Busy Life Part One

Seems like I only really get to post weekly updates anymore, instead of individual updates. It's been a week since I've been to Disneyland, and I wish I was still there. It's hard to get enough of the resort. I love Disneyland, but it felt refreshing not going for a while. I was pretty burned out for a bit, considering all the fan site stuff that's been going on. It wears a person down when you hear so many people negatively rant about how such a wonderful company 'does' so many things 'wrong'. What they fail to realize is that they ultimately have no stopping power over what they do, and pretty much the only thing that the fans CAN do is not go. Which to me, and other 'casual' fans of the company, would definitely not be a problem, all things considered.
With that, here's some photos of the trip from last Sunday.

 The much traveled grapevine. Easy traffic, considering it was early Sunday morning and raining.

Picking up snacks! 

                                               

"The best part of waking up is....something hot and somewhat drinkable in my cup!"

And this is what it looks like when it rains here. 

Oh, and big rigs jack knife on the freeways..

                                                

Because Austen, myself, and Megan (big sister who doesn't work there anymore) work(ed) at Chick Fil A, we both were laughing when we realized the cars parked next to each other looked like honey mustard and Chick Fil A sauce.

We're ready! :D 

    

Stopped raining for now...but we're all bundled up! 

Ready to rock! 

                                            

And back to cold wetness...

Awesome singing people! And signing! 

Comedic gold. One of the funniest guys at the resort. 

 Not going to see these for long! Thankfully I got a ride in this trip, and I'll get one in with my girlfriend on the next trip in December! 

 Am I missing something...or are these signs new? 

 Pirates almost all done!

LOVE this overlay.

 And this little house goes: "Nawm nawm nawm all the way home"

"Megan! It's a grouper!" - John

 Intent Stare.
 

Meh. (On the right) didn't do so hot this time.

 Classy people...please come back to Disneyland.

 Rock on? Yea. Rock on.

 Cute Couple! :D

 OOOHHH Artsy!

"what?"

 #SeewhatIdidthere?

And This is going to be a beautiful addition to the park! Can't wait to see it completed.

YAWM YAWM!

John just goes all in...

Gas boy is happy gas boy for product placement!

(he works for Chevron)

Walked into Blue Sky Cellar..

anyone notice the sign going into Condor Flats 

no longer states "Condor Flats"? 

John, Megan and Emily on Screamin!

(oh, and notice the logo still has mickey ears, but the new Paradise loop on the left) 

Fantasmic! It's been forever since we've seen this. 

I've got a soft spot for the dragon. Maybe because I started the twitter AA deal with Maleficent.

Either way, it's awesome. 

And ending the night walking back down Main Street. 

Holidays at Home

My mom and sister are awesome. I've been giving them a hard time about it at home, but I really do mean it when I say that. They've spent the last two or so days around the house getting it decorated for Christmas. Here's some shots I took of some of the awesome stuff so far.

Late night Late Thoughts

It's 1:30 in the morning, everyone's out of the house now, and I just polished up some final homework for the week. Now I'm getting stuff ready for the rest of the weekend, since I'll be working, then spending the night at my bro's house after our shift's tomorrow, then leaving from his place with our group to go to Disneyland on Sunday morning.

Now all I have to do is pack my stuff and make sure I have everything.

But real quick note about some stuff...

Captain America was a great film, and I'm really looking forward to the Avengers in May.

Cars 2..this is where some people might get confrontational, but I really enjoyed it. I don't see how some thought it was 'being green', when the film ended with natural/organic gas still being used. Either way, the animation was amazing, and humor was well done.

Oh, and I want to throw this out there that my girlfriend is amazing. By far one of the sweetest, most caring people I've known. From earlier this week, she stopped by work to bring me cold medicine and cough drops, and she told me tonight her parents are taking her and I to Disneyland right after Christmas as a present. It feels great to feel this happy.

With that, I'm gonna go pack up for the rest of the weekend and be all mushy romantic. 

Day after the wreck

I'm in math class right now, but I figured I'd give y'all a short update. I feel fine today. Not sore at all, had my work shift today, and now I've got class then a birthday party for my brother later tonight. I DO have a doctor appointment tomorrow to make sure I really am fine, and if there's ever any possible long term issues, we have it documented. My mom drove over to the junk yard today to get pics of my car during the day. They're currently on my iPhone right now, but I'll post those later tonight when I get a chance to upload those to my computer at home (sucks to have a laptop that's not an apple product like everything else I have...but I'll switch laptops later on when I have some spare cash). For now, I must thank everyone for the well wishes and prayers, I'm REALLY deeply appreciative of it, and glad I have such great people that care for my well being.

Now back to learning about 10's to the third power. ;) 

Nothing is Sound

It's an interesting blog title, especially for this topic, but with Switchfoot, a lot of their songs can relate a lot to life in general. Nothing is Sound. What does that mean? Well, one definition of that is the adjective version: "free from injury, damage, defect, disease, etc.; in good condition; healthy". So with that, nothing is free from damage. That's especially relevant to tonight. 






Tonight I was in my first car accident. 

I'm obviously fine, since I'm blogging this, but I'm definitely a bit shaken up about it. To explain what happened, I was on my way home from Chick Fil A. I had a 12-8 shift today, and was about 10 minutes away from my house on a road I consistently drive. I had some music on, singing along and keeping happy. I tend to get some drivers of lower to the ground cars flash their high beams at me thinking I have mine on, which isn't the case. Well, tonight this guy did the same, but within a split second of doing that, he swerved into my lane and side-swiped me. It pushed me off the road and I was able to keep my cool about it, and not over correct myself which in the case I did, would have resulted in a rollover. However, I kept steady and maintained control. 


The gentleman ends up crashing into a row of a vineyard on my side of the road. After I stopped, I got out and checked to see if he was ok, which he thankfully was. After calling my mom and the police, everyone comes out and we get the stuff settled. 


The guy that hit me? Yea...he was DRUNK.

The guy's in jail, my car's in the junkyard, and I'm here at my desk alive. I can't help but thank God for being alive right now. If you look at the photos, you'll realize like I did that if I was a mere second behind the time where I was on the road, this had a high chance of being a head on collision. I was beyond lucky tonight. Call it karma, luck, guardian angels. Call it what you want, I don't care. But this was definitely amazing to see that I was THAT close to either a major injury, or death. And after more than a dozen texts, and A LOT of comments/tweets/wall posts later, I love that my friends are quick to hope I'm ok. I have some of the best people in my life, and I can't be any more thankful than I am for that. 

And as a final close to this post, people, PLEASE do not drink and drive. This is the effects of it. And this isn't even the worse part. Sure it's busted car, but you can't put a price on a life. You can always buy another car. I don't try to post about the cliches of 'don't drink' or 'don't have sex before marriage' because there's always those people that overdo it. But since I've had to deal with that topic and the near-death of myself tonight, I just want to leave it at that. Just don't drink and drive. It's not worth it. Pay for a cab. 

Still Alive

It feels like I haven't blogged as much, and I know I haven't...I've just been really busy with life. Working 30 hours a week, with 4 classes that take up a lot of study time, then a social life whenever I get a chance. The life of a college student is pretty stinking fast paced. Not to say I don't love it, I do. But when writing is a passion, and you don't have a lot of time for it, it's a little bit of a downer.

With that, here's some photos of the past stuff I've been doing..

 Went to the beach for a day. Had a great time with friends and my family. Hannah now loves watching surfers from the pier, and already wants to try out the sport.

 Had a day trip to LA. Dinner at Cheesecake Factory and walked around the Grove. Then checked out Mosaic at the Mayan. Easily one of the most rad churches you'll ever go to.

Had my birthday with friends. Went to a horror maze, and had appetizers at Denny's. Nothing too flashy, but hey, it was fun. :) 

Sit back and relax.

There's always those people that think they know everything Disney, and us big time fans sit back and watch them talk a big game, knowing they're completely wrong. Fact: not all the hotels around the resort area are sold out because of mickey's Halloween party.
Fact: the monorail will not replace the streets around Anaheim.
Fact: yes, that is the people mover. No, it is not still working.
Fact: it's "the haunted MANSION." not "the haunted/scary house"
Fact: if you look on your map, you'll see that yes, the bathrooms are 20 feet away from you, and the cast member you just asked is watching you look like a deer in the headlights from his ODV cart.

The Seasons They Are A Changin'

Today was awesome. I want to leave it at that and let you wonder why it was so awesome, but I don't want to be mean, now do I?

So, this is why it was awesome.

Early morning: Slept in. Felt great.

Mid morning: went to work, started the day off right with all the cool people I work with at Chick Fil A.

noonish: Random guy asked me if I was Jake, and I said "yea, thats me. What can I do for you sir?"
This reply made me get the stupidest smile on my face: "Oh, I just wanted to say I love your blog."

Early afternoon: Slow crowd at work, but great people to serve. Had a lot of fun getting to chat a little with some people about their jobs and such.

mid afternoon: This is where it gets really good. Girls soccer team from up north is apparently in town to play another college in town. 14 or so girls my age, and all super happy and hyper. I'm having a good time cracking jokes with them, talking soccer and such with them. They ordered a ton of food. like, eight 12-count nugget meals, five 4-strip chicken meals, etc. With being so athletic, they gotta load up on the carbs to burn during a game. Anyway, we're standing at the counter getting the food ready to take out, and my manager asks "hey Jake, what's your number again?" I catch onto what she's doing and tell her no, and still have a stupid smile on my face. I really didn't care, but it was still fun to try to get her not to do it. She slips this little card onto one of the 5 or so trays we were taking out with "Call me. ***-**** - Jake."

I thought she went through with it, and figured one of them would call me, but as the afternoon grew on, I was telling my other co-worker who clocked in later for the evening shift about it, and she goes "oh yea, this paper?" I flipped and called her an evil jerk who never wants me to have a girlfriend, and she just laughed. It was definitely a hilarious highlight to the afternoon, and I gotta love the pranks this girl pulls every so often. She's one of those types that doesn't always prank people, but when she does, she gets them good.

now it's late, and I'm jumping on math homework tonight. I actually enjoy math right now, even over my favorite subject (history). Maybe it's because I'm not a fan of the book, and I've read all the stuff I'm learning a lot, and even been to a few of the locations we've read about. It seems pointless to me now because I already know this. I want to not know something and learn about it. Like math. I suck at it, and I'm getting it because it's explained easier now to me, and I'm learning it 'new'. I'll get through it though. I have to in order to transfer south.

Anyway, as a final note of the night, here's my thoughts on Apple (since the Keynote was today for iOS5 and the iPhone 4S).

It's nothing special, and I'm not upgrading my phone just to be faster and a better camera. Heck, that's why I'm saving up for a Canon 7D). I just don't get why people are complaining about the keynote, when we pretty much knew going in what it was going to be this year. I give it a year, and we could very well have the legitimate iPhone 5, and even possibly the AppleTV I'm dreaming about. Now THAT's something I'd save up for. Imagine the possibilities with that...

alright, I think this covers enough for now, I'll try to blog more on here than I have recently. But if you haven't seen my side project, my great friend Austen and I are authors of our own Disney site now. It's just a site about Disney facts and history on things. It's geared towards those that DO NOT know the stuff us big(ger) fans do, and it explains it (All things Disneyland) for those that want to know what we know. We have a facebook page, as well. Like it, and get the word out to your friends! Word of mouth for our site definitely helps us out! And who knows, we may even have a contest or something if we get enough likes/fans/followers/whatever you want to call yourselves.
Here's those links, and feel free to check them out!

Disney Park Secrets: LINK 

Facebook Page: LINK

Hiding and Writing.

yea...she didn't show in class.

Anyway, I'm chilling out in math class working on homework. work's awesome, school's doing good. Might go to the beach in November, and I'm going to try to make it to DCA's grand re-opening next year.

But for now, a few random thoughts:

Facebook - what's the deal people? Why complain about something that's free, and something you have the choice to be on or not. The guys manning those programming computers at HeadQuarters are pretty creative in regards to what they're doing. Facebook is running this show right now. Some may hate it, but as far as I see it, the majority doesn't seem to mind. You don't hear about the majority though, because they're not nearly as outspoken as those that hate the change. Ironically enough, the one's that hate the change are usually the ones that tend to beg for change. Others just go with the flow, and then there's the ones that beg for change just to see what's around the microchipped corner. I've had the new timeline layout for over a week now, and I love it. Seeing your old posts and photos through a digital scrapbook year? Adding to your timeline a specific event, whatever that may be? It's amazing. Not to mention that eventually Facebook will stream movies and music via the site from what I've heard.


Apple - the company has a product release tomorrow. We all know it'll be for iPhone 5 and more of the iOS5 software. Hopefully we can download it tomorrow. I'd love to have it. But another rumor that i've heard a lot about is possible Apple TV's. No, not an upgraded version of that little steambox you already have. An actual set. We're talking goggle-less 3D viewing (by ways of some form of holograms), maybe even a way to use your iPad as a remote to edit iMovie on your big screen. Not to mention more possibilities outside of that. Angry Birds and Cut The Rope with the same iPad remote technology? why not?

Not to mention the way they can possibly annihilate cable tv and the rest of the competitors. Imagine paying monthly fees for X-amount of channels/shows you want to watch. Think Netflix meets DirectTV or Dish. All the channels and shows, just pay for the monthly access to either however many unlimited channels you want, or pay per show's season. The concept of how to pay for what is still really sketchy, and I don't even know if it'll happen. This all just my own thoughts on this one. But something along the lines of that would really cut down on cable viewers, if they got to pick what specifically they want to watch, instead of paying a lot for only certain select channels they view (American's are noted at viewing around 18-25 channels, out of the hundreds they receive).

Girls - why does it seem like great girls walk into your life, but under varying circumstances, they aren't right for you? Interesting how that plays out.

Ok, time to shut down. Another class is walking in, and I'm heading home to work on homework and catch up on Pan Am, and the Monday night shows tonight, and work on some stuff for the other blog: Disney Park Secrets

Later. 

Will the Real Mystery Girl Please Stand Up?

Got a second to blog...

mystery girl still hasn't shown up in math class. Not sure if she's really here or not. But it's an odd feeling of being potentially watched/admired/viewed/*insert another adjective here* from within the same room. 

now onto math...