9/24/09 3 Day Wonder - Cruise Meets, and FEs, and Goombays oh my!

[karentan]

yay for star being better, i'm sure it must be a huge relief that he's survived the parvo and is getting back to normal, you'll have to give him lots of cuddles from us!!

the only good ones are considered illegal

at this!!!

they tried to bring in rules about fireworks here a few years back to try and regulate their sales and when you're allowed to set them off, i dont think it really worked.
at one point the only time you could really get hold of fireworks was in the run up to november and new years, but theres a shop near me that sells them all year round.

well i'm off to work in a mo, it'll be interesting to see how she decides to treat my resignation, i think it'll go one of two ways. either she'll totally back off and just let me leave in peace, or she'll turn vindictive and try and screw me over. i really do hope its the first one, but she is the kind of person to go for the second option.
oh well at least i'm in spain for one week of my 4 week notice period, it helps!!

 

[karentan]

oops, for some reason it posted the bit above twice so i'll edit this one out..........

 

[karentan]

happy 4th of July!!!

 

[Lilo's Mom]

First let me introduce you all to the the "furry" members of our family

Harley (Bob's Dog from his first marriage)- 11 year old Shepard Huskey Mix. Harley is a senior dog, has a hard time walking around, one beautiful blue eye, and one deep brown eye. In general he is a sweetheart, but HATES CATS!
Next up Kelly's two kitties - FYI: Things to know about Kelly....she worships all things that have to do with Josh Whedon, Creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly. Kelly believes all pets like people should have full names!

This is Sir Francis Doyle, named for her Grandpa Francis, and Doyle on the television show Angel. Why the Sir? Kelly and her friends decided to "knight" him....don't ask they were 15 at the time and in a very silly mood. Doyle is SMART, you call him, he comes...he is more like a dog than a cat.

And this is Angel Gabriel. Angel thinks the entire world revolves around him. When I get ready for work and am brushing my hair and doing my makeup....Angel wants to be brushed and have makeup too. Every morning, he follows me in the bathroom and meows at me until I take his kitty brush and give his coat a brush....then he sits up on his hind legs and I have to hold out "his" makeup brush so he can rub blush all over his face. We end his makeup ritual by applying a spritz of pet perfume on the top of his head. Angel is very strange.

So this morning, I am surfing the net for some clipart to finish a project for the FE...and Doyle and Angel decide to have a fight for the window by my desk...there was hissing, meowing, spitting....this woke up Lilo and Harley who both wanted a piece of the action. Lilo thinks it is a game, so she starts chasing Doyle. Somehow the fight between the cats made Angel think he could take on Harley. So 10 pound Angel walked up to 100 pound Harley and bopped him in the head. I tried to break up that fight and ended up with a scratch on my face. The best part is when all of this was going on it was LOUD! Amazingly it didn't wake up anyone else in the house.

Ok, since that had absolutely nothing to do with anything, other than the insanity in my house...here is what I came up with for the kids in the FE. I was thinking there are currently 8 of us in the FE, most Fish Extenders themselves have at least three pockets. With the kids included that is 14 gift bags a day times the amount of people participating. Where is this all going? Well, my bags for the kids are kind of on the larger size, and I didn't know if all of kid stuff would overcrowd the Fish Extenders. So what I ended up doing is I bought each of the kids a drawstring backpack, and put a gift bag for each day inside. Now I am not sure if I should give the backpacks out to the kids at the sail away party, or if I should just give the bags to their parents to leave out each morning of the cruise. The older kids I really want to have their bags for the first day BEFORE the sail away....I put a disposable camera in each bag, so they can take their own pictures of the trip! A few days ago I wasn't obessing about this so much....but now Bob has me paranoid. The other day we were working on our T-shirts and he said to me "How do you know people won't steal things out of the Fish Extenders?" Thank you Bob, now I am worried about the possibilty of people helping themselves to the gift bags.. I was much happier when I thought that Disney Magic makes people behave themselves. What do you think am I worried about nothing?

 

[karentan]

i was wondering about this too, but i think the possibility of this happening is small, yeah there may be some people who would do this but i think the majority of FE exchanges go fine.
i dont think theres anything you could do about it if it happened anyway. i think its just one of those things that you have to accept as a risk of taking part.

and your pets are sooo cute!!

 

[Lilo's Mom]

Thanks Karen, I think our fur babies are rather cute too. Individually they are all very loving and good pets....but they do get jealous of each other...so we have to try not to give too much attention to any one of them in front of the others. Doyle likes to keep people company when they are sick, Harley can smell food from a mile away and wants to help you eat anything you've got. Lilo is our playful pet, she wants to play all the time, and Angel is the one that wants to be cuddled, he will lay in your arms all night long.

I am glad I wasn't the only one wondering how to keep people from stealing out of the FE. I would be dissappointed if people's gifts got taken, but I would feel really bad if it happened with the kids stuff. I guess all we can do is hope for the best.

I can't believe it, it is now 11:05 pm here and fireworks are still going off all around the neighborhood. I am going to head to bed and pretend I am at Disney and I am hearing the fireworks over the castle.

 

[m_kasch]

Donna, I am at my dad's in Wilmington (do you know where that is), and they are also setting off the fireworks like mad here. I thought fireworks (at least the good ones) were illegal in IL?!?!?

I have wondered about the FE gifts getting stolen as well...but I think it is just a risk we will have to take. Maybe I will give out the nicest gift at the sailaway party because I spent a lot of time on them and I will be sad if that gets stolen...we'll see!! I think it will be okay though. If it were a carnival cruise...I would be worried about drunken college aged or younger people taking it in a drunken rage or something...

Perhaps I shouldn't be talking about drunken anything, after our conversations here!! LOL!!!

 

[karentan]

how's everyone's weekend going?

have you heard about the monorail crash at the TTC this morning? i've just seen some photos of it, it looks terrible and my heart goes out to the family of the driver killed in the crash.
but i'm a bit put out by some of the threads that have popped up on the boards asking how long the monorails will be out of service for as theyre worried about their holiday plans. sorry but someone has died. disney arent stupid, they will put on extra buses to offset the trouble caused by the lack of monorail, but to have people moaning that they paid extra to stay in a monorail hotel and the monorail isnt working, well thats just sick in my mind. dont these people have any basic human compassion?
yeah i like the monorail but it wouldnt ruin my holiday if they werent working. especially when someone has lost their life in a horrific accident, to be complaining about "how am i going to get from GF to epcot". its just wrong.

sorry rant over.....

 

[Lilo's Mom]

Karen, I agree with you about the monorail accident. People should be thinking about the poor 21 year old CM that lost his life...not how the lack of the monorail for the next day or so is going to effect them. Too many people have a overinflated sense of entitlement, that leads them to think that since they paid so much money to stay at a monorail resort, that you just know there will be lots of angry people today.

On a happier note...updated pictures of your FE

Bob put little clear crystals of stars on the pockets...he wanted it to sparkle.

It's a good thing we got the stars...the iron on of the Peter Pan melted a little, so he had the stars to cover that up. I think he is just about done with it, he mentioned he wants a different ribbon/tie for the top, but pretty much what you see will be the end product!

 

[karentan]

thats awesome!! thank you guys sooooo much again!!

i'm really not looking forward to going back to work tomorrow, thursday and friday (after i handed my notice in) were not very pleasant (think they're just plain bullying me) and i get the idea the next 4 weeks are only going to get worse. i'm just so down at the mo, i cant stop worrying about work and its really getting to me. i'm so glad that i'm going to spain on saturday, i need some time away to help try and clear my head a bit.
i need to leave on a good note as i still want to be able to work at the theme park, its nearly the school holidays so i know that i'll be able to pick up some hours to buy myself some extra time to find another job. if i had another firm job i could count on, i would just not bother going back, its really getting me down having to go back day after day and getting treated like dirt.
sorry about the venting again but i'm just really down at the moment.

 

[m_kasch]

Karen, i'm sorry about your job!! It's good that you are on vacation next week, you will probably need a break by then!!

The monorail story is sooooooooooo sad! My dad woke me up this morning to tell me, and I was just shocked how it could even happen, since there are so many safeguards in place. And I also think it is crazy that everyone is complaining about taking the bus instead of the monorail -- i'm sure they will open them up as soon as they feel it is safe and they have finished their investigation. Some people just worry too much about themselves!!

 

[jenny105]

Hi everyone! I was MIA for the 4th of July weekend. Had 3 days off and they went way too fast. On the 4th, I went to a BBQ at my aunt's, we do it every year. "Good" fireworks are illegal here too but no one cares. My cousin drove into PA and got the good stuff. We were setting off Grucci fireworks, the company that does the Macy's Fireworks. It was awesome.

Lainey - Landshark is a beer. It's kind of like Corona but it doesn't have the bitter after taste. And I think it is a Jimmy Buffet beer actually.

Karen - Sorry how things are going at your job. At least you'll have a week to get away from everything.

Donna - Cute pets!! And wow, Bob does awesome work on FEs! Our FE only has two pockets so good luck to everyone trying to fit anything in mine. There's a Mickey and Minnie head on each pocket and Joe said my pocket will be full and he won't have anything lol. I told him it doesn't work that way.

My mom told me about the monorail crash this morning. Some people are completely insensitive. Nevermind that somebody died; heaven forbid you have to take the bus instead of the monorail!

 

[karentan]

well all those stupid insensitive people will be happy to know that the monorail is back to being operational and it wont affect their precious travel plans any more. the nerve and insensitivity of some people really bug me sometimes.

work is still going rubbish, my boss's second in command is on my case every hour or so asking me what i'm doing and giving me more stuff to do, i'm getting snowed under because they're so adamant that i've got nothing to do that i'm getting stuff piled on me all the time. but i did figure out that i've only got 14 more working days left til i can get out of there. they've started interviewing to replace me already. its stupid.

 

[jenny105]

You'll be out of there soon, Karen. Just keep your chin up and stick it out. You get to go to Spain and be away from the place for a little while and the month will be almost over.

 

[karentan]

thanks, and thanks to everyone for listening to my rants recently, i've just been really stressed out, strung out, and a bit down recently and its nice to have somewhere to get it all out.

 

[jenny105]

We'll always be here! Some of us are your tablemates, after all. It's nice to have a little DIS support system. Just keep repeating to yourself "Disney in 2 months, Disney in 2 months.." when things get tough!

Or "Goombay Smash, Lapu Lapu" works too.

 

[karentan]

Or "Goombay Smash, Lapu Lapu" works too.

this definately sounds like a much better option!!!

 

[karentan]

well i'm now unemployed.
after getting another telling off from my boss this morning i decided to just get it out and ask her if she still wanted me there. she said that its not that she doesnt want me there, she doesnt want me there if i'm not doing anything. her second in command has apparently told her that i'm not doing the work and that i keep disappearing from my desk (i'm going to the restroom for crying out loud). bottom line is that i left today, of my own will, i'd like to add, although i do get the idea that she'll be telling everyone that she fired me.
i've been told i'm not allowed to work on park anymore (even for the gift shop concessions which was my back up plan), which has majorly screwed me over. so i'm going to have a day or two to relax, and then i've got to go job hunting.

so thats how my day has gone.
i REALLY cant wait until the holiday. 66 days...........

 

[m_kasch]

Karen, that sucks!! Majorly!! Don't you just love people who are constantly complaining that people aren't doing anything? My question always is, if they spend so much time complaining about others -- are THEY doing anything?!? Some people!! At least you get to go to Spain in a few days, that will help!!

So, there is a good diagram of what happened with the Monorail incident on the Orlando Sentinels website. I usually really dislike that newspaper because they seem very anti-disney, but whatever. Very sad anyways.

I got my car rental situation all squared away, after much manipulation of our work's travel agent. I had to book it in that system, and then go back into the Alamo system and change it around to add my coupons and discount codes...but at least now I only have to do 2 car rentals instead of 3. before I was having to rent the car for my DSis and I, return it on Monday, pick up another at the same time for the conference, return that on Thursday at 9am, pick up another at 9am (because that is the earliest you can get the $20 per day deal) and then return THAT one when we get back from the cruise. I was getting confused!! Now I just have one from the airport to the car care center on the day of the cruise, switch for the good deal, and then return it after we get back. I am confused reading that though now.....

So, are we all excited about Harry Potter??!!?? One week from tonight!! I have to go buy my tickets, that reminds me........

 

[jenny105]

Karen, that does suck!! I can't believe she accused you of disappearing from your desk. She sounds like a total idiot. You're better off not working there. They sound like they want you to be miserable. Sucks that they screwed up your backup plan too!! Good luck finding a new job.


Did someone say HARRY POTTER? I saw an ad for it on a bus on the way home yesterday, it was a picture of the Death Eaters. I was so excited!!