last festival is just around the corner

Hey everybody. Sorry it's been awhile, but once it gets to be over 2 weeks with no updates, I struggle to find the ambition to post when there are so many things to write about.

Both my parents were here a couple of weeks ago; my dad was here during his spring break and my mom for hers the following week. My dad was escorting for a group from the suburbs and Festival Disney was one of their stops. So in a roundabout way, I was working with my dad which I thought was pretty cool. We hung out a couple nights he was here with the final night culminating with him meeting some of my friends at Ale House.

My mom was here the following week, arriving in Orlando on Easter (side note: I kept telling everyone my parents were coming, but they would be here at different times. Mandy was telling everyone the same thing and kept getting asked if my parents were divorced. Luckily for me that is not the case). Anyway, we did various things around the state since there were black-out dates for the parks...not that my mom cares that much and has been here who knows how many times as it is. The Tuesday that she was here, we went to North Beach, which is west of St. Petersburg. Took us a little longer than we anticipated to get there, but it was a beautiful day nonetheless. Unfortunately, Mandy and I got insane sunburn. The next couple nights of sleep were rough for me. Wednesday my mom and I went to lunch at a great Greek place on international drive after I got off of work. We then tried to go to a botanical garden, but missed it by about 10 minutes (damn you, tourist traffic...). Instead we walked around Lake Eola and then came back home for some mini-golfing.

Like the title says, the end of Festival season is quickly approaching. May 7th and 8th will be our last weekend. However, I'm not officially done until June 11th, and the higher-ups have something kind of cool in store for us. For that last month, we will periodically be making sales calls, with some of us staying in the immediate area and others traveling all the way to northern Georgia. Those making the latter trip will be gone for almost two weeks. We will be finding out in a week where we will be going. Either way, it's going to be some GREAT experience.

As for me after the internship, it's one of two things (at this point): 1) go back to safari, get full-time either there or one of several other locations I would like, get on the Guest Relations bench/waitlist (in July) and then brush on my French to be able to give VIP tours after 6 months or 2) remain in Youth Programs for a little bit longer if they do offer me a sales position with other responsibilities. I don't think I would want to do the latter forever, but I also think I would be a fool to turn down the opportunity, experience, and money. With Guest Relations, it would satisfy my desire to go back to the parks and get my fill of guest interaction (which is what I miss the most) and basically have some fun before I feel the desire to remain in an office for awhile. I've had lots of meet and greets, but unfortunately, no one can make me decision for me.

Spring ultimate league is over, with our team finishing 5th out of 8, but summer starts in less than a month and I couldn't be more pumped. I liked my captain and teammates a lot and I'm hoping we get to stick together since there is a draft for our league (and now he'll know who I am). There are also club tryouts starting the beginning of June. A couple of the guys think I have a shot, so if I do make it, I'll see if I can in fact commit enough to remain with the team.

That should roughly bring you up to speed on everything. I'll let you know about the sales calls and post-internship news/job(???) when I get more of a handle on things.

Holy crap!

So...it's been awhile. But ever since these festivals started, my life has been crazy! We shoot to work four 10 hour days since we do the bulk of our work during the festival weekend. Festivals are real big these days and span 3 days; this past weekend (our biggest EVER!) I was scheduled for 29.5 hours for Thursday-Saturday. Loooong days. So we can be in the office just for one day a week, but most of us split it over 2 days because a) it helps us get our confirmation calls done (and so we're reachable) and b) make the work week a little more tolerable.

But yes, this past weekend was INsane. We had 104 ensembles (104!!!) and that's with a couple canceling. We had approx. 3500+ people at the awards ceremony. It freakin' blew my mind. If I can find someone who took pictures, I'll fer sure put those up. Here's a couple someone took this weekend:



Festival Team (minus 2)




Awards team!



Other updates include:
-Spring is taking its sweet time getting here. There will be 2-3 days of nice, and then it's back to cold and/or rain. Always on my day off.
-Mandy got part-time front desk at Ft. Wilderness. She really likes it, and not only just because she gets to see dogs on a regular basis.
-Our tournament starts this week for ultimate spring league, but it's still weekly. Kind of weird, but whatevs. I also got an email from the captain of the men's club team, so that could be promising...that is, if the practices are somewhat close.
-We have a 'regular' work week this week since it's Easter weekend. My dad is here right now with a group and I saw him yesterday for food at Epcot and tomorrow at Downtown Disney. I think the week will culminate with drinking at Ale House Thursday night.
-Mom is coming Sunday! I'm sure we'll be able to keep busy.

That should bring you roughly up to speed. Sorry my updates have been lacking and I shall try harder from now on...that is, if anyone reads this! Haha.

First Festivus! (aka, festival)

Our first festival was last weekend. It was the Disney Jazz Celebration, which is different from the other 9 weeks of festivals we do. It was a lot of fun and really something I wish I could have done in high school.

The Jazz Celebration took place over 3 days, with Thursday being the Welcoming Ceremony. There was A LOT of talent hired for this weekend: 6 adjudicators, 3 for vocal and 3 for instrumental, 3 clinicians, and 3 guest performers. We showed a short video of Louis Armstrong singing on a riverboat in Disneyland and then opened the floor to the performers. They were all quite young, between 25 and 30; the small age difference made it very easy for the students to relate to them. They could also play their butts off. Throughout the weekend, Jessy J had a consistently sized fan club. Check out her video and you might see why. But seriously, what's up with the horses?

Friday and Saturday consisted of master classes, clinics, jam sessions, and performances. If you performed one day, you did the rest on the other day. I was only assigned to performances, but we were all festival coordinators. That's our official title; we try to cut down on the use of intern because it could lose us some credibility. I had 2 groups on my own, a couple with some other interns because we were drastically overstaffed for the weekend because of the small number of bands. Come mid-March on though, we'll all be very busy.

Saturday night was the Awards Ceremony, which was a lot of fun. We give out participation awards to each school and announce their rating, giving the award to 2 student reps from each school. Then we have a jammin' concert (official title) that actually was jammin' pretty hard. Each talent hired for whatever reason got up and played for a bit. So much talent in one place...it was amazing. Too bad I didn't have my camera! After the performance, we have the directors on stage. We then give each of them a tote bag (fancier than I make it sound) and then we announce the Best in Class, Gold, Silver, Bronze, and special awards (best rhythm section, etc.). But for that...we need Mickey! Always exciting to have the big guy around. After we kicked everyone out, it was to Ale House we went. Rene said it was the smoothest a first festival had ever went. Much exciting.

This past week was intense activity wise. Monday and Tuesday were normal. Wednesday night my grandparents were in town (with the rest of my life in tow) and we went to The Turf Club at Saratoga Springs. They liked the food, which was the most important thing, and I had the prime rib. I always wonder the big hubub is concerning prime rib, so I figured I would have it where it was gonna be "good". Well it was...still didn't like it. Way too much fat. But those potatoes and apple pie were excellent.

Thursday we went to see the Globetrotters! It was the first event of inaugural ESPN: The weekend. Well, it wasn't the first ESPN: The Weekend, but Disney's Wide World of Sports was just renamed ESPN's Wide World of Sports. Makes absolute sense in terms of branding, it just makes me wonder why they took so long to do it. Anyway, the game was awesome (as expected) and we all had a lot of fun.




























Friday, all the interns took Rene to dinner at Boma, a buffet at Animal Kingdom Lodge. Holy crap...it was good. That's basically all I have to say on that. I tried everything. No lie.

On another note, Mandy's back from here week-long excursion to Bellefonte, PA. She was getting ready to start her full-time position at Magic Kingdom, but she got a call to do part-time front desk at Ft. Wilderness. It's considered a promotion, and it's a bit of a bummer it's only full-time for now, but it will give her a better chance to get full-time sooner and also to get out of the parks (trust me, I've heard no one wants to work at MK).

Boy I dropped the ball on this thing...

Sorry I've fallen to pieces everyone. The more I wait to update, the more I have to and the more I'm figuring you're just gonna skim and look for pictures, haha.

Let's start with my birthday. My lovely laday friend took me to the California Grill for an excellent dinner. But if you don't know, the Grill is no ordinary restaurant; the Grill sits atop the Contemporary, one of the first resorts on property. It is also the closest to the Magic Kingdom AND has the monorail run right through it. Brilliant. Anyway, we get there just a couple minutes before 8, checked in, got me a birthday button, and that's when I realized...THE FIREWORKS ARE AT 8. Mandy might be the smartest person ever. So we watched those (the music is played in the restaurant in time with the fireworks) and of course they were awesome; I mean, it's Wishes. Come on.

We then had some dinner, and just like every dinner I've had at Disney, it blew my mind. My mind has been blown so many times, I feel like a Vietnamese mine field. That was probably inappropriate, but what are you gonna do. We shared a flatbread pizza which had roasted red peppers, some sort of greens, and duck. Yes, it was definitely duck season on our flatbread pizza. And it was as awesome as it sounds. For dinner, I had the beef tenderloin, which is becoming a habit when I eat out. I'm pretty sure they cut out the very middle of the cow and throw the rest away cause it tastes so good. Mandy had the scallops and they were butter in my mouth...cause I got to finish them. Awesome. It was the best birthday dinner ever. Hands freakin' down.

Everyone at the office brought a little something to the table for my birthday too. A couple people decorated my cubicle area and two people baked treats. It was a really great surprise. Then that Saturday I had people come out to Ale House to celebrate, mostly because it's the cheapest place around to drink.

The first couple weeks of work, not gonna lie, were pretty boring. Since a lot of what we were gearing up to do was already taken care of (tickets sold, forms sent and received, etc.)
we just assisted others on the floor. A LOT of nonsense for the not-yet-created Gospel Choir Event, filing contracts, straightening up the sully closest, learning how to use Outlook, reading our handbook, and a fair amount of feeling useless. We did get to do a couple of neat things here and there. Like when I start at Disney's Animal Kingdom and had my park orientation, we participated in orientations at Hollywood Studios and Epcot. It was interesting, but we learned a lot of what we already knew and once again, had The Basics drilled into our heads.

BUT, we just had our first festival this past weekend. The Disney Jazz Celebration to be more specific. It was a good time and went pretty close to schedule. Let me tell you, it was a lot more fun than sitting in the office. However, I am tired and this post is already too long, so if you've made it this far, congratulations. I wish I had a prize for you. Crap, I didn't even get to ultimate yet! Le sigh, next time.

My Return Home

I got to go home a couple weeks ago, from the 5th-13th. I WOULD have stayed longer, since I found out I didn't actually start my job until the 19th, but I found out too late and to change your plane ticket that late costs like $234261.61 and I don't have nearly that much. Maybe like half.

A lot of home was catching up with people from my recent past. I saw my grandparents, my old boss at Camille's (who's still not doing so well), old co-workers at school, and favorite professors. It was really great to see my parents as well (obviously). Dad made some stellar king crab legs my first night back, and I got to go out on the town with my Mom to good ole Lino's ($6 dinner meal, you seriously can't beat that. Not even with a stick). Mom and I also had a date to go see Princess and the Frog (which was just as awesome the second time around). It was a bummer Dad had stuff to do on the last two nights I was there, but luckily I'll be seeing him soon.

As prolly most people know, I went to ISU Friday and Saturday, leaving Sunday. It was a lot of fun, some would say too much...but I wouldn't venture to say that. Friday we hit up the bars, with a trip to Mulligan's (standard) and then to Fat Jack's. We didn't make it any farther than that. But I will say two words: LeBomb James. It was epic.









Saturday was a kickin party at Emily, Amy, Jess, and Colleen's apartment (BIG thank you once again). It was great to see all the youngins, some who came back a day early to see me (I'm pretty sure my mom paid them). As much fun as it was, it was a bit weird being out of the loop. But I'm glad I made the visit because it was so great to relive some great memories while making some new ones.









In conclusion, my trip home was too short. I'm pretty sure I was able to see as many people as possible, which was the main goal, and I didn't feel like I was running all over the place at the same time. But the snow did remind me why I'm choosing to stay here...well, at least one of the reasons. What I do know is that I didn't leave home for lack of good people in my life. Note to all friends: make some money asap and come visit me! I now have a place to stay and I can get you in the parks fo free! Think about it.

Update on the job (what I actually do) coming soon. I miss safari though, especially since they have 2 new baby giraffes and a baby rhino!!!

Apt. Pics

Here's my apt., in no particular order. We should have a couch come Wednesday; then I'll have a place to sit!

Apt./Car Pic

This is my car. It's a pretty swell car with only about 65,000 miles. It's red. I like it.












Another picture. It's a 2005 Hyundai Elantra. I just got about 29 miles to the gallon. Needless to say, it made me ecstatic.








Last picture, in case you need to hunt me down.













I'll post apt. pictures either tonight or tomorrow.