Did you know? I'm a sleep prodigy!

Rough Start

Unfortunately last week kicked off to a bad start on Monday. Francisco called me at work in the afternoon and informed me that Rug's car had been stolen! Shortly after I left that morning, Rug went out to the parking lot and found only broken glass where his car should have been.

Had it been a '98 Toyota Camry with scratches on the passenger-side door, such as mine, this event have been considered a blessing. (Actually, I love my car: it has only 60,000 miles on it and still picks up ladies - just ask Hannah.) But unfortunately, Rug put a lot of time and money into his souped-up Subaru. It was a pretty sporty car, bright blue with a spoiler and everything... Which is probably why it attracted the thief.

Rug spent all day Monday out with friends searching for his car, but to no avail; the police couldn't find it either. He did stop in an auto shop where he learned that there was a local thief apparently notorious for stealing this type of car and selling its parts, but this only saddened him more. It meant that, if Rug ever did find the car, it would likely only be the shell of the car it once was. But that didn't stop him from searching all day and all night for his baby! A true romantic tragedy.

... Love. It's what makes a Subaru, a Subaru.

Well this rather worried the rest of us, since the security in the neighborhood clearly wasn't tight enough to prevent the abduction of Rug's car. But then I remembered that I equipped my car with a state-of-the-art camouflage system that makes it appear old and shoddy, so I could rest peacefully knowing no thief would want to sell my secretly sexy set of wheels.

Also, Francisco and I bought Rug a light-up Mickey sorcerer hat to help him feel better, so even if he gets a low compensation from his insurance company, I'd say he came out on top of this one.

Moving on to Happier Things

Fortunately, the week picked up from there. On Wednesday I met a man I'd been in contact with for a couple of weeks, we'll call him Atom, at the ESPN Wide World of Sports. He's in a walking league, so I joined him for a couple miles around the complex.

It's kind of an interesting story how we began communicating. First of all, he went to the same junior high and high school as me (though graduated many years earlier). In addition, he did the Disney College Program back in the day, and now works full-time as a manager at the All-Star Sports Resort. He had such a passion for Disney, as a matter of fact, that he opened a Disney store with a friend of his back in the Phoenix area, though it eventually had to close. Well if I understood Atom correctly, the friend that he opened the store with knew my mom in some way, so my mom gave Atom my email for us to connect while I'm down in Orlando.

After a couple weeks of emailing, we finally met up, as I said, at the walking league. He was walking with a couple of friends of his, and one of them, I'll call her Libra, actually went to high school with me! She graduated a year ahead of me, and she was in the color guard in the marching band, which is how I knew her. We were both like, "What in the world are YOU doing here??" Turns out it was for similar reasons.

Libra finished college last semester and now works for a company that relocated her to the Orlando area. Being a big fan of both Disney and dance/performing (hence her involvement with marching band and The Academy Drum and Bugle Corps), she decided that while she was down here she'd go for a performing role with Disney; she had just auditioned the previous evening. And, go figure, she was staying with Atom until she finished relocating for her job! She was the last person I'd ever expected to see down here, but that made it an even funnier coincidence.

After we were done walking, Atom took Libra and I out to dinner at one of his favorite Mexican restaurants. It was delicious and a ton of fun talking to them both, getting to know Atom better and catching up with Libra.


On Sunday, Francisco and I went to Epcot. He wanted a pair of Ray Bans he'd spotted earlier, and I wanted something else that I will divulge in next week's blog...

While we were there, we went and met Belle in the France pavilion of World Showcase. Francisco and Rug both have a thing for Disney princesses, and they're looking to get every princess's signature by the end of our internships, so we started with Belle! We also creeped on Ana and Elsa in Norway from a distance, because the wait to meet them was literally two hours long. And of course, we did a few rides as well, then went to Studios in the evening where we ended the night with two runs of Tower of Terror followed by yet another Fantasmic show. Never gets old, and the music is wonderful!

FYI, Belle is my favorite princess because she reminds me of my pretty, brown-haired, intelligent, sweet, musical girlfriend... Who is, coincidentally, in love with a BEAST!

More Third Shifts!

Remember a week or two ago when I said I actually kinda liked third shifts? That I'd enjoy having one every two to three weeks? Well, that was with the understanding that they'd be once every two to three weeks.

Last Friday I had to get to work at 3 am to supervise some work being done on Splash Mountain. That work required a crane, and the crane that somebody ordered didn't fit, soooo we ended up just doing office work for eight hours - something we easily could have done during the normal day shift. That was a bit frustrating. But the nice thing was that I got off work before noon, giving me a slightly longer weekend! It's just that third shifts throw off my body's clock for a couple days, which can be a bit tiring when they happen several weeks in a row.

Now here we are, Tuesday evening, and a properly sized crane is scheduled to come in tonight. So of course, Rawlings and I will be there too, beginning at 2 am. Fortunately I won't be operating the crane, so my sleepiness won't likely kill anybody. Likely.

With that in mind, I'd better get to bed pretty soon. It's already 8 pm! Gasp! Francisco's been mocking me, calling me a grandpa for how early I go to bed. In my opinion, having to wake up before the sun rises is a reasonable justification for that, but I will admit that I require more sleep than the average 19-year-old boy. I guess I'm just prodigious when it comes to sleep habits. Let's see, I'm 19 years old and I sleep like a 70-year-old man... That puts my sleep IQ right around 368. So suck it, Francisco :)

It is a bit depressing, though, when every single alarm in my phone is set for a time prior to 6 am. I'll just have to push through three more days though, because Friday is Valentine's Day and Hannah's flying in for the weekend! Yay!