Happy Halloween!

Billy Ocean

Most popular songs: "Caribbean Queen" and "Get Outta My Dreams, Get Into My Car"

I went to Billy Ocean the other day with some of the trainers that I work with. They had gone in previous years and warned me about his outfit choices and his large white teeth. Strangely enough, I think these are the teeth he was born with. Put all that stuff aside though, and he's still an awesome singer. He's one of those talented people that can sing phenomenally and just look like he's having a conversation.

Here is his troupe of a band and backup singers

And the man himself! He normally has these really long dreads, but for this special occasion he french braided them up. It actually looked pretty cool. Also, love his suit (olive green and turquoise) and his epic old man dance groove.

38 Special

38 Special: Most well known for: "Hold On Loosely" and "Caught Up In You" (such good songs!)

Unfortunately, I got the shaft in the work schedule last week and ended up on the closing shift (10-7) for 4 out of 5 days. I somehow also misread the concert schedule and thought that 38 Special was playing later in October so one day when another intern Eric asked me if I was going because it was the last day to see them, I just kind of stared at him. Not having any extra clothes to wear for the concert (we can't wear our work shirts), I got creative and put on my morning fish prep shirt and walked over for the last 7:45 show. Ewwwwww. But I was desperate. The show was full by the time I got there so I squeezed in as close as I could get. I was only one person and people tend to fear sitting next to strangers so I was happy to fill the awkward gap between families.

Zoom!

I was sure glad I went too. So far, I think that they were the most talented band I've seen at Epcot. Every single person who was playing an instrument could sing and they turned the speakers up far enough that your toes rattled in your shoes. It was the first show where the audience voluntarily stood for all of the songs. So much energy!

This is the first time I've seen a drummer set his cymbals quite this high...

FedEx Had An Epic Fail

Yes, I really sent this letter. We will see if I ever get a response. But I was proud of myself.

Dear FedEx Customer Support,

In August of this year I sent a birthday present to my brother from an Office Max in Kissimmee Florida that is partnered with your company. After one week my brother did not receive this package and I soon learned that it had been broken in transport and sent back to my return address. Initially I was upset because it was a special gift and realized that someone must have used it for baseball pitching practice because I packed it quite well. Since I have been using FedEx for years however, I was confident that this problem could be resolved. Not even “resolved in a timely manner” just “resolved”. I called the Customer Service line to ask what action I might take for a refund and they directed me back to the Office Max – which was the wrong place to go because I am not asking them for a refund, I am asking you. I even took the liberty to trek over to an actual FedEx store twenty minutes away and they also could not help me because they did not know what to do. Again, it was requested that I call Customer Service. After my second phone call to Customer Service and providing my tracking number I was rewarded with a Claims form that was sent to my personal email. Being the competent college graduate that I am, I filled out the form, attached all of the necessary materials, and sent it away with high hopes of my problem finally being solved.

Dutifully, I waited the mandatory 4-6 weeks for my Claims form to be processed and stashed the broken birthday present in a corner of my room as recommended. I decided to call Customer Service again last week after the damaged merchandise was becoming an eyesore and my brother was still gift-less. What I found out was quite surprising. Not only was my Claims form rejected, but it was rejected because technically I was not the “shipper”. I was under the impression that since I bought the merchandise, packed it myself, secured it with tape, wrote an address on it, and brought it to a shipping center within Office Max, that I would qualify as the shipper. Alas, I was mistaken. Because I took it to an Office Max store, they were the shippers according to you, and needed to file the claim for me.

Shoving my dignity to the side, I went back to the Office Max and explained my predicament. A nice assistant manager attempted for two hours to find out how I could obtain my refund. Several unsuccessful phone calls later, amidst many confused Customer Service employees (who were still telling me to fill out a Claims form myself) he was finally transferred to someone of higher importance who assured him that a refund check would be sent to the store for me the next day. It would be made out to Office Max, they would be required to send it to their corporate offices, it would then be deposited, and I would have to return again to the store to get my refund – which would be cash taken out of their till.

I am still waiting for this promised refund check to arrive at the Office Max after one week. Meanwhile, I am stuck missing fifty dollars for the ruined gift. I cannot possibly be the first person that this has happened to and I am appalled that a simple refund has caused me this much frustration and trouble. Needless to say, I will not be utilizing your shipping services in the future.

Sincerely,

Annie Walser

Food & Wine Festival

Epcot has a special Food & Wine Festival every year that spans the entire month of October and half of November. Along with the concert series that I've already mentioned, there are also more than 25 international food kiosks set up all over the World Showcase. For a few dollars, they serve appetizer sized portions of regional foods. Yum! If only I had an unlimited amount of dollars...

This year is kind of special because it's the 15th anniversary of the Festival. Each booth has the date when it was added and a large board set up next to it with the menu. This year, Epcot added South Korea, Belgium, and Charcuterie and Cheese.

Special "gift shops" are set up in between the kiosks and their prices are exorbitant, even for Disney. I think this may be because they are outside vendors and can charge as much as they want. I snuck a photo of some nice artwork though. You know when you go to the street fair, or a really nice art studio, and the artists are selling their smaller reprints for around 10 to 20 dollars? Reprints here at a minimum are 75 dollars. Um, no thanks.

There are seminars and demonstrations offered as well as meet and greets and book signings with chefs at the Festival Welcome Center. I got really excited for a minute when I found out that Kat Cora (Iron Chef), Jamie Deen (Paula Deen's son!), and Andrew Zimmern (Bizarre Foods) would be there but it would cost literally an arm and a leg to meet them or attend their programs. Other notable chefs that may also induce excitement if you're a food network junkie like myself: Keegan Gerhard (hosted lots of Food Network Challenges), Robert Irvine (Dinner Impossible), and Robin Miller (Quick Fix Meals).

Sister Hazel

Weird name, and weird band. Sister Hazel is most famous for the song "All for You", which I sang along to, and while their other songs were catchy, I didn't recognize them. The half hour was enjoyable and the band broke the record so far for most guitarists. (Are that many necessary?)

The main reason why it was just ok for me was the energy level. The other concerts I went to had screaming hordes of fans and the singers and guitarists would jump around through the crowd making each song memorable and different. Sister Hazel remained stationary and the lead singer seemed more interested in getting us to clap in time for each song.

What was truly the weirdest thing though, was the guitarist on the left. He played the entire concert barefoot and brought along his own carpet square to stand on. While some people request white doves, 5 leather couches, and only red M&Ms in their dressing rooms, this guy must just have a love affair with his rug sampler.

Air Supply

For the Food and Wine Festival (pictures of the actual festival coming soon), there is the Eat to the Beat concert series. There are lots of bands in the line up, but I don't have time to go to all of them, so my list included Sugar Ray last week and Air Supply this week. In the future, I hope to see: Sister Hazel, 38 Special, Roger Hodgson, Hanson (this is a must), and Rick Springfield.

Air Supply was really fun. As a 23 year old, I was in the age outlier category. To be fair, their most popular songs were hits before I was born, but I still know the words to them and sang along. What I didn't expect were the 60 and 70 year olds that made up the majority of the crowd actually mobbing the band like teenagers, or the elderly gentleman next to me vigorously air drumming during songs.

Billboard hits include: "All out of Love", "Even the Nights are Better", and "Making Love out of Nothing at all". We were able to get front row seats again. Super!

Oktoberfest

The other day I became aware of a fall festival held in Celebration, Florida called Oktoberfest. There was a rumored leaf dropping ceremony to welcome fall, pumpkins, free hay rides, and a live band. It was lots of fun because the town of Celebration is cute and anything they do is bound to entertain you, but some advertisers were a little vague in their descriptions (HA!). However, you can only make it a good time if you take all the differences in stride.

The leaf dropping ceremony happened in the middle of Market Street and I foolishly expected real leaves and to maybe find out why dropping leaves was significant. But it's ok, multicolored paper leaves shaped like clubs on playing cards shot out of boxes on light poles with fans will also suffice.

We asked where we could take one of the hayrides and got the reply: "Well, there isn't any hay this year". So we modified our question to ask where we could find one of these hay-less wagons. Turns out, it's more of a carriage, and expensive. Instead, we just watched people take hay-less hay rides with fancy horses.

One of the shops that was still open for the festival was a deluxe dog store. This shop was evil. They had all of these treats out that were Halloween themed, but FOR DOGS. I almost ate one.

The makeshift pumpkin patch was fun. We especially liked the ghosts, but not the mosquitos.

On our way back to the car, while still laughing about the paper leaves, we came across a wonderfully decorated Halloween themed house. The owners had built a false front and turned their yard into a haunted pirate ship.

I didn't take any pictures of the inflatables they had set up for little kids, but a whole street was dedicated to them. Normally, you can only go on inflatable slides, obstacle courses, and bouncy houses if you're wearing socks. Well...not the rule here. I silently shuddered as the hundreds of children happily bounced around and mashed their faces into each others athlete's foot.

Creepy moment of the night: Where the hell did Hello Kitty come from?

Fanny Pack Update

I did another count when I was standing on the manatee stage the other day to test the accuracy of my first. Just as I predicted, I found a higher percentage of people wearing fanny packs. So, if anything, I was undercounting the other day...or more people from the midwest showed up.

The percentage jumped from around 5% to almost 8%. To give you an idea of how large the difference is, instead of expecting 800,000 fanny packs to grace Disney World every year, we can probably count on more like 1,326,000.

Random photo taken during one of the first weeks I worked here...Can you spot what I found?

In the words of Jenna: "The fanny pack lives on just like mullets, leotards & elastic waist jeans. God bless hillbilly America."

Sugar Ray

The Sugar Ray concert was tonight. I met Hayley and some of her roommates after work and we waited in line for seats.

Just kidding, we were in the front row.

And this happened...(awesome).

It was so much fun that we went twice. Oh! And I got a high five from Mark McGrath.

Caught In The Act

Guess who I caught snuffling in the grass outside our door tonight? I was walking back from a run and I heard a familiar noise...

Fanny Pack Vacation

A lot of people may think that the fanny pack is a dying trend. Just come to Disney World and you will change your mind. Although fanny packs are unacceptable under any circumstances (ugly!), some people still favor them for their Disney vacations. I was curious about percentages, so Hayley helped me today and over a period of 5 hours standing at the manatee stage, we counted the number of visitors we had and the number who were wearing fanny packs. Keep in mind this is a rough estimate because while counting, we were also counting how much lettuce each manatee was eating, answering questions, and giving informative speeches about manatees.

I decided to exclude children. They run around so much that they could be counted twice on accident and unless their parents are evil, they wouldn't be forced to wear (or be trusted with) the fanny pack.

What we found:

- We counted 1,217 adults (if you factor in children and that we are actually open for 10 hours, we probably get around 5,000 visitors a day).

- 57 of those were rocking the fanny pack.

- That means that around 4.7% of guests wear fanny packs.

- If you then use the statistic that 17 million people visit Disney World every year, it turns out that approximately 800,000 people use fanny packs on their vacations.

- Some try to use the fanny pack as a purse. Sorry, but even if it's draped around your shoulder I counted it.

- 3 unfortunate children were wearing them.

- On an unrelated note, one man was wearing a utility vest, complete with pens poking out of the pen pocket holders.

I will do a follow up if I decide to do the count again. If anything, the percentage will probably just go up.

Wins All Around

A conglomeration of fun things from September. In random order.

The mop from Fantasia.

Swiss Family Treehouse.

Hats.

The Astro Orbiter was not a win for me, but at least Terry enjoyed himself.

Water lilies.

Artwork from the Soarin' line.

Waterfalls.

Hippo parties.

Awkward knees.