Author: TechyDad

The No Blog Post Post

Blogging, Life, Stress

There will be no blog post today.

Ok, there’s this one.  So I guess there *is* a blog post today.  But this one doesn’t count.

There’s been a lot of stress in my life recently.  I’ve been feeling like I need to be running at top speed 100% of the time just to keep from losing ground.  Check that.  I run at top speed 100% of the time and *STILL* lose ground.  What doesn’t help is that, at times of extreme stress like this, my brain reacts by shutting down.  I’ll need some serious decompression.  I’m craving it right now.

So, as I write this the night before you are reading it, I’m not feeling motivated to write a proper blog post.  Rather than rooting through photos to pull together an image-laden blog post followed by a 1am bedtime, I’m going to let my mind vegetate a bit.  I’m going to load up Lego Batman on the Nintendo DS and break some blocks.  (Surprising how therapeutic smashing virtual scenery is.)  Then, I’ll try to get to bed early.

Hopefully, this combination will let me release some stress so my brain will unfreeze and I can blog properly again.

Update: As I tried to post this, I encountered server problems. Forget the DS, I’m going right to bed!

How do you react to too much stress?

The #DisneySMMoms Report: Dinoland Party

Dinosaurs, Disney, DisneySMMoms, DisneySMMoms2012, Photos

Note: To see all of my posts on DisneySMMoms 2012, go here.

When we last left off, we were done with the speakers for the day.  As we had some time and as that night’s party would take place in Animal Kingdom’s Dinoland, we decided to head to Animal Kingdom early.

While there, we rode the Kilimanjaro Safari and looked at the flora and fauna around the Animal Kingdom.

animals-1rhinoplants

Of course, we also saw a very lucky bug.

Finally, it was time to head into Dinoland, USA for the party.  What awaited us was amazing.  First, Chester and Hester greeted us at Dinoland’s entrance.

dino-party1

The tables had great centerpieces and the food was spectacular.  Of course, all that was only part of the party.  There were some great characters to meet:

characters

And there were four rides open for our enjoyment: Triceratops Spin, Primeval Whirl, Dinosaur, and Expedition Everest.

rides1view-from-aboverides2

The boys immediately wanted to ride the rides, so we didn’t even eat, but secured a spot and then split up.  B took NHL on Primeval Whirl (twice) while JSL (too short for that ride) went on Triceratops Spin with me.  Then, we switched.  NHL went on Primeval Whirl with me three times in a row.  We didn’t even have the leave the car since there was no line.  We just kept going around and around and around again.  By the end, I was ready to eat.  However, after taking a quick photo with some characters, NHL grabbed B’s father for another Primeval Whirl run.  (I don’t think he liked it at all.)

After JSL ate, B took him to something that we’ve never let the boys do before.  You see, in Chester and Hester’s, there are dinosaur-themed carnival games.  We’ve never let the kids play them because they usually require you to pay for each play.  ($2.50 a pop, I believe.)  For the party, however, they were free.

JSL came back to me so proud that he had won a turtle.

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After NHL finally stopped riding enough and ate some food, he and I joined in the game playing fun.

games1games2

In the end, NHL walked away with five stuffed animals.  One from each game he tried.  This would later become an issue when JSL complained that he only had 2.  (We still hear "NHL has more stuffed animals than me" to this day.)

Stuffed animal dilemma aside, the boys, B’s parents, B and I had a blast.  Disney sure knows how to throw a prehistoric party!

Disclaimer: We paid for our own trip to Disney World to attend the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration. Though we were given an incredible deal from Disney, they never asked us to blog about this event. All opinions expressed above are my own.

Aloha Friday: Wardrobe Malfunction

Aloha Friday, Clothing, embarrassing

zipperA couple of days ago, I had a very embarrassing moment.  One of those moments where you begin to panic that, if people find out what happened, they’ll give you grief about it for years to come.  So, of course, I’m blogging about it!

I was at work and had just finished with an important meeting.  It had run a bit long and I had drunk a bit too much water to drink so off to the restroom I went.  I locked the door behind me and tried to unzip my pants.  That’s when my zipper came off.  I don’t mean just the "pull tab" portion of the zipper, but the whole zipper "mechanism."

I tried to get it back on my pants, but could only get one side of it back on.  In a panic, I texted B from the bathroom to inform her of my plight.  Apparently, it gave her and her mother quite the good laugh.  (Even in my panicked state, I didn’t take offense to this.  They were dealing with JSL puking up medicine while running a 102 fever after a DTAP vaccine.  They needed a laugh.)  Since B couldn’t help me and since the zipper obviously wasn’t going to get fixed then and there, I weighed my options.

I could walk out with my dress shirt untucked from my pants.  This would cover any embarrassing open zipper moments, but it would draw more attention since I never wear my shirt like that.  I could walk out with my zipper open, hope that nobody noticed, and keep on working, but I was sure it would pop open at the most embarrassing moment possible.  (Lady Luck didn’t seem to be on my side at the moment as much as playing practical jokes on me.)

Finally, I tucked my shirt in my pants (so if I did have more of a "wardrobe malfunction", people would only see my tucked in shirt), tightened my belt as much as possible (to keep my pants in place), steeled my nerve, and exited the bathroom.  Then, I walked to my boss’ office and let him know I needed to head home early lest I flash the office.  (Just to add insult to injury, I had to walk to my car in a downpour hoping that the work bag I held in front of me would shield my broken zipper from the world.)

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Have you ever had an embarrassing wardrobe malfunction?  If so, how did you handle it?

Disclaimer: The "zipper" image above comes from OpenClipArt.org.

P.S. If you haven’t already, try out my Twitter applications: FollowerHQ and Rout.

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the linky there if you are participating.

Aloha Friday by Kailani at An Island Life

Aloha #141

The Luckiest Bug in Disney World

Bug, Disney, DisneySMMoms, DisneySMMoms2012

lucky-bug

Before I relate what happened at the Dinoland Party at the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration, I wanted to relate the story of a bug.

Since we had some time before the party, we went to the Animal Kingdom, rode the Kilimanjaro Safari (where I saw some of the places I’d see on the Wild Africa Trek the next day), and then went to the front of the park to await the rest of the Disney Social Media Moms Celebration crew.

While talking to some other DisneySMMoms attendees, a bug began to fly around us.  Nothing out of the ordinary.  After all, it was April in Florida.  We swatted at it and it fell to the ground.  This is where the fun began.

My father-in-law began egging the boys on to squish the bug, but I told them not to.  At this point, the bug wasn’t bothering them so I didn’t see any reason for them to go out of their way to kill it.  So instead, we watched it.  It walked away from us seemingly unable to fly.

Unfortunately, Animal Kingdom was closing and so people began to leave en masse.  Up came a group of about 20 people.  They were walking right for the bug.  Surely, it would soon be squished, right?  We watched in disbelief as foot after foot missed the bug.  A few came close, but always missed.  (Lest you think people were intentionally avoiding it, their eyes were fixed ahead on the exit and not on the bug underfoot.)

After the first group came another.  And another.  Feet after feet after stroller wheel after stroller wheel missed the bug.  We kept looking on in more and more disbelief.  This bug was defying all the odds and, I’ve got to admit, I found myself rooting for it.  There’s nothing like an underdog to gain my sympathy.

Sadly, the bug didn’t make it.  Eventually, someone came along and stepped on it.  Still, for a time there, that was the luckiest bug in all of Disney World.

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