Epcot Illuminations: Reflections of Earth

Epcot Illuminations Reflections of Earth from Jeff Carroll on Vimeo.

Orlando Trip Report: Day 1

The Plan

We were very excited to learn earlier this year that Becca’s national dance competition would be in Orlando. The dance team plans a big trip every other year of so and Orlando got the nod this year. Since the dance competition lasts just four days we decided to extend the trip and make it our big summer vacation.

This is our 9th vacation in Orlando but this trip includes a lot of firsts. All of our previous visits focused exclusively on Disney. We stayed on property and spent all of our time visiting the Disney Parks. We somehow never found the time to venture out to the other parks and attractions in Orlando. After much discussion and planning we decided that this was the year that we would spend time in Orlando enjoying all of the places we missed on previous visits. So for this trip we will be staying off property and will spend time at Sea World, Universal Studios, Islands of Adventure, and Wet and Wild Water Park.

Of course we couldn’t come to Orlando and not visit the happiest place on earth. Our trip plan also includes at least four days at Walt Disney World and a visit to Disney’s Blizzard Beach water park if we can swing it.

Arrival

We arrived in Orlando last night via the non-stop on Southwest Airlines. It really is the best way to get to Orlando from Kansas City. The trip was a breeze. Even picking up the rental car was no problem as Avis is located in the parking garage right next to the terminal. There is nothing I hate more than dragging luggage on a bus ride to a satellite rental car lot.

Accommodations

The dance competition is at the Peabody hotel near Sea World so we had a lot of options for staying near that location. Marriott was our first thought as we love to collect their points. We ended up booking a two bedroom suite at the Marriott Grand Chateau which is about three minutes from the entrance of Sea World. The Grand Chateau is a Marriott Vacation Club resort (timeshare), but you can rent the rooms just like a regular hotel. We have stayed at Marriott Vacation Clubs before and have been impressed with their value and quality.

For previous Orlando trips we always felt that the advantages of staying on Disney property made it worth the extra costs. However, at the Marriott we were able to get a two bedroom suite with a kitchen and living room for less than the cost of a regular hotel room at a Disney resort. The additional room is very appealing to us as our children get older so I think the trade off might be worth it.

So far we have not been disappointed with our choice of resorts. I will provide a full review in a future posts.

I will try to make regular posts of pictures, videos and reviews of our trip as time permits.

The iPad is not above a little ribbing

Great short film shot and edited on iPhone 4

As this film shows, the new iPhone 4 opens up a new world of creative possibilities.

“Apple of My Eye” – an iPhone 4 film from Michael Koerbel on Vimeo.

Be a Samurai not a Rice Picker

Jason Calacanis is an entrepreneur who started a blog publishing company in the early days of blogging. He started the company with nothing and eventually sold it to AOL and made millions of dollars. One of his blogs, Engadget, is a hugely popular tech blog. He has since started several other businesses himself and he works to help others start companies.

Jason appears on several podcasts that I listen to and I have always found him an interesting speaker. He recently gave a talk to a group of college students about the importance of choosing your own path and “being responsible for your own destiny”. His message is that you should be a Samurai and not a rice picker. Jason reminds me of my Uncle Bill who was also a successful entrepreneur. He always said that you cannot get rich if you work for someone else.

While this video is a little long, I think it is really worth the time. Now I just need to go out and find my Sword.

Jamie Oliver: Teaching Kids about Food

Jamie Oliver delivered a powerful talk at the 2010 TED Conference. He is a dynamic speaker, and his message is something we should all be concerned about. If his view is right, all of the current panic about health care is a little like trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. If we don’t deal with the cultural problems that lead to bad health, we will never be able to afford health care. We should also be concerned that our school lunch rooms are run by the same government that wants to run health care. Think about that as you watch this video.

Square: Amazing Solution

My obsession with technology is fueled by seeing how people use it so solve everyday problems in amazing and unexpected ways. I especially love it when the solution is simple, straightforward and easy to understand. I am in awe of this tiny little device from Square. It will change the way we do business and how we view cash. It’s a really great video to boot.

Christmas Break

I wanted to share some of the pictures from our recent Christmas vacation trip to Disney World. I took over 600 pictures, so this is only a small sampling. I will be posting additional pictures and I am also working on a trip report to give you the good, the bad and the ugly of the trip.

Wizzywig Vol. 1: Phreak

In the last few years I have developed a love of comic books. As a kid a good chunk of my paper route money went to buying issues of Batman, Superman and Dark Rider. This was before I discovered video games and computers. My interest in comic books was rekindled a few years ago when I saw the movie American Splendor, the story of Harvey Pekar, a underground comic book writer.

As I started to look into comics, I quickly discovered that the target audience for modern comics is geeks my age. Over time I have become a regular reader of several books that I look forward to picking up every month. I have also developed a pretty impressive collection of trade paper backs (monthly issues collected into books) and graphic novels.

One of my first purchases was “Wizzywig Vol. 1: Phreak” written and illustrated by Ed Piskor. Piskor just happened to be one of the artists that worked on American Splendor. Wizzywig is a graphic novel that tells the tale of Kevin “BoingThump” Phenkil growing up in the early days of personal computers. Many of BoingThump’s adventures are based on stories of famous hackers and geeks of the day like Kevin Mitnick, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. I loved the book because it captured the feeling of excitement and adventure that I remember from growing up as me and my friends started to discover computers.

I am glad that this is one of the first books I picked up as it inspired me to dig into comics and led me to discover some of the great artists and writers working on comics today. I have since bought the second volume of Wizzywig and I am waiting patiently for the third volume which will be available in a few months. When I received volume 2, as a gift from my wife, I was thrilled to discover that Ed Piskor had drawn a personalized picture inside of the front cover. That made this book one of my prized possessions.

Rather than write a detailed review of the book myself, I thought I would post a video from iFanboy that does a good job of describing what it is all about.

Historical film of my favorite city – San Francisco

San Francisco has been one of my favorite cities since Leigh Ann and I spent part of our honeymoon there. I occasionally have the opportunity to travel there on business and each time I visit I am taken in by the beauty, history, and casual feel of the city. The Long Now Foundation posted a presentation of amazing historical film footage that has been restored using modern technology. The film, with some footage going back to 1904, shows how much San Francisco has changed, but also how much the world has changed in just over 100 years. As I watched this I kept wondering how people will view video from today in 100 years?