Puerto Ricans, Paintings, and Platypi

Made in Puerto Rico

A few hours after I put up my last post a couple weeks ago, I realized that I forgot to mention a really fun experience I had with Jongui and Francisco back in late April. As I'm sure I mentioned at some point in this blog, Jongui is from Puerto Rico; he did the Disney College Program last spring, and now he's doing a PI, but apart from that he's spent his whole life in Puerto Rico. Maybe he was getting a bit homesick, but for whatever reason, he offered to take Francisco and I to dinner at a restaurant called "Made in Puerto Rico."

This place is just one of a chain of restaurants, most of which are based in - go figure - Puerto Rico. Hence, it's got bona fide Puerto Rican food and an authentic Puerto Rican atmosphere. And when I say authentic, I mean loud. Very, very loud.

There was a band composed of primarily percussion-type instruments, playing what Jongui tells me are very well known Puerto Rican songs. Throughout the night, guests (who were overwhelmingly Puerto Rican - pretty sure I was the only white guy in the place) would get up and dance and sing along to the songs up by the band. It was like a club or something in that you had to shout to be heard by the guy sitting across the table from you, except instead of dub-step, you were competing against the hoots and hollers of Puerto Rican folk songs.

That's not to say that I didn't enjoy the night. On the contrary, I thought it was really neat the way it seemed like such a celebratory atmosphere. The walls were all painted with murals, Christmas lights were strung across the ceiling, and a straw overhang topped off the bar, giving it the impression of a local cantina. I asked, and Jongui told me that this restaurant accurately reflected the essence of the Puerto Rican culture: light-hearted, joyful, and of course, a bit raucous.

And the food was delicious, too! I'd already eaten a bit of dinner before we left, so all I had was an appetizer similar to mozzarella sticks, but we also ordered an appetizer of other Puerto Rican snacks that had everything from sausage to plantains. Overall, it was just a neat experience, and I was happy to have glimpsed a bit of the culture Jongui comes from.

Oh yeah, and they had some pretty funny things painted on the walls in the bathroom. My favorite was, "El futuro de Puerto Rico está en sus manos." I only needed two years of Spanish in high school to translate the joke: "The future of Puerto Rico is in your hands." It was painted directly over a urinal.

A Dog Chases a Fly

Remember Hannah's niece, Dayl? Bet you didn't know she was a talented artist.

Two weeks ago, on Mother's Day, I walked down to the Falcon Square clubhouse and picked up my mail. In it was a package from Reeses and Búbble, filled with Reese's (the candy, not Dayl's mom), Snickers, and sweetest of all, a painting that Dayl made for me. It was of a dog chasing a fly, though clearly Dayl's true artistic intent was a comment on society's fickle yet desperate obsession with the mundane. Quite a deep work of art for a three-year-old girl. The local art museum has yet to contact me about procuring it, but I'm prepared to turn down their inevitable multi-million-dollar offers to keep it for myself.

After putting it up on the cork board above my bed, I received a FaceTime from that same adorable little artist. She asked if I liked her painting, I showed her how I hung it up over my bed, and we chatted a bit more about preschool, church, dolls, and the other preoccupations of a toddler's busy life. It made my week.

Then, that next Friday, I went to the mailbox again and found an good-sized package waiting for me. It was a care package from Hannah containing various living essentials, a very nice note, and a whoooole lot of candy. Maybe learning that Reeses had sent me candy the previous week sparked a bit of competition in her. I think it's safe to say you won, Hannah, by about twelve pounds. Though I wouldn't object to a few more weeks of this competition - I'm definitely on the winning side of this thing. If any of you think you can beat what Hannah sent me, I have two words for you:  Prove it.

Later that same evening, Jongui and I started a marathon of ABC's series Once Upon a Time. It's a really intriguing plot, full of deep, multi-sided characters and great plot twists; and it's all basically a spin on the classic fairy tales we thought we knew, melding their worlds together in very complex and unexpected ways. We got through most of Season 1 last weekend, and though Jongui's in Puerto Rico this weekend, I have no doubt we'll be done with the second season by the end of next week. Anyway, I've been munching on all the candy steadily throughout our marathons, and I'm already almost halfway done. If you notice a couple extra chins in some of this post's pictures, you now have your explanation.

Sorry, Animal Kingdom

Over the past couple weeks, my friends and I have been making pretty consistent rounds of all the Disney World parks... All except Animal Kingdom. Sorry, DAK, we'll be back for you soon!

Last Friday was Epcot. Francisco and Jongui and I went and met some of Francisco's friends from his previous internship in World Showcase, but not before a quick ride through at Test Track! It still shocks me how easily Francisco seems to produce fast passes for all the best rides in Disney World, and he still won't tell us anything more than, "I know people." It probably helps that he worked on Test Track with Engineering Services on a regular basis last fall... But that still doesn't explain the other parks' attractions. I think there's some underground, possibly illegal operations going on here.

After we met up with the other interns, we went to dinner in China and watched IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth, from Germany. One of the interns we met is actually a full-time employee who works with all the lighting and pyrotechnics for the shows in Disney World. It was pretty interesting listening to his explanations of all the sweet special effects Disney uses! After the fireworks show, we headed to Buffalo Wild Wings to satisfy our cravings for chicken wings. Actually, everyone else just wanted beer, but I felt like wings, and thankfully Bdubs has both!

The next day the plan was to meet Francisco and our friend Lingo at Magic Kingdom to ride the Mine Train ride a few times. They're officially in a soft-open period, and last weekend they gave all MK cast members the opportunity to ride it all we wanted! Francisco and Lingo had to drop a mutual friend off at the airport first, though, so I told them I'd just meet them there around two in the afternoon.

Well, I got there around two o'clock, and after about fifteen minutes, I gave Francisco a call to see how close they were. He informed me that they'd decided to go to Studios instead for Star Wars weekend, and they had just now parked there.

Thanks for the heads up, Francisco.

So, since I was already in the park and didn't feel like leaving only to drive to a different park for a couple hours, I decided to make the most of my afternoon there. I went and rode Mine Train a few times by myself, and made friends with a girl in front of me in line who was also riding it by herself, so neither of us felt entirely lonely!

After that, I realized it was almost 3 pm, which was the time for the daily Festival of Fantasy parade that I'd still never gotten around to seeing. It debuted almost two months ago, but I'd only ever seen it launch from backstage, as Sustaining helped out with the logistics of it all. So I found a spot on Main Street and watched the parade roll by. About half way through it, I noticed a familiar face behind a flamboyant coral-themed costume and thick makeup:  it was Libra!

If you don't remember, Libra was the marching band friend I had back in high school who graduated the year before me, who I met unexpectedly back in January through our mutual friend, Atom. She saw me and I saw her and though I got probably a bit overexcited, she did a nice job staying in character as she led the Ariel float down the street. As luck would have it, we ran into each other accidentally down in the tunnels after the parade, as I was leaving the park. We hadn't seen each other in over a month, so it was nice to catch up with her after seeing her perform in her dream job as a Disney character/performer. All in all, a nice afternoon despite its bitter beginning.

Then, last a couple days ago, Rug, Francisco, Lingo, and I met some other intern friends at Studios for another fun evening in the parks. We did Star Tours, Tower of Terror, an animation class, Toy Story, and Fantasmic. Though I didn't come even close to my best score on Toy Story, one of the interns divulged quite a few helpful secrets that I'm sure will come in handy next time I'm on the ride. Hannah's brother Búbble tells me he's broken 300k before, and I know he'll give me hell if I leave my internship having never broken his record... So for the next two months, I will not sleep; I will not eat; I have one goal and one goal only:  earn 300,000 points on Toy Story Midway Mania at Hollywood Studios.

If you're wondering about Perry, you were not the only one. I asked Francisco about it on our ride over there, and his answer was that he felt bad letting Perry roll all over the place in the backseat as he drove around town. So the obvious solution was to buckle him in. All I'm gonna say is, I hope Francisco takes as good care of his future children as he does his stuffed platypus.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go do some forearm stretches, dawn a sailor hat, and eat a big bowl of spinach. I figure developing forearms like Pop-Eye's should give me a better shot at that goal.

Half Way Done! (Plus a Little More)

Go Ahead - Call Me Dopey

As promised, I have returned from my seven-day hiatus to reclaim the throne as the single author of this blog. Hannah did a nice job covering for me last week... Maybe I'll appoint her heir to the throne, should my reign be cut short by an assassination, bombing, or other pernicious circumstances.

I've officially passed the half-way point of my internship; in fact, that day was a solid two weeks ago, leaving me with only three months left here in Orlando. The past four months have just flown by! In fact, had I not accepted the summer extension, tonight would be my last night here in Disney World. But as Hannah mentioned last week, it just wouldn't feel right for me to be coming home already. I feel like I'm really thriving in my internship now; I'm accomplishing quite a lot, and my experiences continue to strengthen my foundation in the engineering industry.

Most importantly, though, my ID now has my picture on it. The one I got back when I started in January lacked a photo (as all interns' IDs do for their first semester, I'm told), and was set to expire on May 10th. Since I'm extending, I had to go get a new ID this past week, and they had me stand against a pale gray wall and stare happily back into the vapid lens of a cheap camera while they lethargically clicked a button on their computer screen. It was so exciting!

As you can see, it no longer has an expiration date. I wish that meant I had permanent backstage access to Walt Disney World, but Rawlings tells me it's his responsibility to collect my ID at the end of my internship. And if he forgets, I get charged money for it. But, you know, no hard feelings.

In other news, I've released another set of drawings for a tool to be used by the Operations team at Big Thunder Mountain. It's an extremely simple tool, but what was great was that I modeled the tool and created the drawings in just one day; and Rawlings approved them the very next day with no edits needed. That means I made a lot of improvements from the last set of drawings, which took several weeks of editing/revising before they were ready to be produced. So I'm learning! And of course, my name is permanently embedded on three more Disney drawings. Feels pretty good.

Also, Disney announced last Friday that the brand new Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride will officially open to the public on Wednesday, May 28th! So come on out here to ride it, and maybe stop by to see me, too. It's a very fun ride.

What's that? Oh, yes, I do have an opinion of the ride already - because I got to ride it three times last Friday with Rawlings and a few other engineering interns! I was likely one of the first couple hundred people to ride it thanks to the fact that I'm an engineer at the Magic Kingdom. And in the scheme of the millions of people that will come to ride that attraction, being one of the first couple hundred makes me feel very privileged.

I can't post pictures of it all, but it really is a great ride. The special effects and animatronics are all state-of-the-art, meaning this attraction has some of the best show elements of any Disney attraction in Orlando. And who doesn't love the Seven Dwarfs?

Which reminds me, just earlier this afternoon, seven of us engineers (or six, plus an intern) had to head out to Mine Train to get a rundown of some last-minute changes they're making to the ride vehicles. We were walking through the park in single file, and I noted that we resembled the Seven Dwarfs themselves, heading off to work in the mine. So of course, Rawlings began to assign us each one of the Seven Dwarfs' names, and I, being the intern, was stuck with Dopey. Everyone knows Snow White liked Dopey the most, though, so really it's a privilege to own that name!

Physical Therapy

For the past two-and-a-half weeks, I've been going to hour-long sessions of physical therapy, twice a week. At forty bucks a visit, you'd be hoping it's well worth the time, and I'm happy to say I think it is! Every time I finish a session, my knees feel more stable and less tender. In fact, last week I did squats for the first time since December, and I had no pain whatsoever. Granted it was just my body weight, but it's a substantial improvement over where I was just a few weeks ago. Hopefully that means I'll be all better in just another month or so!

And honestly, I enjoy going to physical therapy. All the therapists there are very friendly and fun to talk to; we get along well, and they're very knowledgable, so I've been learning a lot about my injury and the physical therapy profession in general. Hannah, I think you're gonna enjoy physical therapy if you continue to pursue it as a career!

Starlit Splash

I'll be honest: thus far in my internship, most of the intern events Disney has hosted haven't been very spectacular. But last Wednesday, in celebration of the end of many interns' spring programs, they hosted a beach party at Disney's Typhoon Lagoon water park!

It was a heck of a party. There were hundreds of interns, as the event was for not just the PIs but also the CPs. A DJ on the beach played great music that could be heard around the park, and though not all of the rides were open, several of the water slides and the wave pool were, meaning there was plenty of fun to be had beyond the dancing on the beach. They also had delicious free food, including pulled pork, sloppy joes, chicken nuggets, and an assortment of ice cream, including my personal favorite: Mickey bars! They even set off fireworks from the DJ's stage at the end of the night!

Francisco couldn't make it, but Rug and Jongui and I all had a great time. And to top it all off, we got free t-shirts. And eye-patches. (I had to make my own hook though, as you can see.) A thoroughly awesome event! I hope there's another one like it at the end of the summer.

Actually, I hope there's more stuff like that consistently throughout the summer. It's gonna be tough seeing all the things my Arizona friends are doing while I work 40 hours a week off in Florida. I need some material of my own to gloat about on Facebook!

Because engineering the magic and riding Disney's newest attraction weeks before it's open to the public simply isn't enough ;)

Be My Guest

A few weeks ago, Choppie suggested I use a guest writer for one of my blog posts, just to switch things up a bit. Well the opportunity presented itself last weekend after my family and Hannah visited from Arizona. Normally the only people to share experiences with me here in Orlando are my roommates, but I would never let them write a post for me (though they beg me to allow them almost every week, of course). About the only two people I would trust with that massive responsibility are Hannah and my brother. Maybe I'll get my brother to write a post later this summer, but for now, what follows in this post is Hannah's story of our weekend together. Enjoy!

But don't get too comfortable. I'll be back next week.

Mmmm... Spicy!

Would you be my guest? Well, I answered yes to that question this week when Jeremiah asked me to be his guest writer. I am Hannah, Jeremiah’s girlfriend, the one in the pictures at the top of this blog, the only one without a code name, and the guest writer for this week’s edition. Some of you may be thinking, “Oh, great… Jeremiah is such a great writer, why is he letting someone else do they writing??” Well, he decided he wanted to spice things up a little bit this week, and I am the lucky one to bring the spice!

Before I get started I want to warn you that most of this week will focus on one weekend; Jeremiah will have to fill you in on his past few workweeks in his next post.

Last weekend was a very exciting weekend! It started out at a very early 4:30 in the morning last Friday (4/25). But knowing that by the end of the day we would see Jeremiah made it much better. I went over to the Dwight’s house on Thursday night so I wouldn’t have to wake up quite so early and that would it would just be more convenient all around. Jeremiah’s parents (Whom I don’t think have been named yet! Therefore I will name them and Jeremiah’s brother), Orbital and Coach were so kind and generous and purchased this flight for me for my birthday! It worked out perfectly that they were planning on going to Florida in April so we all went together. Before we left Arizona we had checked our bags and arranged with Disney transportation to get our bags and deliver them right to our room. So once we checked them in Phoenix we didn’t even touch them until later that night when they were in our hotel room in Orlando!

I couldn’t stop smiling once we landed in Orlando because I was about to see Jeremiah and we were about to have a great weekend in Disneyworld! Disney’s Magical Express took us right from the airport and dropped us off at the Art of Animation Resort. This is a new resort that features some of the great Disney cartoons. When you first walk into the lobby there is a whole wall of sketches of Disney cartoons. There is even an artist in a sitting area drawing out some cartoons, and you can draw along with him!

We stayed in the Cozy Cone Hotel of the Cars area! As you would probably expect, all of the classic Cars characters were featured and our particular building was decked out with cones. Very fun, and a few pictures from our suite are posted below. Even though it was a suite, because Jeremiah and his brother, Choco, are so big they each had to have their own bed so I got a makeshift bed made out of couch cushions! 

So once we got to this hotel room, we had still not seen Jeremiah! He thought we were supposed to arrive an hour later than we actually did so he was caught off guard when I texted him that we had arrived. It felt like forever, but he finally got there and I was waiting right outside the elevator for him! I was so happy to see him again! Each time I see him again it still feels almost unreal, but it becomes normal after about one minute! He was very excited to see his family too of course! So we all did some catching up and then we headed off to Downtown Disney! If you stay in a Disney resort they have buses that will conveniently take you to any other Disney property. So we hopped on the bus and arrived a short time later at Downtown Disney. Jeremiah had made a reservation for us at the Rainforest Café, and man was it a good thing he did! The wait time for everyone else was three hours! Even with the reservation we had to wait around for about thirty minutes after our scheduled reservation time. Turns out the Rainforest Café is very loud, but we all had delicious meals. 

So as you may have come to realize by reading this blog that the Dwights do it big with dessert. And when I say big, I mean BIG… (Insert from Jeremiah:  HECK YEAH!) Especially on a Disney vacation. It’s awesome. They are always very proud of me when I finish my dessert. So we went to the Ghirardelli ice cream shop after dinner and all got our own, quite large desserts. We also walked around some of the shops around Downtown Disney. Overall a very nice night and so great to be all together again!

At the Parks

Day 1 of Disney parks! It’s not a complete Disney vacation if you don’t wear something Disney related. And we did it right this time. About a month ago all of the Dwights and I designed an Incredibles themed shirt. We chose a character and some sort of funny slogan or quote on it. It was very fun and we got quite a few comments on them! Hopefully you can make out the sayings on some of our shirts in the picture. 

We started off the day at the Magic Kingdom with all of the classics- Jungle Cruise, Splash Mountain, Space Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, and even made time to watch Mickey’s Philharmagic show! The Magic Kingdom is one of the busiest parks because it is considered one of the most classic of the Disney parks. Subsequently, we had some very long lines to wait in. But one of my favorite parts of Disney trips are these long lines because we do this sort of “Question Game.” Coach has a book full of questions that we’ll ask each other and discuss while we’re in line. They can be anything from “If you were a food, what food would you be?” to “What is the hardest thing you’ve ever had to do in your life?” It’s really great because we get to know new things about each other with every question. So next time you are waiting in a long line, you will know what to do!

After we wrapped up in the Magic Kingdom, we took a Disney bus to EPCOT. In case you didn’t know, an interesting fact is that EPCOT stands for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. It really is a very unique and interesting park. We went on Mission: SPACE, Test Track, tasted Cokes from around the world, and wandered around the World Showcase. We ate at a very authentic Italian restaurant for dinner, so authentic that our waiter was even from Italy! Once again, a delicious meal, and had dessert at a Werthers shop in Germany. Caramel everywhere! I had this delicious rice krispy treat covered in chocolate and caramel! Yummm.. I only actually had a tiny bit of it that night because I was so full, but Choco helped me finish it up the next day. He keeps telling me to eat my own food, they’re all trying to expand my stomach. Maybe some day I’ll be able to eat a Dwight size piece of cake (Jeremiah, again:  HECK YEAH!), but I’m not seeing that happening anytime in the near future. At the end of the night Jeremiah gave Choco an early birthday present. It was another hand-designed shirt. This one was probably the best of them all. Choco plays trumpet, so it was a shirt with Gaston from Beauty and the Beast on it looking very puffed up and cocky as usual and it said “Why yes, yes I do play the trumpet!” Very funny and perfect for Choco!

Day 2 we decided to drive ourselves around because we were travelling to one of Disney’s more secluded resorts, the Fort Wilderness Lodge where we took a walk on a very nice quiet path out to Trail’s End Restaurant. Jeremiah has described this restaurant in an earlier post and he loved it so much the first time that he decided to treat us all to the brunch buffet! It lived up to expectations, everything was… you guessed it, delicious! After we rolled ourselves out of the restaurant, we drove to the Animal Kingdom! Another unique park, it’s almost half zoo. We saw many animals on the Kilimanjaro safari, explored Mount Everest on Expedition Everest (a personal favorite), rode Dinosaur, Kali River Rapids, and saw the Bugs Life Show! Then it was off to Hollywood Studios to round out the visits to the parks! I have officially decided that this is my favorite park. It has my ultimate favorite ride- the Tower of Terror. I absolutely love this ride. Jeremiah and I are the only two that like it, so we ride it by ourselves. We got on twice this trip! The other three are really missing out. This picture is not from this trip, but it’s one of my favorites of Jeremiah and me on this ride. Whenever a ride takes a picture we try to come up with some funny or creative pose for the picture. Once Jeremiah even asked me to Homecoming during the picture on Splash Mountain! That afternoon we also got on Toy Story Mania, Star Tours, and Rock’n’Roller Coaster. We had dinner at the Brown Derby restaurant. I need to come up with another word besides delicious, it was… delectable! We ended the night off with dessert at a small Ice Cream Parlor and watched Fantasmic. A perfect, fun way to finish off our time in the Disney parks!

The following picture is from last weekend, though. Kilimanjaro Safaris, to be precise.

Hakuna Matata

I tried to keep this “Hakuna Matata” attitude Monday morning, but unfortunately, I was about to leave the magic of Disney and Jeremiah behind and head back home to two papers and six tests! It was difficult, and very sad as usual. Jeremiah reminded me that if he had not extended his internship through the summer then he would be coming home in twelve days. While it seems great, we both agreed it wouldn’t have been right. He is accomplishing so much and is just in the middle of great projects that he wouldn’t have seen finished! It would have been incomplete, and I know that I would not want him to leave that experience behind. So while it hurts every time we say goodbye, I am so proud of all that he is doing in Orlando and know that this experience is great for both of us.

I had an absolutely awesome weekend in Orlando with Jeremiah, Orbital, Coach, and Choco. I am so grateful that the Dwights have adopted me into their family. They make me feel completely welcome and I love them like my own family. Standing in lines in the heat isn’t so bad when it is in good company.

This is probably the only time that I will get to write on this blog so I would like to say what I’m pretty sure everyone is thinking! Jeremiah is doing such an amazing job with this blog! I knew he was a great writer already, but he has gone far beyond expectations on this blog! I find myself laughing out loud many times and smiling the whole time. So thank you, Jeremiah, for your bi-weekly entertainment. I am realizing how long these posts take to write! Also, I am so so proud of all that you are doing! You truly amaze me!

Sorry it took so long to get this post up, but finals are coming up this week, so that means very little time! I hope you enjoyed the change in pace this week!

- Hannah