another pic of inferno orange in the sun.

2010 camaro

here we are sitting in our new car. notice mandy is on the wrong side, the drivers side. there that little details of actually ordering, delivery and paying for it but it will look just like this one.

Jimmy Buffett in Concert SummerZcool Tour

Fist off if the pictures suck give me a break. We bought this camera yesterday with the sole intention of taking it to the concert. Our old point and shoot lived a good life but it was time to move on. So we got this nice little Canon A1000 IS. Seems to be a good little camera but I found out this morning it has no Tv, Av or M modes. If you scratching your head wondering what that is, you probably wouldn't miss them.

OK, so back to the concert. We had some awesome seats and you can see from my cell phone pic below. We were 9 rows back, almost dead center. Closer is cooler but we could see the entire stage which is what you really want. No sore neck from looking up the entire time either. I've been fortunate enough to have front row tickets a few times and while it is pretty awesome. 8-15 rows back is the best spot by far. All in all this was a great concert experience. We got parked pretty quick, not to bad of a hike, snuck the camera in with no problems, only a little beer spilled on me and no flat tires or wrecks on the way out. Funny, I now consider, "a little beer spilled" perfectly acceptable like its supposed to happen.

So here's about mid show Jimmy and Mac sung "Come Monday" with just the two of them and acoustic guitars. Very cool.

I don't recall the song but it's a good picture.

Fins up, fins up! It's really hard to explain going to a Buffett concert. You just have to see it to believe it. So here we are at the start of a feeding frenzy.

I tried not to make this too shaky but I like it. Fins to the left, fins to the right. You get the idea, just push play.

They took a quick break after this one like they always do. The lights went out as usual and this huge security guard came down the aisle in front of us which we found off because there was really nothing going on. He gets this little girl, maybe 7 or 8, that was on her dad's shoulders and had been singing every song word for word all night. The security guard gave her something. Oh wait, it's Jimmy's flip flops that are now autographed! Holy crap! Everybody around her was pretty excited for her and she knew exactly what she had. When Jimmy came back out he looked right at her and give her the thumbs up as she waved the flip flops back and forth. How awesome is that. I'm watching for them on Ebay.

One of the last songs, The Beatles - Yellow Submarine. Yes, you get to hear just about anything you can imagine at a Buffett concert.

So he finished with "He went to Paris" which is a favorite of pretty much everybody. Just him and an acoustic guitar on stage. It's 1am and I really wish I could do it all over again tomorrow. Never fear though, ZZ Top and Aerosmith are touring together this year, Metallica is coming sometime, Mandy won tickets to two different other shows and who knows who else we'll see this year. Sometimes, it's just good to be me and I am thoroughly glad I am.

Please don't say manana if you don't mean it

A quick video from my phone that sounds terrible

freakin' sweet seats!

fencing

here is me and my neighbor working on his fence. this was wednesday, we still don't quite have it done, but we will eventually.

working on mandy's car tonight. her door lock actuator went bad. this car is possesed. you mention trade or sale and something happens to it. hopefully this will be the last $57 we spend on it.

Saturday

We managed to get everything checkout and made it to AK on time. Lots of people here for a Saturday, well, any day. The Expedition Everest walk is pretty much the same as the Soarin' walk so I won't bother you with this. Mandy jumps in the fast pass line again while I anchor the main line. She takes longer than I do so I got back out of line then she got fast passes. Back to the back of the line to ride first thing in teh morning.

Hum, this doesn't look good. Why is the track torn up? Whats up with all the prayer clothes and why is this girl in front of me looking backwards? Expedition Everest is awesome. If you hunt my post back to 2006 January you'll see we got to ride it the day it opened. It's unlike any ride we've ever been on and loads and unloads crazy fast. We've never stood in line more than 30 mins for this one.



Scott: scary gritty teeth face. Mandy: happy nerdy girl is school face. I don't know she was just off on her poses this trip. Have to work on those.



Cats doing what cats do best no matter the size, sleeping. We have some other pics with one asleep on it's back batting it's huge paw in the air like a twitch. Too funny.




Favorite ride pic. Oh yea, thats right, I'm the man and I'm coming our of the bathroom. Look out world, here comes Scott and he's relieved and has clean hands thanks to Brawny (see other post).




It's Tough to be a Bug. But wearing these dorky glasses is easy.

Post fast pass Everest pic from the Disney photographers. It seems I'm not the only one that can manage to get that darn mountain not to wash out and over expose.

We went to see Festival of the Lion King since we hadn't seen it in a while. After the opening song the performers walked off and the manager of the show announced they were having trouble and this performance had been cancelled. They did however let us have a meet and greet with the cast. So I got my picture made with the tumble monkey's.....I'm the one in the middle if you must ask smart asses. These guys are great. They are gymnast by every sense of the word. It's a great show to catch, when it's not cancelled.

I don't know her name and don't even know the part she plays but she is a beautiful singer. I don't honestly know but I swear it's the same woman we've seen every time since 2005.

Flame tree BBQ. How I do love the sandwiches. The seating, not so much. "Sure little middle schoolers, sit down with us, we weren't enjoying quite time enough, just take these seats. I clearly don't give a damn!" It is cool, they have paper straws here for the tree huggers.

So we knocked out Animal Kingdom by 1 and went back to the studios so I could take back a shirt. Sure Scott, get a Large shirt, you've only been wearing an XL since 7th grade, maybe today will be different. Idiot me. So we had to return this one so I could get my TK-421 shirt to fit. If you have to ask, never mind. This is our last shot with the good camera from our trip. Somehow I managed not to take any more at all.

Everything after getting our bags and getting on the Magical Express pretty much sucked. There was this needy, crying family behind us on the bus, same family in the check in line for Southwest, oh and wait, they are on our plane. How nice. It poured the rain so hard the pilot asked the flight attendants to be seated. Got wet luggage, my bag got searched (flowers in the suite case much look odd), we got drenched since it was pouring in Raleigh. We finally made it home a little after 10. We upgraded our tickets to annual passes since we'll be back in December. Had to rebook our December trip to take the tickets off that one. People, I've done my part to stimulate the economy, it's somebody elses turn. You can find me playing XBOX360 on my new TV or looking at my pictures from my trip. I'm done.

Friday follow up

OK, on time today! So the theory goes that locals only go to Magic Kingdom and Studios on the weekend because Animal Kingdom is quick and EPCOT is boring. We've proven this wrong, time and time again. None the less its Friday morning and we are here in plenty of time. Enough time we beat the mouse out of bed and to the opening gates. We strategically line up at the rope drop to briskly walk (fight for survival) to Soarin'.



Robe drop, GO, GO, GO! As the old Space Mountain right up from the then, much thinner unofficial guide said, "this pits mother against father, sister against brother, wife against husband, priest against Rabi..." you get the idea. Hell hath no fury like a man not moving fast enough for Soarin'. You think you get honked at in traffic at a red light? Just try and push a stroller in the no stroller area and dare walk up the left side of the entrance. It's over, oh no you didn't, you best move out-da-way! It's worse than the "Bristol Walk (the previous 2 mile after race, lets beat 160,00 people to the car walk that we used to unwillingly participate in)", worse than any beany baby sale of the late 90's and/or probably rivals most Hanna Montana concert ticket rushes. Thankfully the last 2 I have never experienced first hand. So pardon the blur but I wasn't about to be thrown over the side for stopping to take a picture. Now you know why in the previous right up way down there it says we got our 1 Soarin' ride in.



OK, off Soarin, run like hell to test track and get a fast pass. I didn't post it but Mandy actually managed to time split the fast pass. They were 5 mins apart. Odd, never happened to us before. Ran back and rode Living with the Land, hit the favorite ride (rest room), Mandy took pic, go use fast passes on test track.



Test Track. I made my face for this trip. The "mean Scott" with gritting teeth and rock and roll fingers in the air.



We ate lunch outside of Mexico and it was so so at best. Not quite El Dorado in Cary, NC but it was food. Lets have us a rainbow Margarita! We like Margarita's, how bad could it be? Terrible. Be damned if I'm tossing it at $9 but it was terrible. Not quite the Lady and the Tramp moment here everybody was hoping for but it was the best I could do.

That pretty much did it for EPCOT for us. If I'm remember all this right we left and went back to the room and took a nap. I was whooped. Everything hurt which is pretty normally for EPCOT (Every Person Come Out Tired). Some where I mentioned it was the Flower and Garden Festival so they had tapestries all over the place. I won't bore you with all of them but here is Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs. The one in the pink in the front if not a dwarf, btw.

All napped up (does that sound right?) and just thrilled to death to be at Disney I outstretched the arm and got a pic waiting to go back to the Magic Kingdom tonight to try and ride Peter Pan.

Remember what I said about the castle, can't pass it without taking a pic. I could have gotten better a little to the left to eliminate the tree's but I've got 100's of these so I compromised for other family's doing the same.



Back to EPCOT where we met a kid named Andy and his girlfriend on spring break I suppose. They were a riot. We talked with them trying to run from one monorail to the other then we got separated from them. We did end up seeing them again leaving the monorail and got a quick pic of them. I was going to catch him to get his e-mail to send him the shot but couldn't find them again. Hopefully he'll stumble across this and send me a message so I can shoot it to him. No loss if not I guess.

A pic from within the new Space Ship Earth. Kinda cool interactive fun.


Finally a longer exposure shot with no blur. I found a lamp post, set the camera to remote and fired off a few clicks. Not quite postcard worthy but I like it.


This was a "what were we thinking" night. We went all the way back to EPCOT to ride 3 things, walked all the way around world showcase so Mandy could get another pearl and finally back to the room. It was so late the cafeteria was only serving pizza. Yum, pizza at 11:20 pm, how healthy. Oh, we have to checkout tomorrow before we go to the parks and check our bags. What could go wrong here?

Thursday's follow up

Okie dokie, lots of pictures this time. Today was wide open. We were late as I had in a previous post. By late I mean 15 minutes after the park opened. So new plan, back to the "unofficial guide" plan. We got a fast pass for the Tower of Terror, dare I say, no time for a picture! Then ran to stand in line for Rockin Roller Coaster. Then we both rode our favorite ride of all the parks, I am of course referring to the restroom. So I stopped to take a pic.



On to the newest area in the Pixar Studio area and we went for Toy Story Mania which honestly is worth the price of admission to the park. It is so much fun. Mandy was in the fast pass line for this for like 20 mins. I actually go in the regular line, then back out to wait on her. We sucked it up and stood there and planned to come back later as well. Good thing, Saturday this wait was 90 minutes. Ours was only about 15-20.



As you can see below, I won. Mandy of course is a graceful loser and then blamed everything on her gun, the cart, her glasses, etc. You get the idea. I will add we had a war wound and I swear I pulled something in my back.....but I won and thats what counts. Because 2nd is the first loser.




I love the Muppet's. Mandy and/or Mom got me the Muppet's season 1 and 2 for Christmas. I was glued to the TV for hours. Poor Beaker. "mi mi mi mi mi"


The top hat from Fantasia. Not the chick on American Idol either.



So we left the park to head to EPCOT because Mandy wanted to see the candy lady in Japan that did the Candy art. She saw it on the Travel Channel when Samantha Brown was talking to her. Which was Jan last year, when we saw Samantha, but no candy lady.


Well we were like an hour or better early to EPCOT. We took the boat from the Studios to EPCOT which take like 45 mins with 3 stops in between but it was a really nice day and seeing The Swan and Dolphin, Beach Club and The Boardwalk is always fun from the boat. Since we did manage to get there early we took a quick walk to England and stumbled across King Arther and the search for the Holy Grail (Grail, Grail, Hugh!) These guys were a riot. I don't know how we ever missed them before. What did we see? "Rubbish!" and the King, "Gitchy, Gitchy, ya ya baby!". You really just have to see it and participate to understand it all. It was my kind of humor.


Finally this candy art lady. This stuff is like 200 degrees and she's tossing it around with her bare hands. She just asks people in the crowd what you want and she just starts shaping. She does this in like 2 minutes, I swear. It's pretty unique little present and you can't buy them, you just have to stand and hope she asks you. After 4 animals, I was done.


After this we made our way back to the Studios to use our fast passes and play Toy Story Mania one more time. Which we didn't know but would be our last this trip. As you can see below, I won again. Mandy was even ahead and I was injured (see above post). I still made an triumphant comeback and won by 700 points and to quote Ricky Bobby - "If you ain't first, you're last. You know, you know what I'm talking about? That there is trademarked, not to be used without written permission of Ricky Bobby, Inc."



Then she felt bad and she cried because I surprised her with flowers. Tee Hee. You can sorta see me in the background of the mirror. Notice our towel animals. We got a duck and a rabbit this time.

Some follow up good photos

I figured I'd add some much better pictures instead of the junky ones my phone takes and some more descriptions about our trip. It's a lot easier to type with all fingers instead of just your thumbs.

I'll try and keep these in order. First and foremost we knew we needed a monorail ride from EPCOT to the Magic Kingdom. So we left the hotel, went to EPCOT, caught the monorail to the ticketing and transportation center then decided on a boat ride to the kingdom since we can't recall ever doing that.

Here you'll see a CAT C-Series MTL hard at work on the beaches of the Polynesian hotel. Ah, does the heart good to see Disney spending money buying this, me making the money to design it, then giving it right back to Disney to come here. I'm sure I probably worked on this machine at some time or another. At bare minimum I was probably standing in our cab sub assembly area when it got tested. Just a safe bet. Pretty sure I can expense this trip now.



The obligatory first shot in the park always has to be the Cinderella's castle. Note the large amount of other people that made their way to FL the same time we did.



Space Mountain: 45 min wait, fast pass ticket line for Space Mountain, 5 mins. The routine is Mandy gets the tickets, Scott takes the picture, it works out well.

The Tic-Toc-Croc from Peter Pan Flight. I love the croc.

Donald coming out of Micky's Philharmagic.

All in all a very good day considering the we woke at 4 something, showered, shaved, flew down, check in to a bus, rode a bus, checked in to the hotel, rode another bus, rode a monorail, rode a boat (thank goodness it wasn't rowed!) Then only had 7 hours or so in there. The best part is using the fast passes and walking by everybody standing in line just so I can say, "Look dear, peasant." I normally get an elbow to the ribs about then.