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Thursday, September 27, 2007
Today's vacation entry: The Jedi Training Academy
Current Mood: CC is listening to: Sports TV I'll be posting pictures maybe tonight or tomorrow--just wanted to get this video uploaded first. This was Steve's *favorite* at Disneyland. After we watched this, he bought his own training lightsaber and a hoodie that says "Jedi Training Academy," and he also got a stuffed toy of Mickey as a jedi :-).
We loved the host--he was SO funny! And I got goose bumps when Darth Maul looked right at me at 6:21--he looked so intimidating :-). You'll probably hear my nervous chuckle :-).
The whole show was so cool :-)! I'm sure a lot of the grownup boys in the audience wished they could have taken part in it too--I know Steve does :-).
This video is in four parts: the first is the introduction, the second is a clip of the children being trained, the third is when the bad guys come in, and the fourth is when the bad guys get beaten :-).
Current Mood: CC is listening to: Living the Northern Summer--Jim Chappell (Living the Northern Summer) Our flight to L.A. yesterday was at 8:30am. When Steve called his mom yesterday afternoon to tell her we got here okay, she said that we left Memphis just in time. From the Memphis newspaper The Commercial Appeal:
Air-traffic outage: Communications failure strands travelers at Memphis airport By Jody Callahan (Contact) Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Kay Wilson was supposed to be in Little Rock Tuesday night, preparing for a talk with educators this morning.
Instead, she spent most of Tuesday afternoon plopped in the Memphis International Airport, reading "The Nine," the new book about the U.S. Supreme Court. Passengers spent some unscheduled downtime Tuesday at Memphis International Airport after a communications problem bedeviled an air-traffic control facility.
Mark Weber/The Commercial Appeal Passengers spent some unscheduled downtime Tuesday at Memphis International Airport after a communications problem bedeviled an air-traffic control facility. Tara Rivera of Wynne, Ark., uses an old-school phone to tell her husband about a delay in her trip to San Antonio, Texas.
Mark Weber/The Commercial Appeal Tara Rivera of Wynne, Ark., uses an old-school phone to tell her husband about a delay in her trip to San Antonio, Texas.
Wilson was one of thousands of airline passengers affected by a communications failure at a Memphis air-traffic control facility Tuesday.
Beginning about 11:30 a.m., the loss of communications shut down all inbound and outbound flights at the airport while redirecting numerous other flights away from Memphis airspace.
The failure left an odd sight reminiscent of 9/11: in the early afternoon, not a single plane could be seen in the air.
Although communications were restored and flights began taking off from the Memphis airport again just after 2 p.m., the delay caused untold headaches for passengers.
"I'm to speak at 9 a.m. and I don't know how I'm going to get there," said Wilson, a Fort Worth, Texas, resident who works for the organization that administers the SAT. "I can't get a car, even though I just turned one in, because they're out of cars."
The failure didn't affect the air-traffic control facility at the airport, but instead a nearby regional facility, said Federal Aviation Authority spokesman Kathleen Bergen.
That facility is responsible for controlling flights at higher altitudes in a roughly 250-mile radius of Memphis. The airport center is, in turn, responsible for all planes taking off and landing here. The airport center wasn't affected by the failure.
Memphis-Shelby County Airport Authority executive vice president Scott Brockman said the outage, while frustrating, didn't present any significant safety problems.
"There's tremendous overlap in the system. In my mind, there was no safety concern for any of the aircraft in the air," Brockman said. "It has definitely been more of a frustration than anything."
However, local air-traffic controller Ron Carpenter, who was on duty in the regional center when the failure occurred, disagreed.
Carpenter, also president of the Memphis air-traffic controller's union, said the facility lost three radar sites as well as telephone lines, prompting controllers to use personal cell phones to contact other facilities.
"If we had not found a way to try to communicate with those airplanes, then bad things could have happened," Carpenter said. "At Tupelo airport, we had two airplanes inbound at the same time. And all of a sudden, we're not talking to them. They're both heading for the same airport. This whole outage was very unsafe."
Although early speculation on the cause centered on a lightning strike or a construction accident, blame was eventually placed on an equipment failure at a Memphis AT&T facility.
"The service disruption was a result of equipment failure. The company is conducting a comprehensive investigation to determine the cause of the equipment failure," AT&T spokesman Cathy Lewandowski said in a statement.
Northwest Airlines spokesman Jim Herlihy said the failure caused 13 cancellations and 19 diversions, but he couldn't specify how many flights were delayed.
FedEx Express diverted about 11 flights to other cities, but all headed back to Memphis by midafternoon, spokesman Sandra Munoz said.
Still, the outage left many at the airport with frayed tempers, standing and staring at the arrivals and departures display. Wilson, though, remained calm despite her frustration.
"This is my 61st flight this calendar year," said Wilson, wearing down her cell phone battery trying to find a replacement speaker in case she didn't make it to Little Rock. "You learn that hysterics and temper tantrums don't do a bit of good."
Current Mood: CC is listening to: Nothing right now I don't usually watch movies more than once, but I felt like watching Hot Fuzz again. It's just as funny as the first time I saw it :-). Simon Pegg is an incredibly funny actor :-). His other well-known movie is the cult classic Shaun of the Dead (he was Shaun).
Here's one of my favorite excerpts: Simon Pegg (who plays the lead cop Nicholas Angel) and his partner have been asked by their chief to represent the police department in attending a Romeo and Juliet homage. The play was funny enough because the acting was so awful, but the expressions on his face (especially the look of total disbelief at the end) are absolutely priceless :-).
Current Mood: CC is listening to: The Loop Road--Jim Chappell (Acadia) I was reading Steve's blog entry about our fall decorations and I got to the part where he talked about our having different color schemes for each Christmas. I started to wonder about what I wanted to do this year.
2005 was red and gold...
2006 was blue, white and silver...
This year I was thinking we'd probably go with purple, gold and silver :-). That probably doesn't sound very Christmassy, but I think we can pull it off--part of the fun is hunting for just the right decorations :-).
Ooo, we can have some plum scented candles in the apartment too :-). I think it'll work :-). Tally ho!
Current Mood: CC is listening to: a Eukanuba dog show competition on Animal Planet, where an Australian Shepherd just won the herding dog group--YAY :-)! I just checked the forecast for the next 15 days.
The warmest it's going to be during the day is 90F (32C) and the warmest it's going to be during the night is 67F (19C).
The coldest it's going to be during the day is 71F (21C) and the coldest it's going to be during the night is 48F (8C).
WOO HOO it's slowly turning into fall! Just like Steve, it's my favorite time of year. The air's going to smell a little crisper and before long the leaves will turn all shades of red, yellow, brown, and orange. I think Hobbes (of the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes) says it best: fall is like nature's fireworks.
Autumn is the season that speaks most of family to me--I think it speaks of family even more than the Christmas season. Don't get me wrong, I still love Christmas--it's just that there's a bigger element of commercialism associated with Christmas now.
But fall! Apples. Cinnamon. Pumpkins. Halloween. Thanksgiving. No other season makes me feel as warm and fuzzy inside.
Current Mood: CC is listening to: Nothing right now I'm supposed to go to Jacksonville, Florida for training next month. This lighthouse is about 45 minutes away. I still haven't decided if I'm going to go see it :-).
Current Mood: CC is listening to: Jordan Pond--Jim Chappell (Acadia) Okay first off, I never thought I could ever go to a dentist where I felt NO pain at all. And I was in for a root canal. Those things are supposed to hurt. I mean, that's why people say "It's as fun as a root canal," right?
I don't know if it's because dentistry technology has progressed a lot in the last few years, or if my dentist is just that good. Maybe it's a little bit of both, because I felt NOTHING.
Or maybe it was the gas, too. We all know it: nitrous oxide (N2O), better known as laughing gas. I was curious: is it really going to make me laugh?
It did :-). Not the *whole* time though, just for a few minutes. A little triangle-shaped cone goes over your nose and after a while, you get just a little sleepy, but it goes away. Then you feel little tingly sensations on your fingertips and you can't feel your feet as much. I remember thinking, "Oh, getting a little woozy here."
And then the little giggles start. You try to stop it of course, because there's absolutely nothing funny going on. And then the idea of trying to stop makes the whole thing even funnier. The dentist is putting his gloves on and getting ready, and I should be getting more scared by the minute, but there I am, giggling like an idiot, trying to keep it quiet.
Finally the dentist hears me and turns. "Is it working?"
"Oh yeah." Then he cracks a joke and I laugh even more.
Let's see, what else did I experience: time seemed to both stand still and go really quick at the same time. I had to make sure I focused on keeping my mouth open. I could hear the drill, and I could feel the dentist working in there, but I wasn't feeling any pain at all--they must have used some really good anesthesia.
At one point he stopped to take an x-ray, to make sure they took care of everything. The assistant took the inhaler off my face and I mumbled, "Awww, don't take the gas away..."
I was done in an hour. They put in a temporary crown and I have to go back in two weeks to get the permanent one. I was SO glad I opted for the gas :-).
Anyway, Dr. Mike Pulido. Awesome dentist. His office's tagline: "We cater to cowards."
Dr. Mike Pulido graduated from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville and received his Doctor of Dental Surgery from the University of Tennessee in Memphis in 1985. He has served as President of the Memphis Dental Legion for the past three years. He has enjoyed membership in the Academy of General Dentistry since 1986.
Dr. Pulido is committed to the delivery of excellent family dentistry by continuous education to stay abreast of the latest techniques available. His involvement in modern technology includes orthodontic correction of minor tooth movement, cosmetics, and implantology.
Mike is married and resides in Germantown. He and his wife, Paula, have four children.
Mike Pulido speaks Spanish fluently and is actively involved in the community as a coordinator with adult and youth soccer associations.
Dr. Mike Pulido feels his patients deserve the best of dental care. He is very proud of his family practice, and he provides adults and children of all ages with quality dental care.
Imagine not being afraid of the dentist anymore. That's me now :-). If he can make a root canal painless, I've got nothing to worry about :-).
Addendum: Now that the anesthesia's wearing off, it feels like someone punched me in the jaw (not that anyone's ever punched me in the jaw)--but at least that kind of dull, sore pain I can deal with :-).
Current Mood: CC is listening to: Nothing right now Disney's national tour of the Lion King is in Memphis this month, so Steve's mom and I went to see it today.
Oh man. Oh MAN. Oh MAN!!!
Never had I been so breathless right after the opening number (The Circle of Life). And it wasn't just me either, the entire audience was clapping and cheering, the kind of applause you'd usually only hear at the end of a really good play.
You definitely appreciate the musical more if you've seen the movie, because you'd be amazed at how they made the musical as faithful to the movie as possible. Sure there were some extra songs and numbers, but they did an incredible job recreating the wildebeest stampede scene and the scene where young Simba sees his father's face in the sky.
Let me show you what I mean. Here's The Circle of Life from the movie.
And here's their performance of it at the Tony Awards. That's REALLY close to what you're going to get at the real musical (the real show had a more realistic-looking cliff). They had the big elephant in the audience and everything, it was just like that :-).
Current Mood: CC is listening to: Nothing right now
Steve and I are on a Miyazaki kick.
...Okay it's just me :-). But he DID like The Cat Returns a lot better than Whisper of the Heart.
Disney did a FABULOUS job casting the English version of that movie. I mean, come on--how can you go wrong with:
Cary Elwes (best known for his role as the hero in ThePrincess Bride) as the cat, Baron Humbert von Gikkingen. He's just as dashing in this role too :-)
Anne Hathaway (of Princess Diaries and Devil Wears Prada fame) as Haru, the main character
Tim Curry (we all know Tim Curry) as the Cat King
Rene Auberjonois (Odo from Deep Space Nine) as the Cat King's assistant, Natori
Peter Boyle (Raymond's dad in Everybody Loves Raymond) as the fat cat Muta
Elliot Gould (another too-many-to-mention artist) as the raven Toto
Andy Richter (from Conan O'Brien) as Natoru
I found part 1 of the movie on YouTube. If you want the links to the subsequent parts, let me know--I'll be more than happy to forward them to you :-).
I also love the theme. It's Japanese, but it's such a "feel good" song :-). You'd have to be heartless not to start bouncing in your seat (or at least tapping your foot) to the music :-).
Current Mood: CC is listening to: Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)--Billy Joel (The Essential Billy Joel) Steve and I spent some time at the Delta Festival yesterday. It was your typical fair: lots of food and games, some of them way overpriced :-).
There was one thing though that caught our attention: the mechanical bull. I'd never ridden on one and Steve said I should try it. So we each paid our $5 and signed the customary waivers (signing waivers always makes me a little nervous :-)).
Steve showing me how it's done
At the start it wasn't too bad...
I think this is the part where I start going, "Eeek!" every time it bucked :-). I got thrown off a second or two later :-)
If you ever get a chance to try it, take it--it's kind of fun :-). Do NOT wear shorts though :-). Bare legs smacking against a saddle hurts. After we tried it, Steve and I understood why cowboys wear chaps and walk all bow-legged :-).
After we put our shoes back on, a lady came up to me and said she was from the local paper, that she got a good shot of me, and if it was okay that she used it. I said sure, and she got my name and zip code.
I'll let you know if my picture makes it in the paper :-).
Current Mood: CC is listening to: that tennis movie with Kirsten Dunst and Paul Bettany I got this in an email. It's pretty cool :-). If you follow the moving pink dot, all the other dots remain pink.
But if you focus on the black plus sign, the moving pink dot becomes a moving green dot.
And if you focus on the black plus sign some more the other pink dots eventually disappear.
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