Memories of days gone by
Archive for March, 2010

A new commitment
Mar 21st
Back in September of 2008, I officially went on a diet. It went well for the first year, but then things started to come apart. I started to fall off the wagon, and not track my “points” for the week. I also started having problems with my foot, which kept me from going to the gym for awhile. Frustrated with my health and life in general, I fell into the emotional eating trap, which is a recipe for trouble (no pun intended). My weight started to climb. At the beginning of 2010, I got some bad news about my health which kept the emotional eating going. I’ve gained back nearly half the weight that I spent a year losing.
I’ve decided that I have to make a big change, starting now. I’ve got to get back on the diet train and start going to the gym regularly. I’ve found that waiting until the late afternoon to go creates too many opportunities to make excuses. Seeing how I’m self-employed, I’m not normally in a rush to get going. I’m going to set my alarm clock earlier, wake up and have a light breakfast while doing the morning e-mail and web surfing rounds, and then it’s off to the gym. Or at least that’s what I’m hoping to start doing tomorrow. I’ll report back in a few weeks and we’ll see if that chart starts trending in the right direction again.

Doubleheader
Mar 21st
Yesterday I took my mom to the second round games of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in San Jose. Upon arriving, a guy walking the other way told me that they would not allow him to bring in his Nikon D-SLR, and that I’d likely have the same problem. I thanked him and figured that I’d try my luck. I get to the ticket window and they looked at my camera (Nikon D300s with 17-55 lens attached, and 70-300 lens in a bag) and said “sorry sir, you cannot bring that inside, you’ll have to bring it back to your car.” When I told them my car was an hour train ride away, they escorted me to the guest services office. I tried arguing (polietely) with them, but they said “if your lens extends and is longer htan six inches, it can’t come in.” Seeing how I didn’t have any choice in the matter, I checked everything in and went to watch the first half of the Murray State vs Butler game.
Come halftime, my cell phone rings. It’s the office calling, saying that the manager (of the whole place, I think) said that I could have my camera and 17-55 mm lens back, but they were keeping the telephoto until the end of the game. I figured that I should take what I could get, and went and retrieved the camera.
So, here are my pictures from the two games, taken with the not-very-telephoto 17 – 55 mm lens. I was going to write the NCAA a nasty letter for having such a ridiculous restriction, but I figured I’d let them off the hook after they gave me my camera back.
- View from our seats
- Murray State’s mascot
- Love how his tongue is out
- Hoping they’ll actually get a free throw to go down
- First of two requisite cheerleader photos
- I think this qualifies as a blowout

California Adventure – February 2010
Mar 3rd
- California Adventure entrance… won’t look like this for much longer
- Neither will this… bye-bye Golden Gate Bridge!
- California Adventure is filled with “coming soon” signs
- Kind of like this
- … and this
- You can preview all the new stuff here
- Tower of Terror, one of my all-time favs
- Tower lobby
- Cute kids ride in Bug’s Land
- Mr. Potato Head in the Toy Story Mania queue
- New midway games
- You can see the incredibly complex fountain and lighting setup they have for World of Color
- Another angle. which shows the ride formerly known as the Golden Zephyr under a tarp
- Kind of a nice spot here

Disneyland – February 2010
Mar 2nd
A week ago I was down in Anaheim for PMA. The show was pretty dead, and I only had a couple of meetings, so naturally I went across the street to the Disneyland Resort.
Below are photos from Disneyland, with California Adventure pictures to follow tomorrow. Since I’m planning on building a new DL photo site, I’m temporarily hosting these images here on my blog.
I used the Nikon D300s for all of these.
- Everybody sing!
- Nearing the end
- Now I can say I’ve seen the Taj Mahal
- Shake it!
- Some photos from inside the ride
- Recently renovated it’s a small world, now with bigger boats for fatter Americans
- I hardly go over to this area of the park anymore
- Toontown City Hall
- Teacups at night
- New monorail approaches
- Requisite Matterhorn photo. The ride was down for annual maintenance.
- The subs were busy
- … since you and your subjects are both moving!
- Even with a high end D-SLR, getting decent photos is very difficult…
- The only photos that came out from Splash Mountain
- The Mark Twain is getting fixed up
- The Rivers of America were empty
- I wonder how many people actually pay attention to these details
- Stuff in the queue
- Thunder Mountain
- Managed to take this with almost nobody in the way!
- The only other on-ride photo from Pirates
- Another lucky shot, this time inside Pirates
- Lucky timing to get this shot
- Haunted Mansion stretching room
- Side street in New Orleans Square
- Space Mountain loading area
- Still my favorite coaster
- The sign looks really good at night
- Yes, it’s back. And I was in the fourth group of people to see it on opening day — just by chance.
- Close-up of the sign
- Tomorrowland entrance
- Back view at night
- Castle at night
- This photo has probably been taken 100 million times
- Postcard photo
- These guys are always good
- Chalk this up as another thing I never do at DL
- Random buildings
- Decorations on Main Street
- This is right behind the flagpole
- I think I’ve been in here once in my life
- City Hall
- A fairly clear shot of the entrance
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