Something More

A Day at Disney

Spent the day at Disney yesterday.  Started out at Animal Kingdom.  Rode on Expedition Everest.  It was cool, a little bumpy.  Reminded me a little bit of the Tidal Wave from Great Amercia all those years ago.  Of course the Tidal Wave was my first roller coaster and it went upside down both forwards and backwards, so it has a special place in my heart.  Everest does go backwards but not upside down.  If that's the kind of action you are looking for, then you need to head to Disney's Hollywood Studios but I'll get to that in a moment.  We also went on Primeval Whirl at DAK which was very bumpy and jarring and something I won't go on again. 

Then we headed to Kali River Rapids, btw, this was the only ride we got a Fast Pass for the entire day.  The other rides had 30 minute or less waits on them.  Once our Fast Pass time arrived, we secured our belongings in a plastic bag and hopped on the ride.  Let me tell you.  I got SOAKED! and while it felt nice because it was warm out I got SOAKED.  My denim shorts were still damp when I came home 6 hours later.  Not a pleasant way to spend the day.  Next time (and there will be a next time) I will either bring a change or wear shorts that aren't denim.  I also saw people change out of their trainers/gym shoes and put on flip flops to go on the ride.  I'm thinking that might be a good option.  Still it is a great ride for a hot day here in Florida.

Once we were done with Kali, we decided to Park Hop over to Hollywood studios.  My son wanted to ride the Rock-n-Roll Roller Coaster again.  We had gone last weekend just to hop on that ride and it was great!  A must ride every time we are at the park but first we headed towards Tower of Terror.  I have never been on this ride always thinking it too scary.  But slowly my thoughts were realizing that it wasn't spooky scary in the Horror genre but more exciting scary because of it's unpredicable drops.  So as we walked up to the two rides, the Standby time for Tower changed from 20 minutes to 10 so we went there first.  I won't give away too many of the details of the ride, it is something to be expericenced but I will say, as soon as we got off the ride, we were back in line to do it again.  The drops are never the same because there are so many programming options. 

After that, we went over to Rock-N-Roll (which goes very fast and upside down) and the standby wait was 50 minutes (explains where everyone was from the Tower).  The Fast Pass return time as 7:15 and it was only 5:30 and I was tired so we used a little ...well not so much a trick but a little trick...we went in the single rider line.  This line is one of the tips for getting on rides faster at Disney.  If you are willing to split up momentarily and not sit together on the ride, then this is the line for you.  My son and I did make it onto the same ride just in different parts of the limo.  They use this line to fill in odd numbered parties.  Say a family has 3 or 5, well the single rider gets called to fill in the empty seat.  Took us about 20 minutes total to get on the ride.  Then we headed home.  Next weekend we'll be back at Hollywood Studios because it is Star Wars weekends and Darth Vader and Chewbacca are supposed to be there.

Workout

Last night I had a workout at my gym.  Turns out the "boy-toy" who I trained with is 19.  Yeah, that's young enough to be my son.  Almost makes you sick to think about.  I've been working out for a month now.  I decided I had better start doing something because I was getting sedentary and gaining weight and always tired and was running a 5K on April 24th.  It's something I've done for the past 4 years.  There is a big Corporate 5K every spring out of the Citrus Bowl and I've never actually done any kind of prep work before the race.  So you can imagine the limping and groaning the day after the race.  This year I thought I would be different.  Then I decided to get crazy and signed up for a 5K out at Disney a week after the Corporate 5K.  That was this past Saturday and I exceeded my goal by __ (that much).  Disney races have a minimum pace.  You must maintain that 15 minute per mile minimum or rumor has it, the CART will pick you up.  That was one of my goals, do not get picked up by the cart.  I actually ran the race in 44:23 which is my all time best 5K score so far and under my goal of 45 minutes.  Yeah me. I placed 1273 out of 1796 finishers.  I really like the Disney races, everyone who finishes gets a medal.  It's a big heavy thing that I could probably use to knock someone out with if the need arose.  Now I'm looking forward to the next Disney race in September.  It's an inaugural race so that makes it kind of exciting.  It's called the Everest Challenge and is a 5K with an obstacle course and scavenger hunt through the Animal Kingdom.  My real son is doing it with me.  Then there is a 10k and a 13K in October that I want to do.  This leads up to the Princess Half Marathon in March next year and who knows where that will lead me.  Right now though, I'm going to find the Advil and some Sportscreme for my sore muscles.  When I can lift my arms and my legs will actually work that is.

Our Nation's Capitol

Recently I went to a Leadership Conference in Washington DC.  I learned a lot and had a great time and met some wonderful people.  Since I did most of the picture taking, someone else (in this case Anne from Denver Chapter) had to take pictures of me.  This picture is me standing in front of the Florida pillar at the World War II monument.  Can you tell it was cold?

Thursday already?

Wow, where did this week go?  Monday is kind of hard to remember, I wound up with a migraine that night.  I think there was a Tuesday in there somewhere too.  Ah well, that means tomorrow is Friday and that's a good thing.  Then I finally get a weekend at home.  I have so much cleaning to do it isn't funny.  Labor Day weekend I'll be taking down all of the red, white and blue decorations and putting up the Halloween haunted village.  Which means I need to find my dining room.

A Sunday Dive...

Sunday was beautiful.  Not a cloud in the sky when we went out for our dive.  We got to Blue Heron Bridge and set up our gear and waited for the instructor.  There was even a baptism in the water right by where we were setting up.  This was my first non-lake open water dive, first salt water dive and I was a little nervous.  Especially seeing how many swimmers and boats there were in the immediate vacinity.  We walked into the water and down we went.  It was amazing.  There were huge starfish laying all over the place, fish everywhere.  I even almost ran into two jelly fish which are neon pink in the water.  So Nodettelete(1) became a certified diver and then we did our first advanced adventure dive and looked for fish and other underwater creatures.  After an hour of swimming, we got out and filled out the paperwork for credit for the dives.  By the time we got into the car it was 3:44 and we were starving.  With a stop for dinner we weren't home until 7:15.  It was a long weekend but it was worth it!

The continuing saga

Continuing our story from yesterday...  I forgot to mention that on Saturday at 5:00 in the morning, we realized that Kyle's bathing suit was still in Melbourne.  Thank goodness that Wal-mart is open 24 hours.

So, after his dive, we began the 2 and a half hour drive from Sebring to Tequesta where we spent quality time with Nodette(2) and her Nodetteletes.  Actually, the stay was beneficial to me in the short term.  I wound up borrowing Nodette(2)'s BCD and weight belt for my dive on Sunday.  She let me get into her pool with the dive gear on and practice my breathing and bouyency.  That's how we figured out that the bcd that the dive shop sent was too big.  We played some video games and watched a jewelry auction channel that was very interesting and not available on my cable system.  We even had a homemade breakfast of momma pancakes which were very good.  Then we headed out for our Sunday dives.

This will be continued either later or tomorrow.

Big weekend

I'm back, would have blogged at 5:15 Saturday but Typepad was down.  It was a very busy weekend.  We started out with going to Hard Rock Cafe for dinner on Friday night.  I had never been to one before.  My parents keep telling me how wonderful it is.  I'll have to give it a second chance as my food wasn't that great.  Could be my fault, I ordered the hamburger medium rare and it was pink inside.  Course the service could have been a little better too.  Oh well, it's the expericence I guess.  Now I can say I've eaten at a Hard Rock.

Then we walked about 20 feet to the Blue Man Group.  They were interesting.  I've really only seen them in Intel commercials but my son and dad really like them.  Parts of the show were a little disgusting in my opinion.  Which when I made my opinion known caused my father to remark that I am getting to be more and more like my mother.  Thank you for the compliment, my mother is a wonderful person.  The show is definitely interactive, Dad did even got a part, he shut the power off.  They even TP the audience.  It was a lot of fun.  Then dad took us into Universal itself and we rode on MIB and got to shoot aliens.  I was really tired at that point and was thankful to head home.  Mainly because...

We had to be up at 4:30 Saturday morning for Nodettelet(1)'s open water fresh water dive.  The dive was at 7:30 and it was two hours away.  We can now say that we've driven through no man's land Florida.  I sat on the beach and watched everyone's stuff and tried to refresh my memory with Nodettelet(1)'s open water book.  It turned out to be much more amusing to watch the other dive groups that showed up.  Some of the main rules in diving are try not to put your gear in the sand (bring a tarp) and lay your tanks down unless you are holding it or wearing it.  Tanks can fall over especially with your gear on and they can turn into missles (see Mythbusters).  I watched one group unload about 10 tanks and stood every tank up in the sand.  Course they did this off a trailer attached to a truck that blocked the entire boat ramp so no one else could back down and drop off gear.  Some of it wasn't funny, it was sad.  Like the group that the instructor was completely geared up and in the water while his students struggled to get into their gear and one student was still up the boat ramp trying to get it all put together.  Nodettelet(1)'s instructor Donna was by far the best instructor I've seen.  Here's a picture of our group.  Nodettelet(1) is second from the left.  Well, I had best get to work, I'll post about Sunday later today or tomorrow.

Getting ready for Monday

Yes, the time of this post is 5:29 AM, that's as in really early before dawn cracks kinda of early.  I woke up at 5:15 and could have gone back to sleep but tomorrow I need to be on the road at this hour and on Monday my son starts his sophmore year of high school.  His bus comes at 6:18 AM so we need to be up really early on Monday.  Plus I have to leave work early today so I thought I'd get an early start.  Course I can't find my security key to get in before 7 so I'll just do some work from home for a while.  I will not be blogging necessarily tomorrow or Sunday as I am not sure if I will have internet access while on the road.  I bought a plug that turns my cars dc into pluggable ac so I can plug in the laptop or the wii if I so choose to bring it.  Not sure what screen I can use, maybe the dvd player which does plug into the car.  I hope it's not too hot tomorrow.

Two days in a row...

Wow, hold on to your hats, it's been two days in a row.  See I can do it.  Anyway, I'm very, very tired today.  Didn't sleep well, had a great dream about Dale Earnhardt Jr though.  Something that I know would never cross my mind awake.  Especially since he was having a concert and he was singing.  Enough of that, onward.  Had to attend an open house info session for my son last night.  It was an almost complete waste of time.  You see my son is starting 10th grade next week and the very first criteria for dual enrollment at the college is that you are in either 11th or 12the grade.  About 20 of us were very confused.  After listening to all the mumbo jumbo about transporation (the guy actually read all of the pick up times for all of the seminole high schools, all except ours) and what programs there are and get good grades, they finally addressed the 20 10th graders sitting in the audience.  We are an exception.  The prinicpal of our school wrote a letter to the college asking that the 96 10th graders be allowed into the dual enrollment program and the classes are held at our high school.  They were completely unorganized and had no clue how to answer our questions.  I think some parents, who didn't speak to the coordinator directly prior to this session, were more confused when they walked out than when they walked in.  Maybe they'll get it together for next year.  Today is laptop pick up at his school so I'm missing more work.  Lucky me.  Hopefully I'll have time to swing by the cell phone store to get a new sim card and then by the college to get my books for my classes.  Well, time to workout. 

Time flies when you're...

Can I even say "having fun"?  Because it seems like time flies no matter what.  It never ceases to amaze me how fast this year is flying by.  Wasn't it just New Years?  I'm already contemplating my Christmas Shopping List.  Not that I have the time nor the money to do any Christmas shopping yet.  Man, just get me to Halloween first.  Preferably a raise in there would be nice too.  Oh well, I just keep working at what I'm working at and someday maybe it will payoff.  I really need to start blogging more, every day to exercise my writing skills.  I am still a college student with my first successful semester in a long time under my belt.  I managed to get an A in speech.  Me who loves to talk but doesn't do so well in front of crowds.  I talk way too fast when I'm in front of people.  I also managed to pull of a B in Intermediate Algebra.  My boss made a comment about the incompetence of my fellow classmates but I think I really did get a B.  So this semester we are moving on to College Algebra and hopefully a much better teacher along with Introduction to Oceanography.  My son has started scuba diving and I'm right there with him so I thought I would get a science class done and learn about the environment that I'm spending some time in right now.  I'll let you know more about that after this weekend which I'm sure will be here and over in no time.