We’re on the road … Road Trip 2010 has begun!
leisure
Star Wars Weekend at Disney
We spent the day over at Disney’s Hollywood Studios to check out the Star Wars Weekend event, and it was pretty cool! The park was the most crowded I’ve ever seen it, and this time it was mostly Star Wars t-shirt-wearing dudes my age waiting in lines to meet the characters (although, to be fair, most of them also had their kids with them, like me). 😀
Don’t mess with Boba Fett, he’s all business!
The Gammorean Guard wasn’t very talkative either.
The “parade” was cool, seeing all the characters go by, especially the “local Florida garrison” of Imperial Troopers:
One of the celebrity guests in the parade was Jeremy Bulloch, who played Boba Fett. Since it’s the 30th anniversary of the release of “The Empire Strikes Back” I thought that was pretty neat. Pac Man and “Empire” both turned 30 this week? Wow, 1980 was a great year for geeks …
Of course my daughter loves the Star Wars saga so she had a great time as well. We got to “meet” and get autographs from Darth Vader (who knew he had such good penmanship, much less signed autographs?), a couple of Storm Troopers (signed “Stormtrooper TX-352”), Boba Fett, Queen Amidala, and Luke and Leia. We also saw, wandering around, Chewbacca, some Ewoks, Tusken Raiders, the Cantina band, and various other characters. Unfortunately the lines for Darth Maul and C3PO/R2D2 closed before we could get in them. We didn’t even bother with the Star Wars-themed Disney characters (like Darth Goofy, Jedi Mickey, etc.).
Let me say that I’ve also never seen the line for the Star Tours line as long as it was in quite a while. In addition to it being a Star Wars Weekend, it was probably more popular since it will be shut down for rennovation in September before re-opening in May 2011 (for next year’s Star Wars Weekends).
Oh, and we did manage to squeeze in rides on Toy Story Mania and the Rockin’ Roller Coaster before we had to leave.
A day at Hollywood Studios
My sister came into town for the Easter weekend and yesterday we spent the day at Disney’s Hollywood Studios over in Orlando.
The park was really crowded, evidenced by how quickly the FastPasses were being distributed: we got there around 10am and went immediately to the Pixar area to get FastPasses for Toy Story Mania and yikes, our return time was 5:30pm! We also ended up with a 7:15pm time slot for the Tower of Terror and 9:15pm for the Rockin’ Roller Coaster.
We had lunch at the Sci-Fi Dine In Theater. My daughter and sister had never eaten there and my wife and I hadn’t been there since the mid-90s. It’s modeled after an old drive-in movie theater where you sit in little cars and watch old black-and-white movies on the screen while the wait staff roller-skates around. It’s cute (cool ambiance) and the food is decent (I heard the milkshakes are great but I went with a flavored vanilla coke instead). I amused myself by MSTing the old movies and commercials while we ate.
Since we had all day before we could ride those “popular” attractions, we spent the rest of the day wandering around taking in the shows and other rides like the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, Star Tours, the American Idol
Experience, the Great Movie Ride, Beauty and the Beast,the 3pm Block Party Parade, and Drew Carey’s Sounds Dangerous. We even went through the “One Man’s Dream” exhibit that details the history of the Disney family and how Walt went from humble newspaper cartoonist to family media mogul, including dioramas and models and drawings of the various parks and plans.
After finally getting to ride Toy Story Mania around dinnertime, we split up for a bit. My wife and daughter went to see the American Idol final show while my sister and I went to MuppetVision 3D and also rode the Tower of Terror (or, as we renamed it, the Tower of Awesomeness!). We had gotten four FastPasses for ToT but since my wife and daughter ended up not going, we made two girls’ day by offering them the extra tickets so they didn’t have to wait in the standby line.
We met back up with the other half of our party to go to the 8:30pm showing of Fantasmic, which was great, but a little chilly. We were in rows near the front and the cool evening breezes were blowing some of the spray from the water screens on us. By the time we finally got 
out of the Hollywood Hills Amphitheater (Disney really needs to re-work the exit strategy on that venue) it was time for our last FastPass: Aerosmith’s Rockin’ Roller Coaster.
My daughter hadn’t liked the coaster the last time she rode it but I was proud of her for giving it another try. We even got to ride in the front car! My sister and I sat up front, with my wife and daughter right behind us. It was a blast! I love that coaster …
That was a perfect way to end the day. Considering how crowded the park was, really the longest line we waited in was to get our picture taken with the characters from Up! (Doug, Russell, and Carl). All of the FastPass lines worked out great and we got to see and do everything we wanted to.
Spring Training 2010: Recap
6:48am (MST): I’m at my gate in the Phoenix Sky Harbor airport waiting for my flight to Houston. My brother just boarded his flight back to Cleveland. We got to the airport a little later than planned thanks to overnight construction on I-10 that required us to take a detour. Then when we got into the Hertz car return lot, the attendants decided to check in everyone who came in before us first. But even with the long bus ride from the rental car center to the terminal, we made it through security and to the gates on time. The sun is just starting to come up, so I’ve got my last view of the mountains.
10:57am (CDT): I’ve arrived at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston. The flight here was uneventful and I made some more serious headway on “Anathem.”
11:35am (CDT): boarding of my flight to Tampa has been delayed due to a “regurgitation situation” (the gate agent’s words) on the plane from the previous flight (“too much information!” mumbles the guy sitting next to me in the waiting area). Apparently the haz-mat team has to clean the area … I hope I don’t get that seat! Although, on the other hand, that would now be the cleanest seat on the plane. 🙂
4:27pm (EST): back home in Florida. Another smooth flight, and this time the middle seat was open so I had a bit more room to relax and stretch out. Another good chunk of “Anathem” is behind me and I’m really starting to get into the meat of the story now (which I should be, given I’m about 400 pages in!). I’m now waiting for my luggage at the bag claim and then I’ll get my car and drive home.
Quick tech recap: I ended up not using the WordPress app on my iPhone to “live” blog these entries. I was just too “busy” during the day to keep making updates (and on Wednesday I accidentally left my phone in the car when we went to the game). Plus, the app is not well-suited to long-form posts with lots of formatting, links, and images. I do like it for moderating comments, though. I didn’t use the geocaching app on my iPhone either. We did fire it up once while we were at Camelback Mountain, but none of the caches were near our route, so we didn’t bother. The MLB and NCAA apps, however, were very useful, allowing us to keep in touch with other scores while out at the ballpark. I was so involved in reading “Anathem” on the plane that I didn’t even watch any of the videos I had copied into my iPhone or EeePC for entertainment purposes.
Thus our second annual Spring Training mini-vacation comes to a close. I already can’t wait for next year!
Spring Training 2010: Day Three
9:21am: we just finished breakfast at the Black Bear Diner and are now heading over to the Player Development Complex at the Goodyear Ballpark to watch the Indians’ morning practice.
9:49am: we’re watching some of the players warm up, listening to their chatter. Good natured ribbing is also going on which is fun to hear. 🙂 It’s actually pretty chilly this morning (and windy!) so I’m wishing I had worn my jacket.
10:42am: during batting practice, we’re hanging out behind the outfield fence, attempting to snag some balls. As the morning wears on, more and more people are starting to join us.
My brother managed to get Grady Sizemore to toss a ball over the fence to him (he asked very politely)! That was nice considering Grady snubbed him for an autograph before the game on Wednesday. He also snagged a ball that topped the left field fence and let me have it. Thanks, little bro!
11:59am: we’re in our seats, right behind home plate this time.
3:53pm: another home team win! The Tribe exploded in the 2nd inning with 8 runs and won easily 12-2 over the Oakland A’s. My brother and I were on the scoreboard video screen for the 7th inning stretch (why didn’t I think to ask the guys next to us to take a picture of that!?) and I caught a t-shirt fired from one of those air guns by someone over on the first base dugout.
6:34pm: we’re at Rustler’s Rooste for our (now) traditional steak dinner celebrating the end of our trip. We played it smart this year, after having to wait almost 2 hours for a table last year. This time we called ahead and only had about a 20 minute wait. We saw some A’s fans that were sitting in front of us at the game waiting for a table as well. On our way up here, we passed Tempe Diable Stadium, spring training home of the Angels, so we had to stop for another photo.
Great views from up here … hard to believe we were at the top of Camelback (in the center distance of the photo below) just yesterday morning:
8:31pm: on our way back to the hotel. Dinner was excellent, as expected. Unfortunately, the rattlesnake wasn’t in season so we didn’t get to try it.
9:30pm: need to get to sleep as we both have early flights tomorrow. We got back to the hotel in time to see Kansas get knocked out of the NCAA tournament. Wow. It’s too bad the trip is already over … I already can’t wait until next year!
Spring Training 2010: Day Two
8:15am: we got up early, refreshed (and adjusted to the 3 hour timezone difference). We’re eating breakfast at the Paradise Cafe and then heading over to Camelback Mountain for some hiking.
9:18am: we’re at the head of the Echo Canyon trail of Camelback Mountain. Parking is ridiculously limited, so we had to drive around to find some available street parking. It took us 20 minutes to walk here from the car, so at least that was a good warm-up for the climb ahead. The trail is 1.2 miles long and the summit is 2,704 feet up!
10:22am: we reached the summit! It was an amazing hike/climb and a pretty good workout. We were much better prepared than last year (appropriate clothing/shoes, water, etc.) so that probably helped. The views are amazing up here (and I even had 3G coverage on my iPhone!).
11:41am: we made it back down. It took us an hour to get up, and then 56 minutes to get back down. Time to head over to Scottsdale for the baseball game.
12:55pm: parking around the Scottsdale Stadium is crazy. We drove around for quite a bit and finally found street parking about a 10 minute walk away. We still made it into our seats before the national anthem though, in the bleachers down the third base line. Another beautiful day to be out at the ballpark. 430′ to center field here … not an easy place for home runs.
4:11pm: a great game, but the Indians lost. The Giants started out with a 5-0 lead, but the Indians came slowly back and eventually had it tied up at 6 in the 7th. But San Francisco score the go-ahead run in the 8th and the Tribe couldn’t answer. 7-6 Giants win. The stadium was packed! Over 12,000 in attendance, wow. Walking out of the park, we met an older gentleman wearing a Indians jersey (Bob Feller #19) jersey who told us he actually saw Feller pitch a no-hitter in 1950. He was kind enough to take this picture for us:
5:30pm: it took us a long time to get back to the hotel in Avondale from Scottsdale, rush hour traffic around downtown and I-10. Time for a quick shower, a change of clothes, and then back downtown for the basketball game.
6:48pm: getting downtown and parked for the US Airways Center was remarkably easy. We’re in our seats (with some dinner) ready for the game to start. R U ORANGE?
9:36pm: the Suns win over the Jazz 110-100. Stoudemire was on fire and recent Vancouver winter Olympics torch bearer Steve Nash had a good game as well. We’re going to head across the street to the Hard Rock Cafe so my brother can pick up a pair of drumsticks. On the way out of downtown we’re going to drive past Chase Field, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. So far, the home team of every game we’ve seen has won. Hopefully that bodes well for the Indians game tomorrow.
10:42pm: catching up on some NCAA tournament action via SportsCenter before heading to bed.
Spring Training 2010: Day One
It’s finally time for my annual Spring Training trip! Three days of baseball, beer, and brats. 🙂
My tech arsenal this year consists simply of my EeePC and iPhone. Between the two of those devices I should be able to handle any work-related emergency that might arise and still stay “connected” while traveling. The iPhone apps I installed specifically for this trip include:
- Geocaching: for our hiking trip on Camelback Mountain tomorrow.
- MLB.com at Bat Lite: to keep tabs on the other Spring Training games.
- NCAA March Madness On Demand Lite: ’cause there’s some basketball going on right now too!
- TripIt: I decided to test out the service with this trip and see how it goes, pretty cool.
I’ll also try using the WordPress app on my iPhone to post updates to this blog.
5:52am (EDT): I’m at the gate at the Tampa airport waiting to board my flight to Houston. yawn
8:27am (CDT): waiting on my connection to Phoenix here in Houston. The flight here was uneventful and I made some good headway on “Anathem” (about 68 pages). My connection is slightly delayed since the plane just came in from Peru and needs to go through customs.
10:56am (MST): in Phoenix! A broken seat delayed my departure from Houston more than expected, but I’m finally here! Now to find my brother (who should be here by now) and get my luggage.
12:23pm: we’re at the Goodyear Ballpark. Our (padded!) seats are in the second row down the first base line. It’s beautiful out.
3:44pm: we’ve finally seen a win at Goodyear (every game we went to last year were losses)! The Tribe beat the Reds 6-2. The park was pretty empty, only about 4,300 people in attendance. That’s surprising considering it was the two “home” Ohio teams playing, but it was also a weekday game.
5:15pm: we’ve checking into our hotel in Avondale and are getting cleaned up and ready to head out for dinner.
6:30pm: waiting for a table at the Yardhouse at Westgate Center in Glendale. Quite a beer selection.
7:40pm: dinner was fantastic. I had the (Mac + Cheese)2 and tried a six-pack sampler:
7:46pm: there’s a huge bike show going on here, it’s loud and there are some impressive-looking motorcycles.
9:00pm: back at the hotel, exhausted. Considering it’s midnight back home, and we’ve been up since 4am, it’s time for bed.
Who dat? An evening with Harry Connick, Jr.
This evening my wife and I went to Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwater to see Harry Connick, Jr. who’s touring in support of his new album, “Your Songs.” This was either the fourth or fifth time we’ve seen Harry in concert (we couldn’t remember exactly) and it was a great show as always.
The way the musicians were arranged on-stage helped showcase the three different styles of music we would be hearing. On the left were the strings for the orchestral numbers, in the center were the drums and bass, which combined with Harry on piano for the traditional jazz combo style, and then on the right were the trumpets, trombones, and saxophones for the big band numbers. For two hours he played a good mix of songs from the new CD and other recent releases plus a few of his trademark New Orleans jazz combo numbers. In addition to singing and playing the piano (of course) he also played trumpet and bass! “I suck” he joked, but of course he was pretty good.
During the breaks between sets he would talk and interact with the audience, which is always entertaining. He talked about how great it was for New Orleans to have the Saints as the Super Bowl champions (he apparently went to the game and got to meet a lot of the players afterwards). He jokingly talked about how 94% of the country doesn’t understand the “who dat?” chant and proposed (and briefly sang) a more understandable “who is that?” version. He told a funny story about his recent trip to the Grammys where he met Jennifer Hudson and had “her junk” on his arm during a photo shoot (“and she has a lot of junk!”). Another memorable moment was when he said one of his daughter’s friends said he played “grandpa music” and the four women in his house would rather go see Kesha than him (which prompted him to sing a few bars of “Tik Tok“). 🙂
Like my “Good Eats Live” experience last summer, however, there was a negative aspect to the show that will taint my memory of it … the super-annoying lady sitting directly behind us was a “woo girl.” Yes, at the beginning of every song she recognized, she had to shout “woooo!” at the top of her lungs in her ear-piercing, high-pitched voice. And not only that, she took advantage of silent moments to yell out song requests (“play ‘Come By Me!'”) or inappropriate comments (“Harry’s hot!”). By the end of the concert I was ready to turn around and strangle her. Arrrgh! There were a few other annoying hecklers in the crowd, but Harry dealt with them good naturedly (“it’s my name on the marquee, I’ll handle the comedy.”). Of course the theater had a strict policy on photographs and videotaping, but at the end of the show Harry posed for a picture with a lady in the front row and all of a sudden everyone had their cellphones and cameras out and were snapping photos. It must have been driving the ushers mad.
Overall, it was a great show and a good time. My favorite performance is still the one we saw in Cleveland during the “She”/”Star Turtle” tour when he was playing with the funk band in the mid-90s, but the jazz and big band shows are really good too and I’ll always go to see him when I have the chance.
Fellow Ozians …
We went and saw “Wicked” this afternoon at the Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center, using tickets we purchased about five months ago. It’s an incredible show and I highly recommend you see it if you have the chance!
This was the third time for me (once on Broadway with the original cast, here in Tampa during the first tour in 2007, and now again in 2010) but the first time my daughter had seen it, and she absolutely loved it. She’s actually falling asleep in her room right now listening to the soundtrack. 😉 She had read “The Wizard of Oz” (but actually hasn’t seen the movie) so it was fun to watch her put the pieces together as the story of Elphaba and Glinda unfolded on stage. I bought her the novel on which the musical is based (Gregory Maguire’s “Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West“) a few months ago, but strangely she never got around to finishing it … I’ll be she does now, and I’d like to read it myself once I catch up on my current backlog.
This was the matinee show so a few of the understudies were performing the main parts. I guess I’m a little spoiled because after seeing Edina Menzel and Kristen Chenoweth belt out “Defying Gravity” on Broadway, the traveling company just didn’t pack the same punch. Not that they weren’t good! Here’s a funny note: Richard Kline is playing the role of the Wizard. I wouldn’t have recognized him except the playbill specifically mentioned he “is best known as Jack Tripper’s best friend, Larry Dallas on the classic sitcom ‘Three’s Company.'” That’s right, this guy is currently the Wizard of Oz. 😀
Back in Florida
I know it sounds a little harsh, but after spending the past few days in chilly, snowy Ohio for the holidays, we’re glad to be back in Florida.
We spent Christmas Eve day doing some last minute shopping and preparations, which included cooking lasagna (in our hotel room) to take to dinner at my aunt’s place.
Christmas Day was relatively relaxing. After church and an early lunch a few of us went to see “The Princess and the Frog,” which my daughter enjoyed (it was a very different type of Disney princess movie … I particularly enjoyed the musical score and the trumpet-playing alligator). We cooked Christmas dinner at my brother’s and sister-in-law’s place and spent the rest of the day with the immediate family.
On the 26th, we had a family photo taken at a local Portrait Innovations studio. The place was pretty small, and apparently had a 40-person occupancy limit so they were asking people to wait outside (in the cold!) until they were called. Overall it was a poorly organized way to get a picture taken, but the end result was worth it. We spent that evening at another aunt’s house to visit with my mom’s side of the family.
Sunday? More visiting with family, of course! That’s also when the real winter weather started to move in. By the time we left my sister’s place that evening a good half-inch or so had fallen (and it was still coming down) so my daughter had her first experience with a snowbrush as she helped clean off some of the cars.
The drive back to the hotel was slow due to the deteriorating road conditions. Of course, we had to take advantage of the snow once we got back to the hotel: my daughter and I had a serious snowball fight, which was a lot of fun (mostly for her), and she got to make a decent snow angel.
Luckily, when we woke up early this morning to head to the airport, it was just freezing cold and no longer snowing. The crews had done their job overnight and the major roads were clear. Once we dropped off the rental car and got into the airport, though, the “fun” began. Thanks to the two Northwest Airlines incidents, security at the airport was crazy! You’d think the airport would have been prepared, but the line was a mess: it switched back on itself several times so it was almost impossible to find the end. Plus it went past all the other lines to check-in so people were constantly cutting through with their baggage, causing general confusion. 40 minutes later we were finally through, without major incident (although once we got to our gate and settled down my wife realized she had accidentally left an opened bottle of apple juice in her carry-on that went through the x-ray machine and wasn’t caught. Oops!).
We had no return flight issues except for the slight delay for de-icing. Once back in Florida and the 60-degree sunny weather, we heard from my sister that it really started to get bad after we left, so we had made it out just in time. To celebrate being home, we had lunch on the deck outside at a Bahama Breeze near the airport. Ahhh. And yeah, we rubbed it in for the family up north by sending a photo. Love you guys! 🙂