July 2006 Archives

I had a great time in Sacramento. It was so good to see everyone again and to drive past all the old stomping grounds. I decided on my last day up there to take photos of all the places I lived in Davis and Chico. I might post them to Flickr, but I might just keep them in an obscure folder on the computer.

The exciting news at home is that my apartment complex has decided to give me a washer and a dryer in my patio storage room. I am excited because I will end up saving money by doing laundry at home. The downside is now I have even more boxes that need to be thrown out or sorted through. I started the other night and was able to eliminate 1 box. I think I need to be more aggressive on what I am going to keep vs. throw away. I need to eliminate 6 boxes in order to fit all the boxes in the other storage areas of the apartment.

One of the boxes I opened contained all of my old college papers. I am torn as to whether or not to keep them, after all if I become world famous some library might want them. I am not even sure if it represents the complete UCD career or if its just Geography classes. At any rate, some thinning needs to happen.

The goal is to have my apartment back to normal by Saturday. Actually, I still have CDs and DVDs to re-organize after having to box them up for the termite heat event last month. I still am not 100% certain I am staying where I am since there are some new apartments in Anaheim that include a washer/dryer that are opening soon. Also, my current place has offered me the chance to move into an upgraded unit - the catch is that they are downstairs and more expensive. Right now, I am leaning towards staying put (unless Coder wants his own room in which case we will be shopping for a place) and then hopefully next year or so I will be able to move into a condo.

For the first time in at least 5 years, I have returned to Sacramento. It was a melancholy experience. I was coming to the area to attend the internment service for my grandfather's ashes as well as a reception for all of my grandparent's friends from Paradise. But on the other hand, I was excited to see my old stomping grounds and some of my friends from Davis.

I arrived in Sacramento last night and the first thing that struck me was the new parking structure outside Terminal A. When I was living here, Terminal A had just open and there was a huge surface lot that you could usually park near the front and then get on a plane without any trouble. Driving to my hotel, I also saw how much the area around Natomas had sprung up with homes.

This morning, I got up early to meet my old boss and friend Reed for breakfast. After a quick bite to eat it was off to UC Davis to see my old co-workers and to see various new buildings and items of interest on campus. I had a great time seeing the gang again. It made me think back to those years working on the map book and all the other projects around campus. I also thought about how I was coming full circle at Disneyland since I am working in a capacity on a construction project. At that moment I really missed life in Davis - how you could drive out of town in 5 minutes and be in the middle of fields. Driving around with Reed I was also amazed at all the new developments on campus. It was nice to see that today's UCD students get so much more than what I got when I was there, but it still retained a lot of its charm.

We stopped into the bookstore on campus to see if there were any souvenirs that I might take home, but I opted to pass them up. It was time to say goodbye as I was off to the airport to pick up a family friend to head up to Paradise. We chatted all the way up and it didn't really seem like an almost 2 hour drive.

Arriving in Paradise, we had just a short time before we headed up to the cemetery for the internment ceremony. It has been 2 months since he passed away, but it was nice to see him finally be put to rest in one of his favorite places. They put his ashes into a marble wall made up of little alcoves that are covered up and sealed. We had a small service that I thought was perfect, despite the 100+ degree heat. After all was said and he was sealed up in the wall, I said my final goodbyes. Tomorrow we have a reception with 40-50 people in a park where we will all gather and toast him one final time.

Afterwards, we chilled in the hotel lounge and then had a fine Mexican dinner at one of my grandparent's favorite places in Paradise. Dessert was Foster Freeze and after some more chatting in the lobby it was finally time to go to bed.

After tomorrow's remembrance, I will head back to Sacramento to see another one of my friends who I haven't seen in over 2 years - Matt. I am not sure if I am going to go down the hill tomorrow night or if I will just stay the night and then return on Sunday. I have decided that I will try and stop by all my old houses (4 in Davis, 1 in Chico) and take some photos since I don't have any. By the time I go back to So Cal on Sunday, I will be pooped!

Charo called me again on Tuesday! She just wanted to touch base with me and let me know that her concert in Vail, CO over the weekend was a resounding success. She also wanted to let me know that the people from GEICO called her agent at William Morris to tell her that they have received tons of positive feedback on the commercial. I was floored that she called me back so soon and that when we talked it felt like we were old friends.

She told me that we would get together soon and she thanked me again for all that I have done. Needless to say I was giddy when we were done on the phone.

A friend at work burned me a copy of the GEICO commercial and I will post it on YouTube and then post it on the Charo.info site as soon as I can.

Saturday, when I came back from lunch, I noticed that there was a notice on Coder's Mustang that it was going to be towed. This is the car that was in the accident and has been sitting idle in the lot at the complex waiting for it to be taken away. I had been on Coder for a while to take care of it, and with his departure to Kansas for a few weeks it had to be taken care of soon. The tow sticker on the car forced the issue and we had to take action.

Granted it was 5pm on a Saturday night so our options were limited. We finally got someone on the phone that would come and tow the car away. At first they offered $600 but then after finding how many miles were on it, they dropped it down to $400. An hour later a tow truck showed up and the guy looked the car over and said there was no way he could pay over $200 for it. We knew the guy was BS'ing us and after Coder's blood started to boil the guy finally left without the car. By then we were on Plan B which was to jump start the car and wash it so at least it looked presentable and I'd move the car over the two weeks so that the apartment complex wouldn't tow it.

We attempted to jump the car with the roadside kit that Tara bought me for Christmas, but the jumper cables promptly fried and the car wouldn't start. So we then called AAA to have someone come and jump the car. I then suggested to Coder that he should just ask the tow truck driver if he knew of a place where he could dispose of the car or better yet would he just take the car and do whatever he wanted to it. The driver showed up and jumped the car and then Coder decided to ask if he's take it.

The driver was hesitant, but agreed to take it. After he got some Gatorade, he even offered to come back and give us $100 for the car. So he left and returned a few hours later to take the car and said he'd come back with the money. Coder really didn't care if he ever saw the money, but we said OK.

So Coder took off for Kansas today and there is still no sign of the $100. The guy called once and I missed the call. I attempted to call his place a few times, but never got a hold of him. I will check later in the week. This whole experience just cements Coder in the Chaos hall of fame. Susie would be proud of him.

Wednesday night I was sitting at home minding my own business when I received a phone call from David Nash. David is a super Charo fan and regularly talks with Charo and then passes information along to me. David informs me that he just got of the phone with Charo and that she is going to call me sometime on Thursday. I had just recently changed my off days at work so now I work on Thursdays so I told him that hopefully she will call after 5pm. He told me he was going to send her a fax so it should not be a problem. David also pointed out that some of the photos were missing from the Charo site since it moved to the new server so I was able to fix it before Charo called.

So Thursday I get home from work and the phone rings. I squeal with excitement and try and locate the handset and rush to answer the phone. "Hello?" Turns out it was a survey company from EZ Lube where I got my oil changed last week. Needless to say I was disappointed. I am about to eat dinner when the phone rings again. I look at the clock and its 5:45, still within the window. I pick up the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hello, can I speak with Josh Catalfo?" says a heavily accented voice.

"This is Josh"

"Hola Josh this is Charo!"

I was floored. I could not believe that I was speaking on the phone with Charo. We spent a good 20 minutes on the phone as she told me how much she appreciates the hard work I have done doing the fan site for her and that I know her better than she does. She then told me the story of her birth (she wants me to make sure I have the correct information on the site) and all about her new GEICO commercial that will be premiering this week or next.

The whole thing was surreal and I asked her a few questions including, "Do you have a picture of Cuchillo, the dog that inspired "Cuchi Cuchi?" She told me the story of when she was a child living in a Moorish castle in poor conditions and how her grandma took in this poor dog with fleas and lice and missing teeth. A car had also hit it and when it shook, it made a funny wiggle, which Charo imitated. She told be that back in 1952, 1953, and 1954 that no one had a camera back then ("It was not like America, Josh" she told me) so there are no pictures. "Besides", she told me, "if anyone saw that dog they would say that is the ugliest dog ever."

It was a great conversation where she told me that I was now her friend and that she feels like we have known each other forever. I mentioned to her that I work for Disneyland and she said what a magical place it was where you can have some chocolate ice cream and a churro. I told her those two things are my favorites too and she replied that we have so much in common.

I am still reeling a bit from the whole experience. She said she would call me again soon and tell me the details of her next big project that she wants to have the first announcement on Charo.info. Stay tuned!

There are now 700 entries on the Daily Update. Considering I started it back in 2000, I thought there would be a lot more but I've gotten over the post for the sake of posting thing. (OK, well maybe except this post - ha). I do suffer from a sense of frustration in that there have been things in my life that I wanted to post about but either got lazy or out of the posting habit and they never ended up here.

So what is Josh's blog frustration 2006? There are so many tools and tricks for Movable Type that I've completely been passed up and I get the feeling that it might be awhile before I catch up. Sometimes I wish I was working in an office again because I'd have more time to analyze the site and work on it without all the other distractions that abound at home.

Oh and the real reason behind this post is that there was a glitch in my MT CGI that was throwing the post engine to the wrong server. So hopefully this post will successfully prove that I fixed it.

So the stitches are gone. 11 removed by the doctor and one decided it didn't really want to be in the place it was at decided to leave on its own accord. I respect its decision. I have had some problems with the largest area (home to 8 stitches!). This area had to be steri-taped by the doctor since she felt it was still sensitive. This area also tends to ooze and leak blood (or puss or god knows what) in small amounts - but enough that after a long day working in a white shirt tends to look bad. So today the bandages came back and it still managed to leak through. I am going to try the mondo bandage that I stopped using a week ago to see if it helps. I am not sure why I am still having this issue, but needless to say and to ease Mom's concerns, I will go back to the doctor if it gets any worse or does not improve over the next week. Part of the problem is that I have been working through all of this with little or no down time. The things we do for beauty.

My expedition to WDI was pretty fun and I am glad I got to walk in yet another place that Walt used to roam inspiring his artists to give their best. I kept having to put my eyeballs back into my head with so much to see, but none of which can be publicly discussed. Just know that it is all very cool and there are some very talented people that work there.

Overall work has been very challenging with working on two attractions at once. The one thing I need to work on is delegating to other people and trusting that they will give their best. I guess I just want everything to be the best that it can be.

Quite the social weekend for me as my brother and most of his family were in town. I met up with them and my dad, step-mom, aunt, and grandma and headed down to San Diego to visit my sister and brother-in-law. She's very pregnant expecting a bundle of joy sometime in August. We decided to head down there via Amtrak - that's right sometimes in Southern California we do take the train!

The trip down was fairly pleasant with the highlight being some hijinks that granny caused in the bathroom. Without going into details, let's just say we pretty much laughed the whole way down. We arrived at the terminal in San Diego where Ray met us with his Church Van. This thing holds 11 people + comfortably. We were chauffeured down to Little Italy where we attempted to eat at a highly recommended eatery, only to bail after it was discovered they were closing in 15 minutes and the only place to eat was out back on the patio in the sun with no breeze. Ray managed to score some extra cash by giving some people a lift who were a bit too drunk to make it back to where they needed to go and then returned to pick us up. We decided to head closer to their house and finally settled on another Italian restaurant in San Marcos. The verdict was that the pizza was very good, but the pasta and salads left something to be desired. We then headed over to Sarah and Ray's to chill out for an hour or so before we headed back to catch the train in Oceanside for our trip home.

When we returned to the Fullerton station, Dad and associates headed back home while my brother and family expressed a desire to walk around work, so off we went. We arrived right as the fireworks started and managed to quickly make it over to ride the re-vamped Pirates ride. It was OK, but I didn't think it was all that special. I also took them on Mansion to check out the attic update and then it was over to Space and Buzz for the usual Tomorrowland fix. By then I had to leave (it was 11:45 anyways) because I had to work early in the morning.

The next day, my brother and family came down again to check out the Company discount store where they picked up some souvenirs and gifts at great prices. I snagged a new lanyard (just what I need) of Mickey in his Hardhat since I thought it would go well with the work I am doing nowadays on the project.

Today the whole gang (Dad, Dianne, Ryan, Kevin and fam) headed out to the Home Depot Center to watch the LA Galaxy face the NY Red Bulls. I thought the Red Bulls was a fake team like the Washington Generals were to the Harlem Globetrotters, but alas they are a real team which the Galaxy beat. Ryan is a soccer nut and an accomplished player and told me that the players were not very good and put up with me asking dumb questions about the action. I think the World Cup is way more interesting to watch than MLS. The crowd was pretty sparse, but managed to get pretty loud when the Galaxy scored towards the end of the game. After, we were treated to a fireworks show (definitely not a Fireworks Spectacular that I am used too). Overall, it was a fun night out and I am glad that my schedule at work finally allows me to hang out with the family more.

Now it’s off to Glendale tomorrow for a big meeting. I am excited I get to tour the friendly confines of WDI!

Apparently I need to read documentation more carefully, despite my deep rooted feelings that its cheating. At any rate, it took me an hour of tinkering to get my Thunderbird program to be able to see the new email server. Despite the fact my email has not changed, a lot on the backend has. This means it is slightly more of a pain to log on to webmail programs like Mail2web to access my account, but overall I am happy with it.

Still working on Trip Diaries, though to no surprise, I got sidetracked looking for the original versions of my Sweden photos and ended up loading my Japan photos from March 2004 on Flickr. Now if only I had extra time to put captions on them. Then again, there is a lot I have forgotten over the past two years. Oh well...

Japan March 2004