Heading Home

Alright, alright, so I'm a full ten days late with this post. In my defense, I've been insanely busy ever since I returned home. I've been up past midnight or 1 am consistently every night for the past week, trying to catch up with everything I missed from the first week and a half of Community Assistant training. But that's another story. For now, it's time to wrap up this blog.

Clear the Pantry!

This was probably the most challenging but also most enjoyable chore I did to prepare for leaving Orlando. Trying to be economical with my groceries, I started planning meals all the way back in mid-July to use up everything that was leftover in my pantry from the past seven months.

This included using the leftover flour, sugar, and chocolate chips from when I baked my birthday cake back in January. This time, though, I chose to make chocolate chip cookies - for my roommates, for my coworkers, and for my dad and I on our long drive home.

They turned out pretty well, I must say. I won't deny the fact that I ate about three cookies' worth of cookie dough over the course of baking them... But here I sit, two weeks later, without Sam 'n' Ella poisoning. (That's a pun you'll only understand if you've visited the Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor at Magic Kingdom.)

Clearing the pantry also consisted of eating an entire box of pasta in just two meals, which was a bit less enjoyable than intended... Maybe I need to reevaluate the significance of preventing a $1 box of pasta from going to waste.

Last Chance to Boondoggle

On the Thursday of my last week of work (which ended the following Tuesday), Rawlings shouted at me from his cubicle, "Hey Jeremiah, I've taken you to see Tower right?"

Rawlings had promised me at the beginning of my internship to take me to see Tower of Terror's backstage area, including the opportunity to ride on top of the elevator car with the maintenance crew while they did their checkups on the ride components. With four days left in my internship, I figured he'd forgotten, and quite frankly I had plenty to do as it was, so I refrained from mentioning it. Thankfully I didn't have to!

So that night we came in and drove out to Hollywood Studios for an entire night shift of boondoggling. Rawlings showed me the motors that control the elevator cars, the ride vehicles themselves, and the show boxes you see as you begin to ascend through the elevator shaft. But the absolute best part of it all was getting to stand on top of the vehicle as the maintenance crew took it up and down the shaft (very slowly, of course) to inspect the functionality of all the mechanical parts. We stopped at the top and I got to take my picture with all of Studios in the background, then just stand there and chat as we surveyed all of Disney property in the dark distance. It was really something.

And that was just the beginning. After Tower, we went over to Star Tours for a look at the giant hydraulic actuators that move the ride vehicle. There are six in total, each about seven feet long and eight inches in diameter, and you can stand in the control room and watch as the actuators send the ride vehicle through its show sequence. But that's not all:  You can also control the actuators' strokes yourself using six dials on a box in the control room - and I got to do just that! To think I was controlling the motion of the ride vehicle myself was pretty sweet... Especially because other interns had set up a tour of Studios that same night, and they happened to run into us at the same time we were at Star Tours. They were in the ride room watching the ride vehicle and actuators work, but what they didn't know is that I was the one controlling it all!

As if that weren't enough, we even drove out to Animal Kingdom for an up-close look at the yeti in Expedition Everest. I got to see all the hydraulics from when it used to be an animated figure (it's so large that it was tearing itself apart when it moved, which is why it's now a stationary figure) and even stare it right in the face from the front! We didn't get to see it so closely at DUEE After Dark, which is why it was such a neat opportunity to see it all with Rawlings. I could literally touch its fur - which, by the way, is made of yak fur. Really old, dusty, rotted yak fur. Yum.

Unfortunately, though I took plenty of pictures, I am not allowed to post anything publicly. If you want to see them I guess you'll have to pay - er, ask - me in person!

Wrapping Up the Internship

One week before my last day of work, I gave a presentation to my fellow interns as well as about a dozen full-time engineers:  my Project Showcase.

Project Showcase is all about showcasing the projects you've worked on over the course of your internship. But of course, you probably could have figured that out yourself. What you couldn't have figured out from the title is exactly what I neglected in my presentation; you're supposed to be very creative, or at least, that's the standard every other intern appeared to use for their presentation. One guy even did magic tricks (though I thought that was a bit ostentatious)!

So I gave my dry, straightforward presentation to a bunch of people who work for the most magical, creative company on earth. My bad. But I presented the information very well, answered questions intelligently, and most of all, I believe I gave a everyone a good understanding of the work I did over the course of my internship. So in the end, it was a good experience. Plus a bunch of other interns and I went out for tacos afterward at this place called Tijuana Flats, to celebrate the completion of our internships and the successful deliverance of our presentations.

The following afternoon, the Disney Internships and Programs team hosted a farewell celebration for all the PIs and CPs. They had some pretty good BBQ, fun music, more free stuff, and character meet-and-greet opportunities with the graduation versions of Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, and Goofy! Jongui came with me and we had a great time, though unfortunately I had no time to take pictures with the characters myself. And of course, we all earned our graduation Mickey ears to commemorate the end of our programs.

Then, the very next day, the FOS Intern Committee hosted their own farewell celebration that featured a guest speaker, free pictures of our entire intern group, and free cookies and lemon bars. The guest speaker was Dennis Lind, the Vice President of Design & Engineering at Disney. He gave a great presentation and answered all our questions very insightfully, plus the food was great! But how could I expect anything less from Disney?

The last day of work was a bittersweet one. I spent most of the day packing up my office, organizing and cleaning up files on my computer, and pretty much just tying up loose ends. I also had an exit interview with the FOS Intern Coordinator, which went quite well; we spoke about I enjoyed about the internship and what I didn't so much enjoy, and she also provided me with peer feedback on my Project Showcase as well as the performance evaluation Rawlings filled out. He gave extremely positive reviews, with an ultimate intern rating of 1 on a scale of 5 (worst) to 1 (best). He later divulged that I was the first intern he'd ever had to earn a 1. I was completely humbled and actually a bit surprised! But it was certainly good to know that my internship had been a great experience for him as well. I look forward to keeping in touch with him as we continue in our careers.

As a matter of fact, just a few days ago I sent him a video of some of the other ASU CAs dancing out in the rain. I told him when we were getting to know each other that Arizonans have a deeper appreciation for rain than most people; that we actually enjoy thunderstorms, and have been known to dance shamelessly out in the pouring rain. He didn't believe me. Now he does.

Out With a Bang... Or Two... Or Twenty

And of course, what would the last week of my internship have been without plenty of fun spent in the parks? Starting on Saturday, I visited each park one final time to hit up all my favorite attractions and take it all in before I left.

Saturday was Epcot. Francisco and another friend and I grabbed our autograph books and visited as many characters as we could:  Chip and Dale, Mickey, Minnie, Goofy, Duffy, Alice, Belle, and Aladdin. Not bad, right? Especially considering we also made time for Soarin', Test Track, and the Living with the Land boat ride.

As you can see, some of our character interactions were a bit more unorthodox. Chip and Dale had us play on the ground with them; Duffy engaged us in a sailor salute; and we shared a spot of tea with Alice. It made for a memorable afternoon!

Sunday morning I met up with a couple other interns at Studios to ride Toy Story, Tower, Rockin', and Star Tours. Though I never did reach 300,000 points on Toy Story, I divulged the secrets of the game to the other interns, so if any of them ever reach that mark, I will declare a vicarious victory! Immediately after Studios I met a few more interns at Animal Kingdom for Everest, Dinosaur, FOLK, and a show I'd never seen before - Finding Nemo the Musical. So yet again, I was doing new things in the parks right up to the end of my internship. And there's still more I never did! Guess I'll have to come back eventually...

But of course I saved the best for last. On Monday night, my three roommates and I visited Magic Kingdom one last time to ride our favorite rides and watch Wishes. It was an appropriate end to the internship, since that was exactly how we started the internship as well! We did Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Pirates, and also visited Magician Mickey for a final meet-and-greet with the most famous character of all. We also caught the end of the Electrical Light Parade, saw all of Celebrate the Magic, and of course, finished the evening with the best fireworks show in Walt Disney World.

It could not have been a better way to finish my visits to the park. I was pretty nostalgic as I strolled down Main Street at the end of the night, catching a whiff of the waffle cones from the Ice Cream Parlor, squinting at the bright lights that lined the roofs and signs of all the shops, and listening to the happy chatter of a crowd of guests, tired but content after a long day spent at the Most Magical Place on Earth.

That wasn't quite the end, though! As one final farewell celebration, my walking friend, Atom, and another friend and I visited Trails End Cafe for dinner on Tuesday night. It was my last night on property, so of course I had to spend it stuffing my face with some of Disney's most delicious food. We had a really great time; we were some of the past people to leave the restaurant, helped by the fact that one of the managers was friends with Atom and brought us strawberry shortcake from next door at the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue. It was another sad goodbye at the end of the evening, but I expect I'll see him again before long. He visits the Phoenix Valley every now and again, and I visit Disney every now and again, so between the two of us, we should run into each other eventually!

Driving Home

Tuesday night, my dad flew into Orlando to help me drive the 2100 miles back home starting the next morning. I couldn't spend any time with him because I was finishing packing, but the following morning I picked him up from the Port Orleans Resort - French Quarter and we went on our way to New Orleans!

I'd like to pause for a second and mention that I am so stinkin' glad to be out of that disgusting Florida humidity. In the twenty minutes it took me to pack the car on Wednesday morning, sweat was dripping from my nose and my shirt was drenched. Arizona may be hotter, but at least it's a dry heat. Florida has convinced me that, if there is a Hell, it is both hot and humid.

For the first five hours of our drive, my dad and I just chatted about whatever came to mind. It was pretty neat; I don't think I've ever had such a long conversation with him before. After that, though, we hooked up his iPad to my nifty car radio via BluTooth and proceeded to listen to 24-hours of a thrilling audiobook entitled The Cardinal of Kremlin, by Tom Clancy.

In New Orleans, we stayed in the French Quarter again, at the Hyatt Place right across the street from the Convention Center. We were too tired to walk through the city like Hannah and I did, but we found a delicious place for dinner just a five-minute walk from the hotel. It was called Cochon (which is a type of pork), and everything we had was delicious! I ordered a pulled-pork dish with a side of mac-and-cheese, and Dad ordered a beef rib dish with a cucumber salad. Not exactly authentic New Orleans cuisine, but delicious all the same - and a lot quieter than the bars on Bourbon Street.

The next day we drove nine hours to Austin, Texas, where we stayed with my aunt and uncle. They're very cultured but very fun people, and it was really great getting to spend time with them, even just for one evening. They took us out for some authentic Texas BBQ at this joint called Iron Works, and came back home to some delicious cobbler for dessert.

Then came the final day of driving. The long, long final day.

If you'll think back to my very first post of this blog, you'll recall that Hannah and I made this trip in four days:  Phoenix to Fort Stockton to Austin to New Orleans to Orlando. Well, Friday morning rolled around and I decided I just wanted to be home already. It was only going to be five hours to Fort Stockton, and then Saturday we'd drive another ten, and on Sunday I'd move into my ASU dorm to begin CA training. Instead, we pushed through and drove fifteen hours on Friday (over 1000 miles) and rolled into the driveway at about 9:45 pm, where my mom, brother, and Hannah awaited our arrival. Needless to say, it was a happy reuniting.

Though it was a long day - a long three days - of driving, we'd split it into three- to four-hour shifts, so it really wasn't too bad, especially with the entertaining audiobook. Still, it was definitely the right decision, powering through that last day of driving. Saturday gave me all day to relax and catch up with everyone, which was exactly what I needed before I moved back to ASU the next morning!

Speaking of which, it's good to be back. As fun as Disney was, I missed home, I missed ASU, and I missed my girlfriend. That's not to say I won't miss Disney. I already do. That internship gave me invaluable engineering experience and was also some of the most fun I've ever had! But just because I miss it doesn't mean I'm not right where I should be now. Missing it just means it was an experience I'll cherish for the rest of my life! For now, I'm thankful to be back in the beautiful state of Arizona with the people I love. It's gonna be a great next year of school, and I can't wait to bring the knowledge I gained from my internship back into the classroom.

My ultimate goal is to "engineer magic" wherever my career takes me, whether it's back to Disney or with another company who couldn't care less about Disney attractions. Engineering is all about improving the lives of others and turning dreams into realities through creativity and innovation (and superior intelligence, I might add). Though that "magical" property of engineering manifests itself particularly well at Disney, I believe I have the potential to engineer magic at any company, if I apply myself properly. And that's pretty exciting.

For the Groupies...

To those of you who read just a post here and there, thank you for your curiosity. To those of you who read just about every blog post (and even pestered me when my posts were delayed), thank you for your perpetual and genuine interest in my experiences at Disney World! It's been a pleasure writing these posts, and I hope you've found enjoyment in reading them. Retelling my experiences is actually a useful exercise in that it forces me to reflect on those experiences and appreciate both the good and the bad. It's also a great outlet for all the sarcasm I bottle up over the course of months spent in a happy-go-lucky, a-dream-is-a-wish-your-heart-makes work place.

If you're looking for more blog readings, Hannah and I have decided to start our own blog just to keep others up-to-date on all the happenings in our lives. You can find it at thejandhblog.blogspot.com. I believe the plan is to post every two weeks, with each of us taking turns writing the post; so we'll each be posting roughly once per month.

Among the more interesting things that will come up in that blog is our three- to four-week trip to Europe, which we're planning on doing next summer! So at the very least, tune into the blog around May or June of 2015; there should be lots of fun pictures and stories.

Thanks again for reading! Best of luck to all of you in engineering magic in your own careers. Whether you're a teacher, a counselor, a lawyer, or an accountant, just remember that work is all about helping your neighbor. The way I see it, when you're helping your neighbor, you're engineering magic.

Rounding Third

CROW

noun

1.  Any of several large oscine birds of the genus Corvus, of the family Corvidae, having a long, stout bill, lustrous black plumage, and a wedge-shaped tail.

2.  A two-week event taking place on the Rivers of America in the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World Resort, consisting of a canoe-racing competition between dozens of teams from the various departments within Walt Disney Parks & Resorts.

Given that this is a blog about an internship with Disney rather than a website of ornithological taxonomy, the latter of those two definitions is what I'll be telling you about now.

Canoe Races of the World, better known as CROW, took place each morning these past two weeks at work. Basically, any department in WDP&R can enter any number of canoe-racing teams into the competition; there's men's, women's, and mixed teams for both "pro" and "rec" (inexperienced) divisions. There's also award for the department that shows the most spirit for the event, an award close to the hearts of the D&E team members.

Seven years ago, the D&E spirit team took things to a whole new level when they tapped into the park stereo system, typically used for background music, to play their own spirited soundtracks. Oh and they also hijacked a parade float and redecorated it in the name of CROW. Subsequently, D&E was awarded the newly coined "Lifetime Spirit Award" and banned from all future spirit competitions.

Apparently the life expectancy for most engineers is seven years, because this year the CROW organizers lifted the ban, bringing Design & Engineering back into the competition! We made sure to keep things toned down a bit, but won the spirit award by quite a margin. The theme for CROW this year was "Star Oars." We had everything from a General Akbar animatronic to a homemade oaR2D2 robot to a paper mache starship attached to the top of a golf cart. And our canoe names were all Star Oars themed:  Rowbi-wan-CROWnobi, Millenium FalCanoe, The Empire Strokes Back... You get the idea.

I applied to be a rower on one of the seven D&E canoes, but unfortunately they didn't have enough slots for me, so I was placed instead on the spirit team. It was still a lot of fun, though, because the sparkling gem of our spirit display was the flash mob.

Yes, I took part in a flash mob. One full-timer who also used to be a dancer choreographed it all, and about twenty-five of us interns and full-timers came in at lunch every day one week to learn it all. It was quite an eclectic mix of music:  The Imperial March, dubstep Imperial March, Let It Go, and Turn Down For What. It ended up being pretty successful, and I even had a pretty incredible solo. I wish I could post a video of it, but every time I try to put a video in my blog it doesn't end up working... So you'll just have to imagine something really impressive.

Ultimately, none of the D&E teams placed in the finals, but as I said, we're mostly just happy about the spirit award. We're engineers. We pride ourselves more on our ingenuity than our athleticism.

And as it turns out, they're instilling a new rule that says you can't win the spirit award two years in a row - therefore, we're banned from next year's spirit competition. Guess they figured we were likely to kick butt again next year, too.

Boondoggling

Surprisingly, there's no red, squiggly line underneath that word. Rawlings used it to describe an excursion of ours to Animal Kingdom this week, and at first I thought it was his own invention, but apparently it's a real word!

If you look it up, Google will describe it as "waisting money or time on unnecessary or questionable projects." That's an awfully cynical definition, though. Rawlings described it as doing something in the name of productivity that feels more like fun than work. Under that definition, we did a fair amount of boondoggling this week.

Tuesday morning, we arrived at work at 6 am to meet some other engineers who were doing ride testing on Mine Train. The train engagement on "A" lift has been a bit jerky lately, so we were adjusting the chain speed on the lift to more closely match that of the train to see if it smoothed things out. There's only one way to truly test the smoothness of the ride, though:  riding it. Every time we adjusted the chain speed, we'd hop on and ride it again, resulting in six ride-throughs in just about twenty minutes. It was quite fun. Ironically, though, we found that the jerkiness of the engagement seemed to be independent of the chain speed. Oh well...

Then, on Thursday, we drove over to DAK to ride Everest (just once, unfortunately). The company that designed the track for Mine Train also designed Everest's, so we were curious as to whether Everest's lifts had the same problem with jerkiness. They do, leading us to believe that the jerky engagement is inherent to the design of the coaster; but more importantly, I got paid to ride a roller coaster.

Yeah, it's been a sweet internship.

Rug Turns 23

Just in time for the end of our internships, Rug was the last of us four roommates to celebrate his birthday this semester. It came on a Tuesday night, the same night in which Rawlings scheduled us to come in on third shift at 2 am (which also happened for Francisco's birthday back in June). Rawlings has an uncanny knack for that sort of thing. But I sucked it up and celebrated anyway, allowing myself a two-hour nap before our coming night shift.

The evening began with one of the worst thunderstorms I've seen in my time here. We had planned to go to World Showcase at Epcot, but as that would involve trudging through the sheets of rain, we decided to try our hand at Downtown Disney's bowling lanes:  Splitsville.

I'd like to take a moment to question the thought process involved in naming your bowling lanes "Splitsville." Not Turkeyville, not Strikesville... No, let's choose a name that implies an uncommon propensity for the worst possible scenario in the sport of bowling.

Despite the ironic name of the place, it's a pretty sweet bowling alley. They've got great food and bars, as well. In fact, the first thing we did was head to an upstairs bar, where we ran into the director of Engineering Services at Magic Kingdom! He didn't notice us at first, so Rug and Biter bought him a drink to get his attention. It was kind of awkward, but we felt pretty classy. And I bet no intern has ever done that for him before, so, ya know... Just leaving a legacy.

We went on to embarrass ourselves in two games of bowling, but we had a great time. Rug had particularly bad luck, as pretty much every other ball he threw looked like it would be a strike, but always left just one pin standing.

Then, with ten minutes left, we started a third game. Rug opened with a strike... Then another strike on the second frame. With only two minutes to spare, the rest of us quickly bowled our final frames to give Rug a chance at that ever-elusive turkey. He was laughing as he picked up his ball, and laughing harder still as he chucked it down the lane - perfectly off-center for his third strike in a row. The rest of us erupted in cheers and laughter, capturing the condescending attention of those around us, and just ten seconds later, our time ran out and the lane shut down. Those were the best ten minutes of that whole week.

After that, we drove out to Reedy Creek Energy Services, located just north of the Magic Kingdom, to get an up-close view for the fireworks from Wishes. Though we couldn't hear the music from the show, the fireworks were simply spectacular. We were probably within about 80 yards of where they left the ground, and with the wind blowing northward, some of the fireworks seemed to explode almost directly above us. Being careful to watch for falling embers, we ooed and awed at the magnificent explosions. It definitely left us with a new appreciation for fireworks.

We finished the evening back at our apartment, watching SNL skits and munching on the cookie cake Rug's girlfriend had delivered to him (via Francisco) at lunch earlier that day. That was only half the celebration, though. The previous weekend, Francisco, Rug, Lingo, and I went to Chef Mickey's at the Contemporary Resort for breakfast. Like all great Disney buffets, this one was chalk-full of delicious foods. What made it extra special, though, was that the Fab5 - Mickey, Minnie, Pluto, Donald, and Goofy - visited each and every table in the restaurant for signatures and pictures. It was very entertaining and extremely filling.

Characters Galore

Speaking of characters greetings, Francisco and I met up with a friend of his who works for Disney full-time, Feasible, and spent all of one Saturday traipsing around the park in search of signatures from our favorite Disney characters. Though I've never been one for signatures, Francisco convinced me to purchase an autograph book and join him in his quest to collect every character's signature.

Of course, even after a full day of character greetings, I have quite a ways to go. Still, I made quite a dent:  we visited Pluto, Tinkerbelle, Merida, Ariel, Daisy, Minnie, Goofy, Donald, Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Gaston. Our last character, Gaston, was just that - quite a character. He certainly captured the whole masculine, narcissistic, womanizer persona. I have to say, though, that his muscles looked slightly artificial. He needs to lay off the HGH. Unless, that is, he wants to play for the San Francisco Giants and cheat his way into the record books for having the most career homeruns.

Sorry, I'm getting a bit off-topic. So yes, that was a fun day in the parks. Just this past Saturday we went to Magic Kingdom again to watch the Festival of Fantasy parade and use up some more of Francisco's magically appearing fastpasses to our favorite attractions. This time, though, we had a much larger group. There were eighteen of us in total, but we still managed to ride just about everything we wanted as one big group. I even rode the Walt Disney World Railroad for the first time ever!

#SpaceMountainFail

Kinda crazy that just a week before my internship ends, I'm still doing new things in the parks. I guess that goes to show just how extensive Walt Disney World is; you could spend all day every day in the parks for weeks on end and still not experience every bit of the resort. That excites me though, because it means I'm never going to get bored with the Disney theme parks. This may be the end of my free access to the theme parks, but I'll continue to throw thousands of dollars at the company as I visit and revisit the parks for the rest of my life. Disney is timeless.

Rounding Second

Sorry for the delay in getting this post up, folks. It's been a very busy but equally fun last few weeks! Let's see if I can squeeze it all into one post...

Universal

It all started almost three weeks ago with the 21st birthday of one of my neighbors from back in Arizona. Her name is Doodles, and we've been friends since the two of us were just five or six years old. For her birthday, her mom took Doodles and several friends out to Orlando for a week, and I spent the first day of their visit with them at Universal Studios!

Let me start with a qualifier:  I'm heavily biased against Universal. It's Disney World's primary competitor, and everyone at Disney tends to think we do it better. Everything.

However, I kept an open mind heading into Sunday afternoon, and it served me well; Universal's actually a pretty awesome park! We started with Transformers, which was probably my favorite ride of the day. It's like Star Tours at Hollywood Studios but taken to a whole new level. Same 3D, same tipsy motion technology, but with the added element of the whole thing being on a track, taking you from scene to scene through the building. A very fun start to the day.

Actually, it turns out many rides are just like that at Universal:  The Simpsons, Despicable Me, and one or two others as well. That's one of the things that disappointed me about the park; there isn't quite as much variety in their thrill rides the way there is in the Disney parks. Still, I didn't get a full sampling of the attractions so maybe I shouldn't judge just yet. We stuck to the primary park rather than wandering over into Island of Adventure because Doodles and her friends were planning on spending all day there on Monday. That's where Hulk and Harry Potter World are, so I have a feeling I missed the best of Universal. I'm going back though! Now that Diagon Alley and King's Cross are open, connecting Harry Potter World to the main park, I'm planning on heading back with my roommates for a thorough tour of the entire park before I leave on August 6th!

But I digress. Another fun attraction that wasn't a 3D simulator like Transformers was Hollywood Rip Ride Rocket. If you've seen the video of Jimmy Fallon taking Kevin Hart on a roller coaster that frightens him half to death - this is that ride. It frightened me too, but not because of the drops and loops and corkscrews. It frightened me 'cause the flipping thing felt like it was gonna give me a concussion from all the shaking and bouncing. They need to shim the wheels on the vehicles' bogeys, because those worn-down things make for a very bumpy, albeit exhilarating, ride. And yes, I do feel like a smartypants engineer for diagnosing problems with other parks' roller coasters. Thanks for the experience, Disney!

After making our way through half a dozen other attractions, we ended the day with our jaws unhinged as we stared enviously at King's Cross - the train station that connects Harry Potter World to the primary park by means of the Hogwarts Express. It is an extremely impressive facade. Seriously, it's uncanny to the movie sets. In fact, they even had the real Knight Bus movie prop on display outside! I cannot wait to get back there to experience it in person, rather than from behind a metal barrier!

All in all, a very fun day. And if you're wondering what our shirts have on them, it's "Happy 21st, Doodles!" with a picture of an infant Doodles with an allegedly empty Bud Light can she "found in the recycling," according to her mother. She's come full circle now, though! On her 21st birthday, the one thing we didn't do was get her a beer.

Top Gun? Nope, Never Heard of It!

The following Wednesday evening, instead of heading to the gym, Rug, another intern friend of ours named Biter, and I went out to Mickey's Retreat for some volleyball. Every Wednesday evening since back in January lots of interns have gotten together for volleyball, but this week was the first time Rug and I decided to join.

The three of us strolled confidently out onto the sand and pulled off our shirts to reveal our chiseled pecs and washboard abs as we took our side against three equally muscular guys. I was wearing jeans 'cause I forgot to bring a pair of shorts to the beach, but it's whatever - I look good in jeans. Sixty sweaty minutes later, I sealed the rubber game with a particularly powerful spike that flew just past the diving arms of the best-looking of our opponents, Kil Valmer. He'd been talking crap to me all evening so I underscored my dominance with a clever one-liner of my own invention:  "Son, your ego is writing checks your body can't cash."

And that's what happened.

Back to the Valley

A week later I headed out to the airport to celebrate the Fourth of July and my mom's birthday back in Phoenix. Getting there was a bit more convoluted than I imagined it would be, however.

My flight was supposed to leave at 4 pm. I got a text at noon that day saying it would be delayed to 4:55; an hour later, I got another text pushing it back further to 5:25, then again to 6:30. Still, I didn't want to waste my friend's afternoon by continually delaying his favor of dropping me off at the airport, so I had him take me several hours early. I sat down outside security and read my book for awhile, thinking I had a lot of time to kill. I didn't bother looking at the flight status panels since I was receiving text updates! Smart, right?

Wrong. After awhile, I sat down to eat Panda Express and pulled out my phone to respond to a text from Hannah. Instead, I found a text telling me my flight was to leave at 4 pm as originally scheduled. My eyes grew wide as I double and triple checked the time; my phone and watch both agreed that it was already 4:07. I grabbed my bag and my food and rushed over to security, waited in line, hopped on the shuttle to the terminal, and rushed to my gate (which happened to be at the very end of the terminal). By now it was 4:30. "Where's this flight headed?" I calmly asked the attendant standing outside the boarding walkway. She responded, "Albany!"

Then, much less calmly, I asked, "Do you know whether the flight to Phoenix through Nashville has left yet??" She told me that the gate had been changed to 121 - at the other end of the terminal - and that she wasn't sure whether it had left. So I bustled over to gate 121, where the attendant there asked me, "Headed to Nashville, honey?"

Those were the best words I'd heard all week. I thought I'd missed my flight entirely, but it still hadn't left. I later learned that they got a new plane for the flight because the original one was having mechanical issues, hence the sudden change from delayed to on-time. It was one roller coaster of an afternoon.

But it wasn't over yet. After further delay in Nashville, we were set to land in Phoenix at 8:30 pm their time. However, right as we were about to start our descent, the pilot informed us that due to intense thunderstorms over the airport and a lack of gas needed for us to circle around, we were being diverted to Tucson to wait out the storms. We finally landed in Phoenix at 10 pm, three hours later than the original landing time, and I had a happy reuniting with Hannah and my family. Then we waited another hour for my checked back to come out. But I was home at last!

Independence Day

The next day, Independence Day, my family and Hannah and I went over to our neighbors' house for a few hours, where I got to spend some time catching up with several friends I hadn't seen in a very long time. After that, Hannah and I headed to her house for a BBQ and pool party, which was a ton of fun. I got to see Hannah's niece Dayl again, as well as Dayl's little brother, niece, all of Hannah's siblings, and even some of their family friends I hadn't seen in awhile, including Sugar Daddy. It was a great party, but the best part was just getting to spend time with so many people that I hadn't seen in several months. We drew the evening to a close with some store-bought fireworks and patriotic music out in the street. 'Murica!

Batting Cages

On Saturday, Hannah and I went on a date to Ned's for lunch, followed by a trip to a place I hadn't been in many years:  the Home Run Stadium batting cages. I spent hours there every week back when I played baseball, but since I stopped playing in middle school, I hadn't paid the cages a single visit. It was fun to be back; it brought back all sorts of memories, and I actually did pretty well for not having swung a bat in so long! I was reminded of why I always wore batting gloves, as we ended up with blisters on our thumbs, but it was a really fun date nevertheless.

That evening, my brother and I met up with a friend of ours from high school, Rauco, that we hadn't seen in months. He brought his trumpet over to our house, and we had a bit of fun playing our instruments together before we went out to dinner and a movie at Tempe Marketplace. FYI, 22 Jumpstreet is just as funny as the original, proving that sequels are only worse than the originals 95% of the time instead of the typically assumed 100%.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

One of the primary reasons I came home that weekend was for my mom's birthday. I won't disclose her age, as that might not be a piece of information she wishes for me to share publicly, but it was a very significant birthday that I was happy to come home to be a part of. We went bowling in the afternoon, then out to dinner in the evening, where we ordered more Italian food than even the Dwight family could handle. My aunt, uncle, and cousin joined us at the end of the day for birthday cake and Farkle, a fun dice game that we always play together during large family events like this one.

Though it was yet another difficult goodbye that evening and the next morning, it was lessened with the knowledge that I'd see everyone again in just one month. That's not to say I won't make the most of my last few weeks here at Disney! But I do think that, when it's time to go home for good in August, I'll be more than ready.

EverEverEverEverest and Dinosaur

As always, a long weekend means that the following week of work is difficult to get through. To keep my paycheck its same healthy size, and to sustain my productivity, I always work ten-hour days for the remainder of the week. However, I've been so busy lately that the longer days have flown by even faster than normal ones!

I thought that I was pretty close to finishing my current design project at the start of the week. I was even naively optimistic that I'd finish the drawings for my design by the end of the week, whereafter I could send them off to someone else to begin production! On Thursday, I went and had a meeting with one of the Design Assurance leaders to have him look over my design. I figured I'd just be showing it to him and earning his quick approval, but as it turned out, he raised several concerns that Rawlings and I had overlooked. I guess that's why he's in that position, but it was very frustrating. I was sent right back to the drawing board to revise my design further - something I've been doing for many, many weeks now - and will meet with him again next week to show him my updates.

With only three weeks of work left, I'm beginning to worry about finishing this project on time. I stayed extra late on Friday (I worked from 7 am to 7 pm), and it looks like it may take a few more of those days over the course of the next three weeks if I'm to finish in time. But I'm up to the challenge. It's important for me to remember that as difficult as this is, I'm developing my engineering skills in proportion to the difficulty of my work, and that's the entire point of this internship!

Still, it was nice to take my mind off of work for awhile on Wednesday evening when Rug and Biter and I went to Animal Kingdom to participate in Magic Band FastPass+ testing for Expedition Everest and Dinosaur. If you remember when I did this same thing at Splash Mountain back in March, we basically get to cycle through the ride over and over again for an hour or two. As if that's not incentive enough, we also get a free comp ticket to be used at any of the parks in Disney World! Of course, I have free access to the parks, meaning the ticket is pretty much useless to me. So if any of you are interested in a bit of brown-nosing, now would be the time to start.

We got to ride Everest four times in a row (twice with the lights on), and then went and rode Dinosaur once as well before we left. It was a fun evening, and we weren't out quite so late as for the Splash testing since DAK always closes about five hours earlier than Magic Kingdom. That was good, since the next day was of course another ten-hour work day for me.

So yeah! Things are getting close to wrapping up around here. It's ridiculous how fast the past six months have gone by, but that's all the more reason to cherish this final month. One thing's for sure:  the four of us roommates will be spending as much time as we can in the parks. In fact, I'm about to head out to Magic Kingdom with Francisco and another intern to go visit as many characters as we possibly can! I need signatures!!

This Post NOT Brought to You By Banana Boat

Fantastic FOLK

Two weeks ago something very significant happened in the lives of every WDW CP and PI. FOLK returned to DAK.

If the acronyms seem a bit bothersome or arrogantly clandestine to you, welcome to the club. Working at Disney has introduced me to more acronyms than I can possibly list... Which is why there's a special website for new hires to reference that does just that. I still don't know what most of them stand for around here; but cast members use the acronyms enough that I doubt most people know or care what they actually stand for.

Anyway, FOLK - Festival of the Lion King - has been down since I arrived in January because its theater has been destroyed and moved to a new location in order to make room for the up-and-coming Avatar Land in Disney's Animal Kingdom. It's a thirty-minute show that includes singers, dancers, gymnasts, and fire dancers, and it pretty much just celebrates the fantastic music from the movie. It's also Jongui's favorite show at Walt Disney World, and he'd been dying to take Rug and I since we'd never seen it before. Go figure he was the only one of our motley crew absent from the show when we saw it two weeks ago!

We went to the show in the early afternoon on Sunday, but Jongui couldn't meet up with us like we'd planned. Apparently he'd agreed to see it with some of his Imagineering buddies later in the day (he transferred from D&E to WDI for the summer portion of his internship and now has a new circle of friends), and didn't want to bail on them. The kid needs to sort out his priorities on which friends he bails on!

Despite Jongui's absence, the show was fantastic. It had great music, as we expected, and certainly lived up to Disney's incredible entertainment standards. Afterward we went over to Expedition Everest for a couple of rides, caught the It's Tough to be a Bug show, and finished off with Dinosaur.

That afternoon, Rug caught me drooling over a Facebook advertisement for Coldstone and decided it sounded good to him too, so the three of us drove out to the nearest one after we finished at DAK. I'd been craving it all week, and it really hit the spot. First, though, we grabbed dinner at Chipotle, where Rug taught me that if you order a bowl instead of a burrito and then ask for some free tortillas on the side, you get more food than just a typical burrito - but for the same price. That, of course, was just what I needed. A bit more grease and salt before I went and stuffed my face full of sugar and saturated dairy fat. It was worth the unhealthiness though, especially because the ice cream I ordered (Cake Batter Batter Batter) was dedicated to Hannah, whose love of unbaked desserts surpasses even that of my own!

We finished the evening with a showing of Maleficent at Downtown Disney. Quite a good movie, if you haven't seen it yet. A great spin on the typical hero-villain archetype that pervades most Disneyfied fairytales. Great music, too.

No More PT

There I go with the acronyms again. It just saves so much time not having to type out "physical therapy," ya know?

But yes, I am done with physical therapy for my knees, which have both, if you haven't read my blog consistently enough to know, been plagued by patellar tendinitis:  inflammation of the tendon that connects my knee cap (patella) to my shin (tibia). I'd spent the past seven weeks going to PT twice a week, and it helped substantially. My right knee still isn't completely better, but the doctor and therapists agreed that I could take it from here on my own now. Just gotta keep stretching it and doing exercises consistently.

It was actually a bit bittersweet during my last session of PT. The two therapists that work with me there are really fun people, and I'd legitimately enjoyed spending an hour chatting with them every Tuesday and Thursday evening. They told lots of great stories of past patients; they also furtively included stories of patients coming to visit them with cookies, months or even years after their therapy had ended.

Actually, before they told me the stories, I'd already planned on surprising them with cookies later in the summer before I left Orlando! Guess it won't be quite as surprising as I'd intended, but it should still be kinda fun. Besides, I have a lot of baking flour left from making my birthday cake back in January that I need to use up before I leave.

Hannah and Mrs. Pottscotts Pay a Visit

As fun as FOLK was, and as satisfying as completing PT was, the true highlight of the past two weeks was last weekend when Hannah and her mom came for a long weekend at Disney World. It had been a record-setting 45 days since I'd last seen Hannah, so it was a particularly joyful weekend with the both of them here.

They arrived Friday evening at two different times. Mrs. Pottscotts lived up to her family's legendary knack for getting bumped and received a good chunk of change for agreeing to switch flights last minute and arrive two hours later. It worked out well for Hannah and I too, though, because it gave us the chance to head to McDonalds for what has apparently become our traditional welcome dinner when she comes to visit. Just like back in February, the first thing we did when she got here was head to Mickey-D's right down the street.

Day 1

On Saturday, we started the day at Magic Kingdom. Our intent was to get there right as the park opened so we could get to the new Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride before the line grew too large, but despite the fact that we got to the ride just fifteen minutes after park-open, the wait was already 90 minutes long. We didn't feel like waiting quite that long, so instead we went and did Buzz Lightyear, two runs of Space Mountain, and Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor in just over an hour. Certainly an efficient start to our day!

We made our way through Fantasyland and off to Frontier Land by early afternoon, doing everything from Enchanted Tales with Belle and Philharmagic to Splash and Big Thunder. Much to the enjoyment of Mrs. Pottscotts, we also stopped for some Pineapple Dole Whip in Adventureland. According to her Facebook post, that "made her day." Apparently being with her daughter and daughter's boyfriend - who provided free access to the parks all weekend, I might add - at the Happiest Place on Earth hadn't already made her day. But hey. I'm not bitter or anything.

It was too rainy for the Festival of Fantasy parade, so after we finished the Dole Whip we took the monorail out to Epcot for a couple more attractions. We went straight to Soarin', and after that, we did this really neat boat ride that took us through an enormous greenhouse full of vegetables and herbs that were planted and grown using innovative solutions to sustainability. It was another one of those "discovered new magic at Disney" moments. Very cool.

We finished the day at Downtown Disney with a Cirque du Soleil show:  La Nouba. It was absolutely incredible! Very funny, very intriguing, and ludicrously impressive. I don't know how those people discover their strange talents, but I hope they're paid well for showcasing them. Some of those talents are also quite dangerous.

Day 2

We spent the entire next day at Hollywood Studios, covering every attraction we wanted to get to except for an animation class. We did Tower of Terror I think three times, Rockin' Rollercoaster once, and Toy Story Midway Mania twice, along with several shows and the Backlot Tour.

Hannah's brother Leggstirdy was kind enough to send us a link to some of the secrets for the Toy Story ride, and Hannah and I made good use of them. As you may recall, I vowed to reach 300,000 points on the ride before the end of my internship, though before last weekend, my current high was a mere 194k. With the help of Leggstirdy's links and Hannah's teamwork, both of us broke 200k that day, and I even got up to about 228k. Tough to say whether I'll break that score before my internship ends, though, as Hannah's help was definitely the key to my success that day.

Wait, what am I saying? That's the wrong attitude. Back to the gym for wrist curls!

The day at Studios ended with a delicious dinner at Mama Melrose's Ristorante Italiano. We had to trudge through sheets of rain to get there, but it was well worth it! Oh yeah, did I mention that it was a particularly rainy weekend? Well, it was. It was the type of weekend that would have typical Arizonans dancing on cloud nine outside while rain poured and thunder roared. Yes, we do that. Rainy days are days to celebrate in the Valley of the Sun. In Florida, though, it's just another typical summer afternoon.

Thankfully on Friday night we made a trip to Walmart to buy some cheap, matching Disney shirts as well as 87-cent ponchos, so we were well prepared for all the rain. Mrs. Pottscotts in particular got her money's worth, as she dawned her poncho as soon as the first drop of a light drizzle hit her skin. She also wore it on Splash, which is basically the ultimate Disney sin... But I won't judge.

Day 3

On our last day together, Mrs. Pottscotts was kind enough to let Hannah and I spend the entire day together. We decided to spend the afternoon at New Smyrna Beach.

Thankfully this was the one day of the weekend it didn't rain. Instead, it was a warm, sunny day at the surprisingly uncrowded beach. And the water temperature was perfect! We spent all afternoon there, relaxing in the sand and playing in the ocean. We even made a sandcastle, though you certainly wouldn't have recognized it as such. Let's just say it was a very post-modern piece, the appreciation of which required a very good understanding of abstract art. I only wish I had my phone on me for a picture!

We didn't walk away from our fun afternoon unscathed, however. In stark contrast to the two previous rainy days, this one left us with awful sunburns on our back and shoulders. We were only out there for about three hours, and we applied sunscreen twice, so I was quite surprised at the severity of our burns. We used two different types of sunscreen:  Coppertone on our faces and Banana Boat everywhere else. Seeing as our faces were pretty much fine, I'm gonna have to blame the the brand on this one. And the same thing had happened to me and Rug a couple weeks before when we were at the water parks!

Still, it was a wonderful day together. We ended the evening with dinner at Kona Cafe inside Disney's Polynesian Resort, then made a trip to the Contemporary to buy a couple bracelets Mrs. Pottscotts had found earlier that day when she explored the deluxe resorts on the monorail loop. She wanted me to use my 20% discount, which I was of course more than happy to do. And while we were there, we picked her up a Mickey-shaped macaroon!

Seeya Real Soon!

Disney likes to use that phrase when their guests leave the parks and resorts; you'll even find it on a large sign on World Drive near the outskirts of Disney property. Thankfully, this time it also applies to saying goodbye to Hannah. Though it was still a difficult goodbye, as it always is, it was mitigated by our knowledge that we'd see each other again in just a couple weeks. I'm flying home for Fourth of July weekend to celebrate my mom's birthday, and I couldn't be more excited to visit Arizona for the first time in almost four months!

Francisco's Birthday

Thankfully fun times with fellow interns would offset a bit of the sadness in saying goodbye to Hannah and her mom. As luck would have it, the very next day was Francisco's twenty-none-of-your-business-th birthday! We celebrated by getting a dozen of his closest intern friends together for an evening at the Magic Kingdom.

Though Francisco was the birthday boy, it was a pretty magical evening for all of us. He had bought a bunch of party-wear at Party City over the weekend, so we all put on Mickey-themed party hats and paraded around the park with a giant "Happy Birthday" banner. Our first stop was Space Mountain, where we encountered a custodial cast member who greeted Francisco with a jovial "Happy birthday!" - as all cast members do for guests' birthdays - and then proceeded to guess his age in hilarious fashion.

He went through this extravagant act of pretending his broom was capable of guessing guests' ages by asking them three questions. (Since Francisco didn't speak Broom, the broom spoke into the cast member's ear, who then translated the questions to Francisco.) The questions were:  (1) What TV show did you watch as soon as you got home from school as a little kid? (2) What is your favorite Lady Gaga song? and (3) ... Well I forgot the third question, but it was equally irrelevant as the first two. Seems like a pretty silly gag, but the crazy thing is, he got it right! He guessed - er, the broom guessed - Francisco's age correctly, and we still have no idea how he did it! And to top it all off, the cast member's name was Walt. How perfect is that?

After riding Space Mountain and going to Philharmagic, we trooped over to Splash, where we dressed up with glow sticks, fake mustaches, and even more party hats to prepare to take an epic Splash Mountain picture. Perry got a mustache too, as you can see. Unfortunately, right as we finished getting ready, the ride went down! Not knowing whether it would come back up again any time soon, we went instead to Storybook Circus to meet Francisco's favorite Disney character:  Donald.

As it turned out, the seemingly un-magical problem of Splash shutting down was most fortuitous. That meeting with Donald was probably the best character greeting I'd ever witnessed. I can't really explain what it was about him, but he was just hilariously energetic and over-the-top. He even had Francisco put his fake mustache on the tip of his bill for the pictures. Then, as we were leaving, a manager and a few other cast members offered to sing Happy Birthday backwards to Francisco! Of course we stopped to see if they could. And they did. They jumped up in the air and spun around 180 degrees, one at a time, and then sang Happy Birthday.

Even after over five months here, Disney never ceases to impress me with magical moments. It was a ton of fun, and a perfect way to end the evening even though we didn't get a picture on Splash. In fact, don't tell Francisco, but we've got something planned at Studios for later this week to make up for the lack of the Splash picture! Think epic Splash Mountain picture plus twice as many people plus 13 stories in the air. You guessed it:  Tower of Terror!

... This had better not be the one week he decides to read my blog.