Posted on October 27th 2007 in General
I woke up, rolled outta bed, showered and got dressed, then went downstairs to meet J at which time he reminded me that we needed to check out by 11am to go across the street to the Regal Sun (BWAHAHAHAHA, oh, the irony) because the conference ends today and we’re paying for the hotel so we’re staying someplace cheaper. F.U.C.K. I definitely forgot ALLLLLLLLL about that. G makes an appearance and tells us, “oh, just tell the front desk you need a late checkout time.” So, J and I tell the front desk we need a late checkout time, and now we can stay in our rooms until 12:30pm. Yaaaaaaaaay.
We all three head to breakfast and eat stuff. (Again, you wanna know what I eat for breakfast you follow me around. It’s not my fault you’re not properly stalking me.) After breakfast J and I went to the final session, which happened to be the best session of all. It had to do with whole-disk encryption and centrally managing policies and passwords for those machines. In a mixed environment the presenter found that PGP was the best option. At $150-$250 a seat I have no idea how they were able to work out this model, because that’s fucking expensive. For my company the price per seat would be way less because we have thousands of employees, but still. I wanted to ask why they weren’t just trying out BitLocker for Vista and built-in encryption for Win 2k/XP, then File Vault and disk image 128-bit encryption for Mac, but I only got to ask one question and the one question I did ask was the best question of the day. I won’t bore you with the details, but let’s just say I ask a mean question. ;) After whole-disk encryption was a presentation about educating employees about security. This particular company somehow has a big budget for creating all kinds of material to educate their users. I asked the killer question in that presentation, which I’ll share with you: How’d they get the buy-in from the suits? They didn’t have an awesome answer for that. They are from West Virginia. Somehow I’m just thinking that West Virginia is more hospitable to security, whereas France could give a flying fuck. I think I should move to West Virginia and join this team. :) The final presentation was about herding cats aka employees to be on board with desktop security. It was an interesting presentation with no great answers, just questions. :)
After this last presentation I skipped the closing remarks to go pack up my room. J, G, and I met in the lobby and checked all our bags with the bell service then we headed out to Downtown Disney where I got lost in the magic of World of Disney. I almost bought stuff and then decided not to bother because I was crashing and needed food. J informed me that G had actually left about 10 minutes earlier to go find food, with no plan of how to find us since he doesn’t carry around his cell phone, so J and I went to Earl of Sandwich. …
(This post is going to be fucking long. And I’m only up to 1pm. I’m publishing part 1 in the hopes that I’ll be way less verbose in part 2. That’d be nice.)
Posted on October 20th 2007 in General
The day you’ve all been waiting for. ;)
Draaaaaaagged my ass outta bed, texted J that I would most definitely be late to breakfast and perhaps he should just plan on seeing me after the first session. He called me back because he hadn’t figured out how to text yet. I told him he needs to learn how to text. (If I don’t mention this again, he later that same day came to the dark side and learned how to text. He texted me for the rest of the trip. Yay, J. :)
I got ready for the day then headed down to the first session. Something about something to do with technology. Very dry. At break time I met up with J to make plans for lunch. We decided to go to Earl of Sandwich with G and J’s boss D, as well as my coworker P who was also at the conference. Back to the next session which was disaster recovery planning and how Katrina affected a particular company. The most interesting piece of information I took from this: The phones didn’t work for weeks, but texting did. So anyone who had a cell phone was still able to communicate with others through text. My choice to be a texter is now vindicated. :D
Plans are always made with the expectation that they will change. Otherwise you’re sad. Plans changed. G was an asshat as usual and when he found out we weren’t just dragging sandwiches back to the hotel he ditched us to go (do whatever G does with his free time). Also, P said that he and his wife had reservations somewhere else that he didn’t know about before so he wouldn’t be joining us. So, off we went, just me and J and D. We headed across the street to Downtown Disney. When we showed up at Earl of Sandwich the line was waaaaaaaaaaay too long for us to handle so we decided not to stay. We walked over to Legoland during the light of day. I asked J to recreate his hilarious pose from the night before to which he confessed he didn’t remember doing it so he most likely wouldn’t be recreating it; he didn’t. Party pooper.
We wandered around and went to the Raglan Road gift shop where I bought three shirts for myself (two Raglan shirts, one Guiness shirt) and a magnet for B that was a family crest of the name “McGee”. Totally hilarious since that’s not her REAL family name, but that’s part of the charm of it all. :D Then we went to eat at Cookes instead, which is the daytime version of Raglan Road. Nothing the same. No dancers, no alcohol, no band, just delicious fish and chips (or, in my case, halfway decent chicken and chips… did I mention I don’t actually like chicken?). :)
After lunch we wandered back to the conference and attended afternoon sessions. Or, rather, we were supposed to attend afternoon sessions. The next session was a poster session where we were supposed to meet vendors. I buy one product for my company and that’s antivirus/antimalware. Anything else, I don’t wanna hear about it. So, skipped the session and goofed off alone in my room. That sounds nefarious, but it wasn’t. I think I probably just jumped on the bed and drank some coffee and checked some blogs. I dunno, time evades me in FL. I then headed to the last afternoon session and learned a tiny bit about imaging (“cloning” the software onto) computers that I didn’t already know. I then met up with J to make plans for Cirque later since we were not having dinner together and then I headed off to my room to get ready for…
Dinner with Avi and Britt! So, yah, despite the fact that all I had to do was get my ass across the street and go to the hotel behind the hotel across the street, I got terribly lost. The directions my hotel gave me: Cross the street. Turn LEFT. Go right at the first hotel, behind the Regal Sun. Problem? The Regal Sun is DIRECTLY across the street, but only if you’re crossing where there isn’t a crosswalk. The correct instructions: Cross the street. Turn RIGHT. Turn left. You’re there. I was (20?) minutes late to dinner and very sweaty when I finally did arrive to the restaurant. Avi gave me a one armed hug (fucker) but I got up on my tippy toes and gave him a hug with both my arms because that’s polite. Britt didn’t get up so I leaned over and hugged her. I know you’re all dying to know: Britt is really soft and she smells really good. Yup. It’s true. Avi is a sweet teddy bear, unless you don’t bring him his salad and then he hates you. It was not my job to bring him salad so I was in the clear. Addendum: Please see the comments section for why Britt didn’t stand up. It’s not because she hates me or is rude or her legs don’t work, which is never what I thought or meant to imply. :)
Interjection: There is no photographic evidence of this meeting. I wanted to bring my camera, but I couldn’t because I was going DIRECTLY to Cirque after and they would have confiscated my brand new camera. So, I didn’t bring it. (I’m sorry.) I also didn’t use my camera phone because that thing takes the shittiest photos. Seriously. Not good. When I return to FL and Avi has me over to his house to see Jigsaw I will definitely take tons of photos. I promise.
We had alligator bites. I don’t like alligator so I spit it out after chewing it for 10 minutes. Avi and I ordered the same cut of steak, Britt ordered the special which was steak and seafood. No, Dawg, I did not ask nor order Avi to eat with his hands. He uses utensils. He has manners, despite him ever agreeing to publicize that. During dinner his phone rang and …zomg, it was adorable. Amy had called him from the road (her month-long business trip, ew) to say she was tired and that she might go to sleep soon. He used his little baby voice (as much as he has a baby voice) to talk to her, telling her to shut off her phone if she does go to sleep so that he doesn’t wake her when he calls to tuck her in. Cannot make that shit up, it’s an entire Hallmark store of cuteness. I have no recollection of what we talked about specifically at dinner, I just remember smiling a lot and laughing a little to myself when Avi called himself a coder for knowing HTML. We also had dessert. I had coffee and some sort of Snickers cheesecake, which was fan-fucking-delicious-tastic. After dessert Avi and Britt dropped me off at Downtown Disney, even though I really could have just walked. I was disappointed that we didn’t get to go faster than 30 mph, because I really would like to experience Avi’s insanity driving on the interstate. Another time…
It was getting close to show time for Cirque so I wandered through Downtown Disney, calling J as I went. We kept having to leave voicemails for each other, and then suddenly I caught him on the phone and we stayed on the phone until we were in sight of each other then hung up. (That’s a fun game. I’d not ever done that with anyone before. It’s particularly satisfying to just hang up on someone when you’re staring at them. :D ) J and I walked back toward the Cirque tent.
When we got there we went in and I waited in line to purchase waters while J called K to say sweet things to her (awwwwww!) and while I was in line I was totally felt up by some punk 12 year old kid from Miami. Felt up in the sense that he was standing waaaay too close and then when I turned to get out of the line he had his hand propped on the counter to block my exit. I am a woman of impatience and uncaring about 12-year-old-boy fantasies so I just said “scuse me” and shoved his arm out of the way with my boobs. I’m sure that was his wet dream for the night. It was a bit of time before the show started so J and I found our seats but then I left to go to the bathroom. What I was really doing was calling my mommy. :) I had been trying to call her while I was walking through DT Disney but J’s calls kept alerting my phone as missed calls and I was having weird reception in the sea of waterbags (aka humans). From outside the bathroom I was able to get ahold of her to say, “guess where I am? In your old town!” Mom and my stepdad used to live in Punta Gorda. And then Charley hit, and then 5 billion more hurricanes threatened to hit. So they finally moved away. Mom was so excited to hear from me because I never call (hello, hi, I hate talking on the phone) so I told her all about my trip and then said I had to go watch Cirque, and she told me she was happy for me and that she loves me, and (yah, yay :).
I returned to my seat and the show started about three seconds later. La Nouba is the show everyone kept telling me I had to see while at Disney. I’ve seen a lot of Cirque shows, so I know what I’m talking about when doing a comparison. The show was really good. I have only one criticism: Family friendly show, so no dangerous acts. If you’re looking for the big thrills they’re in other towns at other shows that aren’t purely family friendly. Might I suggest Montreal? :) What I did like: I very much enjoyed the industriousness of it. The tight movements of the industrial works coupled with the industrial music was superb, and I loved how they were weaved throughout the show. I particularly enjoyed them in the very end sequence when the performers were doing tricks bouncing off the trampolines onto and into and on top of the building. My other favorite act was the kid act. I shouldn’t like the kid acts, because… it’s kids in a circus… but, I always do. Diabolos was adorable. The description of the act:
Each of these four magical figures holds two sticks linked by a string on which a musical wooden spool, the diabolo, comes to life. In their tiny hands, the diabolo twirls, jumps and flies through the air while the acrobats themselves perform flips and build human pyramids.
They are just so freaking adorable, and truly amazing. There was only one drop, and the kiddo who dropped her spool had just done an amazing acrobatic trick so we just didn’t care, we clapped loudly for her anyway. These girls got the most ovation at the very end.
After the show was over J and I were exhausted so we went back to the hotel, made plans to meet up for breakfast, and went to our respective rooms to sleep.
Posted on October 18th 2007 in General
Day 3 was the for real start of the conference. J, G, and I went to breakfast with everyone and had food. (What? You wanna know what I ate then go to the conference and stare at me.) Then we went to the opening plenary which had a Huey Lewis and the News title to it. It didn’t get any better from there. I walked out toward the end to go to the bathroom then texted J to say I would not be returning for the last little bit and waited outside until he wandered out to find me. We had a break then I went to a session about e-waste. I know, thrilling. After e-waste we had lunch. It’s a conference filled with geeks and you know what they served us? Tofu and portobello mushroom and rice. I threw the mushroom onto my bread plate and went to town on my tofu. I skipped the dessert in favor of saving my belly for future meals and wandered out to chat with people. In the first afternoon session I watched some people talk about inspiring staff with some online software of some sort. I’m not sure about you, but I can’t say that software necessarily inspires me. zomg this is boring me and I’m a techgrrrl. Let me just say that this conference doesn’t get super interesting until the last day. The last session of the day was equally as “can we please get this over with?”-ish.
After the sessions J explained to me a few things: G is pretty much all talk. G is moody. G is not actually his friend. G will not be joining us for dinner. YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!! So, J and I went to our rooms to take our respective naps and freshen up then we wandered off to get tickets for Cirque du Soleil: La Nouba for the following night. After we grabbed the tickets we headed over to a cigar bar after a lengthy conversation in which J confessed that he likes to smoke them but his girlfriend (my friend) K doesn’t like it when he does that. We had the nice lady pick us out cigars and I had the nice man pick me out a drink to go with my cigar. I had a Blue Hawaiian with fresh pineapple juice! and a vanilla flavored cigar. I had about 4 puffs of said cigar because I didn’t want to ruin my palate for dinner. J told me he was very proud of me for letting loose a little. That was very unexpected. I thanked him for that.
We then wandered over to Raglan Road for Irish food. We hung out in the gift shop until our reservation time. I didn’t buy anything just then. When it was time for us to go into the restaurant we were escorted to the live music area where the Irish band Tuskar Rock performs 6 nights a week. I ordered steak over mashed potatoes and a Smithwicks. J ordered pork loin over mashed potatoes and an Irish whiskey on the rocks. We sat and listened to the music, occasionally leaning over to say how much fun we were having. And then… behold. The magic and light of Danielle, the step dancer. She walked up onto the tallest table in the room and began dancing to the music. The oddest part? She was the smokin’ hot hostess who J and I had actually been oggling at the door. She was wearing this satin corset dress with the skirt above the knees and a beautiful angled bob haircut. And, if I were into chicks, I think I would have needed to ask her out right on the spot. (NOT REALLY. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. :) Seriously. If you go to Disney, please go to Downtown Disney, show up at Raglan Road at 9pm, and watch the very lovely Danielle.
Um, … right, where was I? Danielle. Ah! J got super trashed while watching Danielle then he and I went to LEGOLAND!!!!!!!!!!!! where he proceeded to make a kinda-fool of himself. It was awesome. :D I have no evidence of his redonk behavior because I only had my camera phone and none of the photos came out particularly well so I deleted them. (Lucky, J, Luck-Y!!!!) After Legoland we sat on a… oh, I don’t know, a brick wall that houses greenery, and we smoked half our cigars. J kept laughing his head off, which was making me laugh because he had never in all our years of knowing each other done that. He’s a Democrat, but he’s just super reserved most of the time. Anyway, it was very comical. We then wandered back to the hotel, agreed to meet downstairs for 7:30am (haaaaaaaaa), then to our respective beds.
Posted on October 16th 2007 in General
Day 2 was the start of the conference. Or so we thought. It actually started that night, so we instead decided to go to Epcot. :) My luggage had arrived at 3am but I was not awake when the bell service called to tell me. When I woke up at 6am I called down and asked for it to be delivered because (um, I’m not awake at 6am ever, I’m lucky if I can find my pants let alone carry luggage through a hotel).
Back to Epcot: We rode Test Track, then Mission Space (thanks, Gary!!!!!), and then Soarin’. After Mission Space I had to babysit G because he was REALLY sick. He’d gotten drunk the night before on 4 drinks even though he weighs (somewhere in the middle of 200s) because he is diabetic, and then he ate a bunch of fruit for breakfast. Mission Space is a g-force ride. You can either tolerate it or you can’t; he couldn’t. So, I was nice and sat with him and asked him what I could do for him to help him feel better. He started blathering on about (I don’t remember what, his mother? the Galapagos Islands? topics only Mikey would care about?) until J called me to say “I’ve got our passes to Soarin’, start walking to me” so we did. Oh, yes! G told me he sweats a lot. Charming. I don’t mind if people sweat a lot, but … um… well, whatever, it passed the time.
When we got to the building where Soarin’ was G proceeded to consume an entire water and entire package of beef jerky while J and I went on the Living with the Land ride. We then convinced him to walk around with us since he wasn’t ready to do Soarin’ quite yet. We started wandering through the international pavilion, tasting the foods of Argentina, Mexico, China, and India. We then went to Norway and had bakery food (I had chocolate chocolate cake :p) and then went into the gift shop where I purchased Linie somethingorother which we referred to on the trip as “Maelstrom”. Maelstrom is actually a boat ride that is evil and goes backwards and reminds of Charlie and Chocolate Factory. And that alcohol pretty much does the same fucking thing to you. I’ll chronicle that a bit later.
So, after this boat ride I think we did the Mexico boat ride. It had Donald Duck and Pancho and (oh, whoever else) and it was really lame. I also got a bunch of chocolates at the UK pavilion because I loves me some yummy chocolate. While at the Canada pavilion G said something to me that insinuated I care if he’s a bad boy on the trip which I didn’t because he’s not my responsibility, to which some RANDOM guy said I was a bunch of trouble. And, rather than clearing up the fact that G and I were not together even though we were talking about his WIFE actually caring, G just let that guy think we were doin’ it. Such a gentleman and a scholar.
After pavilions G was starting to be a fuckwad, saying how the magic of Disney was now gone because he didn’t think the food at the pavilions was any good. J and I walked ahead and secretly mumbled about how thrilled we were that G was with us on this trip, then we headed over to Soarin’. I was pretty worn out from the day so the last happiness I could muster was a giggle over a squirrel eating a Cheeto. We finally got to Soarin’ and got on the very top of the ride, but I was sitting on the very edge of the room and was tired and cranky at G so I couldn’t get into the whole “ooooh, ahhhh, we’re soarin’” effect of it and had a pretty unawesome time.
When we finally got off that ride we collected our Maelstrom booze from the front of the park then missed our bus home by exactly 3 seconds so we took a different bus to a different resort then we called the front desk to pretend we were lost and needed a cab back to our resort. Turns out cabs couldn’t come to where we were so we took another bus to 3 stops further and then we walked from there on the outskirts of Downtown Disney back to our hotel.
We decided this would be a good night to go to Benihana rather than attend the opening event for the conference, which was just a mixer. G followed me into my room while J went to his room. He then immediately asked to do shots with me. I did two big shots with him and we instantly got buzzed out of our fucking gords from the stuff. While drunk G proceeded to tell me that J and his girlfriend K had said how much like G’s wife I am. (Let me just clarify: I am not like her. I just kinda sorta look like her.) He then proceeded to hit on me. I eventually showed him the door and said, “go call your wife.” J called to ask what we were up to and I told him we were drunk. J came down and I told him what had just transpired with G. J apologized profusely then did another shot with me. We all then went to Benihana for dinner and had a bunch of sake while we whispered to each other behind our menus so that we didn’t swear in front of the nice family from Tennessee at the other end of the table. :) So, for me this is 3 shots of Maelstrom, 3 shots of sake, I’m drunk texting people in the bathroom (heh, yup), and I’m the one paying the bill but I forgot to get a copy of that receipt. ;) We then wander up to G’s room to watch more sports (yah, no recollection) and I notice that both G’s beds look slept in so I make a comment about that and he acts decidedly evasive. We all have a beer to calm down from our night of drinking and somehow J and I sober up but G gets drunker, proclaims that I have a crush on him and that he won’t be doing anything with me on this trip. You should have seen my mouth. It was agape. I never use that word, but that’s definitely what it was. J thought this was all in good fun so he said nothing about it. I was stunned for a bit, decided to drop the subject, then G passed out and I left and went to bed.
Posted on October 15th 2007 in General
Hi!!!!
For those of you still reading, I am going to post a stream of consciousness about my trip because that’s what I’m capable of doing at this very moment.
Day 1 was (um…) October 6. I flew out from France. I was supposed to go France -> Washington DC -> Orlando but fog forced me to divert to France -> Philadelphia -> Orlando. Boarded the plane late because the plane was late. The plane started taxiing, yaaaaaay!!!!!!!!!, and then… engine cut out. Stuck on the tarmac for 1h15m because Philly was closed to inbound flights DUE TO FOG. Fucking a,b,c,d,e,f. S’ok, I had a book and a cell phone with texting capability. ;) When I got to Philly I (don’t remember what happened then) got on the plane and eventually arrived in Orlando to Douglas my driver (shut up), and to J and G who were there to go with me to the hotel. I’ve known J since I was … (thinking supah hard) 18? Our bond before this trip was that we both like TMBG and hate his ex-girlfriend Meg. Our bond after the trip? We’ll get to that. G is the asshat I mentioned before. You’ll see why. So, I meet G and I’m waiting for my luggage and it never shows up so I report it lost and we go to Publix to buy water, beer, soda, chips, donuts, and beef jerky. Then Douglas drove us to our hotel, the lovely Disney Resort Hotel in Buena Vista, and I tipped him big because G was such an ass to him on the way over. (Gosh, I should have known…) We got all our stuff onto a dolly thing and checked in. G and I ended up on floor 2 down the hall from each other while J ended up on floor 8. Luck of the draw. We all settled in our rooms and then we all headed down to the sports bar for drinks and dinner since it was (um, 9pm? 10pm?) and I hadn’t eaten ALL FUCKING DAY. I had a scotch because G suggested it, as well as a Coke, and a burger done well done, tyvm. The scotch tasted vaguely of tequila, but without the special effect that tequila has over me. J, G, and I shot the shit at the bar. We then went to G’s room to drink beers and chat and (watch sports, I think, Red Sox vs. ? Dan?).
Posted on October 15th 2007 in General
I am having the time of my fucking life here.
And I miss home.
I am a creature of habit, conflicted by the joy of new experiences.
(There is no deep meaning here, it’s my first time in 33 years of going to Disney. Among a couple other minor first time things that aren’t inherently devious. Mel would be proud of me.)
Posted on October 9th 2007 in General
Posted on October 8th 2007 in General
Guess where I am?
Guess!
OMG, you suck at this game.
I’m in Orlando. For a conference. :) This day (I mean Saturday, since it’s only 1:18am on Sunday) was filled with very bad omens, including a point where I was double-booked to sit in the lap of a complete stranger on the plane from Philly to Orlando (she was all mad I was sitting in “her” seat which was actually also my seat), but I took them all in stride and am very happy to be here. Still missing all my luggage, but at least I have a warm bed to sleep in, even if no night clothes in which to sleep.
Going to Epcot tomorrow morning first thing. If I ever do get my luggage I’ll take pictures! ;)
Latah, gatahs.
Posted on October 7th 2007 in General
I hate it when I take 20 minutes to research a problem then carefully word suggested solutions as well as temporary work-arounds for clients only for them to answer back to someone else and totally disregard anything I said.
Except that means I’m off the hook, so I totally love it.
Posted on October 4th 2007 in General
