Big Thunder Mountain Railroad: The ride in pictures!

Check this out: During a ride on the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad roller coaster at Disney World, I took more than one hundred pictures with my Nikon D70. I then took all the pictures and put them one after the other to create this movie (click here to download). Cool, eh?

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Our blog was mentioned on "The Disney Blog"

A little trackback to a blog that mentioned Dave's Stuff called "The Disney Blog" ... see the left side, under "Trip Reports" ... thanks! I wonder how they found it?

Now it's time to say goodbye to all our company ...

Laurel dreams of the next trip!

Disney - the mega post #1, Sunday and Monday

The players: Laurel - old school WDW lover; misses the Skyway, 20,000 Leagues, Mr. Toad, and the previous incarnation of the WEDway Peoplemover. Dave - all around good sport, along for the ride. The facts: 8 days/7 nights at the Yacht Club. Day 1 (Sunday) Arrive at 8am on the red-eye from Seattle. Luckily our room is ready so we get some breakfast and hit Animal Kingdom. It's Tough to be a Bug is pretty good. The water-rafting ride is OK. Didn't ride the safari because the wait was too long. Saw the construction for Everest. It's really really big. I can honestly say I have no desire to return to AK until the the new is in. AK really didn't do it for me. Head back to the hotel. Dave naps and Laurel walks to Epcot. Dinner at Marrakesh. The meal was nothing special, it seemed to be watered down for the tourists. After dinner we hit the American Pavillion and saw the show there. If I had known it was going to be so sugar-coated, I would have skipped dessert. We stayed through Illuminations, which was very nice. Day 2 Magic Kingdom There's not a lot new at MK except Stitch's Escape which has been open for a couple of weeks. There were huge lines for it, but we got a Fastpass for later in the day. We shouldn't have bothered, because that ride? Is completely lame. I never rode it as Alien Encounter, so there's nothing to compare it to. We had dinner at California Grill. It was the best meal of the trip. Then we went back to the park and stayed through Wishes and Spectromagic. Dave and I both though that the Tinkerbell that flies in Wishes was fake, but it turns out that's a real person up there.

Laurel and Dave: We admit it, we're coasting

Laurel and Dave (left) on the Rockin' Roller Coaster at Disney MGM Studios. Note Dave's hat -- it was lost moments after this picture was taken. So despite Dave's obvious joy, we had to ride it AGAIN several hours later, in order to get to the lost and found to see if they had the hat. They did! (And no, I don't know who those other folks in the picture are.)

DAVE (and Laurel) IN SPACE (Mountain)

Anyone who knows me (Dave) knows that I'm a complete pansy. One manifestation of that is that I won't ride roller coasters. Previously, the only coaster I had ever been on was Disney's Big Thunder Mountain. Well, tonight, I finally got on the ultimate coaster at Disney -- Space Mountain. It was kind of weak. We got off it and got right back on, so now I've been on it twice! Pansy no more ... at least on roller coasters.

The Legacy of Dave and Laurel

Laurel and I left a "Legacy Tile" at Epcot today -- it is a small black and white picture on a tile displayed on big stones outside the Spaceship Earth ball. Should be up in about a month -- I'll post coordinates to it on the blog when we find out what they are, so any other visitors to DisneyWorld can check it out for us!

Otherwise, we took a behind-the-scenes tour at Epcot this morning for about 4 hours. One cool feature, that wasn't scheduled -- we got direct admission into "Misson: Space," which is the hottest new ride behind Test Track (which we did the night before).

Laurel had already gone on it alone, but Dave was too scared before ... however, today, he tried it out, and sure enough, it wasn't so bad. They actually put you in a centrifuge and spin you up to several Gs ...

We also heard several new tales about Walt Disney that mildly conflict with other information we've heard, so more research is in order to this "Cult of Walt."

I didn't lug my digital SLR camera around today, so all I have are camera phone pix, but there are some OK ones -- see above, and click any picture to see the full gallery, as only the latest 10 appear on the top bar, and I took more than 20 just today.

The truth about Disney

Laurel's quote of the day (and to understand this properly, you have to know that she was being 100% serious and even thoughtful about this): "Disney World really isn't a good place for kids." (Or maybe you just have to know Laurel.)

In other news, we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Magic Kingdom that was pretty neat, although 4.5 hours long.

We spent almost as much time waiting in line for the "Test Track" ride at Epcot -- it kept breaking down. We finally got through it in time to sprint out our Thanksgiving dinner reservations.

The only disappointment of the day -- no parasailing (which I wasn't so sure I was going to do, but Laurel is all for it) .. it was too windy. We'll try again Saturday.

Tomorrow starts early with a guided tour of Epcot ... this "vacation" is non-stop!

Happy Birthday, Tilly!

Almost every blog contributor has a birthday this month (Laurel is the odd one out, with an October birthday).

Disney Day 4

Today was actually our "vacation from vacation," and that included a vacation from the camera.
Still, it was a pretty big day. We had a breakfast buffet, rented a boat, and Dave got a massage while Laurel rode some rides. Then, we had dinner and saw Cirque de Soliel (I'm too tired to bother to look up the spelling).
Sometime in there, we also went to Disney Quest, where you can build your own roller coaster and virtually ride it. Here is a picture that our ride attendent took:

We also got a video of us riding the coaster, which is pretty funny, but it is on videotape, so I can't post it until I get back home and have a chance to digitize it.

Photos from Disney Day 3

Disney-MGM Studios pix. Also note above, some cameraphone pix from the Adventurers' Club in Pleasure Island. Laurel says: It's Disney -- with liquor!

Photos from Disney Day 2

15 hours at the Magic Kingdom. ... tomorrow, MGM.

Photos from Disney Day 1

Photo album here.

Laurel in the House of Mouse

Laurel (right) meets Mickey Mouse.

Happy Birthday, Mum!

(and Dad, nine days late ... and me, 10 days early)

Dave: Finally out of the closet!

Today, I finished our closet-shelf-adding project, which at this point I realize I didn't blog about before.

Oh well, anyway ... we added a bunch of shelves to our closets, so we'd have more room for stuff that we've otherwise been putting on the floor. This project was another "three trips to Home Depot" deal, except that today, we had to make a FOURTH trip to Home Depot to finish it up.

What did you think I meant?

Buy my photos!

You can purchase my stock photography by going to this site! Enjoy!

We're finally safe! Safe as can be!

From an AP wire story: Ashcroft, in a five-page, handwritten letter to Bush, said, "The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved." You know I hate to be political, but COME ON. This guy is even more clueless than we thought. I hate thinking that I could do a better job ...

I am a professional photographer!

Only one day into selling my photos on ShutterStock.com, and I already made $1 ... those shots of animals in New Zealand and Australia are starting to pay for themselves ... ;-)

Got pix?

Ever take photos of completely random stuff, think they were pretty good, and then just let them sit on your harddrive? Yeah, me too. I've recently gotten into stock photography, though -- the odds of getting a "hit" are pretty low, but for almost no effort, you could make a little extra spending cash. Try it and see!

Submit Photos to ShutterStock and make $$$!

My milkshake brought all the devs to the yard

I got four milkshakes dumped on my head. It was the most incredible cold I ever felt.

They didn't let me get away with an umbrella. Hey, if you know it is going to rain milkshakes, why not?

I got to "sample" strawberry, caramel, and chocolate. What, no vanilla?

Talk about last minute ...

The fourth developer just got his last two fixes in ... so he gets to dump a milkshake, too! The funny thing is that he normally isn't even awake by this time of the day ;-)

The Milkshake Challenge

In about 15 minutes, the Milkshake Challenge will come to an end. What's that? It's a contest I set up at work -- if a developer fixes a certain number of bugs in my area of the product, he or she gets to dump a milkshake on my head! So far, 3 folks have qualified, and a fourth is working his tail off to try to hit the target number. I'm prepared -- I have changed clothes, got some garbage bags to ensure we don't mess up the floor, and even brought an umbrella ... although I don't think they will let me use it ;-) I also have my camera, so be ready for pictures later today! Oh, and why milkshakes? Because I just accepted a new job on a team at Microsoft that was once known by the codename "Milkshake" -- although the name is no longer in use, I figured it was a good motivator for folks to take our their aggressions about my decision to move on ...

Laurel is crafty

In her new Craft Center (of course, it is in the room of our house known as the Ladies' Lounge):



Laurel made the plans for it, and we built it all today with only three trips to the Home Depot (it always takes three trips to the Home Depot for any project) ... we still have some work to do on it, like adding another bookshelf to the side, and finishing the cabinets, but it is coming together nicely!

Introducing Sadie Hale

Aaaawwwwwwwww....

Photo album of Sadie Hale and family!

Click here for a photo album of my first time visiting little Sadie Hale (and family)!

Photo assignment 6: Luminosity

We're starting to get into harder-to-define artistic areas in our photo class ... I'm not sure they really explained "luminosity" very well, so I don't know if this image will qualify, but I like it:



See more experiments at my gallery.

Rant

Dave won't get political, but, never fear - I will. Plus there needs to be another post to push the electoral vote results off the page when I pull up this blog.

Dear Joe Redstate:

Congratulations on your stupidity and selfishness. The same short-sighted greed that pushed Bush through in 2000 (with some help from the Supreme Court) - yippee! a check for $300 that my children will pay for dearly? you've got my vote! - is alive and well in 2004. Only now it goes hand in hand with some misguided idea of what "moral values" mean. Believe me, when you are working 39 hours a week at Wal-Mart and thus have no health insurance benefit for you or your children, who, by the way, attend a public school which is severely underfunded - the LAST thing you need to worry about is whether Bob and Steve down the street can have some legal recognition of their relationship. And ask yourself this: killing 1000 servicemen and 100,000 Iraqis and lying to the public about why you're doing it? when you were perfectly happy to skip out on Vietnam and not put your own life on the line? Where are the "moral values" there?

You think Liberals like myself are contemptuous of you, that we just don't understand the heartland? You see, 4 years from now, more than likely I'm still going to be pretty well off, whereas you are basically screwing yourself over. Yet *I* am the one who actually cares what happens. So, here you go, here's your contempt: you don't want to help yourself? Fine, enjoy 4 more years of seeing your sons and daughters killed in the Middle East because they couldn't afford to go to college and joined the army. Enjoy national debt. Enjoy not being able to afford healthcare. Enjoy failing public schools. Because I'm sure going to be enjoying those tax cuts that I don't really need.

Hugs and kisses,
Laurel Bluestate

FYI, not to get political, but this is a neat site for tracking the electoral votes as polled (will be interesting to see this fill in with firm numbers):



Me? I support Michael Badnarik (well, actually, I support the libertarian philosophy as opposed to the Libertarian Party, but I don't have time to go into the differences right now).