Where Dreams Come True

That's a tag line for Disney and yes, even though I had some rotten luck today...bad seat on flight, it's hotter than Africa and humid = bad hair, and the hotel lost a package of mine...oh and we're staying on Disney property at the Coronado Springs resort..which usually would sound great to the Average Joe, but when you're working in downtown Orlando which is at least 30-40 min away...it sux! The day ended GREAT!

and what's with these weird little towel animals that are in all the windows of the hotel? Here's the one in mine....weird weird...is it a duck? an angel with a big yellow nose? Am I supposed to leave it there or use the towel? Will another one appear tomorrow? And why do my co-workers not have this in their windows? Casitas #4 have them everywhere and they are creeping me out!!!

Of course, Disney being Disney, I also had this towel art in my room...it actually took me awhile to figure out what the heck it was...DUH!

But enough of my bellyaching....here's where being me and having my job actually does warrant your jealousy....usually I say that my job might sound cool but it's not because it's lots of travel, long hours, stinky dumpsters, lots of grief by crew members blah blah blah.

Well tonight I got to do something so cool I can't believe I got to be there!...I attended a banquet for the 2 teams that are playing in the MEAC/SWAC Challenge on Sunday (ESPN2 2pm!) The banquet was at Disney's Hollywood Studios on the set of Lights Camera Action
This was not the cool part as we ate an "ok" meal and listened to people talk about how great it was to be taking part in this event. The absolutely freaking cool part was that after the banquet, the park was empty except for us (the 2 football teams and various others involved with the event) EMPTY!!!

(can you hear the crickets?)

and they opened Rock & Roll Roller Coaster and Tower of Terror just for us to ride as many times as we wanted...and there was an ice cream man with his cart stationed by the rides and we got all the free ice cream we wanted!!!

Is this not every kids dream come true?!?!?!?!?!?! Yes, it was kinda creepy with no one else around the darkened park...kinda like a bad horror flick ...and regretfully they didn't have the Aerosmith music playing on the roller coaster because we had this contraption set up on it...
A camera that would shoot whomever was sitting in those seats. We put the 2 top players from each team in those seats and caught their reactions as they rode ... The ride doesn't have quite the impact as when the music is playing but it was still cool. (sigh) just an excellent excellent end to the day.

It's the most wonderful time of the year...NOT

It's performance review time and although I swore to myself that I wouldn't discuss work on this blog for fear it'll be seen by the wrong person...I just have to vent for a bit. I consider PRs alot like death and taxes, they're inevitable. Now I've had my share of good and bad reviews over the years. The bad ones were mostly due to incompetent managers who lacked management skills and worse than that, never even had contact with me except for review time so how the heck would they know what I had accomplished!?!?! I've had great reviews too, constructive criticism and all, by people who actually cared about my growth potential and wanted me to succeed. Of course that whole idea of "You're a great employee but I'm grading you low so that you'll have something to strive for next year" business just does fly with me. Seriously, you graded me low thinking I might not work as hard as I did this year? Who do you take me for? My daddy didn't raise an idiot and amazingly enough succeeded in raising someone with a fierce work ethic. It really stinks knowing that your raise and possible bonuses are all a result of this piece of paper. Does anyone ever really read them or do they just look at the rating and hand down your sentence for the year? Why do I care? Well, for one thing they tell me I need to care, they being "the man" but I have a feeling that when you are faced with a gazillion of these reviews knowing you need to read them but just don't have the time, that it basically comes down to "oh, she rated a B so she gets $2, but he rated an A so that's worth $5. Why am I spending 7 hours of my Sunday writing the Great American novela of my past year when it's just glanced at? ...erg

I try really hard throughout the year to document my achievements so that when it comes to this looming due date, I actually have something to say. Then I procrastinate, like I have for the past 2 months, knowing the date was coming and yet waiting till the day before to actually start putting pen to paper. It's like I was back in school and had a 10 page report due...I waited then too, till the last minute, but then usually I'd come up with some of the best BS out there and could still pull off an A or B. School was easy. Real life, not so much. How do you explain and prove how fabulous you are without sounding too cocky while attempting to use all those buzz words like :
communicates effectively
team building
exceeds expectations
positive attitude
leadership qualities
self starter

blah blah blah..

you know of what I mean, right? Let's cut to the chase and just say it like it is. "Diane is fabulous, she does a great job all year, she is fun to be around and she's responsible and mature enough to get her work done (right the first time) without you needing to loom over her." See. Easy, breezy and to the point...no, instead I just spent the last 7 hours trying to put together cohesive, politically correct sentences. Sentences using the buzz words and if you use the buzz words then it sounds all professional and the more professional you sound the better you look when someone reads your review.

"Oh look, don't we have intelligent employees, they use big multi syllabic words and can form complete sentences. oooh aaah" (Bonus points for those who used spell check for the correct spelling of said buzz words.)

The other key to a writing a good review is throwing in a bit of self control as well. No one is perfect so you have to tinge your review with the fact that you "might" have a few faults. Take me for example, I have a personality trait of being a bit too honest. I tell it like it is and don't sugar coat. Regretfully this doesn't fly in the corporate world and there are some people out there who are too "sensitive" and have a problem with this. So I need to work on "effectively communicating" I used to be sensitive, really I did, but the first time I burst into tears in the corporate world and was told to grow a thick skin, grow it I did. Oh sure I still have my tearful moments.....it's hard not to when you're frustrated with the system but I'm not as bad as I used to be..now usually, I just get mad! Then set out to get even by proving whomever had an issue with me that they are on crack and I know of what I speak. HAHAHAHA

So I'm writing this self review and it's hard. We use a program on our intranet where you start with planning out your year with goals, then spend the next 11 months striving toward those goals and finally at the end of the fiscal year you write your review stating if you achieved your goals or not. The problem with this is that in my business, writing goals are hard. It's not like I sell something and am trying to exceed our profit from last quarter. Goals are usually measurable and it's not like I can say, " I hope to do 10% more events next year and be away from home 10 more days" My goals are usually something like "read technical publications to stay abreast of trends in the industry" OK how do you measure that? I get all those mags and read them occasionally when I have time but how do you comment on that in your review? It's ongoing and unmeasurable unless weekly I submit a report to my boss of my findings in these mags and I don't have time for this nor would she have time to read it. Or for example, my one fault, my apparent communication skills or lack thereof which became one of my developmental goals. How do I know that I achieved this goal without someone actually telling me, because they sure as heck told me I had a problem when I wasn't aware of it in the first place. This is where it gets funny. Where the corporate world says to solve your issue/problem you should take a class like "Communicating Effectively with People" If you take the class then you're cured right? Problemo solved. Like getting a prescription for anti depressants, take Prozac and you're happy slappy. Well I didn't take a class so I didn't have that as an achievement for my issue. See what I mean by how hard this is to write? As a member of corporate America for the past 16 years, I've taken lots of these classes. These multi-hour, multi-day classes: Effective Communication, Conflict Resolution, Management Journey, Diversity etc. Everyone comes away from the class patting themselves on the back saying "Look at me, I took a class, problem solved" The real problem is after 1-2 days, everything that was talked about in the class gets pushed to the back of your brain and the demands of real life take over and nothing changes. I get so tired of this hypocritical BS that I actually brought it up in one of those classes I attended recently. At the beginning of the class you usually have to go around the room and introduce yourself and say what you want to get out of the class, well when it came my turn I said "I just hope that everyone in this room actually listens and puts into practice what they learn today instead of thinking that the issues were solved by just taking a class much like taking a pill to suppress the pain" I know some people were taken aback but most probably felt like saying the same thing. Did I mention I perhaps am a bit too blunt? ;-) I also took all the easel paper that was used in this meeting and hung them up around the office so people wouldn't forget what we talked about. Tomorrow we (the attendees of that class) are presenting ideas to the Senior Staff on how to make my office a better place to work. So maybe I started something, I don't know, maybe good can come from my blunt honesty yes? Gee maybe that's my achievement for that goal, too bad I can't prove that it all came about because of little old me.

So it is what it is. I'll take one more swipe at it before I turn it into my manager and then hope for the best. It's hard though, because just like my school days of yesteryear I want an A. I want to run home and show Dad, "look what I did!!!!!" and maybe get a little extra ice cream $$ in my allowance next week.

Rainy Days and Mondays

Such plans we had for today. We WERE going to go jet skiing on the Willamette River. Yes, I said "were" but Mother Nature decided to throw a little rain action our way so those plans were scrapped...argh...so we just kinda hung around the homestead and ran errands for the big shindig tomorrow.

Like I said in a previous post, Todd works for one of the truck companies I use, so my journey to Oregon wouldn't be complete without a visit to the home office for a little glad handing and a free lunch...thanks Steve! They just built a new HD truck which will be used for one of our College Football packages this fall. I know, if you aren't in the TV biz you can't appreciate this, but seriously, I work on alot of older trucks which are in need of alot of maintenance so when a new truck comes on board with any of our vendors, it's a big deal.
Look how pretty and it still has that new truck smell

On a lighter note. Todd had just finished a gig broadcasting this tourney in Vegas. Seriously! There apparently was a $50K purse to the winner so this is a big deal ...whatever...it takes all kinds

Berry-licious

OMG....have I ever mentioned how I just LOVE berries? any berries...blue, straw, razz, boysen, lingon, etc. Here at Todd's I've landed smack dab in the middle of a

All around the golf course are millions of blackberry bushes! YUM! I think I've found my breakfast, lunch,and dinner for the next couple of days. Todd, since he lives around all these berries all the time, doesn't seem as excited as I about having the mother load in his back yard...what's up with that?!?!!!?

Of course the problem with blackberries are that they live on very thorny bushes...as my hands will attest, and I get a little overzealous trying to reach the biggest berries that live just out of my arms reach and then I pay for it dearly! Pain before the pleasure, right?

Day 4.....just another day in paradise.

Ok, I'm warning you now, I don't have a ton of pics to post...let's just say, nothing much was happening that was pic worthy and then when it did I was sans camera....ah well.

So I had some time to kill today before I met up with my pal, Todd, at his house. I decided to head into downtown Portland to go to the Saturday Market. Yes I know it's Sunday...but it's open Sunday as well.
The Saturday Market is basically a local artisan/craft fair. Pottery, jewelry, incense, you know what I'm talking about and of course the requisite street musicians and teenagers with no sort of direction in life other than hanging out on the street thinking that they deserve something for doing nothing. Make love, not war, man...

It was another hot day and because I really felt like just hanging out and relaxing and reading my book, I headed back to McMenamins Edgefield because they have a porch with rocking chairs where I could people watch....plus the lure of one of these was hard to resist. A Ruby Red milkshake. Vanilla ice cream (made on site) with raspberry compote and their Ruby Ale (yes, that's beer my friend) Yummy yum yum!!

Doctor I think I have a problem, I'm addicted to McMenamins. In retrospect, I would have to say that my favorite one thus far is the Edgefield location but I liked staying in the Olympic Club room (mostly because of the bunk beds and AC) but Edgefield had more to do...golf course, movies, soaking pool, spa, winery and tasting room....ice cream.....

So FINALLY, I head down to Wilsonville, OR to meet up with Todd. He lives on a golf course

and has many toys lying around which you'll see in subsequent postings but one of them is a pumpkin cannon...which I'm told will be a watermelon cannon come Tuesday.
Now the whole reason for this vacation was the fact that I work with Todd. He's an engineer at one of the truck companies we use on our events. Last June we did a Cal State Fullerton game and in passing he mentioned that their company party was in August and that I should attend. I don't think he actually thought I'd say yes, but since I had no other plans for August and I wasn't going to Burning Man, I figured what the heck. The BIG party is on Tuesday, but I've been told there are big plans for me over the next few days since I'm technically a client. I didn't come out here expecting special treatment, but since I don't think they'll take no for an answer..what's a girl to do???

I could also tell you all about how Todd and I went tooling around on the golf cart and while we were on the front nine it died suddenly and we had to walk all the way back to his house, but I promised him I wouldn't embarrass him by even mentioning this..

doh!

It's battery operated too and I've heard of running out of gas on a date, but seriously......

no seriously, it died because of a technical glitch not because the battery was bad...I think it's me, I also made a 4yr old cry....I'm on a roll.

Lord of My Domain

Take a look at this! 107 degrees my car was reading and this just wasn't with the windows up and it sitting in the direct sun, I was tooling around windows down! I'm in freakin Oregon, NOT Phoenix!! Those 776 miles...that's how many the car really has. I rented it with a mere 103 miles, so you can see I've been doing quite a bit of driving in the past couple of days.

After I left Centralia, I headed toward the coast. I LOVE the PCH (Pacific Coast Highway) running from San Fran to LA so I figured it's got to be just as good in this part of the country right? Yeah, not so much. I was hoping for a bit more Mario Andretti driving (speed while hugging the curves) but what I got was alot of traffic, probably because it was 30 degrees cooler by the ocean than it was inland. Oh sure, it was a nice scenic drive but nothing tops Big Sur! I did discover a pretty neat little art installation town on the way. In sprawling Raymond, WA I came upon a gazzillion of these steel sculptures just spread willy nilly everywhere.

cool bike rack!

The story behind these sculptures is thus: (stolen from the brochure) In 1993, the City of Raymond, secured funds via the US Coastal Corridor Program to visually enhance Highway 101 (aka PCH) as it passes through the community They got $350K and in 3 years, 3 artists created 200 sculptures out of steel and placed them around the city. That's alot of money to give to a town of 3000 residents. Velly cool

You've heard of Cape Fear, Cape of Good Hope, Cape Cod...now we have Cape Disappointment? Why would anyone want to go here if you're just going to be disappointed?...at least they warn you with the name so you don't have to waste your time, unless you're really just looking to be disappointed, then by all means, go for it! In all seriousness (get ready for your history lesson of the day)
"In 1788, while in search of the Columbia River, English Captain John Meares missed the passage over the river bar and named the nearby headland Cape Disappointment for his failure in finding the river. In 1792, American Captain Robert Gray successfully crossed the river bar and named the river "Columbia" after his ship, the Columbia Rediviva. Only a few years later, in 1805, the Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived at Cape Disappointment"

So, guess where my hotel reservation was for today?

yep...another McMenamins hotel.. I'm addicted I tell ya! This time I had Queen bed room ($65) because I had to change my reser and there weren't any bunk roms available. When I called the woman said she was assigning me a basement room which I was leary about because seriously, who want's to stay in a basement? Well, considering there's no AC in this hotel it was the best choice ....MUCH cooler. Plus look what's down there with me:

Once again the rooms were named...and how apropos!! I got the room "Lords of Their Domain"


what's written on those walls, you ask? Here's the one by the sink. Like I mentioned, no AC but there was a sink (BONUS) a box fan, LOTS of electrcial outlets, and even a phone...still no TV and you still needed to go across the hall to the shower/bathroom

I feel like someone is watching me....holy cow, look what's on the ceiling pipes in my room!

The view outside my room....very cool mosaic tile columns and that door straight ahead is the Doctor's Office Bar, so I don't have far to stumble ;-)

and look more pipe art


My only complaint about this hotel is that I was there on a Saturday and there were 4 weddings going on around the grounds so you couldn't really explore too much because all the rooms had private parties in them and they cancelled the movie showing because a wedding reception was being held in the theatre

erg.....

After this stay, no more McMenamins for me as my friend Todd will be back in town and I'll be staying at his abode till Thursday

Centralia and other wanderings

Day 2...started out innocently enough. I started out taking in a little more of the Gorgeous Gorge.
Waterfall of the day:


Ubiquitous pic of me with my boho top (actually I just happened to have this with me, I didn't buy it here...but I got lots of compliments on it!!) I know the pic is questionable, I have no idea why I have that Carol Merrill pose going, but I had problems getting a decent pic here because it was kinda windy thus my hair was all caddy wonkus and my top kept billowing up like I was preggers. So best pic out of 10 taken!
Today I had reservations in a town called Centralia, WA, about halfway between Seattle and Portland..and wouldn't you know it? Conveniently ANOTHER McMenamins location. This time the Olympic Club. It's a converted "gentlemen's club" built in 1908 and ultimately closed by the Feds in 1926 due to bootlegging activities. The town of Centralia is VERY small, not much going on except for lots of antique shops and this gem of a place.

I stayed in one of their bunk bed rooms..again $50 but this time there was AC and a small sink in my room BONUS! There's only 26 rooms and each is "named" I was in Number 9 the "Nugent Bros." room.

Kickin it Old school with a real room key!

Before the hotel was built the Nugents ran the Oxford bar on the site. Though a popular spot, they were forced to close when the city yanked their license for running a card game at the bar (illegal in 1907)
Dig the art work on the wall!Now I know what you're probably wondering. Which bunk did she sleep on? The top, of course, when faced with a bunk bed opportunity it's always more fun to take the top bunk, and no I didn't fall out! Oh and probably the only problem with this location was the occassional train that came by, as the tracks are approx 50 ft from the building. They do supply ear plugs!

Now many of you know that I have a love of live theatre. Musical Theatre to be exact and perhaps love isn't the best word...healthy obsession is probably more apropos. I started going to the theatre as a wee babe with my parents and then when I was in high school I joined the drama club. It was more an effort to do my older sister one better, as I actually got a speaking role in one of the shows, as opposed to my sister who, during her HS tenure had a non speaking role ;-) Little did I know at that time, what effect a little sisterly competition would have on the rest of my life. My drama teacher was Mrs. Booher, and she has the dubious honor of being my favorite teacher EVER! (if I ever win an Academy Award, I'd have to thank her for starting me on my journey) She got me started in our little community summer theatre and from then on, I was quite literally hooked. I collected Broadway show albums at one point and now am one of those people who know all this information but it's not exactly prevalent to everyday life, so all you can do is rule when it comes to the entertainment ?'s in trivia and that's about it. ;-)

So long story much longer than it should have been, my friends Bob and Carol (from Tampa remember?) told me that they had heard that "Shrek the Musical" was in Seattle on its pre Broadway run. Now I wasn't exactly planning on driving all the way to Seattle (3 hours) when there was so much to do more locally, but since I was halfway there (staying in Centralia) and the lure of the great white way is just too hard to resist I took the plunge. The show had just opened for previews on Thursday so this would be its second official performance in front of an audience. The cast was strong, lots of Broadway regulars etc..plus if it turned out to be a train wreck....even better, I would have the scoop!

So I headed up to Seattle...saw some sites...the famous Pike Place Market, where they throw the fish....

and then:

Here's my critique. I wasn't fond of the first number. It was basically the back story of how Shrek came to live alone in the swamp...the audience seemed to like it though but I was discouraged by the fact that there was bathroom humor (meaning the belching, farting sound effects to get cheap laughs. It got the laughs, but seriously this is legit theatre folks and even though that's part of Shrek's (the character) schtick, resorting to this type of stuff turns me off..I understand that they are trying to appeal to the kiddos and kiddos love that kind of stuff, but I don't. As a wee babe I loved "The King and I" and there wasn't any of this pandering for a cheap laugh in that..so I don't believe it's necessary..just my 2 cents) After the first number, the show picked up, the costumes were amazing, alot of puppetry and it's apparent that as Dreamworks first foray into Broadway Musical productions, that they threw alot of money into the overall production elements. The best character was Lord Farquaard played by Christopher Sieber of Spamalot fame. This character is meant to be short in stature and Chris Sieber is probably a good 6'4" so they created a costume where Chris would kneel and have these 2 short puppet legs attached to his thighs. This guy did entire dance numbers on his knees and it was amazing and hysterical! I'm sure it's going to ruin his knees for the rest of his life but it could just garner him a Tony award, it was that good. The characters of Shrek and Fiona were good, played by 2 Broadway vets, Brian D'Arcy James and Sutton Foster, but I wasn't blown away by them. (click that link for an article on the Shrek makeup)I did enjoy the inside homages to past Broadway shows that were in the script. As a musical theatre freak I caught them but normal joe off the street wouldn't. For example, during Lord Farquaad's big song where he's looking for a princess he sings "hey nonny nonny" which is in reference to a show from the 60's called Once Upon a Mattress and the character from that show is also looking for a mate and she sings "hey nonny nonny is it you?" Then one of the story book characters is a wicked witch and at some point she says, "I just sold my life story to Stephen Schwartz!" which is in reference to the show Wicked about the Wicked Witch of the West and written by Stephen Schwartz.

This show is supposed to open around November in NYC so I'll be curious to see what the NY critics say as well as finding out what songs, etc are still in the show or might have changed during this out of town preview. That's the beauty of previews, you most likely never see the same show twice and it's exciting to find out what elements work and what don't.