Here is the full report on my vacation. I do have to warn you that it gets a little bit long winded, but it does after all cover three days. I will split the post up into some pages and there are plenty of pictures for those who don’t like to read. So click on the “Read More” link and join me for a recount of rugby, beer, nachos, snow and very long drives.
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[fa:p:a=disney-mgm-disney-day-5,p=3,id=469349713,j=l,s=s,l=i]It’s amazing what 10 hours of sleep and some well chosen anti-histamine drugs can do for a cold. I felt really quite good this morning. MGM is like Disney’s version of Universal Studios. This was the first day that I had ALL my camera equipment with me, so I snapped a ton of pictures, I’m not sure if all of them are worth publishing, so you may not see all of them.
We even got some special treatment at MGM. This year at Disney World is “The Year of a Million Dreamsâ€. And they granted us a dream. In the form of a “Dream Fast Pass†Which was a badge that gave us a Fast Pass for 6 of the rides at MGM. Granted, we didn’t need it so much at this particular park, but we still used it a few times, and enjoyed having won something just simply by walking around.
Keith and I rode on the Tower of Terror, which seemed a little more cheap than the one in Anaheim, however we found out later that the ride is completely random, including lighting … the stuff that leads up to it, and the number of falls and whatnot, so it could have just been a bum random setup (I don’t know if “cheap†is the right word. The ride had more story than the California Adventure version, but the actual rising and falling of the ride was far less intense. Kyle and I agreed that the ride must be 3+ stories shorter than the California Adventure version – Keith).
We also rode on the Aerosmith Rock ’n’ Roller coaster. This was awesome. It’s one of those rides that launches you from the ground using linear synchronous motors, and is sort of like Space Mountain, as it takes place in the dark. But the best part is that there is timed Aerosmith music being pumped into your seat [SWEEEEEEEET EMOOOOTION – Keith], with a sub woofer under you bum, and two speakers near your head. We rode that one basically twice in a row within about 40 min, thanks to our Dream Fast pass, and a regular fast pass.
We also went and saw their stunt show, which involves a bunch of well choreographed car action in some highly modified little cars; including one car that is built completely backwards so it can be jumped safely in reverse.
[fa:p:a=72157600097777196,id=465891128,j=l,s=s,l=i]I was anxious to get to the Magic Kingdom since it’s the Florida replica of the Disneyland we have here in southern California, so we made it our second stop. I had a lot of fun just riding the classic Disney rides. The park is very similar, although all the rides seemed to be at about 2/3 scale. Splash Mountain was almost disappointing. Perhaps I’m just a little bit more grown up, but it hasn’t been very long since I was at a Disney park, and Keith felt the same way [there’s no doubt Splash Mountain and Pirates of the Caribbean were much smaller than their Disneyland counterparts - Keith].
A few rides of note: “Stitch’s Great Escape†was much unexpected. I was kind of thinking it would be a simple kid’s ride, but it turned out to be something you just sit in and was really creepy. Part of the ride takes place in the dark, and there are hidden speakers in the seat that you are in that make it seem like Stitch is right behind you. They even went as far as to put in a hot, humid and stinky breath on the back of your neck. The Magic Kingdom still has the Swiss Family Robinson tree house, as the Disneyland Park has botched that treasure by making it a Tarzan tree. The Enchanted Tiki Room has some new guests (Iago and Zazu) and a whole new soundtrack [and the Tiki Room song is gone…wtf? – Keith & Meghann].
For the first time since I’ve been to a Disney park (and have been tall enough) I went on Space Mountain. Usually it has been broken down or under repair/upgrade every time I go. Ironically, it broke down while we were on it so we were able to get a view of the lit up insides of space mountain, but weren’t able to do the whole ride.
We were able to stick around long enough to see the fireworks show at Disneyland, which was an awesome spectacle of music and timed fireworks.
Well Its currently 8:30 pm in California. I should have been home by now, but instead I think I’m somewhere over the central states. My flight was delayed 2 hours due to the fact that the plane wasn’t there yet, then once we boarded and taxied out a little bit a full on ground stop was in effect due to weather. We didn’t take off until almost 10 pm local time (7pm there in california). I figure its the karma comming around from the first class upgrade on the way in here and the 0 delays that I had previously.
In any case, it means I wont be home until around 1am, and I had already called work when I thought it was only going to be a 2 hour delay to let them know I would be into work bright and early. If I had realized it was going to be an almost 5 hour delay I may have asked to come in a bit later in the morning 
I didn’t have many chances to hop on the computer to post any updates. Tyco kept us all rather busy most of the time. I’m currently sitting in Dulles, which once again doesn’t have any free internet so I’m writing to you in notepad and when I get home I’ll post this and fix the timestamp.
Unfortunately my flight home from here has been delayed two hours. There was some nasty weather recently here on the east coast that screwed up flights over the weekend, and I think an airport like this takes a while to recover. So I’m just sitting here listening to “Death Cab for Cutie†and people watching.
Saturday I went out to a couple of the manufacturing plants related to the Amp Netconnect division of Tyco. First was their cable manufacturing plant, where they literally start from a copper rod and un-mixed PVC to create CAT 5, 5e, 6, 6A and 7 cable in all sorts of configurations. Including the new shielded CAT 6 which I expect the consumer market will see in a year or two. Shielded, as well as 6A are both capable of carrying the 10 GBit / second transfer rates that seem almost ridiculous over copper. We also visited their stamping and molding facility that makes all plastic and metal pieces like RJ-45 jacks and plugs. It was all pretty cool to see, even if it was a little rushed. We had some drinks back at the hotel and a mini trade show, and dinner also at the hotel. I of course had the fillet, although I was a little disappointed that it was only about a 4oz cut.
Sunday was a long day. Breakfast was at 6:30, which if you take into account the time change was 3:30 am in California. We spent the morning in what was basically a marketing and demo seminar. I would like to point out I had sat through about 4 hours of seminar around the time you woke up. Did I mention I got up at 3:30? Remember the bad weather I described earlier? It effected us in Winston-Salem NC as well, and we were to be playing golf in the afternoon. As we drove out to the course we went through an absolute down poor and I was pretty well convinced I wasn’t going to be playing golf. We got to Tanglewood (yeah, that’s right, I played at Tanglewood) and sat in their clubhouse for a little while and eventually it cleared up. We played a full 18 holes in what turned out to be a really nice round of golf. I ended up playing in the rough most of the time. My drives were just plain off. So I was a pathetic 45-ish over par. 
Today we went out to Wake Forest University to get a demonstration of a integration system that ties together disparate systems (that’s disparate not desperate). I’ll save you the boring talk, it was cool but I think I’ll have a hard time finding a client who can make good use of it.
And that brings us basically up to now, where I’m sitting in the airport, listening to Death Cab for Cutie and people watching (although I just spent the last few min writing this). So I’ll leave you with that long post and go check on my flight again. Wish me luck.
It sure does seem like lately life has decided to kick my ass a little harder than usual. Maybe I’m just getting burnt out on things, but its hard to tell. I’ve had some free time but it sure does seem to be coming in at a very slow drizzle from lifes faucet of fun.
Probably since about the start of School in the fall I’ve been seeming busy non-stop. There have been a few free weekend (never without homework though) but not near enough. I’ve actually noticed my health diminishing lately.
Anyway, I’m currently in the Physics Center on the Sierra campus taking a break from doing Physics homework and I thought I should post an update even though I don’t think anybody reads this stuff.
Kerry and I went to Disneyland over spring break which was a blast. I hadn’t ever been to the new California Adventure Park, or Downtown Disney so it was fun to be able to see new things. They’ve made a few changes to Disneyland itself. The removed the Swiss Family Robinson tree house and replaced it with a Tarzan tree house, not cool. I’ve never seen Tarzan, and its not a story that interests me so maybe thats why this dissapoints me so much.
They also re-did the carasel theatre which used to have (If I remember correctly) scenes from different times of life. Its now the Disney Inoventions building full of lots of pretty cool technology stuffs. The Disney imagineers have got a lot better with their anamatronics, there was a “robot” figure in the inoventions and a Buzz Lightyear in his new ride that both look and move VERY well. The Buzz was probably the coolest, instead of giving him some kind of mechanical system for his facial features they mounted a small projector somewhere (couldn’t find it, may have been inside his head??) and projected his facial features (eyes, mouth etc) onto a featureless, but properly shaped face. This gave them the ability to do things to make all his movement look incredible.
The Jungle Cruise was closed for reparis/remodeling as was space mountain so we couldn’t do those but I think we covered all the other important rides (Small World, Indiana Jones (x2), Haunted Mansion, Splash Mountain, Matterhorn, etc… )
It was lots of fun, we even got bumped up on our hotel twice, so we paid for a Travel Lodge, and ended up staying in a Hyatt Regencey 
. I’ll try to get some pictures up and some more information about the California Adventure Park, but I’ve got to get going to my class now (Bah!) and then go work for TSE later this afternoon.
Peace.
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