June 2004 Archives

A funny thing happened today. It was my first day on the boat on my own and I had a blast. Towards the end of my shift these two gentlemen from Australia started asking me questions about how the Columbia operated. They then explained that they sailed on ships that traveled from Sydney to Hobart and were members of some sort of club in Melbourne. I mentioned to them that I always wanted to visit that part of the world (like I do to almost every Australian who visits the park).

One of the men, Brian, told me that I should look into signing up on a ship down there and that they were always looking for crews. His friend went on about how "the rate the PM was going, Australia will be a colony of the US". I didn't really have the heart to tell him that my boat was on a track and at the end of the trip around the Rivers of America, he hands me his business card and tells me when I get to Melbourne to look him up and we would go down to the pub and possibly go sailing.

It is this type of random guest interaction stuff that really highlights why I like working at Disneyland.

Yesterday was the 9th anniversary of Club Josh. I know last year I was too sick to celebrate and this year I am busy looking ahead to next year. I have no doubts that the site will be here for its 10th birthday, but I am not sure what form it will take. Odds are it will look much the same, but I have been trying to get a good idea to restructure and redesign the site. If I go the co-location route, then Club Josh will be broken up into different domains (Charo, Doingworld, etc.) and it will make the redesign a lot easier. The sad part is that I remember posting a wish list back around the 8th anniversary of what I'd like to do.

Of those, it looks like I have accomplished one of those goals. I have partially worked on the unifying theme with the Trip Diaries experiment page. I was thinking of going with graphic headers and such but I really like the simplistic look of the kottke.org redesign as well as one of the sites he linked to. The problem with Club Josh is that it is really a bunch of different sites together. It is not just a weblog or a phlog. It is sometimes both and neither. It's tough being your own category.

It reminded me of working that one Tom Sawyer Island Guest Control shift way back many moons ago. I was nervous at first - not remembering when to hit the spiels or when to stop the boat while the Columbia was docked, but thankfully I took notes during training and asked the CMs at the attraction lots of questions. All in all I managed not to make a fool out of myself and had a great time hosting groups up in the wheelhouse. A couple of them had to get some tips on whistle blowing so that they could get the right length down. The most rewarding thing? On my last trip around as the pilot, I got to do the ol' shave and a haircut bit with the train.

I have a Columbia shift coming up this week and I can't wait for it - just need to get through a couple of lead shifts. On the new schedule I just need to get through the 4th of July weekend before I get back into a nice stretch of Big Boats.

It is amazing how much room was created by eliminating the table and chairs. I am still trying to optimize my space, but I might be moving the box o' posters into its spot freeing up egress from the bathroom.

Oh and one other tidbit - Andy sent me an invite to try out GMail. I really haven't had a chance to take it out for a test drive - I hope to in the next day or so.

Been another busy week with alternating shifts at work. The highlight was Wednesday's shift where I BBQ'ed for 8 hours to say thanks to the crew of the ride for their hard work. I managed to also BBQ my neck, and worse still, I was wearing a lanyard so I have a bright red neck with a nice white line in the middle of it. Thank goodness for Aloe Verde.

Kevin and the family are out for a dance competition where Chantal finished 3rd place overall - pretty impressive for her first time out. We all went to the park on Thursday and had fun. I went on Tower for times 17, 18, and 19. I still like the ride and Kevin, having not been to the Florida version, liked it as well.

Looks like Kevin will be taking the kitchen table back to Mom's house in his truck. This will free up some valuable space in the apartment and allow me to rearrange some stuff here and there. It also lets me remove a main source of paper clutter. I'm going to get a new shredder tonight so that I can just get rid of most of the stuff I have lying around.

Mark Twain on Sunday! I can't wait!

I just wanted to include a couple of links that I found on Presurfer that I wanted to be able to refer others to:

Best. Toilet. Ever.

Angry Alien productions make 30 second versions of movies. With Bunnies.

I'm now a daily Presurfer reader thanks to me discovering his link to me last year.

I made it out to see the Stepford Wives - review shortly. I'm also pretty happy - I have a Mark Twain and a Columbia shift on the new schedule.

The week has just flown by, and I'm not sure if I have been too busy to post or just plain lazy. I suspect that reality is somewhere in between. One notable event this week was on Tuesday. I was screening the DVD of The Core when Mother Nature decided to let loose with a M5.1 49 miles west of Tijuana - quite the special effect. It reminded me of the time I was flying back from Europe and was watching Star Trek First Contact and the plane was shaking during the battle sequences.

Another thing that has been throwing me off is the alternating of day and night shifts. It seems scheduling can't make up their minds on what they want me to do. Last week I had almost all day shifts and next week is almost all night shifts. I just hope that I will start pulling some nice relaxing river shifts soon before I forget how to do the whole thing.

Oh and if you have ever wanted a Club Josh license plate frame for your car, they are now available in the store.

After a gorgeous weekend, I finally got signed off on the Mark Twain and the Columbia. The Twain was just one day of training and the hardest part is remembering when to signal the engineer and when to hit the spiel buttons around the river. I do love being in the wheelhouse. It is a great chance to interact with guests and give them that special extra memory of their time at Disneyland. It also affords the opportunity to blow the whistle so that all the people of Anaheim can hear you. It is a very traditional attraction not one to goof off with, but still a lot of fun.

The Columbia however is a bit more relaxed. they give the CMs a little more room to spiel and make the voyage more entertaining. The highlight of being a Columbia operator has to be pulling in and out of Fowler's Harbor. All the people along the River watch as you back out of the harbor. I know that I do whenever I see it happen. Plus in the role of Hawkeye you get to fire the cannon at Ft. Wilderness. You also get to actually drive the Columbia which, while intimidating at first, is actually a lot of fun.

I hope I get to pick up some shifts soon so I can hone my spieling on the Columbia and run the Twain with two boats in operation. The Cast Members all seem to be having fun and it will be a nice relaxing change from the Pooh ride.

The other event this weekend was Matt's birthday bash. Once again I had the Kool-aid and Vodka mix which rendered me inebriated. Good thing I knew when to stop this time - no vomiting. I think I only embarrassed myself a bit, but apologies were made to all involved and I think no lasting effects will be around.

It has been almost two years since I trained at the Matterhorn and I am a bit nervous about training this weekend. Now I did train on Winnie the Pooh, but it was a bit different. I went there when the ride was not open and learned the ride from the general lead and the imagineers and maintenance workers over a period of three months. Not since June 2002 have I actually been out there in the field learning something.

I still am haunted by my four and a half days of training on the Matterhorn (June 7-16, 2002 - It wasn't five days in a row but Friday, Saturday, Sunday, then Tuesday, and Saturday). Now mind you, I probably would have been signed off in three days, but the mountain conspired against me. At least I was able to lick my demons when I became a trainer a year later.

The attraction I am learning is vastly different than the ones I knew before. The good news is that it is considered a D-ticket which means I will have now worked all of the different ticket attractions. What does that mean? It means I have worked an A-ticket (Sleeping Beauty's Castle, Carrousel), a B-ticket (Casey Jr, Alice), a C-ticket (Pan, Dumbo, Snow, Toad, Tea Cups), the forthcoming D-Tickets (Mark Twain Riverboat and Columbia Sailing Ship), and an E-ticket (Matterhorn Bobsleds).

Ever since I was a kid, I'd always have trouble sleeping the night before starting a new class or semester or year in school. It still happens today as I start a new adventure at the Happiest Place on Earth.

I'm getting back into the swing of things and feeling back to normal. Part of my recovery was helped by talking on the phone with Matt for a couple of hours last week. Its not very often that we get a chance to talk on the phone, so usually when we do we keep going and going and going. I do wish I lived closer - even though he is always busy, I'm sure I'd see more of him.

On Friday, Daniel, Tiffany, and I saw the new Harry Potter flick (see my review if you missed it). Also in town were Mom, Gary, Shirley, and John who were in town for a convention. I hung out with them a bit at Downtown Disney on Friday and then Mom, Gary, and I headed to DCA and DL on Saturday night. Mom didn't quite make it on Tower of Terror, but she had good reasons. I'm sure some day we'll get her on there. I also got to see the newly refurbed Peter Pan. The ride looks better than ever and I especially love the new stars and the lack of intrusive exit signs. When we went on Mansion all you can see are green exit signs - not something that adds to the effect of the ride. Hopefully they will soon get the Pan variety or the Pooh variety that only come on during a ride stoppage.

Sunday and Monday were spent working and lounging around the house. Today will probably be more of the same. However I did get some good news regarding this coming weekend! I'm not going to jinx it but let's just say that it has something to do with this picture and this picture and that I'm going to practice singing "Old Man River".

*** / ****
Dir: Alfonso Cuarón
2004 Color English
Rated PG for frightening moments, creature violence and mild language.
IMDB Site | Official Site

Sirius Black has escaped from Azkaban prison. He's been convicted of murder and rumor is that he's headed to the Hogwart's School. The heads of the prison have sent Dementors to the school to keep an eye out for Black, but promising to stay out of the way of the normal school activities. So figuratively and literally a cloud hangs over Harry, Hermione, and Ron as they embark on their third year.

The Harry Potter series is vastly entertaining for people of all ages, and this sequel stays true to form. One must not delve too deeply when looking at a movie of this type, but it is nice to note that this movie is smartly directed, well acted (even the kids!), and quite simply well made. Sure it is not going to have everything the Pottermaniac wants from the books, but for someone like me, a lay person, I enjoyed it. I made sure not to repeat the mistake I made with the last film (2002's Chamber of Secrets) and avoided the book and any plot descriptions before I saw the movie. I think it really helped my enjoyment of the film. I was able to watch it with my whole attention and not spend part of the time wondering where this scene is or what happened to that.

You do almost wish that they could just make the books into movies and not have to leave anything out. The books are just so layered and engrossing that it is almost a shame. It is a tribute to the director and the producers that they can whittle it down to movie running time and still make a good product.

In the other character department, Michael Gambon has taken over for the late Richard Harris as Dumbledore. He's a bit too healthy for me. I enjoyed Hariss' frail, yet still powerful (a la Yoda) interpretation better.

One last thing I enjoyed is that despite the lack of screen time devoted to our characters developing, you can really see it happening in the few short glimpses that we see. Hermione is blossoming into a smart witch and Harry is really getting an attitude. It is nice that as the movies progress the characters mature and are not just cardboard cutouts year after year.

*** 1/2 / ****
Dir: Roland Emmerich
2004 Color English
Rated PG-13 for intense situations of peril.
IMDB Site | Official Site

Dr. Jack Hall (Dennis Quaid) and friends Jason (Dash Mikok) and Frank (Jay O. Sanders) are hanging out in Antarctica drilling for ice core samples and generally teasing Jason about being the new guy. New Guy starts drilling for cores and wham-o big crack opens up and a huge chunk of ice breaks off from Antarctica setting in to motion the biggest climate change seen in 10,000 years. Thankfully, things don't take as long as they used to and in just about a week, a new ice age is upon us. People look in amazement. People utter "My God..." L.A. gets destroyed (way better than in 10.5). Tokyo gets shellacked by 10 pound hail. New York gets flooded then frozen. A group of people decide that they should follow someone other than one of the lead characters - you can guess what happens to them.

Day After Tomorrow is one of the best disaster movies to be made in 20 years. Roland Emmerich did his homework and pays homage to all of the key ingredients of disaster movies: Token Child (In this case there is the sick kind AND the nerdy kind), Distresses Relationship that grows closer by the end of the movie, token exchange of sentimental item (in this case a book), token pet, the use of the phrase "My God...", the choice to follow someone, old couple dying together, lovable supporting character who gives their life to save others, and so much more.

Acting wise, these actors all knew where they needed to take their characters in a movie such as this. Dennis Quaid gets away with being Dennis Quaid (and for that much so does Sela Ward but both are perfect in their roles). Ian Holm is great as the Scottish Climatologist working with Quaid on what exactly is going on in the world. Kenneth Welsh (Windom Earle in Twin Peaks about 12 years ago) is great as a Cheney wannabe VP. Jake Gyllenhaal has pretty eyes so its a good thing he gets to stare intently at stuff all the time - books, girls, the sky, wolves, etc. (You see they all are perfect in their roles).

This is most certainly a big screen movie - worth the $10 to see all the effects up there on the screen. There were hardly any shots that you would be like wow that looks like a digital effect (the lone exception is the fake snow covering the migrants fleeing to Mexico). Other than that one, the effects throughout were awesome.

A lot has been written about the politics behind the movie (the swipes at Bush and Cheney, global warming dangers, etc.) but I for one am just glad that someone finally told the public that Global Warming is going to cause an Ice Age. It is something I have been trying to tell people for years since we learned about it in college.

About the only disappointment in the movie is the ending. It is very anti-climatic and feels like a let down. I guess since most of the movie is go-go-go to have all of it end so sudden is quite a shock. Maybe it was just me but I certainly was jarred at the end by its sudden resolution. I was hoping for a bit more.

Go see it. If you enjoy a good disaster movie as I do you won't be disappointed.

Once again, I have gotten a bug. I don't know if it is because of the site, but I usually don't get sick this often. I blame part of it on a whirlwind weekend and now its time for me to circle the wagons and chill at home for a few days to get myself back in shape.

Here are some tidbits from the weekend:

I really enjoyed Day After Tomorrow. I'll post a review of it shortly. It had all the elements of a good disaster movie.

Palm Springs was fun. The last time I was there with Roger in 2001 we only ventured to downtown PS and didn't make it to some of the other cities. Apparently all the expensive shops and such moved to Palm Desert because Mayor Sonny Bono wouldn't let new construction take place. As a result PS is more a Hodge podge of old 50's buildings - some with cool little boutiques, others just closed. On the flip side, Palm Desert was brimming with life and full of people and cool stores. I managed to pick up some sheets at Stein Mart - a rare find to get Standard (Eastern) King sheets in California.

Towards the end of the trip I was wiped out. I knew I was coming down with something so when I got home I relaxed and watched a movie with Jason (Star Trek 2 - continuing our series). Sunday I went to work and was weak and miserable the whole day. I was going to go home early, but Daniel needed my help with some documentation. We then headed over to Mandel's BBQ where we got to see his pricing game for The Price is Right which aired on Friday. Its a game called 1/2 OFF and was super neat and the contestant won. Apparently Bob introduced Mandel to the audience during the commercial break. and on his site has a cool photo of him with Bob. I was still low on energy so we bailed out a bit early and headed home. I collapsed on the couch and it was off to bed.

Yesterday I called into work so I could have my recovery time. I did manage to make it out to North Woods to see Kevin and Cathy who were out celebrating their 10th Anniversary. I didn't eat much, but I saved most of my dinner for today when I feel better.

So I'll be laying low the next few day.