A little Flash game to see how well you know the world. I think my brothers- and sisters-in-law will do extremely well at this.
The Travel IQ Challenge (sorry, link is dead.)
My first final game tally was 267070, crashing and burning on Level 8. How’d you do?
After the success of the original mission two years ago, Grandpa and Grandma once again assembled Team Cookie in Florida for an assault on Walt Disney World Resort. Early on, we even got a break, due to (we think) a convention cancellation, we were upgraded from the budget hotels to the moderate-level Coronado Springs resort.
Our section of the resort had a lovely cactus-strewn desert theme.
We had a great time, despite some obstacles.
It was a little colder than the Mexican theme suggests.
The weather was cold: the temperature dropped below freezing two nights in a row and the daytime temperatures most days didn’t make it to 10°C, with a constant cold wind. We had packed warm clothes, but when you’re confined to a wheelchair, not moving much, in outdoor lineups, the warm clothes just don’t do the job.
Mist on the water in front of the main resort building, which, as David Barker says, looks like a Taco Bell.
The parks were hugely crowded. Our pet theory is that the resorts were fully booked and there was nowhere else to go—not the pool, nor any other outdoor distraction they fill their resorts with. So you might as well go to the park.
Jon got the flu (it was going around the parks), and was more or less bed-ridden for two of our days there, poor guy.
Jon semi-comatose with fever by the pool on our last day—our warmest day there (note long pants). At least he got to go on the pool waterslide the first day there.
There were some major high points too:
Cirque de Soleil’s La Nouba: it’s a permanent show at Downtown Disney, in a huge building shaped like a circus tent. A wonderous show, featuring some of incredibly beautiful moments. (Here’s the trailer from their site (but it can’t capture the subtlety).) Grandma and Auntie Pam hung out with Jon at the hotel while we went.
Tokyo Dining: A Japanese restaurant at Epcot run by the Mitsukoshi Corporation of Japan. Good sushi, excellent service, and despite being fairly new to enjoying sushi, the place Jon seemed most comfortable in during our entire stay. Or maybe he just liked the way the sushi kitchen changed colour…
Laura’s return to the professional golf circuit: Okay, I exaggerate. But after 30 years of avoiding golf, Laura was persuaded to join Patti, David and I for a game of pitch and putt while we stayed at Mom and Dad’s place. Laura’s disdain for golf hides the fact that she has solid fundamentals. We played nine holes; on the last one, Laura landed her tee shot on the green while no one else even got near it.
Expedition Everest: Auntie Pam offered to chat with Jon while we braved the line and the ride. Turns out we got assigned the front car of the tea train to hell. And got swiped at first by the Yeti.
Jon’s delight with the Finding Nemo ride, especially the entrance: The entrance features a few rocks with the title, a wave generator that occasionally splashes visitors and three animatronic Finding Nemo seagulls, sporadically hollering the only thing they ever say. See for yourself.
Thanks for a wonderful vacation, Grandma and Grandpa!
Jon on his very favourite ride, the Disney shuttle bus!
I’ve been enjoying The Superest, a version of a cartoon war. Start at the bottom and scroll up to see who beats who. (It’s on hiatus for the holiday, but there’s lots to catch up on…)
I’ve always wanted to do something along this line, but as yet none of my colleagues have wanted to battle.
Wii Chores, shrinkwrapped
Laura and I (but mainly Laura) faked up the packaging for a Wii game, modelled after one of the ones Nintendo itself created. Erik contributed great hunks of the promotional copy for the back. We inserted the label into a spare DVD case, labelled a DVD inside and added a little instructional handbook (that acutally contained a gift certificate), and with that we had Meghan and Austin hovering between belief and skepticism for a good three minutes. The coup de grace was that I had carefully removed the shrink wrap off of one of Jon’s DVD presents and more or less seamlessly got it on the fake, adding that extra bit of verisimilitude. (Jon was sold; he wanted to play it before we gave it to Meghan.)
Patti (Meghan’s mom) was right though: the top right chore gave it away. We should have put one of the other chores there, no one would send this to market with the scooping of dog poop so prominently featured.
I know only two things about this gentleman. He goes by the name Heita3 on YouTube, and he makes wind instruments out of vegetables.
Wow. The final part of the The Boy in the Moon is up, and once again Ian Brown sums it up with grace. This time he touches on the future for his boy, and frankly, maybe our boy too. Get out the Kleenex, but read it.
I’ve been wondering about Jon’s adulthood for his entire life; Laura has too. We’ve never discussed it directly, but have occasionally touched—just grazingly—on it. When I’ve alluded to it in converstation with friends and colleagues, without fully broaching the topic, there’s often a knee-jerk response: “Every parents worries about their kid.” I don’t know how to respond. Is this an attempt to soothe my fears, or do they genuinely not understand the situation? Or not want to, perhaps.
Brown even touches on the Latimer case with very similar thoughts to ours—so much of the analysis I’ve seen over the years strips the case of the context, and the context is the key.
A superb series. Thanks for this, Ian. Give Walker a hug for us.
The Klein Four is a group of mathematics students at Northwestern University, whose cleverness knows no bounds.
Addendum: The original by the even cleverer Straight No Chaser, as mentioned by Reid below:
