Dream Journal : Best Hotel Room Ever

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I’ve had this one to varying extents a couple of different times now…

Apparently I was traveling for business – North Carolina, for some strange reason. Work had needed me to go unexpectedly, so I told them that I wanted to bring my family with me and they obliged … with pretty much the awesomest hotel room ever!

It was honestly more like a house than a hotel suite – it had a number of different rooms, bedrooms, etc…, and a separate area that was more than just a simple desk set aside for an office area. Kind of the coolest part was how open it all was – very high ceilings and arches, all made of stone, and it was setup as sort of a loft in the center of the hotel in that while the main living area was concealed, if you were to walk through one of the archways you found yourself on a rather regal, private staircase with other hallways and staircases nearby where the rest of the hotel guests could walk – just ours happened to be roped off so as to be off-limits to the other guests.

Following the staircase took us down to a private entrance into the dining room, which was very fancy and made me feel incredibly underdressed. My parents had shown up and I was giving them a bit of a tour, and my Dad helped himself to a glass of water, but because we were the special guests, the staff said nothing.

Back in the room itself, my dream ended with me trying to take a picture of a care package that the staff had left for me – an assortment of chocolates that featured several different types of pumpkin chocolate, which I was trying to tweet because I thought that it was awesome how well they knew me!

The closest thing in real life I can relate is some of the larger DVC rooms over at Disney – the first 1-bedroom room Sara and I stayed in for an anniversary, we counted something like 13 internal doors inside the room itself, between closets and laundry, bathroom, bedroom, etc…! Next week we’re staying in a 2-bedroom room to celebrate Christmas over at Disney with my sister and her family, so we’ll see just how regal and awesome the door count ends up this time… 😉

2014 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 7 – So Much to Do, So Little Time…

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I love Christmastime, but I won’t pretend to admit that it’s not easy to get more than a wee bit stressed trying to fit everything in during the precious few weeks leading up to the big day itself. It’s only natural – there’s just so much awesomeness crammed into this one holiday, who wouldn’t want to try to fit as much of it in as humanly possible?!

Here’s what my own list is looking like at this point…

  • finish putting up lights outside (almost done)
  • finish putting up tree and decorations inside (about half done)
  • get a haircut (…and get a real job – clean your act up, and don’t be a slob…)
  • find a new shirt to wear for family Christmas pictures
  • get family Christmas pictures taken
  • mail out cards featuring family Christmas pictures
  • call about boarding for the dog for overnight trip to Disney
  • go to Disney and have an awesome time celebrating the holidays with family
  • finish Christmas shopping (barely started)
  • bake cookies and Chex Mix and other stuff the doctor says I need to lay off of
  • clean up the house (yeah, right…)

How is it only the first week of December and I’m already feeling hopelessly behind with all of this?! Oh, I know – because there’s only two and a half weeks left until Christmas!!! 😯

:santa:

A brief Slush Puppie review…

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Saw these at Walmart the other day for a mere 88 cents, and being that it was nearing midnight it was one of those purchases that you just make – no questions asked.

Turns out, I probably should’ve asked a few questions, such as how does this thing actually freeze?!

The instructions on the back were pretty simple – just freeze and enjoy – so here I assumed that there was something in the composition of the slush that keeps it at that slushy, non-frozen state that we all fondly remember of our beloved Slush Puppies, however that was totally not the case because after throwing it in the freezer over night when we got home, the next day I found that it was basically … solid as a rock.

Grrrrrrr…

Next attempt was to toss it into the fridge, but by the time I circled around to it again, it was cold and completely liquid again.

I finally drank it last night by putting it in the freezer and timing it in 15-minute increments until it was kinda starting to freeze, but not out of an otherwise drinkable state, and that worked, but it was way too much work to ever actually do again. The cherry flavor was spot on from my childhood memories, but preparation was a pain in the ass. Truth be told – I have no idea how Slush Puppies are kept slushy … maybe it was because the machine was constantly churning or some other magic…

Either way, let it be confirmed that said magic cannot be replicated by an 88-cent pouch one purchases at Walmart. 🙁

Switching to Mac – First Thoughts…

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So it’s now been a few days since I got my new MacBook Air.

In fact, I’m writing this post on it now…

And I can already tell that it’s going to take some getting used to, but I love how ridiculously thin and lightweight it is and I love how much faster and more reliable that it’s been than my desktop already, and overall things have been going fairly smooth as I’ve tried to acclimate myself to the new OS. I loaded new copies of Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Suite on within about an hour of turning it on and everything was very quick.

…and admittedly it’s a little weird actually paying for software after a lifetime of, well, not doing that… 😛

I’ve already had plenty of unexpected stumbling blocks along the way, like how to right click and how certain keyboard shortcuts work when keys are mapped differently for Mac. Plugging in my new keyboard and mouse helped a ton because at least the desktop keyboard I bought has Page Up and Page Down keys! Right now I’ve also got it using one of my two widescreen monitors (old Windows machine is still using the other until I’m ready to cut the cord), so really it’s pretty much like using a desktop machine again – just everything is in a different place and some things don’t work the way that I would expect after using Windows for … what? … over two decades?!

I think my biggest frustrations right now are:

  • Shortcuts like copy & paste use the Command key instead of Control, which is in a different place and awkward to reach. Admittedly I just now realized that maybe I should see if I can just remap this…
  • I can’t Command+Tab between windows in an open application – namely Chrome for starters, which is annoying because I usually have several open at a time to spread out my tabs. This is going to be a pain if it carries over to Word, too.
  • I wish that Finder was a little more flexible for browsing the file system, mainly because I still need to migrate most of my files over and I’m trying to figure out the best place to put them. Granted, part of this is also a OneDrive issue because ultimately I need them to sync via it, too.
  • My desk is too messy and I don’t have any room to setup my new docking station. Not really a Mac problem, per se, but still an issue that eventually I’m going to have to tackle!

Honestly I think that just about any new computer would’ve been a leg up for me at this point because my old one hangs on Chrome pretty regularly, making it impossible to use with as many tabs open as I tend to have, but I’m looking forward to getting back into my regular workflow to see how this thing goes – already I’ve written a few things (mostly via web browser) and I’ve done some simple photo edits in Photoshop, and everything so far has been really nice.

I’m also looking forward to all of that being portable so that whether I’m out on the couch with the baby or we go on vacation, I’m not limited to whatever apps are on the laptop I have access to at the time – essentially I should basically have my entire working desktop wherever I have my laptop, which is very cool. Granted, some apps will be trickier to use without a mouse – especially because I’m still learning to use this bizarre, Mac trackpad – but I shouldn’t find myself looking for online apps to resize photos at 1am in a hotel room at Disney for a blog post like I did the last time we were there! 🙂

So the verdict to date – so far so good, and although I’m kind of still surrounded by Windows machines at my desk at the moment, I’m trying to force myself to do more and more on the new machine just to start getting more used to it after they all eventually go away. Maybe I’ll write up another post in a month or so when I’m actually ready to cut the final cord and kiss Windows goodbye out of my life for good… 😉

Sierra Memories

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I stumbled across this award show for video games tonight via a random tweet that somebody else posted – I really have no idea what the rest of the show covered, but it was neat to see these two veritable icons from my childhood get some recognition as vanguards in the video game industry some thirty years after their prime.

One of the earliest computer games that I ever played was a little text adventure called Mission Asteroid – despite it’s numbering, it was actually the third game that Sierra created for the Apple II. It was before I even had a Nintendo, so I must’ve only been six or seven at the time – I remember having to keep a notebook by the computer so that I could write down the various commands that worked as I progressed through the story! I don’t think that I ever actually made it to the asteroid – I could never seem to get the rocket to take off, but it sure was a fascinating experience to me and no doubt helped to spark a lifelong love for video games at large…

From there I played the same classics that everybody else played – King’s Quest, Space Quest, and when my parents weren’t around, Leisure Suit Larry! I was a HUGE Sierra fan, arguably almost a collector at my age because I would get their magazine that would have the Buy 1 Get 2 Free offers and end up ordering 6 or 9 games at a time until I literally had shelves of their game boxes in my room … the Hoyle games, the 3D Ultra games, you name it.

I remember playing Shivers for hours and hours before I could even figure out what I was supposed to be doing, though granted this was long before my need to watch scary movies with every light on in the house!

I also remember Phantasmagoria being something really special because this was around the time when Myst and other CD-based games just started to emerge, and it was kind of crazy to hold in your hands a game that required seven CD-roms to play!!!

Anyways, now that Ken and Roberta are well into retirement, I mostly read along in envy with their adventures in yachting on Ken’s Blog, it’s pretty awesome to see these two recognized as the pioneers in adventure gaming that they are, not to mention their little ceremonial passing of the torch to the crew that’s working on the next King’s Quest game.

Kinda makes me want to dig out some of those old game discs and spend a night exploring with Graham and Roger and Larry for old time’s sake… 😉

2014 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 5 – Holiday Snackses!

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I’ll admit that I’m kind of a sucker when it comes to holiday foods, whether they be peppermint or gingerbread-flavored or even just colored up all red and green for the season! Above is but a wee sample of what I expect to try over the next couple of weeks … cheeses and chocolates, cookies and crackers and sugary confections of all shapes and sorts…

Boy, I really do sound like a hobbit, don’t I?! 😕

2014 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 3 – Just Laugh’s 2014 Holiday Gift Guide

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I don’t want to set any unrealistic expectations just yet regarding future posts over at Just Laugh, but what I will say for now is that yesterday I re-ignited an old tradition of putting together a holiday gift guide filled with all sorts of comedy and humor-related presents … and it was a whole lot of fun!

Some of my favorites this year:

Be sure to check out the full list for all sorts of ideas for the funny and fart-centric folks in your life!

2014 Holiday Advent Blog – Day 2 – A Giant Tree Made of Legos

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Six months of building and 3.5 TONS of Legos to build the tallest Lego model in the southern hemisphere!

I thought that it was kind of neat to see them using Duplos for the bulk of the tree itself, as I’m not sure if I can really think of many of the bigger models that I know of using Duplos at all. Makes me want to hop on a plane to Sydney to check it out in person! 😉