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!!