A Weblog about nothing.

Me, 45
Daughter Chris, 17
Son Alex, 11
Stepson Derek, 23 (first-timer)

Day 1 — Sunday, Sep. 2, 2007

I can never sleep before these trips. Too much last-minute packing, last-minute fretting and too much giddy anticipation. So, this year we planned to leave really early and get to WDW around lunchtime. We were on the road to Lubbock by 1:30 and successfully navigated there, parked and dealt with the airline and TSA to board a flight that was in the air by 5:20 a.m. Texas time. We changed planes at DFW and settled into an hour and forty-minute flight to Orlando.

At Orlando we boarded a yellow Mears coach instead of the “Disney Magical Express” that I anticipated. I was kind of disappointed and hoped this didn’t bode ill for the rest of the trip. I realize that the Magical Express coaches are nothing more than coaches Disney leases from Mears and paints in the ME livery, but it’s one of those details that makes things, well, magical. I also noticed that we got music, but no video on the in-coach monitors. Bummer. I wasn’t disappointed for me as much as the first-timer we had on the trip. He was thrilled to be there and didn’t notice the things that were missing, but then again neither do I most of the time?

We got to the Caribbean Beach Resort around 11:30 and got checked in. Check-in was quick considering the number of guests that were checking in with us. It was Labor Day weekend and I was concerned that we would not avoid crowds to the extent that I had hoped. I was also really stressed over the idea of renting a car for the beach trip Tuesday and NASA Wednesday. At any rate, we collected our pre-shipment box, caught the internal shuttle, and headed to our room.

We were in Martinique, building 25, room #2538. We were all terribly impressed with the early September temperature and humidity in Florida. We’re from eastern New Mexico where it gets hot, but it’s a dry heat so there was some mild suffering. And we were pretty disoriented even though we had maps of the resort. We were drenched by the time we got from the bus stop to our building.

Once we got to our room we cracked open the pre-shipment box and broke our carry on luggage down into our park trekking stuff. We decided that we didn’t need to visit the food court yet and we could wait to eat once we were in a park. The park we were headed to was MGM. We were headed there because one of our favorite attractions is the Rockin’ Roller Coaster (RnR) Staring Aerosmith and it was going down on Tuesday for refurbishment.

Our plan was to spend Sunday evening and all day Monday riding RnR until we just couldn’t stand it any more. Unfortunately, cast members kept telling people about the Tuesday refurb and this was driving throngs of guests to RnR. We got lucky a few times and beat the masses of humanity to the queue, but inevitably things ground to a halt as one army of fastpass holders after another boarded ahead of us.

The first-timer with us was taking a LOT of pictures with a new digital camera. He was really under the Disney Magic© by the time he headed up Sunset and caught sight of the Hollywood Tower Hotel (AKA HTH, AKA TOT). Wait times at the HTH were short, but we grabbed fastpasses and headed to RnR!

The queue didn’t look bad and we made steady, but slow, progress until we got into the building. Once we got into the “studio” I noticed a couple of things: the queue had seen a major redesign since last year, and the clever marble-in-the-mesh doors were not a good idea because the clatter was deafening when the younger crowd wouldn’t stop “whooshing” their hands across them. So, while we were going deaf with the sound of rolling marbles and looking at the few items in the display cases in the queue, we noticed that we weren’t going anywhere. We spent about a half hour creeping through the queue and only made about fifteen feet around a corner where we could watch fastpass holders and singles charging through at an alarming rate. By the time we got to the pre-show, we were all pretty unhappy. I am speculating that the refurb will be another attempt to manage the crowd traffic at RnR.

But we did finally make it to the ride. We were trying hard to hustle it along because our fastpasses for Tower of Terror were going to turn into pumpkins very shortly, but we made it onto the ride pretty quickly after we got through the pre-show. We were thrilled as usual and we dashed out of the giftshop and into the fastpass return at TOT where we just made it in under the wire.

I was kind of put off at this approach to the park. I scheduled this trip for ten days during school, with all the problems that entailed, in order to avoid going commando and tearing around from one ride to the next without taking the time to look and enjoy these attractions. Nevertheless, here we were racing through the queue at HTH to get to the (admittedly world-class) thrill ride. We got onto the ride in no time and it was great. Everybody was happy and back into the swing of things. We were also hungry.

We marched across the park to the smoking area between the Star Wars stuff and Sci-Fi Drive In so that the first-timer could smoke. He did pretty well the whole trip. He wore nicotine patches and cut down from two packs to a half a pack a day. Once his nicotine fix was administered, we walked into the Sci-Fi with no reservation. The wait was all of ten minutes before they seated us and we promptly ordered our smoked turkey sandwiches and chocolate shakes. The waitress was pretty good and when we decided not to have desert, she let us use the desert credit on our dining plan to get bottles of water to take into the park. We left at about 5:00 and it looked like rain.

We planned to hit Voyage of the Little Mermaid, The Great Movie Ride and Star Tours. We barely made it to Voyage before 1) it started raining and 2) the show started. I had never seen VLM and thought it was actually quite good. It was very clever and the cast member playing Ariel did a terrific job.

We left the show marveling at Disney’s creative use of blacklight and the way Florida doesn’t really get muggier after it rains. We moved quickly to The Great Movie Ride and got in line with a considerable crowd. We had a chance to check out the decor in the queue and admire the attraction. The pre-show ran once and started again just before we headed through the doors and onto the ride vehicle. We got a good CM as guide and it turns out we were in the second car. The cm that played “Mugsey the gangster” was quite good and the first-timer with us enjoyed the show. I was tempted to tell him about the different scene that played out for car one, but I thought there was an outside chance we’d get on this ride again and he’d see it himself. Of course, we were going commando and never returned to TGMR.

We decided to skip Star Tours. It’s a shame too — I was looking forward to seeing it post-refurb. If anything in MGM needed a refurb, it was Star Tours. We opted to head back to TOT.

We had about a 30 minute wait this time, but still enjoyed the ride a great deal. We left there and since we were being really conscientious about drinking water in the heat, we headed to the bathrooms on Sunset across from the fastpass station for TOT. When we came out there was a hysterical woman on the bench outside holding a girl about 8 years old, pleading with someone to call 911 because her daughter fell and hit her head and was bleeding. I hope the kid was okay. I kind of suspect that she was. Brains are delicate, but nature has selected kids to be pretty darn resilient. It just struck me that this family was NOT having a magical time. I saw a cast member on a cell phone leave the crowd of people there and head down Sunset Blvd. It looked like they had the situation in hand. We were in the way and moved on.

My notes are a little sketchy from here until the next day. My recollection is that we rode RnR again, bought ice cream at Hollywood Scoops, and eventually hopped a bus back to CBR to hike back to our room. By now, our luggage had arrived and we set about doing some unpacking and headed to bed. It had been a long day.

Me, 45
Daughter Chris, 17
Son Alex, 11
Stepson Derek, 23 (first-timer)

Day 2 — Monday (Labor Day), Sep. 3, 2007

My notes pick up at about 9:20 on Monday back at MGM. We were headed to get fastpasses for RnR, try to catch the Indiana Jones Stunt Show and wind up in the Magic Kingdom for Dinner with Cinderella at 5:00.

This is the first time we’ve made a conscious effort to get to the parks early. It really pays off. You can get so much done in that couple of hours before the masses arrive. We walked onto RnR without much wait. We walked onto the Tower of Terror. I mean walked through the queue and into the building and stepped right up to the library door. Wait time was 0 minutes. Had another terrific ride.

From there we strolled to Indy. Derek, the first-timer, was still taking pictures of pretty much everything. We got to the venue for Indy about 40 minutes before show time and the kids elected to sit in the front row, right of center. The seats were good. We tried to stay cool and entertained ourselves until the show started. The show was as good as I remember it being last year and we all enjoyed it a great deal. The heat and humidity were starting to get to some of us and Grumpy was starting to make the rounds, if you know what I mean. And Christian was complaining of a headache.

We spent about 20 minutes in the queue for Lights! Motors! Action! We got pretty good seats and waited another 30 minutes or so for the show. The show was good and Derek got some really terrific pictures. I tried to take pictures with little success.

We made our way out of the park and went back to the resort. We all grabbed a quick shower and change of clothes and hopped on a bus for the Magic Kingdom. They moved the entrance to the back of the castle to accommodate the new stage at the front, so we made our way around the castle to dinner with Cindy. We got there 10 mins. after our scheduled time and it worked out nicely. We got pics with Cindy (Here’s a really poor snapshot of the event). She was another class act, though younger and more ebullient than last year. Very nice and a great experience for us all.

Then it was on to dinner. I had the prime rib and it was delicious. The place was full of princesses and a pirate or two. Bippity Boppity Boutique was making a killing. And when Perla, Sue and the Fairy Godmother showed up, I must say it was adorable. We mentioned that Derek’s birthday was on the 1st and he got a very nice individual birthday cake.

From there, we it the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. I did not ride the Evil Spinning Teacups of Vomit, but the kids had a good time. From there, we walked onto Space Mountain and turned around and walked onto it again. It was spectacular and we loved it. We hung out in the arcade and shopped for a while. From there we strolled into Adventureland and walked onto Splash Mountain!

Derek was concerned about getting wet on water rides. It’s not that he’s hydrophobic or anything, but he didn’t want to wander around damp. Little did he know that one is generally “damp” to one degree or another while running around these parks. Also, there’s the evaporative cooling benefit and fairly rapid drying that goes on in central Florida.

Anyhow, he and Christian insisted on getting the front seat in the log at Splash Mtn. with Alex and I right behind them. As a result, they ate a great big gob of water as the log made the bend at the end of the brier patch as another log made the drop into the hole. You can’t buy fun like that.

It was getting close to 8:00 and that was closing time before the hard-ticket Pirates and Princess party. We weren’t going to Pirates and Princesses, but it was great fun watching kids of all ages in their pirate or princess regalia headed into the park. We stopped on our way out for a Dole Whip. It was delicious, but not special. I think the kids wound up throwing theirs away. Ah well.

We hopped the monorail and headed to EPCOT where we waited 15 minutes for a bus to MGM for extra magic hours and a last gasp on Rockin’ Roller Coaster. We were in queue at RnR for a good long time, but the sun was down and it was not as hot. We got on the ride and enjoyed it again.

From there we decided to brave a veritable sea of people to catch Fantasmic. The trip was a stressful march, and we were afraid we would not get good seats. Of course there are no bad seats in that venue. We enjoyed the show and again Derek got some terrific pictures. He took them on a little Pentax he got from a major big-box discount chain before we left. I am really impressed with the pictures he got.

After Fantasmic we rode TOT again. Then were getting a bit peckish. Last year we had some really good chili dogs from Rosie’s Diner, so we headed back down Sunset to Rosies. We discovered that dogs are off the menu at Rosie’s and we wound up at Toluca Turkey Legs where Chris wanted a smoked turkey leg and the rest of us got the chili dogs and chips. Yumm. It really hit the spot.

Then it was time for a little shopping on Hollywood Blvd. We bought some stuff and some junk at Villains Vogue, but mostly we tried on pirate hats and such. One place for improvement: some of the items at Villain’s Vogue were not tagged with prices. This meant that the cast member at the register had to leave and go back to the stock room to price items. This took an annoyingly long time and was enough to make us reconsider our purchases. We got back to the resort exhausted, showered and collapsed into bed with plans to hit the water parks tomorrow.

Addendum: We were already punchy by the end of day 2. Just listen to my effort to take notes on the way back to the resort that night: Punchy tourists

Me, 45
Daughter Chris, 17
Son Alex, 11
Stepson Derek, 23 (first-timer)

Day 3 — Tuesday, Sep. 4, 2007

The water parks open at 10:00 everyday so we got to sleep in a little. Derek and Christian, both being early risers, managed to stay in bed until 6:30. They got up and got ready and ate breakfast at the food court without Alex and I. We got up a little later and snagged breakfast back in the room. Then it was off to Typhoon Lagoon.

Before we left, I called to rent a car for the next day, Wednesday. I was anxious about the process because I’ve only rented a car once before in my life and let’s just say it can be less than a smooth process. I was really concerned after the phone call because I had to tell the guy I was talking to that I would NOT be picking the car up or dropping it off at the airport. I had to tell him that three separate times. I hung up the phone with a reservation for a car early on Wednesday morning – I hoped.

Typhoon Lagoon was fun. We snorkeled across the shark lagoon and considered the Supplied Air Snorkeling version of that attraction. We declined after weighing the other things we wanted to do with the fact that SAS was not much different from the snorkeling we had just done. So we proceeded to wear ourselves out climbing hills. The slides were fun, but you can only ride them so many times before marching up and down the steps makes it not worth the effort. So we hiked over to the Crushin’ Gusher and rode the “water coaster”. We had a great time. Then Derek and I staked out a table and ordered food while Alex and Christian played in the surf at the wave pool.

We left a little after we ate lunch. We went back to the resort and cleaned up for Downtown Disney. We had a dinner reservation just before 5:00 at Planet Hollywood and then tickets for La Nouba at 6:00. Planet Hollywood was undergoing an exterior refurbishment of some kind, so it was covered with a big tarp printed to look like the exterior of Planet Hollywood. We noticed the moat around the building was really disgusting. Evidently they can’t clean it while working on the exterior. At any rate, we got into the restaurant, forgot about the moat, ordered, and proceeded to take turns walking around taking pictures of all the memorabilia. It’s a big place full of lots of movie stuff. I remember being in the Planet Hollywood in Hollywood and they didn’t have nearly as much. The food was also quite good.

We marched out to La Nouba and did some shopping. Alex wound up buying $30 worth of designer jellybeans at the Candy Cauldron. We’re still eating them.

At La Nouba we waited for the doors to open and got seated pretty early. Our seats were right in the middle and I thought they were really good. We enjoyed the show tremendously. I was uncertain about this show. The tickets were pricey and I wasn’t sure we would like it even though it reviewed well and everybody I spoke to who had seen it raved about it. We were not disappointed. I would tell you all about it, but it’s just indescribable. Catch it if you can.

We cruised the gift shop at La Nouba after the show. I bought a DVD of a performance to discover later that the same diaboloists that we saw – four Chinese girls about 9 years old – where not on the DVD. The DVD has footage of three older Chinese girls on diabolos. Granted, both groups are good, but the little girls that we saw were lightening fast and seemed to have a larger repertoire of tricks.

I also discovered that the shop sells some juggling props and had sets of balls, clubs and diabolos available to test drop. I couldn’t resist myself. I did pretty well with the balls – actually bean bags. They seemed like really good props – just the right size and nice and firm. The clubs were my real interest though. Unfortunately, their clubs we something like Dube Airflights – solid shells about 75 mm around and light. I got them going, but I was doing this in a gift shop surrounded by shelves full of potentially expensive knick-knacks. I couldn’t shake the fear of cleaning off some of those shelves with a bad throw, so the clubs didn’t last long. Alex got a diabolo going, but didn’t really have a lot of interest – poi is his thing.

We hit the gift shop at House of Blues for some trinkets, then dropped Alex off at Disney Quest and strolled around Downtown Disney Westside and did some shopping. We then eased out of DTD and waited a good long time for a bus back to the resort. More showers and bed.

Me, 45
Daughter Chris, 17
Son Alex, 11
Stepson Derek, 23 (first-timer)

Day 4 — Wednesday, Sep. 5, 2007

We managed to miss our 8:30 shuttle to Alamo. We were tired and some of our party were, umm, focused. I won’t relate the experience here, just suffice to say that it was the most unmagical experience of the whole trip. We hiked to Custom House at CBR and called Alamo who picked us up at 9:30. We were in our car by 10:00.

The car was a pale yellow PT Cruiser. None of us had been in a PT Cruiser before and as it turns out, we were not impressed. It did get us to Clearwater without incident however. The trip was actually less treacherous than I thought. We spotted dolphins following boats in Tampa Bay. I drove, Derek navigated, Chris backseat drove and slept, and Alex discovered that he could get from the back seat to the cargo area by folding down the backseat. At any rate, we managed to get to Clearwater and actually find our way directly to Pier 60.

The beach at Clearwater was clean and white. The water was nice and warm. We rented an umbrella and chairs for the day. The kids swam and played in the sand. We bought floaties, and masks and snorkels and all had a good time in the sun. Later in the day we bought cheeseburgers and fries at the surf shop. We initially intended to stay until sunset, but the sun, serf, etc. had us kind of wiped out and we packed it in. Unfortunately, we missed seeing some relatives who live in Clearwater. That was unfortunate, but we were trying to get EVERYTHING done. We cleaned up for the trip back to WDW, and I bought an ice-cream cone to eat on the way to the parking lot.

We managed to get back to the resort around 4:30 and went to Shutters for dinner. The food was okay, but not quite what I expected (the jerked pork ribs were sweet). We didn’t go back, but it wasn’t horrible. We did laundry until about 11:00. While we were doing that, we turned Alex loose in the Arcade at Old Port Royale where he discovered that he could use his Key to the World to put cash on his game card. Oh boy.

Me, 45
Daughter Chris, 17
Son Alex, 11
Stepson Derek, 23 (first-timer)

Day 5 — Thursday, Sep. 6, 2007

This morning we assessed the degree to which sport-type sunscreen washes off in seawater. It wasn’t too bad. Chris seemed to have the worst of it. Her back was a wee bit sensitive.

At any rate, we loaded up and headed for NASA’s Kennedy Space Center (KSC). I wasn’t sure what to expect, but it was actually quite nice. We got in the front door of the Visitor Complex where we discovered that, probably owing to the fact that there is much less traffic, security at NASA’s Visitor Complex is actually tighter than at international airports.

We looked around the Rocket Garden and some of the other exhibits until the tour started. We had a terrific tour guide whose name I can not remember, but she was good and had been a NASA fan since her father was a NASA employee during the Apollo era. The tour involved a lot of traveling out to the launch pads like 39 A and B and hearing about what launches take place where. You also get to drive by a lot of buildings like the Admin. bldg. the Vehicle Assembly Building, the building where pressure testing and astronauts are housed, tested and made ready. We also got to take a look into the Space Station Center where, among other things, modules for the ISS are built.

It was great fun for someone who has followed the space program pretty much their whole life. Derek was pretty interested and knew a little about some of the stuff there, but Christian could really care less. I was born in 1962. I remember at least hearing about the Mercury and Gemini programs. I watched the Apollo 11 moon landing. I watched the drama of Apollo 13 unfold. I recognize the names of Alan Shepard, Gus Grissom, Scott Carpenter, John Glenn, Wally Schirra, and Gordon Cooper. Ask my daughter who was the first man to set foot on the moon — she has no clue.

We ate overpriced chili dogs and marveled at a restored Saturn V rocket. We purchased some really cool souvenirs and a lot of freeze-dried ice-cream.

Notable things I noted at NASA: There is a LOT of talk about “Back to the Moon and on to Mars!” It looks as if the future of the agency is hinging on those projects. There are also constant references to “Failure is not an option” (I bought the T-shirt!). That phrase is ubiquitous at KSC, yet nowhere is it associated with the name Gene Kranz. The phrase seems to have become NASA property.

To me this is kind of alarming. It seems NASA is back to flaunting its laurels (”We put a man on the moon.” “Failure is not an option.”) without holding onto the elemental truth that it wasn’t a government bureaucracy that pulled this stuff off — it was people. It was government bureaucracy that gave us the Challenger accident, but we heard more about Apollo 1 than the Challenger or Columbia.

It seems to me that NASA is trying to be an exceptional organization perhaps without exceptional people. Consequently, we have astronauts like Lisa Nowak and (possibly unfounded) allegations of astronauts drinking heavily before missions. I don’t know. It’s a funny balance out there between serious, Intense space exploration and this circus of flawed humans embroiled in political gamesmanship and grasping for a mission. There’s just a whole lot of difference between going to the moon and going BACK to the moon.

I don’t know. Stay tuned because we had a subsequent encounter with things NASA later in the trip at EPCOT.

We got back to the resort at a decent hour and decided to return the rental car and go to the Magic Kingdom. We made a beeline for fastpasses at Thunder Mountain RR and then wandered over to Fantasyland. At the insistence of the kids, I rode the teacups at the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party and managed to hold onto my breakfast. After we rode the teacups we had another of those riveting “Where do you want to eat?” discussions. We finally decided to wander over to Adventureland and Pecos Bill’s to grab burgers.

The crowd was heavy at Pecos Bill’s and it took us a while to get our food. It was also a challenge to find a place to sit. I had the burger and it was good. The kids had the barbecue sandwich and were not at all impressed. Neither was I frankly. It’s funny, after almost a week in the parks the food starts to take on a peculiar quality — just never quite what you’re in the mood for.

We hit Thunder Mountain the minute our fastpassess kicked in. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was great fun. Even with fastpasses there was a bit of a wait. This was probably because, as we were told when we passed the queue in that area, Splash Mountain was temporarily down. At any rate, by the time we got out of Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain was gushing water. We debated riding it, but they were setting up for Spectromagic and we dashed across the street and headed for Pirates of the Caribbean. The plan was to avoid the parade and get into Pirates, then get a decent spot for Wishes and call it a night.

The line at Pirates was not a long at all, and we zoomed through the new queue space. I was kind of disappointed with the queue. It didn’t have any of old piratical stuff in it anymore. It was clean and very East India Trading Company-looking. If memory serves, it may be more like the queue at Disneyland. Frankly, it’s been more than 20 years since I was at Disneyland and I don’t really remember. Ah well. The ride was good and the new effects from the Jack Sparrow’fication were pretty cool. The Davy Jones waterfall was a real “oooh, ahh” moment.

Traffic was light as we passed the Jungle cruise, and we had a few minutes before we needed to start staking out space in front of the castle for Wishes, so we decided to board a boat. The skipper was okay. I’ve heard better, but it was good to hear the shtick and see the sights again.

We left the Jungle Cruise and started moving into the plaza for a spot to watch Wishes. We really enjoyed it again. As always, it was a major “oooh, ahh” moment. There was no blubbering this year, but we were thrilled and amazed. I’m very happy we decided not to pass this one up.

The march out of the park was uneventful. We managed to get to the bus line but had a wait of something like 40 minutes while the buses tried to get everybody out of the park. It was the longest wait of the trip.

We collapsed into bed as usual. End of day 5.

Me, 45
Daughter Chris, 17
Son Alex, 11
Stepson Derek, 23 (first-timer)

Day 6 — Friday, Sep. 7, 2007

We rolled out of bed a little tired today. It seemed like the activity and heat/humidity were starting to take their toll. My ankles didn’t feel as worn out but I wasn’t sleeping as well and we were all starting to fee kind of tired when we got up in the morning. Nevertheless, we pushed on.

We wanted to catch the rope drop at Animal Kingdom today. We were surprised to find that the park was well open when we got there at 8:50. We sauntered on through and checked out some of the “wildlife” in the acrylic cages that cast members were toting around just inside the entrance. They were basically spiders that we have seen plenty of here at home, so we moved it along.

In keeping with my original plan, I was committed to keeping the pace down so that we could look at things and not just dash for Kali River Rapids and Expedition Everest. I kept slowing Chris and Alex down so that I could look at things and Derek could get some pictures. We weaved our way through Discovery Island and pushed on toward Asia. When we finally got to Exped. Everest, there was no line. We walked onto the ride (me lamenting that we weren’t getting to see any of the exhibits in the “Yeti Museum”) and rode it. We got off the ride, walked directly back to the loading area and rode it again. One thing about getting old, my stomach just doesn’t settle down like it used to despite the ginger root pills. So, we grabbed fastpasses for EE and walked back to Kali River Rapids.

We walked onto Kali River Rapids, me lamenting that we were missing the sights there as well. We rode KRR and just stayed on the raft to ride it again, back-to-back! Some of us got wetter than others, but it was a good day for it and we had no problem drying off. I think I got the brunt of it on the second pass through. Elated with the fact that we weren’t standing around in queues, we used our fastpasses at EE and then started speed walking our way to Camp Mini-Mickey to catch Legend of the Lion King. The cast didn’t seem quite as good as last year, but it was still quality entertainment and we walked away well satisfied.

From there we headed to Dinoland to catch lunch at Restauntasorus. I tried to explain the theme to Derek and I think he got it. We had a terrific lunch (I love that Asian Chicken Salad) and didn’t spend nearly enough time checking out the detail in Dinoland. When we got out of lunch it looked like it was trying to cloud up and sprinkling just a bit. We rode Primeval Whirl just for kicks and had a good time with it. On the way to Dinosaur! we noticed the queue for Finding Nemo. Derek is a big Nemo fan and wanted to see the show so we headed in.

After a short wait we saw a terrific Reader’s Digest Condensed Version of Finding Nemo presented in a vivid and interesting way. For those who don’t know about this show, it is essentially elaborate puppets running around with no effort to really hide the puppeteers. The talent was talented and everything worked really well with a tiny sound glitch (dead microphone on the woman playing “Coral”) at the very beginning. Great show. A must see.

From there we were off to the Dino-Institute to travel back 65,000,000 years and secretly capture and return with an Iguanodon. The good news is we were successful! The bad news is the Iguanodon got away and was wandering around the Institute when we left. I think this ride is okay. It’s not really a thrill ride, certainly not a dark ride, but it’s loud and raucous. We had a great picture waiting for us in the gift shop — when the Carnotaurus(?) jumped out at us, Christian cringed back into the car. It was cute. We didn’t buy the picture.

We mounted an expedition for fastpasses at Everest and there were none. They were only advertising a fifteen-minute wait so we just got in line. Interesting conversation in the queue: Christian thought that Mt. Everest was in the United States. Derek and I explained that there was all this stuff from Tibet in the Yeti Museum because Everest is in Tibet. Somehow the question of what keeps the roller coaster on the tracks when it goes inverted came up. She said that it was gravity. Namaste.

Also of note: When we got on the ride it was drizzling rain. We were so intrigued, we got in line and rode it again. By the time the ride started this time, it was flat-out raining. How can something so delightful and refreshing as a raindrop feel like bullets at roller coaster speed? We were pretty much done with the ride at this point. We were pretty damp, so we thought, “what the heck, let’s ride Kali River Rapids again.” By the time we got off KRR, we decided we needed to go back to the resort, cleanup and change for dinner at Boma.

On the way out of the park, Alex bought a starter pin-trading set. He spent every spare minute thereafter looking at pins, trading pins, and trying to talk me into buying pins. More on that later.

We got seated at Boma much more quickly than we thought we would. It was like a five-minute wait. The spread was not quite as varied as I remembered it, but it was still spectacular and I committed gluttony again. The food did not help the exhaustion, but it was delicious. We waddled back to the bus stop and went home early. Chris started working on her Algebra homework. Bless her heart.

Me, 45
Daughter Chris, 17
Son Alex, 11
Stepson Derek, 23 (first-timer)

Day 7 — Saturday, Sep. 8, 2007

We slept in a little today and got to Animal Kingdom just after 8:30. The plan was to tie up loose ends here and then head to EPCOT for lunch, etc. We wandered through Discovery Island again and then trekked to the queue for Expedition Everest. Surprise!

Every time we have ridden this ride, we have requested the front car. There are four of us and the cast members handling the queue have no problem moving us to the “front” queue and seating us first when a new train pulls in. We rode it and turned right back around to ride it again. By this time the queue was starting to fill up a little bit. Just for kicks we decided to not ride in the front car and see what it was like in the middle of the train. Interestingly, immediately before we got on, somebody at the back tossed their cookies at the end of their ride. Cast members had it cleaned up in a jiffy. The good news is that our breakfasts all stayed down. Mine barely, but they stayed down. We were really through with Expedition Everest this time.

We headed for It’s Tough To Be A Bug and got Shanghaied into Flights of Wonder. This was actually a really good little show featuring a bunch of cool birds, their trainer and a wayward tour guide with an irrational fear of birds known as “Guano Jane”. We saw some cool birds do some pretty neat things. I took pictures, but they weren’t terribly good. If you get a chance to catch Flights of Wonder, do it.

Getting sidetracked into one good experience allowed us to get sidetracked into another. We walked through Pangani Conservatory Trails (Formerly “Gorilla Falls”). We saw some cool creatures and watched some gorillas napping. It was okay. Very pleasant environment. We walked out into Harambe Market and discovered a steel-drum band. We stopped and listened for a while. Then caught the Kilimanjaro Safari. With the exception of the lions, the animals were out and active. It was a good trip.

At some point (my notes were starting to suffer from the exhaustion), we saw It’s Tough To Be A Bug. Derek had been marveling at the Tree of Life (as well as the Cell-Tower of Life not far from it), and it was a big kick for him to actually walk into it. He got a lot of pictures. The show was exactly the same as it was last year. It’s surprisingly good and we all enjoyed it again.

Eventually we made our way out of Animal Kingdom and hopped a bus for EPCOT. It was about lunchtime and wait for Mission Space was advertised at five minutes. Wait for Soarin’ on the other hand was advertised at forty minutes. We tossed a coin and went to the Refreshment Station so that Derek could try the delicious “Beverly” from Italy!

Okay, that was fun. On to GM Test Track. I’d never been on this one before, but I’ve heard generally good reviews. We walked on and enjoyed it. It’s kind of a short, flat roller coaster kind of thing. We didn’t ride it again, but I’m glad we did it.

Next was Mission Space. We walked on and I took my chances in the “Orange” version. I held a barf bag the whole ride, but didn’t need it. Christian and I both sat out round two in the gift shop while Alex and Derek gave it another whirl. While we were waiting I found the (barely) hidden Mickey in the gift shop. It was really, really hot and we were hungry.

We made our way to Marrakesh. I had the Chicken Broullet and Lemon Chicken. Everybody else had the lamb. Those of us that had room left shared a Broullet for desert. Yumm.

We left Marrakesh and it was sprinkling. By the time we got back across the bridge to the World of Tomorrow, it was a genuine downpour. We holed up in the gift shop for a while and finally broke out the ponchos and headed out of the park. We were exhausted and needed a break flat on our backs at the resort.

Unfortunately here is where we ran into a glitch in the transportation system. When we got back to the resort it was dark and we were still exhausted. The bus we were on tried to pull into the first stop, probably Jamaica, but there was a bus already in the stop that seemed to be struggling with some issue. Our buss immediately backed out of the stop. As I recall the doors did not open. The driver proceeded on to the next stop and we assumed that he would be making a circuit to drop us off at the first stop again. I have no idea which stops these were because we never heard any announcement for them.

Next thing we know, the bus is headed back to EPCOT. When we didn’t get off, the driver asked us where we were going. We told him we were headed back to the resort and he explained that we would have to get off and catch another buss because he wasn’t going back to Caribbean Beach. We were kind of miffed, but we all got off and got in line at stop #10 at EPCOT for Caribbean Beach Resort.

We had to wait another half hour before a bus showed up and when it did, the was a change of drivers. The new driver was an older woman who was very sympathetic and mentioned that the automated announcement system didn’t work correctly in some instances. She was apologetic and said that she would mention it to her supervisor. She got us back to the resort and we all took it upon ourselves to clearly announce the stops as we made them.

Me, 45
Daughter Chris, 17
Son Alex, 11
Stepson Derek, 23 (first-timer)

Day 8 — Sunday, Sep. 9, 2007

Another day at EPCOT! We only felt about half as exhausted as the day before, so we planned a full day in the park including dinner at San Angel Inn in Mexico. First, we walked right onto Soarin’. I noticed the scant, new features in the queue, but frankly we marched in so quickly I didn’t even get pictures. The ride was the same. It was fun. A refreshing sit down in a cool room that flies over California.

We went from The Land to The Seas. We watched the dolphin presentation. We visited the manatees. We talked turtle with Crush. We rode Nemo and Friends. It was all good. We discussed it over bottles of water, a Micky bar and Itzakadoozies. Dude!

Next, more Mission Space. I opted for the Orange line again. Happy to report the fine fare from Marrakesh stayed right where I put it, though the stomach was hardly happy about the spinney, topsy-turvy ride again.

From Mission Space we stumbled into Ellen’s Universe of Energy on a whim. I found the ride/show pretty entertaining and somewhat (”minimally”) informative. It may not be a “must see”, but I was really glad we did it.

After Universe of Energy, I was sleepy and kind of hungry. Other members of our party seemed peckish as well. We caught a boat across Seven Seas Lagoon to find something to eat somewhere in the World Showcase.

I don’t know what drew us to the Biergarten, but we dragged ourselves up to the counter and I asked about seating. The attractive young blond woman with the Teutonic accent proceeded to seat us right away. It was a buffet full of legitimate-looking German fare — lots of sausage, schnitzel, sauces, breads and such. I had the Jagerschnitzel and a bunch of other stuff. The beer looked really good, but I know that it would have been a major mistake to wash down all that food with a beer in the middle of a hot, humid Orlando afternoon. While we were eating, an oompah band of four guys in lederhosen showed up on stage and proceeded to do the biergarten thing. The front man played trumpet and guitar, another guy played the accordian, the third played tuba, bass guitar and cowbells (I kid you not, lots of cowbell), and the fourth was a drummer. It was very entertaining for us all. I even sang along as the guy played “Edelweis” on a saw. Another highlight was a duet by the front man and the bass player on alp horns. Really sweet.

From there we wandered into China just to see what was shakin’ in the Temple of Heaven. Turns out it was a really cool 360-degree film presentation about China. Go figure. The gift shop on the other side of this show was fascinating and huge. We spent a long time in there and quite a bit of money as well. We went back into the Temple of Heaven and checked out the “Tomb Warriors” Museum. It’s all about ancient terracotta and copper sculpture from the tomb of the Chin emperor. It was quite cold in the museum and we liked that a lot.

We still had plenty of time before our dinner reservations at San Angel Inn, so we went to Japan. On our way, we were stopped by a drawbridge as they moved the globe and all the fireworks barges from the staging area into Seven Seas Lagoon. It was kind of neat to watch. The cast member on our side of the bridge answered lots of questions about the show while we waited.

We then made a point of going to see The American Experience. When we walked in, we were treated to a rendition of “America the Beautiful” sung by The Voices of Liberty, eight very talented folks in period costumes. It was stirring. From there we were ushered into the auditorium and treated to audio-animatronic Ben Franklyn and Mark Twain waxing inspirational about the birth of America. Very nice.

Next door was Japan. In Japan, we walked into the shop and the difference between the gifts available in China and the merchandise in Japan was stunning to me for some reason. I’m not sure what I expected, but we wound up buying pearls. They were fresh out of the oyster. We even picked the oysters. As we started to leave, the Tyko Drums opened up and we watched them for a while.

By then it was time to head for Mexico for dinner. We had a few minutes so we caught the Gran Fiesta Tour with Donald Duck and a couple of his amigos. It was okay. While we were on the Tour, our pager went off and we reported to the desk as quickly as we could to get seated. The fare at San Angel was not really what I expected. Being from eastern New Mexico we get a lot of “authentic” Mexican food. What we found at San Angel was good, but a bit more cosmopolitan. We started with “Nachos” that was actually more like something we call a “Guadalajara”. It was cheesy and delicious. For an entre, I had a chicken dish that was a bit on the dry side but flavorful. I ate as much as I could and still leave room for Flan for desert. The Flan was okay, but not as sweet or “carmely” as I would have liked. I wasn’t so put off that I didn’t finish mine and then eat Derek’s as well. He didn’t want it, but we were on the meal plan, so it was paid for. We were all satisfied.

From San Angel Inn we staked out a spot near Norway to watch Illuminations. While we were waiting I wandered over to the bakery next to the Stave Church (can’t remember the name) and had a cloud horn(?) that was delicious. I wished that I’d had the time for a cup of coffee to go with it, but I settled for a bottle of water. Dehydration is an ugly thing after all.

I sat by the lagoon and watched the sun go down. The show was spectacular and we raced out of the park despite our exhaustion. We probably offended guests as we sprinted around them, but we were ready to get on the bus. We dutifully announced every stop because the announcement system on this bus was not working.

Me, 45
Daughter Chris, 17
Son Alex, 11
Stepson Derek, 23 (first-timer)

Day 9 — Monday, Sep. 10, 2007

Derek and Christian got up early and did laundry. Alex and I got up later and had Mickey waffles for breakfast in the room. Then we headed to EPCOT. The bus to EPCOT was crowded, and the park was crowded as we made our way into the entrance.

First on the agenda was another round on Mission Space. The lines were not terribly long, so some of us rode it twice; I didn’t. As the second ride wound up, we hung around for a special treat. The crew of STS-119 who had recently returned from a mission to deliver a truss to the International Space Station. This was the mission on which it was discovered that foam from the external fuel tank had gouged a hole in some of the shuttle’s tiles. Today, the crew showed up at EPCOT and sat down in the Mission Space post-show area for a Q & A. We thought that would be really special.

It was special, but not like we had expected. We couldn’t get pics of the crew because the lighting was just not bright enough. The questions from the audience were really geekier than I expected. Granted, there was an early question from a 6-year-old boy that I don’t remember. I do recall that it was a cute, “How do you…in space” kind of question, but I don’t really remember it. From there on, it seemed like there were a lot of very articulate and technical questions about the trouble with the tiles on the mission. As interested as I was in this kind of thing, it just seemed kind of “dry.” Maybe it was the exhaustion, but I would have sworn it was just another NASA press event on CSPAN if I didn’t know better. We wound up leaving early. You can read a little about it here: NASA at Disney

After that, the kids were hungry and for whatever reason, wanted to eat at the Electric Umbrella. We got a counter service pretty quickly and found a table upstairs. Not a bad cheeseburger and fries, and the cheesecake was good too. From there we headed into Mouse Gear to spend another pile of money and have stuff sent back to our room for the last time. From Mouse Gear we headed back into the World Showcase via Canada. I wanted to see more of Canada including the new film in that venue. Alas, the kids were not interested and I was not in any condition to insist. We trudged ahead and wound up approaching another show by the Tyko Drummers in Japan when the clouds opened up again. We waited out the shower at the shop where we had purchased pearls on our previous visit. Covered by the pagoda, the Tyko Drummers continued their show.

Here my notes are silent and I don’t find any pictures. If memory serves me, we headed back to the resort at that point to grab some rest. We were all really tired.

Me, 45
Daughter Chris, 17
Son Alex, 11
Stepson Derek, 23 (first-timer)

Day 10 — Tuesday, Sep. 11, 2007

Blizzard Beach. Again, the water parks open late, so we got to sleep in. That was a good thing. We got to the park around 10:15 and the crowd was never enormous. Even so, the chairlift to the top of Mount Gushmore filled up quickly. We caught the chairlift early and stood on queue for about 20 minutes to get to the Plummet Summit. We hadn’t ridden this one before and we never could get Christian on it. She waited at the bottom near the speed indicator as we slid down this monster. Being the heaviest in the group, I set our speed record at about 62 MPH. It was a blast. Then we did some of the smaller slides and finally wound up on Teamboat Springs. We all got really wet and enjoyed the ride a great deal. After a long morning we cleared out our locker and left around 2:00.

At the resort, we cleaned up, dressed and headed out to the Magic Kingdom to tie up some loose ends. The bus from CBR to MK was packed. The park seemed to be pretty packed as well. At the park I noticed that they already had the fall decorations up for Halloween. We breezed up Main Street and caught part of the show in front of Cindy’s. I’m not sure what the show was, but I’m pretty sure Cinderellabration closed when Year of a Million Dreams opened. At any rate, we got some pictures and headed into Adventureland with no real plans.

We knew we were hungry though and we wandered into the Liberty Tree Tavern with no reservation. I asked the cast member at the desk how long it would take for them to work us in. She looked at me with a kind of rue smile and I mentally set a limit of 40 minutes. She yelled to somebody behind her who yelled back that it would be about 5 minutes(!). We said that we’d wait and gave her our information. Sure enough in about 5 minutes a hostess called, “Adams party, New Mexico” and we were seated.

Come to find out, we stumbled in about 15 minutes after the start of a character dining event. We missed Mickey, but we got pics with everybody else. It was a great experience, especially for our first-timer. And the food and family-style dining were great. I haven’t eaten at Liberty Tree before, but I would definitely do it again — characters or no characters.

Next, we hit the Hall of Presidents. Generally, let’s just say the kids were less impressed with this one. I saw the Hall of Pres’s about 25 years ago at Disneyland and felt the same way. Yes, the audio-animatronic presidents are impressive, at least for a little while. Yes, Lincoln’s speech is stirring, but let’s face it, there’s just not a whole lot going on here.

The one thing that did rouse a level of interest was the presentation by our current chief executive. Initially, I found hilarious the words I was hearing juxtposed against the actual state of affairs. But as the real seriousness of it all sank in, I found it sort of depressing and sickening. Enough.

From there we eased into the gift shop across the road and Christian bought a White House cookbook. We were all tired and not very interested in rides. As the steamboat “Liberty Belle” pulled out of the harbor, we decided to split up. Derek wanted to go back to the resort and crash and Alex wanted to go back to Downtown Disney’s Westside to hang at Disney Quest. I wanted to take a look at the Adventurer’s Club and Chris agreed to hang out with Alex.

Prior to our leaving the Magic Kingdom, Alex and I ran into a Japanese couple in kimono. The man was wearing a pin set and Alex immediately stepped up and asked to look at his pins. The fellow was very happy to talk in broken English about trading. Alex offered a cast member pin (not for purchase) that he picked up early in EPCOT for a Disneyland Tokyo pin. I thanked the man (in my broken Japanese — “Domo arigato”), and he thanked me very much (in perfect Japanese “Domo arigato gozaimasu”). I bowed to them and wished them “Kombanwa”. and we collected the rest of our party. We caught our buses and headed to our respective destinations. I suspect the Japanese couple thinks that Americans are either thoroughly crazy, or not as bad as some believe.

At DTD Christian hung out in one of the numerous snack bars in Disney Quest while Alex did whatever he does in the uber-arcade. I sauntered down to the Adventurer’s Club and was pressed for my ticket by the ladies working the door. I pulled out my wallet and then asked if my Key to the World with Park Hopper, Water Parks, Dining Plan, and Everything Else option would do me any good. The women working the door smiled and one of them produced a bright wristband which the other carefully applied to my left wrist. I looked around and saw that I had stumbled into the Club on yet another of its Annual Membership Drive and Open House nights.

I wandered downstairs and saw that an aviator-looking guy (”Hathaway Brown”) was sitting at the bar answering questions from a “boy scout” (”Emil Bleehall”) while other patrons and a blond woman in leopard-print safari garb looked on. I ordered a Kongaloosh from the bartender and enjoyed the drink while I watched the scene. When the blond woman occasionally spoke, I noticed something familiar about her. In short order, I placed her as the same woman who played “Guano Jane” the tour guide at Flights of Wonder. Pretty quickly this scene broke up and the blond woman introduced herself as “Samantha Stearling - Jungle Adventuress” and invited us into the mask room. I won’t try to relate what goes on in the mask room when the wisecracking masks start talking, but I will say that our performance involved an unplanned bit of improvisation when a cockroach skittered out of the corner and across the talking mask.

Samantha saw this and riffed off it pretty well, as did the mask. Then I learned that cockroaches in Florida can fly! The thing zoomed of the wall and circled the artifact (”statue”) in front of the bar, then headed for the bathrooms. Samantha excused herself and was eventually seen carrying the vermin in a clear plastic cup covered with a cocktail napkin on her way to release it into the wild. Hey, what did you expect? This is Disney.

From the mask room we were led to the library where the French maid, “Sugar Snap”, conjured the ghost that lives as a head in a box in the Adventurer’s Club. That was quite entertaining. This maid was cute and funny.

From there we were all gathered into the area in front of the bar for a ceremony in which we were all inducted into the Adventurer’s Club under the watchful eye of the Major General (a puppet in the wall above the fireplace), Sugar Snap and “Grieves” the butler. We were taught the Adventurer’s Club Pledge, sang the Adventurer’s Club song, and learned the Adventurer’s Club salute — Kongaloosh!

During that ceremony Professor Otis T. Wren, world renowned ichthyologist (”fisherman”) and Adventurer’s Club Treasurer bursts out of the library and explains that a busload of cheerleaders in Kisimee wass in peril and needed assistance. Hathaway Brown quickly volunteered to fire up his plane, the Gypsy Moth, and offer his services immediately. After he left the room, Wren explained that the cheerleaders were octogenarian retirees and it became apparent that it was all a ruse to get Brown out of the Club. We were then invited into the library for the annual competition of the Balderdash Cup to honor the Club’s Adventurer of the Year!

A word about the library. The first thing I noticed was the pipe organ that had evidently just crashed through the floor of the library’s loft and down to the first floor. Otis Wren explained that this was a result of some unfortunate water damage, but noted that the organ still played and he called upon a ghost who lives in the organ who demonstrated it for us.

Now in his introduction of the competition, Wren explains that he has gone to great lengths to win the title “Adventurer of the Year”. Mostly what he has done has involved seeing to it that he is the ONLY contestant. As he explains this, Emil Bleehall keeps popping up out of the woodwork and pestering Wren for the opportunity to compete for the Cup. Wren keeps putting him off and sending him on wild goose chases to get rid of him, but he just won’t go away. Before Wren can put Bleehall to rest, Brown shows up again, crashing the Gypsy Moth on the roof of the Club. Before you know it the competition begins with these guys telling the biggest, boldest, most entertaining lies you’ve ever heard.

I won’t spoil the rest of it for you. No doubt, under the rules of the Club, I have already said too much. If you ever get the chance, go check this place out. It’s a real hoot!

I soon gathered everybody up and we went back to the resort. Once again it was past our bedtime.

Me, 40
Daughter Chris, 17
Son Alex, 11
Stepson Derek, 23 (first-timer)

Day 11 — Wednesday, Sep. 12, 2007

Going home.

We woke at a respectable hour and started trying to stuff the things we arrived with next to all the new stuff we had purchased in our luggage. We got it done and repacked our carry on luggage for the trip home by about 10:30. We were ready to check out by 11:00. We got bell services up and wound up at Custom House with little hassle. We were beyond exhausted, cranky, kind of disoriented and ready to deal with the airports and TSA again.

We checked our bags at Magic Express. This took waaay too long because Alex purchased one of those replica flintlock rifles at Pirates of the Caribbean and getting a box to ship it home in Took. For. Ever. But we got that done and got on an internal shuttle back to Old Port Royale. There, we had some lunch, Alex burned the last of the money off his arcade card and I sent coconut postcards to my father and my aunt. I paid way too much for those silly coconut postcards, but they both got a laugh out of it. It was worth it just for that.

We wound up with about an hour and a half to kill before we had to be on the coach, so it worked out pretty well. The trip home is a bit of a blur, but we got back just before midnight. It’s more than two weeks later and I still haven’t gotten everything squared away here at the house, but it will happen. And I don’t know about going back next year. We spent a bundle this year and it just beat us to a pulp.

We did manage to avoid lots of crowds and were able to get a lot more done this year, but the kids paid a price being out of school so long and I was planning on going back to school myself this semester but missed enrollment. But the trip was good. No one got hurt, no one got sick and no one threatened to totally ruin a relationship. Yes we occasionally got on each other’s nerves. We snarled at each other once or twice. I was an unending source of irritation with my animal-like snoring every night. But despite this and the exhaustion, we generally had a good time and we used 100% of our dining plan credits.

So this was another trip of a lifetime. If we don’t go back, I’ve got great memories and over 600 pictures from this trip alone. Derek took almost 1,000 pictures and had everyone of them printed. He wound up with basically a shoebox packed full of 5″ X 7″ prints. You can see my WDW 2007 set at Flickr.com here: 2007 WDW pics at Flickr.com

It’s not finished yet. I figure I’ll post up close to 100 photos by the middle of October. In the meantime, please feel free to have a look.

Faith, Trust and Pixie Dust.

Mark

I purchased a laptop this Christmas. It was a not-too-expensive commodity-type machine I purchased mostly for my daughter’s schoolwork when she needs to go mobile and possibly myself when I need to go out-and-about with a computer. So far, the experience has been so positive that I might buy another such machine in the near future.

The machine in question is the Toshiba Satellite A105-S4274. I’ve had some respect for Toshiba laptops since I was in college almost 20 years ago. I did a lot of research for this purchase and looked at everything from pricey 2GHz 64-bit Turion machines like the Acer Ferrari line to bottom-end single-processor refurbs. I settled on the Toshiba because at this point in time, 64-bits seems to be little more than an extra battery drain. In a couple of years, 64-bits may be the only way to go, but for now the 1.8 MHz Intel Core Duo was the most processor for my needs.

Other than the processor, I was in the market for onboard wifi, a large hard drive (I knew I was going to try and get Linux up and running on it), and at least 1 gig of RAM. The Satellite fit the bill nicely and was only about $850 at Wal-Mart. It came preloaded with Windows XP Media Center and seems to be aimed at the general-purpose and home-user market.

I got Windows tweaked up and hardened so that my kids could use it comfortably and then inserted my Mandriva 2007 DVD. I opted to use the free space on my Windows partition since that’s what I had. I considered using Partition Magic to clear free space for Mandriva, but the tools in Mandriva are as good and much more handy than having to install PM. Resizing the partition was unexpectedly quick and painless.

Once the partitioning was done, the Mandriva install conducted its initial setup and let me select packages. I basically went with defaults here and then selected the full range of Window managers and desktops. Installation took about 45 minutes and when prompted to remove the CD and reboot, everything came up rosy. Display, sound, the Synaptics touchpad — it was all there.

I was most pleasantly surprised to find that the onboard wifi adapter was recognized and configured without a hitch. I ran the wizard and inserted my WEP key from a USB flash drive and proceeded to join my network.

The only bugaboo I found at this point was the Texas Instruments 5-in-1 card reader on the front of the machine did not work. I wanted to get this device going since there could be times when an SD card would be a handy thing to have. Given the prevalence of USB flash drives at my place it was unlikely, but one never knows.

I checked Google and started to get the idea that I was going to have to load two modules (mcc_block and sdhci) and then toggle a pci register. I am at most a seasoned newby to Linux, so loading my own modules is near the fringe of my skillset. Tweaking a pci register is advanced stuff for this user. Nevertheless, I pursued the matter and it turned out quite well.

From lspci I got a listing of pci registers partially excerpted here:

00:1f.3 SMBus: Intel Corporation 82801G (ICH7 Family) SMBus Controller (rev 02)
05:00.0 Network controller: Intel Corporation PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection (rev 02)
07:06.0 CardBus bridge: Texas Instruments Unknown device 8039
07:06.1 FireWire (IEEE 1394): Texas Instruments Unknown device 803a
07:06.2 Mass storage controller: Texas Instruments 5-in-1 Multimedia Card Reader (SD/MMC/MS/MS PRO/xD)
07:06.3 Class 0805: Texas Instruments Unknown device 803c
07:08.0 Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation Intel(R) PRO/100 VE Network Connection (rev 02)


The line I wanted began with “07:06.2 Mass storage controller….” The important piece of that line was the register address “07:06.2″ (bus 07, slot 06, function 2), and of that only the “06.2″ was really important. I wanted to set that to register 4c=0x22. I don’t know why I wanted to set it to 4c=0x22, but that’s what the research said and that’s what I tried with this command as root: “setpci -s 06.2 4c=0x22″ .

I was relieved when Mandriva popped up a dialog box and asked me what I wanted to do with the new media it had just found. In answer, I selected to open it in a new file browser window and it was mounted for me just like any other media.

I knew I would never remember to get this device working by rote, so I added the lines to my /etc/modprobe.preload file:

mcc_block
sdhci

Then I added “setpci -s 06.2 4c=0x22″ to /etc/rc.d/rc.local file.

I rebooted et viola the SD card in the drive was mounted automatically as indicated by the USB flash key icon on the taskbar.

That was it for the Linux installation. There are several things I haven’t tested because I don’t use them (pcmcia and express card slot, modem, RJ45 ethernet port), and the display has only two resolutions available (1020 x 800 and something else I don’t use — both at 60 Hz) but I’m good to go. I also intend to see if I can get all the 3D desktop features to work, though my experience with Beryl and Compiz indicate that they may not be ready for prime time yet. The media control buttons on the left side of the keyboard don’t work, but this is hardly a big deal where I’m concerned. I also haven’t attempted to burn any media, but that will come soon enough as I start tying to back this stuff up.

At this point the basics are in place and I would feel comfortable taking this machine anywhere. It’s not glamorous, but it does what I want it to do and met my most optimistic expectations for a Linux laptop. I’m a happy camper so far.

I just posted a quick version of our Disney travelog. It’s listed in reverse chronological order because that’s the way this thing works, so scroll way, way down and find Part I.

I’ll be posting links and pictures later, so check back.

…AND BACK AGAIN.

I’ve never been so tired.

Day 5 started at 8:00 a.m. EST when we got up and Christian started a load of laundry. I grabbed a shower and started figuring out how to get our dirty laundry and souvenirs into our luggage. Fortunately, there was some room and the Space Saver bags worked just as they did when I packed it all the first time. It was obvious that the unused items from the box of snacks and supplies we preshipped to the park would have to remain behind. We abandoned perhaps $30 worth of cereal, snacks and water. No big deal. I reapacked all of our carry-on baggage and gave up the rain ponchos we had been totting around all week. I was actually kind of disappointed we didn’t get any of that liquid sunshine we were promised.

We got our bags packed and headed to the check-out counter just before the 11:00 check-out time. Chris went to the Fulton General Store to buy Aloe Vera gel for her sunburn. I had a short wait at the counter and a very nice young woman checked our records, recapped our charges and updated us on our meal plan. We failed to use all of our meals and snacks, but I didn’t really listen to the totals. I expected us to not use some of those meals, especially the table service since getting into restaurants proved to be slightly more difficult than expected. From there we checked our bags with Magic Express and marched off to catch the shuttle to MGM Studios. This time we’ve all got our airline carry-on baggage on our backs - well prepared, but hot and heavy.

At MGM we picked up fast passes for Indiana Jones at 2:30 (realizing full well that this was the time we needed to catch the bus back to the resort) and made a beeline for the Rockin’ Roller Coaster. We rode it once and the kids really wanted to ride it one more time, so we got in line. This being Memorial Day, the park was filling up fast and the Coaster is very popular. We were in line with a family from Sacramento, California who were all very nice. It became apparent that we were going to miss the Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular again. Ah well, there’s always next year.

After the second coaster ride, the kids were faced with the choice of Hollywood Tower of Terror or lunch. I was able to persuade them to lunch. The Brown Derby was not too far from the Rockin’ Roller Coaster so we grabbed some snacks (need to burn off that meal plan) and headed down the street.

It was early afternoon so we got a table at the Derby after about a 10-minute wait. We were seated in a booth and the kids started to get unhappy. Alexander was not terribly impressed with the items on the children’s menu and Christian did recognize much on the regular menu. She was particularly put off by the fact that there were no fried cheese sticks among the appetizers. She was somewhat mollified by the server who assured her that she could have the salad made to order. She and I ordered the salad and the New York steak and our server assured us that on the meal plan price was no object as long as we had two table services to spare.

When asked to order drinks, Alex asked the server if they knew how to make a Shirley Temple. She delightfully informed him that the Hollywood Brown Derby invented the Shirley Temple. Both kids had the Shirley, I had a Coke.

At this point, Christian discovered that she had somehow managed to sit on a wad of chewing gum in the seat. She had a bright green splotch of gum stuck to her black shorts. Horrors! She went to the ladies room to try and do something about the gum, and while she was away our server brought our salads. I told her what had happened and she was very sympathetic. Eventually Chris returned, still sporting a bright green spot of gum on the posterior of her black shorts, and she picked at her salad noting that it had no real lettuce in it. Alex had a salad with real lettuce and ordered a huge bowl of macaroni and cheese.

Eventually, our server returned and she told Chris that she was very sorry for what happened and she would return with a voucher she could use to buy another pair of shorts anywhere in the MGM park. Our steaks came and they were all rich, buttery goodness. After eating, Chris took a radio and struck off on her own to find a pair of shorts. I ordered desert. Since we were on a meal plan I had the cheesecake and the cream brulee. I didn’t need either of them, but they both turned out to be delicious!

Chris returned with a pair of shorts. She said that selection in the park was not great and she couldn’t find a pair of black shorts that she wanted. She settled on a pair of blue shorts from Planet Hollywood. She sampled the cheesecake and cream brullee and decided that she really didn’t want either. When the check came it was discovered that we were a table service short. Ooops. Ah well, the meal was delicious and this was a once-in-a-lifetime, spare-no-expense trip and I was not unhappy to pay the $80 and leave a tip.

We waddled out of the Derby and moved through the crowd and the heat to the bus stop at about 2:30. We just missed the previous bus which meant that we were first in line for the next bus which pulled up about five minutes later.

We still made it back to Port Orleans Riverside by about 3:10. Another short wait for the 3:25 Magic Express to the airport. This ride was interrupted by frequent stops, but the bus was one of the luxury scenicruiser models rather than a shuttle, so the waiting was comfortable and the movie was “The Distinguished Gentleman”, an old Eddie Murphy movie that was actually pretty funny.

At the airport, the Magic© began to wear off. Faced with the realities of commercial air travel, the first penumbra of Disney-Letdown became visible on the horizon. We worked through it enough to get our boarding passes printed at a Continental kiosk and head for our gate and about an hour’s wait for our flight.

The flight to Houston was uneventful. We looked down at the tops of clouds most of the way. Due to a storm moving through the area, we took a route that ran north over more land and less of the Gulf. It also took us another 20 minutes or so. Movie was “Sideways” which I didn’t watch in favor of reading my book (”The Italian Secretary” by Caleb Carr). Due to the hour of the day, we were treated to light dinner fare - a micro turkey sandwich, mini-Twix bar and an apple. Arrival at Houston was, again, uneventful. We got off the plane and marched through the main terminal on our way to a tram that took us to terminal “B” for another 45-minute wait. While we waited we got a snack. Chris and I read while Alex played with his PSP. Our flight left at 9:05 CST. Keeping up with these time zones is actually harder than it sounds.

The flight back to Amarillo was mostly in the dark. We chased the sunset for about 45 minutes aboard the Embraer RJ135. I read, the kids mostly looked out the windows and occupied themselves. Once back in Amarillo, we claimed our baggage and boarded the parking shuttle back to Airport Security Parking. I can’t say enough good stuff about these folks. They took care of us. Once back at the parking lot, our bags were loaded, we paid $20 and took off after asking for brief directions.

I’ve never driven in Amarillo before, but I have learned on this trip that they like to put their exit signs right over the exit. I mean right on top of it. Once you see your exit sign, you better be in the correct lane and ready to get off or you’ll miss it. I missed the first exit onto I-40 and the second one off I-40 onto I-27. Once I backtracked those I was on my way to Canyon.

By now, it’s late. I’m mildly jet lagged and concerned about the fuel level. It took me right at a half tank to get to Amarillo. Logically, I should be able to get back home on the other half, but I am in no mood to stress over this. Remember, I’ve been subject to Disney Magic© the past five days and driving is a new experience. The seat of the Blazer felt really funny when I first sat in it at the parking lot. Chris needs a bathroom and I’m looking for gas. We found it in Hereford, Texas at a Town & Country. I filled up since gas was only $1.95/gallon.

Back on the road, we ran into a storm. It was a toad strangler for about 15 miles, but once clear of that it was smooth sailing the rest of the way. By the time we got to Farwell, I was having trouble staying awake. Just outside of Clovis, I was struggling to stay awake. Once we got through Clovis and on our way to Portales it seemed to be a little easier, but I was still very, very sleepy. I pulled us into our driveway and we unloaded leaving the bags for today.

There is laundry in my future.

ON THE WAY…

The alarm sounded at 4:30 a.m. MST. The dawn was pale outside, and the bags were packed and waiting by the door. We spent two days packing and boning up on the route to Rick Husband Airport in Amarillo, Texas to be ready for this. It would take a little more than two hours to get to Amarillo and we needed to be early so that we could get our baggage checked. We would also loose an hour due to the time change as we traveled east.

The bags loaded easily and we hit the highway with me driving, my 15-year-old daughter navigating and riding shotgun, and Alexander my 8-year-old son in the backseat. All was well as the sun was up but the sky was gray and cloudy as we rolled through Clovis, Farwell, Bovina, Friona, Hereford, and Canyon. When we got to Amarillo we had a misstep when I blew by an exit. Never fear, we found our way onto I-40 eastbound.

We recovered quickly and located Airport Security Parking. I pulled in and arranged to stable the Blazer while we were gone. We got to the baggage check-in and tried to get in line. I attempted to enter the queue through the exit. When we got to the front of the line I was asked for a photo ID. Only then did I realize I had left my waistpack in the truck. I dug out my parking claim ticket and got on the phone to the parking facility. They brought my waistpack to the baggage check-in in a few minutes, much to my relief. The kids and I proceeded to the gate and waited for our flight. We were scheduled to leave at 10:55 but I hadn’t changed my watch and thought we were behind schedule this whole time.

While we were waiting we met a nice family that was headed to Houston for some vacation. We passed the time and took pictures of each other until our flight, a Continental Embraer 135 eventually rolled up. We boarded and proceeded to make ourselves comfortable for the hour and forty minute flight to Houston.

Once in Houston, we started looking for lunch. We wandered down the concourse and found a barbecue place where we bought some delicious, if somewhat expensive food. I also discovered that I had left my fleece pullover on the airplane. Damn. Ah well, it was just a thing and can be replaced. I really didn’t think I’d be needing a fleece jacket in Florida over the Memorial Day weekend.

Having satisfied our taste for barbecue, we went looking for our gate. We were a bit shocked to learn that we would have to board a tram to move to another terminal to catch our flight. We got on the tram and moved off to our gate as quickly as possible. As things would have it, we almost missed the flight. We were the last three to board and just got settled in as the Continental 757/300 backed away from the gate.

The flight was rather uneventful. Clouds had settled in here as well and we saw some spectacular cloud tops. The kids marveled at the actuality of flying through clouds. The movie, appropriately enough, was “Are We There Yet”. In due time we landed in Orlando. It was warm and humid in Florida, but we made a quick jaunt downstairs and over to the ground transportation desk where we discovered that we needed to walk the entire length of the terminal to get to the Magic Express service. Once there we were directed to “Bob” who was easy to spot as he was wearing the blue Magic Express uniform and a big, white Mickey Mitt.

Bob directed us to the queue for Port Orleans where we waited to board the Magic Express to WDW. We waited more than a half hour before they started boarding us. We spent the time with great family activities like whining and moaning about waiting in line and tongue twisters (”Toy Boat” and the ever popular “Red Leather-Yellow Leather”). The giggles were a wonderful break from the tedium of standing on queue.

When we finally boarded the bus, we were happy to learn that it was a luxury motor coach. Not a limousine, but a very comfortable ride nonetheless. We headed to the back seat and watched the delightfully timed infomercial for WDW while we rode. Needless to say, the kids were ready to hit the park. As we pulled into Port Orleans and I listened to the driver announcing the stop. That is, I tried to listen but the transmission was garbled and though I know I heard him say “Riverside” we got off and tried to check into Port Orleans French Quarter. I discovered this after I tried to enter the queue from wrong end, again.

The nice young woman at the counter who discovered my error arranged for a young man in a van to move us to Port Orleans Riverside. After a short wait we rode over.

Below is an article about the prospect of multi-function cellular telephones (”I Want My Cell Phone to Make Cappuccino”). Well here is one example, and there’s no mention of any operating system:

Sony Ericson W800 is scheduled for release — well, whenever they release it.

A full 30 hours of battery life? I don’t know. It looks cool and the specs sound impressive. Well, that “2 megapixel camera” part is not so sexy, but the memory options seem pretty attractive. I don’t have any direct experience with Ericson phones, but they’ve done quite well in the past. Sony, on the other hand, is a household name.

Now, just because it bears the Sony “Walkman” logo doesn’t mean a lot to me. Sony has branded some pretty marginal personal stereo items before and their proprietary software requirement kept me from buying the new NW-E407 iShuffle killer they put on the market last month in favor of the 1 Gigabyte Creative Zen Muvo TX FM. It’s also supposed to be smart enough to give phone calls priority over everything else automatically. This is a telephone after all.

What do you think?

[Note: comments deactivated due to scamming scum.]

I did not start this weblog to bash Microsoft Corp., Bill Gates, or anyone else. Heck, though my primary desktop is Linux, I use Microsoft products all the time and have few complaints about them. But I notice a trend here.

Anyway, I found this on /. and couldn’t resist the irony.

“Microsoft is calling all UK kids aged 14-17 to enter its Thought Thieves Competition. Remember kids, finalists must agree to formally license all intellectual property rights in their film on terms acceptable to Microsoft. And don’t forget to download your free Thought Thieves Poster!”

I mean, this just seems so 1984 — the book not the year. And has anyone forgotten where Bill Gates got the code that he used to start Microsoft’s first OS?

Now, back to trying to get Freenet to work….

According to a /. article, Bill Gates is betting on your cell phone eventually killing the iPod. Of course, your phone will have to run Windows Mobile OS for it to work.

This idea makes some sense given recent advances in cellular telephone technology and consumers’ desire to combine as many devices as possible into one convenient, compact unit. Who wouldn’t want a device that replaces your Palm Pilot, pager, digital camera, phone, iPod (photo!) and espresso pump?

Well my experience with these things is admittedly limited, but it seems to me such a device is likely to be a bulky, half-assed, battery-sucking mess. Granted it’s a cool idea, but unlike chocolate and peanut butter some things do not go well together. While say, a cell phone and mp3 player may seem like a natural marriage (both devices produce audio of some kind), it needs to be pointed out that mp3’s can eat up lots of storage space, require a bit of processor to play and can soak up batteries when you crank a quality pair of headphones. I’d hate to miss an important call because I just drained my battery savoring the Halo2 soundtrack.

I’ve also noticed that any integrated device I’ve ever seen involved a compromise in functionality. For example, I may love the phone and its interface, but hate the database and the ability to retrieve data about my contacts. Or perhaps the mp3 player rocks, but the espresso pump just doesn’t put up more than about 8 bar! Proprietary applications without enough options or a user interface that flat out sucks can’t be abandoned if you still want the cool device it’s attached to. My phone takes pictures; my digital camera takes much better pictures.

And what happens when part of it breaks? In many cases this means the whole unit is on the fritz. Sending in a unit for repair means that you no longer have your Palm Pilot, pager, digital camera, phone, iPod (photo!) or espresso pump — it all goes to the shop. And upgrades?

I would also like to point out that I have written this whole screed with no mention of crashes or security. Paris Hilton called — she wants her peace of mind back.

While I don’t put much credence in the scenario Chairman Gates describes, I could be wrong. Cell phone tech is advancing by leaps and bounds. The price of memory never ceases to amaze me. Miniaturization is astounding these days. Bandwidth is actually becoming affordable and available. If the oil doesn’t run out, interesting and useful aggregates of these devices could be a reality in the next five years.

In the meantime, I’m sticking with my multiple devices. I carry my Palm Tungsten T on trips to keep lots of info available and keep it docked when I’m at home. I wear my Creative Muvo TX FM to the gym and replace the single AAA batter about once a month when it goes dead. I take pictures of my kids with my Fujifilm FinePix F450 and videotape my daughter’s softball games with my Sony Handycam CDR-HC21. When we’re in the car and my son wants to watch a movie, he watches it on a portable DVD player with a 7″ screen. I don’t know why, he just really, really wants to watch a movie on the road and the tiny screen is no obstacle to him. If it all becomes available in an affordable, practical device, I may eventually be interested.

Heck, it’ll probably be made by Apple or some Asian knockoff.

[Note: comments deactivated due to scamming scum.]

Okay, this is my first entry in my first attempt at blogging. As I see it, there just aren’t enough meaningless, self-absorbed online diaries on the Internet.

I thought I’d do my part to soak up some of that wonderful bandwidth out there and scatter some pearls before the virtual swine. When I say “swine”, I mean that in only the best possible way.

More to follow, I suppose.