Ponderings and Musings

My cubicle at work is on the end of the row closest to the windows. As I was up to my elbows in PHP and MySQL programming today, totally focused on the two monitors in front of me, I noticed a little bit of commotion outside of my cubicle. My co-workers were lining up and looking out the windows at our visitors.

With this little visit from our friends in the woods and the ensuing conversation, I learned a little more about my co-workers. None of it was unpleasant.

The iPhone: a symbol of the modern age, the very depiction of leaps and bounds beyond the tricorder from the future, the epitome of all that is hip, cool and edgy. Right?

It has made me feel very foolish tonight. It butt dialed our friend Mark during dinner. He got to listen in to various rants about religion, sleeping habits and other family business during our dinner.

I didn’t think that a touchscreen phone would be able to butt dial but mine apparently does.

The iPhone. It’s just another phone that’s made me feel like an ass.

Earl treated Jamie and me to hour-long massage sessions today at the spa here at Saratoga Springs Resort and Spa. We are just getting back from the experience.

Per the instructions we were given when the reservations were made, we arrived 10 minutes before our appointment and checked in with a wispy, handsome man named Phil. He kept my Disney key card and escorted us to the changing facilities. Once robed and slippered in the exclusive locker room (there are two, one for the fitness folks, one for the spa folks, well actually there are four locker rooms since they’re not co-ed but as a guy there are two available to me), we were invited to wait in the spa lounge and await the arrival of our massage therapist. My massage therapist was a very talented woman by the name of Tenley. She called me John and escorted me to “treatment room #2”. She left the room as I disrobed and got under the top sheet. I never know whether to keep my underwear on or not because I have been in several, em, let’s call them situations, where when it comes massage where one wouldn’t keep their underwear on but I don’t ever know if that’s what EVERYONE does so I played it safe so I kept my underwear on as I got under the sheet. I have no inhibitions about nudity so I think I’m overly cautious about that sort of thing.

Tenley spent 50 minutes kneading and prodding and coaxing every bump in my muscles out to relaxed enchantment. She even coaxed the knot in my right shoulder out; the knot that has been there since the late 1990s.

The ambience was candlelit with serene music pumped in over the speakers; the oil was slick but not smelly. The 50 minutes flew by and I was feeling quite nice. Tenley left me to regain myself and met me outside with a glass of water. We were encouraged to enjoy the amenities in the exclusive spa locker room; Jamie and I headed down and spent some time in the steam room where we sweated out our impurities. Jamie then opted for the sauna but I skipped it because I always feel like I’m baking like a cake in a sauna (and I didn’t flour myself before jumping in and I was afraid I would stick) and I took a nice relaxing shower before getting myself ready for the day. There’s a certain amount of bonding going on in a locker room when you’re grooming yourself alongside others that are doing the same. It was an enjoyable experience. For those that are curious, it wasn’t titillating for me at all (those that worry about these sort of things in the military and such are just silly). I took my underwear off for the shower and the steam room and all that. I figured it was safe there.

All in all it was an amazing experience and I feel like my body has been given the attention that it deserves for carrying this old soul well. Yesterday was a vegetarian day for me (well, I had two chicken nuggets that I probably didn’t need); I need to concentrate on giving my body that proper attention more. I surely feel much better for doing it.

Today we went to Epcot. As you enter Epcot, you’ll notice walls and walls made of granite with metal plates attached. On these plates you’ll find thumbnail shots of various Disney visitors who chose to contribute to “Leave A Legacy”. I believe the program ran from Fall 1999 to June 2007.

Here’s a blurb about it:

The Leave A Legacy program, first launched at Epcot in Fall 1999, has been discontinued as of June 16, 2007. The current display of more than 550,000 tiles at the main entrance of Epcot will remain for the time being. The Leave A Legacy Locator station will be relocated to the Camera Center underneath Spaceship Earth. If you need to get information about your Leave A Legacy tile from home, contact the following email address: WDW.EC.legacy@disney.com

Introduced for the Millennium Celebration! Granite and steel sculptures are being covered with engraved images of Guests from all over the world. Here’s how it works: Photo Capture Stations will take your photo digitally. It will then be etched onto a steel tile. Within approximately four days, the tile will become part of the stone sculptures.Leave A Legacy The cost is $35 for one image per tile, $38 for two images per tile, plus tax.

There are computers at the site to show you where your tile is located. Certificates will also be mailed to you so you can come back on a future trip to see your Millennium image. Also within about 2 weeks, your image will be posted on the Internet at Disney’s Leaving a Legacy page.

“The Leave a Legacy plaza was designed by veteran Imagineer John Hench, along with a team of Walt Disney Imagineering interns. Hench started as an artist with The Walt Disney Company in 1939, and went on to help design and build Disneyland. He was the original art director for Epcot, and chief designer of Spaceship Earth. The megaliths range from 3 to 19 feet high, and the heaviest weighs more than 50,000 pounds.” (Disney’s Press Release)

Earl, Jamie and I took the opportunity to find our two photos, from 2000 and 2007, amongst the thousands that are displayed. Should you go to Epcot, here’s where you can find us:

2000: East-2-F-14-11-33
2007: West-6-H-31-10-28

I think it’s important to Leave-A-Legacy. So we are going to do this for a while. If you send or e-mail us a picture of you pointing to either one of our photos on the Leave-A-Legacy walls, we will donate $25.00 to your favorite charity.

Since the program was discontinued, Disney is no longer able to print our pictures out but I did snap a photo off the screen when the cast member was looking up our information. Look who had the red beard back in 2000!

Earl, Jamie and I have situated ourselves for the evening in the lovely town called Pine Grove, Pa. I don’t really know much about this place except that there is a nice Hampton Inn, we are close to an older McDonalds and we are at milepost 100 on Interstate 81 in Pennsylvania.

We are on our way to Florida for a week with our first night at the House of the Mouse being Sunday night.

This is how everyone should start a new job: work two weeks and then get a week off for vacation. My new company has been quite understanding about my existing plans. Speaking of which, the job is going along fabulously and I am LOVING it.

Earl has kindly done the driving tonight. I hopped in the backseat after dinner and promptly fell asleep; I woke up in Scranton, Pa. That’s quite the place to wake up.

Tomorrow we continue our trek south. I’ve heard that there may be wild weather between here and there. This could be quite exciting.

We picked up a carton of orange juice at the local convenience store. It’s your usual (in the states) half gallon sized orange juice and it comes in a waxed cardboard carton. We usually use the returnable glass bottles but we were lazy this time around. The carton has a plastic spout drilled into the side of it.

I am curious about this.

For decades there was a marking on one end of the carton that had two little circles and it said “press here to form spout”. The task was as simple as implied; push in the correct spot with your fingers and the cleverly folded waxed cardboard will pop out into a convenient spout that allows you to accurately pour into the vessel in which the liquid is going to be contained. (How’s that for fancy writing!)

I fail to understand why we have gone from this cardboard spout setup and have decided to include a piece of plastic in this formerly easily recycled container. Has the dumbing down of the American public resulted in the failure to comprehend the instructions of “press here to form spout”, complete with two little pictures? Were people trying to do this on the wrong side of the carton? Will some lack of plastic throw of the delicate chemistry involved in the unnatural preservatives contained within, thereby nullifying the impossibly long expiration period? Was the simplicity of the carton not sexy enough? I miss that simplicity.

I’m going to remember the glass bottles next time.

One of the things that I didn’t expect to happen so quickly with my change in work schedule is my becoming a morning person so quickly. Did you know that every morning the sun rises in the east like a big ball of, well, sunshine and bathes the landscape in glorious light bringing the, well, light of a new day to all that are fortunate enough to behold it?

Wow!

My commute involves driving east in the morning and west in the evening so I get to do this whole ‘bathed in light’ thing in both directions of the commute. When augmented with my lunch break I have to say that I feel quite nice.

I have never been a morning person. I think it’s because I have always subscribed to the fact and insisted that I was a night person. My friend Dave from old work says it’s all in your head and I never bought into that, but I think he may be on to something. I now get up each morning at 5:30. I used to get up at 7:00. Now, I set my alarm each morning for 5:30 in an effort to make sure I get to work on time. But here’s the thing. Starting on Wednesday, I awoke before the alarm. Yes, I woke up at 5:24. Now, I don’t know if there is a plane flying over at that time or if Tom is ramming around the house or if it’s my own circadian rhythm getting in sync with my desires but ’tis true, I am now waking up my own at 5:24.

It is Saturday as of this writing. I went to bed last night around midnight.

I woke up at 5:24 this morning. I tried to nap and I did for a little bit but I couldn’t sleep past 7:00. As a result of this two thoughts come to mind: I have either officially become a morning person or I am getting older. I have always equated getting up early with older people because that’s what they do.

Whatever the reason, I think it’s pretty nifty seeing the sunrise each morning.

So I’m sitting in the Jeep during my lunch hour. The forecast I caught on the way into work this morning said we’d be getting snow showers. It’s currently around 45 degrees and sunny. This sneak peek at spring has done much to accentuate an already brilliant day.

My body is slowly acclimating to the new schedule. I found it a little bit easier to get up at 5:30 a.m. than yesterday- though I went to bed relatively early last night. Let’s see how I do after Daylight Saving Time strikes in a few weeks.

The second day at the new job is going along well. I work in a busy group so I’m doing all I can to go at it on my own when others are busy. They hooked up my phone today and gave me some other doodads for the cubicle; the model phone I now have is the same that I had back when I enjoyed working at the other job except in black. Apparently I’m lucky to have a brand new phone. Everyone has been very nice and very helpful. I am already feeling comfortable with my coworkers. I think this will be a good gig.

I’m still working out my daily routine and trying to figure out when I’m going to blog and take care of household business and all that. Towards the end of my tenure at my last job I was in the habit of just shuttling back and forth between the office and house at lunch time, but my commute now longer allows that so now I’m finding other ways to amuse myself. While today is quite nice, I’m excited for when the weather breaks and I can drink in some sunshine during my lunch hour.

Technology allows us the opportunity to maintain with those that have become part of our past. I’m exchanging e-mails with my friends back at the old job and of course updating folks via Facebook and Twitter and all that. It’s good to use technology for these purposes. That’s what social networking is all about – reaching out. It’s like letting your fingers do the walking, but with pictures.

Speaking of which, I’m going to try to do a little bit of night photography tonight if the weather conditions permit. I’m really enjoying the new camera. It’s a good creative outlet.

Earl, Jamie and I have been in Buffalo for a good part of the weekend. We were here to see the Buffalo Bandits take on the Philadelphia Wings in a lacrosse match at HSBC Arena. The cheering was divided last night as Earl was cheering on the Wings and Jamie was cheering on the Bandits. I would utter “go S U” from time to time because the orange clothing was confusing me. Buffalo lost and Earl ended up with a tub of popcorn turned upside down over his head. He found popcorn in his underwear this morning.

We stayed at the Embassy Suites in downtown Buffalo. Jamie stated that this is one of the nicest hotels in Buffalo. The suite was nice but the breakfast buffet was a little bit of an experience.

When there was food there were no plates, when there were plates there was no cutlery, when there was an omelette chef there was a line and when there was oatmeal and it was extra watery.

Oh, and there wasn’t a set of tongs to grab the bread to make toast. This sort of bugs me. Now, it’s not because I’m some sort of germophobe because that is hardly the case (though I have been known to douse people in Lysol if they seemed pukey to me), but I think that if one finds themselves in a buffet like environment without the appropriate utensils to grab food, you have two choices.

1. Ask for the appropriate utensils and use them when they arrive.

2. If you’re impatient (like me), grab a napkin and use that to grab the bread or the muffin or the fruit from the serving area. I don’t recommend this approach with salad items, soup or chili.

So there was a stack of bread in the little bread holder and this woman with really big hair in line in front of me. The smell of Aqua Net did not go unnoticed. Faced with the dilemma described above, she opted for her own approach.

With her bare hands, she grabbed a handful of bread slices, counted out how many she wanted, and then threw the rest back into the bread box.

Ewwww. Actually, I think I uttered a “Wow” that went relatively unnoticed. I don’t know where her hands as been but I certainly knew where they had just gone. I didn’t like that.

Not to be deterred, she jammed her pawed up bread onto the conveyor like toaster and watched it make it’s way through the little heater. I walked around her, grabbed a napkin and found some unpawed wheat bread (she predictably went for the white bread, noticed the snob in me) and loaded to pieces of wheat bread on the conveyor. Her toast plopped out the bottom of the machine at the same time and she heaved a sigh of disgust at the tanning of the bread so she put it through again and cranked the heat to high. I could see my wheat bread getting uncomfortably warm as it made it’s way through.

“I don’t think it’s charcoal season yet”, I said wryly, as I turned down the toaster to a reasonable level. I always have to interject a little humor before I fly into hysterics. Think of my humor as a warning shot across the bow. You can usually tell the difference between a true attempt of me being funny versus the use of humor to control my temper. She gave me an icy glare and blew some Aqua Net fumes at me.

My bread plopped out the bottom of the toaster a few moments later and I extended courtesy and cranked the heat back up.

“Bon appétit”, I shared with her, trying to be courteous.

The effort went unnoticed.