball, Mark provided a mico-mini R/C Racer - THE hot Christmas toy for 2002 which was very cool. Also in the mix: a couple of abercrombie shirts, a calender, a couple of candles, and some nice cards.

I will post photos and comments on the complete Night of 100 Stars site tomorrow.

Today also marks the second anniversary of the Daily Update. I can't believe that this little attempt to keep the mundane interests of my life on record has lasted this long. There have been lean times, but I'm happy where it is at and look forward to the future. Now if I can only get those darn PDA archives to work correctly.

Since we've decided to go to Europe again, I have been feeling Deja Vu. I have a very strong feeling that I have lived 2002 before. In fact, I think 2002 is really 1996 coming back to haunt me.

1996: Bought a new 1996 Honda Accord LX
2002: Leased a new 2002 Honda CR-V LX

1996: Traveled to London and Disneyland Paris
2002: Traveled to London and Disneyland Paris

1996: Cuchi-Cuchi Hawaiian Style, my 24th birthday party On Saturday October 19, featured pictures of Charo all over the apartment.
2002: Night of 100 Stars, my 30th birthday party on Saturday October 19, features pictures of celebrities, including Charo, all over the apartment.

1996: Celebrated first anniversary of new job at UCD.
2002: Celebrated first anniversary of new job at Disneyland.

I'm sure there are more similarities out there, but these are the ones that stick out in my head.

In travel news, I thought we had the Le Meridien reservations taken care of, but there is still some negotiating that needs to be resolved before everything is finalized. Fortunately, Nathan is helping out with the backup plan in Paris. Now we just need to get his end taken care of before he heads off to India at the end of the week.

Thanks to a generous grant from the state of California, Roger and I have been able to secure a last minute trip to London and Paris. I've been to London once and Paris many times, but this will be Roger's first trip to the continent. Roger's hotel connections are proving troublesome, but hopefully they will all come together. Just in case, I have Nathan on the case to get us a hotel in Paris. London hotel might be a smidge tougher, but I have confidence that it will fall into place.

The next step is securing our subway (Tube and Metro) passes for our stay so the only thing we have to worry about is what to do when we are there and what to eat. The only thing I know for sure is that we are going to Disneyland Paris on Monday November 11. The reason for that date is that is the last day Phantom Manor will be open for the rest of the time we will be in Paris.

The last time I was in London was in 1996 for the Europe 1996 Trip Diaries which also was the last time I went to Disneyland Paris. The last time I was in Paris was in 1998 (No Nathan that year, he was in New York, the last time I saw him in Paris was 1997).

One cool thing is that with the new Daily Update, I will be able to go to a cyber cafe and post a report without needing FTP or any of that. I will also be able to create a new Trip Diary that will have comments and such!

UC Davis' big Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts has finally opened. There is some news coverage at the official UC Davis News site. I think the center is a great addition to the campus, though I am not sure it was placed in the best spot. I guess considering access to the facility from the freeway, it was the best place to go. I personally think it would have been better closer to downtown Davis, i.e. the current location of the football field. Then again that area of campus has really bad traffic problems. I can't wait until I get a chance to go up there and see it in person. Makes me wish I was up there surveying.

I've been a busy bee as the days get closer to the annual bday bash. Roger is hard at work on the decorations, and I am working on the official B-Day Party web site. You can look at how the site is progressing by looking here. There are a few more things I need to add such as the timeline and some info on the celebs, but I think its coming along nicely.

Still trying to recover from the weekend. It has been awhile since I have been that exhausted. For some reason late Friday night, I decided it was high time I sorted through a stack of bills that had been accumulating on my bookcase for the past year. I had always been under the impression that you should save all your bills up to seven years just in case. However with some research, I found this great article at Bankrate.com.

To sum up: Keep Bills for big ticket items for insurance reasons in a separate folder. Also, any items bought for a home business or other tax reasons should be kept up to seven years. All other bills can be tossed once the check has cleared and the next bill shows up. I plan on going through the mounds of paperwork and doing a shred fest soon.

So to follow up the late night obsessive/compulsive attack, We set off for a full day at Disneyland on Saturday for Roger's birthday. Overall it was a fun day, but when combined with the late Friday night, it really put a drain on my system. We did manage to get a decent picture at California Adventure and as soon as I hook up my bought-5-weeks-ago-and-still-in-a-box scanner, I'll post it. In addition to Roger's friends, I also ran into Wendy and Mice who were down for the Haunted Mansion Holiday event. Thankfully, I got to sleep in late on Sunday and with no work on Monday I was able to sleep in again and get back on track. I even managed to get some work done on some web projects.

The clock is ticking and I have so much stuff to get done for Night of 100 Stars. I have all these ideas, but reality is beating me down. Fortunately, we are starting earlier this year and it is going to be a much better planned affair than last year. I still want to get a web site for it up in the next week, but timing is going to be tight.

For Roger's birthday, I picked up a Creative Nomad IIc MP3 player (Note: Creative's web site isn't exactly up to date). It took me awhile to settle on which one I wanted to give him. I rarely ever buy electronics without doing some good online research (an exception? TiVo - pure consumer lust). My personal choice would be for a player with 20GB of storage so I can put all of my CDs on the player for those long European trips. Creative makes the Nomad Jukebox 3 with that much space, but Roger wanted something smallish and lightweight that he can take to the gym.

Creative also makes the Nomad MuVo which uses the MuVo memory stick and is about half the size of the Nomad IIc. This seemed cool, but there was no LCD screen so you can see the track listing and skim through it. Another cool thing about the MuVo is that you can plug the memory right into the USB port - no cables and no software needed - the computer thinks it is just another hard drive.

The newest version of the Nomad IIc comes with 128MB of onboard flash memory (it is also available with 64MB and 32MB for less money). It also has a Smart Media expansion slot able to read up to the 128MB Smart Media cards (currently around $40-50 ea.). I liked this feature since my digital camera also uses Smart Media and if we ever upgrade then we know what we can do with the old ones. Plus Smart Media are small and compact and if you but a bulk pack of them it still comes out smaller than a stack of CDs.

So to sum up, I felt that the Nomad IIc offered a good balance between size, functionality, features, and expandability perfect for Roger. He seems to like it too.

Anyone else have experience with MP3 players?

This weekend is Roger's birthday bash. We are celebrating with a group of friends down at the park and it coincides with the re-opening of the Haunted Mansion after its Holiday makeover. I had requested to get the days off way in advance to prepare for this festive event and am looking forward to it. "But Josh", you say, "Where is the tough decision?".

Today I was over at the main scheduling building turning in another cross training form and checking on the status of the part time conversion forms. I decided to put down Splash Mountain, Pirates, and yet again the Walt Disney Story as my three requested attractions. I mainly chose Splash because I heard they are training lots of people over there and also I know a few people that work it. As I am walking away, one of the schedulers calls after me and asks me if I am scheduled this weekend. I told her no, that I took the days off for a friend's birthday. She then informs me that she has an opening to train on Splash Mountain on Friday-Saturday-Sunday. I almost collapse from excitement. Then of course, reality had the last laugh.

"What time is the Saturday shift?" I meekly ask. Sure enough it is 4pm to 1am - the time we are all supposed to be celebrating Roger's birthday together. I tried to weasel them to change the time, but that was the only way it was going to work. So despite the temptation and the fact that it was a once in a blue moon opportunity, I had to pass. I just hope that the schedulers will be kind to me and how tough of a call it was to me and give me another crack at another attraction. As the old saying goes, "If it was meant to be it will happen".