March 2006 Archives

So I didn’t post while in Orlando… sue me. The reality was that it was not a spectacular trip. Working the trade show was both boring as hell AND exhausting. When I’d make it back to my hotel room each day, I’d just get in bed and sleep for a few hours, get up to eat, then go back to bed. Did you want me to give you daily updates about that? Didn’t think so…

However, I did get to do a few fun things while I was down there. I set up our demo on Saturday morning and then had the rest of the day completely free. So, I made it to Universal Studios as planned. The rides at Islands of Adventure were as good as I remembered, but they weren’t new… so they weren’t all that exciting. The nice thing was that most of the rides have single rider lines which were much faster than the standard 45+ minute queues.

I rode The HULK two times; it’s quite a coaster, you go upside down like a hundred times, but for some reason it doesn’t really feel that fun. Maybe because the beginning of the ride is just so stunning (I guess I won’t ruin it since surprise is the key element) that the rest of the ride feels like a let down. You could say the ride really goes downhill after that… (I can hear your groans).

I rode Dr. Doom’s Fear Fall three times. Before I got to the park, I wondered to myself whether I’d actually get up the courage to ride this baby. This one is not a coaster, but one of those towers that shoots you straight up and then you freefall, these rides REALLY freak me out. But when I got there, I figured I might as well do it. And, the single rider line was SO short on this one that I ended up riding it 2 more times before the day was through. This thing gets my heart pumping like no other ride, my cries of terror are 100% genuine.

I missed the Spiderman ride the first loop through the park, but hit it on the second time around. This is a pretty unique ride, you wear 3D glasses, and ride in this car thing that bumps all around. The scenes are half sets and half 3D projections with environmental effects (flames, water, wind, etc) thrown in as well. The one thing that always gets me with motion simulator rides is how well they nail the sense of falling. I’ll never forget that first fall in Star Tours, it was unbelievable, and this ride does it even better.

The only other ride I hit in Islands of Adventure was the Dueling Dragons: Ice coaster. As the name denotes, there are two coasters (the other is Fire) but the line was 50 minutes long with no single rider line! I waited through the line once, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it again. It’s understandable why the line was so long because it was an excellent ride. These are inverted coasters where the track is above you and your feet are dangling. I was in the back row and I think it actually made it better because I couldn’t see one bit of what was coming up. Each turn and flip was completely unexpected so it made for a pretty freaky ride. It’s too bad the lines were so long, because I really would have liked to ride these a few more times.

I kind of had a ‘been there, done that’ feeling about the park… I visited it back in 2002 and I guess 4 years wasn’t long enough to make it fun and fresh again. I still had a few hours of park time left, so I went over to the Universal Studios park. When Kara and I hit Universal Studios in 2002, we were pretty disappointed. There aren’t many thrill rides, and what they had was only so-so. But some people I talked to in IoA said that the new Mummy ride was really great, so off I went to try it. And I am SO glad that I did. This ride was the highlight of the whole trip. The thing is kind of like the Spiderman ride, minus the 3D glasses, and instead of it being like a Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride style car, this thing is a full blown rollercoaster. So you’ve got the sets and environmental effects that really put you in the mood, and then just a killer Space Mountain homage. I got to ride this twice before the rides shut down, man it was awesome!

After the rides shut down at 8pm, they started up a Mardi Gras parade that was pretty cool. There were tons of floats with people throwing hundreds of necklaces from them. After the parade, the fun was over and it was time to head back to the hotel. My feet were killing me, perhaps not the best thing to do before the trade show that would keep me standing for three days straight…

Sunday was the first day of the show, and it was not a fun day… The demo had a multitude of issues thanks to the amount of wireless traffic at the show. So, it was high stress and then tons of downtime waiting for customers…

After the show, I decided to pamper myself with a very nice meal. I discovered that an award winning restaurant, Charley’s Steak House, was a block from my hotel. So I dressed up nice and walked over there… only to discover a 90 minute wait! I put my name in, and went back to my hotel to wait. When I got back to the restaurant, I was seated pretty quickly, and the fine dining began. This was seriously fine, it was hands-down the best meal I’ve ever eaten. I ordered the New York Strip (my favorite cut) and a side of grilled asparagus. They wood grill their meat over a large pit and wow was it delicious! I mean like every bite would cause me to roll my eyes, or moan (discreetly), or just think to myself “THIS IS INCREDIBLE!” I didn’t want to become numb to the taste, so I’d take a sip of water or beer or a bite of bread (which was also really good) to cleanse my palette for the next ecstasy inducing bite of steak. After I finished up my meal, I was really into the experience so when the waiter suggested dessert, I was more than receptive. I ordered the key lime pie and a decaf coffee and ate my way through about half of the slice. By then I was stuffed to the gills and had to call it a night. The whole meal, including tax and tip, came to 59 dollars. The most expensive meal I’ve ever ordered, but it was worth every single penny.

Hawaii, here we come. The plan was officially approved by Japanese headquarters today!!!

The current plan of action is as follows: Starting now, we are going to be selling just about everything we own. At the beginning of May, I'll be flying over there and staying in a vacation rental. The Jeep will be coming with me. I'll be taking a week off from work to search for a furnished apartment that we can afford on my paycheck alone (we're thinking about living in Kihei, Maui). Once I get a place, I'll start working remotely for e*** as a contractor. At the end of May our lease for our current apartment is up. Kara will be flying over then, and bringing what stuff we decide to keep. Then, she'll spend her days looking for a job and NOT LAYING ON THE BEACH! Cooper has to go through a four month waiting period before he can come to Hawaii. So, he'll be living at Billy's for a few months which will also give us more time to find a better place to accomodate him.

So there you go... crazy...

I just bought a one-way ticket to Maui... how cool is that?!?

Monday and Tuesday were uneventful. Show all day and mostly sleeping when I got back to the hotel. The plus side to the show was I got to hang out with a bunch of cool people from TI. Benzey from TI Israel was a very cool guy and we had a couple interesting chats. Carolina De Jesus was fun to chill with, we talked movies and books and school and work and life. Before I went to the show, I received a few emails from her regarding the show itinerary. Billy and I noticed her unusual last name, and he dared me to have the following dialog with her:

Me: Hi, I'm Jake from e***.
Carolina: Hi Jake, nice to meet you, I'm Carolina.
Me: Have you seen the movie The Big Lebowski?
Carolina: Yeah...?
Me: Nobody effs with De Jesus!

As you can imagine, even Billy's offer to pay me five whole dollars if I said it didn't convince me that I should go with this plan. However...

On Tuesday, she asked me what my favorite movie was... "The Big Lebowski", I replied. She responded favorably "Oh, yes! Why does everything have to be a travesty with you, Walter?" And here's where I pressed the issue... "Haha, yeah, and The Jesus..." She smiles and flips her name tag out and says "Yeah, my friend always used to say 'Nobody effs with De Jesus!'" BINGO! I made it happen and I didn't come off looking like a total freak!

When I left on Tuesday we said goodbye and I was actually a little bummed that I wouldn't see her again. She said "Have fun living in Hawaii!" I said jokingly, "Yeah, you'll have to come visit... You can make up some reason that you have to meet with e***." She said "Yeah, I'll tell them that only Jake will deal with me, so then I'll have to go to Hawaii!" I'm sure that'll work...

This morning Dave and I were discussing the shocking BSG finale on IM. I would label this as slightly geeky... but THEN we went into full blown geek mode. I post this conversation with an odd mixture of shame and pride. Enjoy.

Warning: The beginning of the conversation contains a spoiler for the 2nd to last aired episode of BSG. It's tiny, don't let it stop you.

Ok, I put up a little webpage last night that lists a bunch of the stuff we want to sell. Look at the list and then buy stuff. You DO want to visit us in Hawaii don’t you? I’m not saying you have to buy stuff to visit us, but... I’m sure you’ll find something you’ll like.

The show ended a day early, at least for me. I was allowed to pack up on Tuesday night which meant I had a free day to play in Orlando... if I wasn’t so exhausted. But it was going to be 80 degrees, so I decided that I’d read the book I borrowed from Brett and sit out at the pool. And that’s what I did... and it was nice. For lunch, I went to the Crab Pot where I sat outside to eat my fish & chips and a tall beer. I wasn’t in the shade, so it was actually too hot to sit outside! When I got back to my hotel room, I noticed that my arms were a little sunburned and I was tired from sitting in the hot sun, so I laid down on the bed and played a few of the puzzles over at Conceptis Puzzles (PAP is the best, and then LAP, screw boring Soduku). It was a pretty lazy day, but it was nice to recuperate after the stressful show.

Dave demands more current events, so here goes:

Dave and I hung out on Sunday. I went over to his house and we played ping pong. I’m sure that he’d like me to report that he won five games to my one game, but I won’t say that. We did, however, play six games and it was quite fun.

After ping pong, we played a game of atomic chess, a game we used to play in the 6th grade. The rules are as such: all pieces move ala normal chess, but when one piece strikes another, the attacker, the defender, AND all pieces in the adjacent squares (diagonal and orthogonal) are removed from the board; the winner is the last player with a piece on the board. Dave’s second move opened himself up for a devastating strike from my suicide bomber queen which gave me the eventual victory.

After that we went to lunch at Outback, I hadn’t eaten anything yet (it was 2:30pm) so I was really hungry! I got the rib eye steak and then I was really full (I didn’t eat another thing all day). Then we went to the park (wow, a sunny day!) and played horseshoes. Our horseshoe hibernation seems to have suited us well, because we were both throwing pretty well (for being sucky at horseshoes). Dave won the first game to 21 points, but I was close! Then we played a game to 11, and I won that one. We both got a couple ringers but we also had a bunch of throws that didn’t even hit the pits... After that we went back to his place and watched an episode of The Daily Show, and then I had to take off.

There Dave, current events. Was it better to read about stuff that you already knew about? Didn’t think so!