Getting Fit for the Trip (Update #1)

Well, after sticking with the workout that I described in my last post on this subject, I finally got to the point where I was just sitting on a plateau because I couldn't keep pushing my body over the line due to concerns of crushing myself under falling weights (no spotter).

I finally broke down and signed up again with a Personal Trainer.  My wife has been using one since January and has made remarkable improvements.

Well, now I have a new dietary menu that I'm being asked to try and stick to

Meal #1

• 1.5 cups of high fibre cereal
• 2 cups of skim/1% milk
• 1 protein shake
• 1 serving of fruit or glass of fruit juice
• 1 serving of flax seed oil
• 2 amino acid tablets

Meal #2

• Meal Replacement Shake

Meal #3

• 1.5 cubs of whole wheat pasta (pre-cooked weight)
• 6 oz of lean meat (post cooked weight)
• 1 cup of green vegetables
• Low fat cheese (optional)
• 1 serving of flax seed oil
• 2 amino acid tablets

Meal #4

• Meal Replacement Shake

Meal #5

• Same as Meal #3

Meal #6 (if hungry)

• Protein Shake (optional)

This is a very doable diet, but it's hard for me to stick to because I'm lazy and it involves my cooking the meat.  If I can get my butt into gear, I'll precook a weeks worth of meat.

On top of the diet, I'm being asked to do 20 minutes of jogging 3 times a week.  I know realize how much I'm out of shape.  I have a hard time keeping myself moving for 20 minutes.

The embarrassing part was my first workout with the trainer.  I have a hard time pacing myself and go all out.  Well 30 minutes into the workout the room started to get a bit foggy and I couldn't catch my breathe.  I went to stand up and.....

Lights out!

I felt as guilty as I was embarrassed so about an hour later, I was on my treadmill doing cardio to make up for not doing my full hour of weight training.

Well it's been a few days now and I can say that I AM HUNGRY all the time.  I was never much for eating because it got in the way of things like work.  So I typically ate only dinner.  Now that I'm eating 3 times a day, I feel like my body is just craving food.

To me, fitness is important but hard to maintain.  But when it comes to Disney, I find that I enjoy the parks so much better when I'm not bent over with my hands on my knees sucking wind just to breathe

Technorati Tags: Disney Fitness

Can you feel the love tonight.....

Yes, I can be a grump at times, but as I was sitting here doing some "real" work, my wife put on her Disney Playlist on the iPod and was blasting it through our Apple iPod Speakers.

Then came the song that I titled this blog after....

There's a calm surrender to the rush of day
When the heat of the rolling world can be turned away
An enchanted moment, and it sees me through
It's enough for this restless warrior just to be with you

You need to realize that I do not normally listen to soundtracks, but for some reason I make an exception for soundtracks related to Disney Movies.  I wore out the soundtrack for the first two Pirates of the Caribbean movies.  My wife loved Disney movie soundtracks so much that she insisted that I make a playlist for it so she could easily listen to them.

Yes, this song is deemed cheesy by some, as well as, many of the Tim Rice/Elton John collaborations but this song holds a special place in my heart.

I had fallen in love with this song and the entire Lion King soundtrack way before I ever saw the Lion King movie. 

This song was, by far, my favorite and I consider highly instrumental in pulling me out of my straight-men-don't-like-Disney phase.

Who would've though that a gay Grammy winner would be responsible for making me comfortable enough with my manhood to proclaim from the rooftops that a Disney life is the life for me and anything else is just grumptastic!

Technorati Tags: Lion King, Elton John, Memories, Grump's Opinion

Warning: Snow Globes can be potentially dangerous to your trip

My wife just informed me that my sister-in-law and her son, my nephew, just got back from a fabulous trip to Disneyland.  Unfortunately, the trip home was a bit dramatic.

My nephew apparently had fireworks in his backpack (his carry-on) that were leftover from the 4th of July.  One of those firecrackers was in the shape of a grenade.  For some reason, he was prompted to look in his backpack and suddenly realized they were there when they got into LAX.  This, obviously, scared my sister-in-law a bit, and she knew it wouldn't be wise to just dump them in the trash (I could see the terror alert going to RED if those were found in one of the trash bins).  So, she went and reported it to the ticketing agent, who in turn, told them to go to the sky cap (I have no idea why they sky cap).

The sky cap proceeded to read my nephew the riot act and scared him into tears.  He is not one to get into this kind of trouble, but he was being told that he should be turned over to the TSA where they'd most likely arrest him as a potential terrorist and his parents will go to jail and he may never see his family again.  I guess they need to do this because a kid who would do this most likely was a no-good-punk.

After going through all that, they attempt to go through security and my nephew's backpack gets flagged again for extra scrutiny.

This time, the TSA agent starts yelling at him and his mom about not adhering to the liquids policy.  My sister in law was all, "What do you mean, I checked all our liquids".  Then the TSA pulled out their collection of snow globes they bought at Disney and said, "What do you think this is!".  They were then told that snow globes are contraband on planes and that she had the right mind to confiscate them.  Fortunately, they were the small ones and fit into 2 quart bags so they were able to take them on the plane. 

Now, I am a rather seasoned traveler and would've never, ever thought that a snow globe would've been flagged as a contraband liquid item.  Go figure. 

I could go on about my feelings about how we over reacted with the liquids ban, but this is a Disney blog

Edited to Add:

Apparently, according to this TSA website, Snow globes are banned from carry-on luggage no matter what, as well as, gel shoe inserts

TSA:  Permitted and Prohibited Items

Technorati Tags: Grump's Opinion

Disney Magic Falling on Deaf Ears

After much effort, I have managed to break free from the Imperius Curse put on me by some dark wizards who forced me to read the latest entry in the series of books about a certain boy wizard.

After being immersed in so much magical discussion, I thought I would focus my next entry on Magic....Disney Magic that is.

I know I saw it when I went to Disney World in 2006, but it was really noticeable when I went to Disneyland in June 2007.  It could have been because Disneyland was more densely packed than Walt Disney World was.

What is it that I'm talking about?  It is the proliferation of people wearing portable music devices while walking the parks.  I know that all those ear buds can not be binaural microphones :)

I actually heard Lou Mongello read a letter from one of his listeners on his The WDW Radio Show about how he, a father, refused to let his children don headphones once they step on the sacred ground known as a Disney Theme Park.  It was this that sparked my memory about my impressions when I saw this on my last trip to Disneyland.

Imagineers burn through a lot of dollars to design and implement the awesome rides and lands that we get to enjoy.  There is one portion of it that I really think is taken for granted......the soundtrack!

I never really gave a soundtrack or audio track that much concern until I took a class in college revolving around audio editing.  We were shown two versions of a the same film.  One version was the theatrical release.  The second version was one in which the only audio that was intact was the dialogue.  Everything else that was added "post production" was removed.  No musical scores were left and anything else added by the foley artist was removed.  Wow!  What a difference it made.  A lot of the life and mood of the film was gone.  It was almost dead in my mind.

It is like this at Disney.  Millions of dollars are invested in every sound and music track that you hear on rides and while walking around the parks.  There are very few details that aren't specifically chosen and designed.  Granted, the occasional unplanned bird may add to the soundtrack, but I bet you'd be surprised about how many bird calls, cricket sounds and other stuff are actually recorded tracks. 

But it's not just that.  At Disneyland, there is the sound of a telegraph machine you can hear near the New Orleans Square station of the railroad.  That telegraph is sending the text from Walt Disney's dedication speech for Disneyland.

There are entire podcasts devoted to this.  If you are fans of Window to the Magic Podcast and The Mouse Lounge Podcast you know the love these guys have for the parks.  If you haven't listened to either of these podcasts and are one who appreciates the ambient sounds of the parks, then I suggest you checking them out.  Window to the Magic devotes almost 100% of it's time to the sounds of the park.  The Mouse Lounge does devote time to the sounds of the parks but expands out to many of the music and other audio that is part of Disney parks, rides and movies. 

If it wasn't for the effort the Imagineers put into the sounds in addition to the sights of the parks, the game "Where in the Park" that they play on Window to the Magic would be kind of boring and difficult. 

There are people who deliberately deafen themselves to their surroundings.  They do this by wearing a MP3 player.  This seemingly ubiquitous device, most popularly seen in the form of the Apple iPod, has become an electronic appendage to many people of almost any age. 

Please people, put away the MP3 players.  Even if you are listening to one of the many fabulous Disney podcasts, you don't need to be listening to them while in the parks.  If you are listening to music, you are insulting the chef.  In fine dining establishments, it's often considered a major insult to the chef to ask for salt and/or pepper for your food.  By doing so, you are saying that you don't think the chef knows what he/she is doing.

By providing your own soundtrack, you are saying that the Imagineers don't know what they are doing.

It has been my experience that just the smallest fragment of a sound can dredge up all kinds of memories.  Pictures do it too, but it doesn't seem to have the same success as a sound or music.  You need much less of it to get the brain to start dumping.

The soundtracks of the Disney Theme Parks are going to be the thing that unlocks the memories of your childhood.  These memories are going to be what you are going to be thinking fondly of when you are much older.  By providing your own soundtrack, you might be preventing these fond memories from being unearthed when you are older and need them the most.

Friends don't let Friends wear ear buds at Disney

Technorati Tags: Disney, Theme Parks, Rant

Sorry we cannot come to the Blog right now

We are currently under the control of another source of magic that seems to have also captured the attention of our friends at The Disney Geeks. 

Please leave a detailed comment and we'll get back to you as soon as we break from it's bond.  Thank you <beep>

Technorati Tags: Announcements

He said: One man's relationship with the Mouse

Last year, after my wife and I took our first trip to Walt Disney World as a couple (my 3rd trip, my wife's 1st), many people gave me odd looks when I told them that we planned on going back in a year.

Most people don't realize how important Disney is to me and in some sense, my sanity.

I don't really look back into my childhood with very many fond memories.  I had a task master of a mother and a dad who was gone a lot during my early years (he was out of the house for 3 out of every 4 weeks for my first 5-6 years) so that he can make a living for our family.  My mom knows she was who she was back then and honestly, I know she did the best she could with what she knew at the time and if she could go back with her current knowledge would do it totally different.

Well, until I was 8 years old, we lived in a small Southern California town called San Marcos.  While we lived there, my mom would get odd jobs and our family would often collect aluminum cans for recycling to raise money for an annual trip to Disneyland.

As I mentioned in my interview for Biblioadonis at The Disney Geeks Blog, my first memory of Disney was at Disneyland where I was terrified by the Wicked Witch character at the Disneyland parade.  This was on one of our many trips to Disneyland.  I stand corrected.  We didn't just go for Christmas because I can remember through the fog of time sitting through what I'm thinking is the Bicentennial Parade that Disneyland did for the 4th of July.

When it came to our going to Disney, it wasn't hard to convince my mom to go.  She LOVES fireworks and no one does fireworks like Disney.  So, it didn't take much convincing to go if the money was there.

I really don't remember much about going to the parks, but there is this Pavlovian response of calm and happiness that I experience when I think about going to a Disney theme park.  I know, without really remembering the details about it, that I enjoyed myself.  Despite the fact that I remember that I spent many a trip on the Haunted Mansion riding it with my little brother with my eyes clenched shut during the opening sequence (until the ballroom) and then closing them again during the graveyard scene.  I also remember quite clearly the Little Leota at the end of the ride reminding people to bring their "Death Certificates" with them next time.

I also remember riding the Pirates of the Caribbean.  I even told my little niece to not be ashamed of being afraid of Pirates because I too was freaked out by the skeletons in the beginning.  But, I eventually got over it and it's now one of my most favorite rides.  There was also Mr. Toads wild ride, Peter Pan's Flight and It's A Small world.  Once that song gets into your head, only death will pry it out.

I think between The Haunted Mansion and Snow White's Scary Adventure, my parents got the most drama when trying to get me to ride Snow White.  It all comes down to that darn Wicked Witch character in the parade.

In 1979, my family moved away from Southern California to the wonderful area of the country known as the Raleigh/Durham area of North Carolina.  The downside was that we didn't get to go to Disneyland anymore.  But there was Walt Disney World on this coast, but my parents couldn't swing trips here as easily as they did to the little park that Walt built.

That changed in 1985.  My mom was insistent we travel to Walt Disney World on a package that pretty much allowed you to prepay for everything including meals.  It's modern counterpart would be the Platinum Magic Your Way Package.  At this time, you only had the two parks:  The Magic Kingdom and EPCOT Center (eventually Epcot dropped it's last name).  At EPCOT, the Living Seas was not there and Captain Eo was being advertised as "Coming soon".  Since I was a big fan of Michael Jackson's Thriller I was a bit disappointed that it wasn't there yet.

I had a blast on this trip, my dad took tons of pictures (which I've asked him to locate so I can digitize and archive).  We came back swearing we'd be coming back again. 

Well, that never happened.  In 1986, we ended up moving overseas and in 1992 we planned on trying to make a trip down again to celebrate my brother's graduation from high school. But, my dad lost his job and that scrapped the plans.

I got to go down in 1995 as part of my participation in the National Conference for Phi Beta Lambda.  As many convention attendees, I pretty much spent my time in the parks.  But, I was flying solo and that is just not quite the same as going with people.

Well, fast forward to 2001.  At this point, I've pretty much been denying my appreciation of things Disney since 1995.  I just didn't think it was normal for a male to like Disney at this adult age.  I was sure that people would view me as a child predator or something.  Well, in 2001, I met my wife.  She was and is an very avid Disney fan.  I swear you could play a couple bars of most songs from movie soundtracks and she'd know what movie it came from, what the song's name is and be able to sing it.  Since her voice is awesome, I never minded her singing the songs all the time.

It didn't take long before we talked about getting  married and where we'd like to Honeymoon.  It was a no-brainer....Walt Disney World.  But, it wouldn't be.  Neither of our jobs would really let us take the time off after we got married.  So, it took until 2006, our 4.5 year anniversary to make it to Walt Disney World.  Granted, we had been going to Disneyland every year since we had gotten married.  My wife's mom lived a hour away from Anaheim.  But, this was not Walt Disney World and the fact that my wife had never been made the desire to go that much stronger.

We went on the Platinum Magic Your Way Package and lived it up.  We loved it so much, we joined the Disney Vacation Club (DVC) and that is how we'll be going again this year.

So, after reading all that I just wrote, you may be asking yourself, "What does that have to do with anything."

Well, I'm a type-A workaholic personality.  That is the main reason it took so long for my wife and I to get to Disney in the first place.  Well, once I got back to the parks, it was like I was 6 again at Disneyland.  There were no responsibilities, no worries, no concerns.  My wife would beg to differ because I was stressing about making our Advanced Dining Reservations on time, but I was having a blast.

Going to the Disney parks is how I relax.

But it's not just the parks.  It's also the movies and the collectibles.  To most people who know me, I'm most associated with Grumpy and Scrooge McDuck and I like to collect anything related to those characters.  My wife and I own over 50 Disney movies and we love watching them.  Who cares that you know the plots (and in my wife's case the songs), they are just great to watch.  They make me happy.

So, to tie all this into one simple paragraph.  I am in a relationship with the Mouse because Mickey and his friends make me happy.  I often don't know how to have fun until I enter a Disney theme park.  Walt knew how to make people have fun even if it was a foreign concept to them.

Technorati Tags: Introductions

She said: My Love Affair with the Mouse....How it all Began

I am one of five children.  My family could never afford a "true" family vacation.  Living in Oklahoma did not help matters either.  Branson, Missouri was close enough for most of my friend’s families to go but California and Florida was out of the question.  Any trip was too much for us.  Then IT happened.  My dad was offered a job opportunity that would take us to California. 

The anticipation was intolerable.  I had dreamed of this day.  I knew all of the songs.  I knew all of the movies.  Now I was ACTUALLY getting to go to Disneyland.  I didn’t know anyone that had been to Disney (either park - and yes the town really was that small).  Here I was – on my way.

The Castle was huge and gorgeous!  The crowds were nonexistent.  I think that I was able to meet all of the characters and take pictures with each of them.  The whole experience seemed so surreal.  (Now is the perfect place to mention that I was a junior in high school).

Disney to each of us has a meaning.  For me it is the possibility that extraordinary things happen not only to ordinary people- but to people that society has forgotten or cast away.  Belle wasn’t the only one to have a happily ever after.  There was a “Beast” that not only found his princess but learned how to love and found love in return.  Pinocchio was a real boy because Geppetto put the effort into that puppet.  True friends stuck it out even when it was not popular.  Ariel was able to get her prince because of the efforts of friends.

Anything is possible with a little pixie dust and faith, but I think that the Disney magic goes far beyond the ever popular cliché.  It is the possibility that there is promising resolution after a misfortune, that there is hope that going against the grain can actually work AND make you successful.

When I was able to go to Disney World for my first time last September it even started to take on a whole new meaning for me.  It is a way to bond people together.  There are a lot of us out there who partake in this “Disney Magic”.  I was lucky enough to find a soul mate that sees the potential of this little Cinder Girl.  

Technorati Tags: Introductions