The Making of Indy: Part 1

Earlier in the summer, as I reported in this post, Little Calvin and I watched the 4th Indiana Jones film. As the credits finished rolling, he looked at me with a smile on his face and said "Dad.. we HAVE to make our own Indiana Jones movie this summer!!!" I pondered this comment for a second and then replied "Yeah.. I think you are right.. that could be fun." And thus, regardless of what Lucasfilm and Speilberg decide to do with the franchise, we are making our own Indiana Jones 5.

Sure.. it might be difficult to explain why Indiana is suddenly 8 years old, why his nemesis, is 11, and where this fits in the whole story, but.. too bad. We are having fun with this and that's what counts for our little family.. ok.. boys.. project. (The girls just roll their eyes, thinking we've gone mad, and there may be some truth to that).

First things first, we need a script, and a MacGuffin (a word to describe the object that Indy seeks) and in this case we decided to return to the series roots with an object with scriptural origins that could (in a fictional sense) have supernatural powers and whose location is still unknown. I hit the scriptures to see what I could find. and eventually found the sword of Laban. Why? We know that it was used in Jerusalem in 600 B.C... We know that it traveled to this side of the world and ended up in South America. We know it was passed down from generation to generation as a symbol of righteousness. We know Mormon had it when he fought his battle before handing it off to Moroni. Now it gets fuzzy. Some reports claim that the sword stayed in the Hill Cumorah, as in the cave where Mormon kept all the records. Some say that Moroni carried it with him ultimately burying it with the plates in up-state New York (in a place ALSO called the Hill Cumorah). But reports differ... Meaning we have plenty of room to fictionally speculate where it could be located at the present time,, and what could happen if some evil, greedy individual were to happen to find it and attempt to remove it from it's current location.

So let's put this into "Indy Speak". Que the "Announcer Voice"

"History tells of a sword.. once used to behead a king.. then passed on to leaders throughout South American History as a symbol of goodness. Legend says the sword is buried deep in a hidden hill, surrounded by gold, claiming that only those who are deemed worthy may possess it, and harness its power"

Sounds pretty Indiana Jonesish if you ask me.. And so "Indiana Jones and the Sword of Cumorah" was born as you can see with the following "teaser posters" to announce the project:

Now to be fair, Little Calvin is very excited about our progress and asked me if I could give him the scoop on this one and our experiences as the cameras started to roll. So, for the full story (and far less wordy than me) and to see photos of our progress, you can visit his blog at http://www.tannersawesomeblog.blogspot.com

The Olympic Trials Surprise!

I have been blogging long lately.. so I'll keep today's update short. The fourth of July this year was one to remember! After a fun walk in the 2008 Butte to Butte (I started and finished the RIGHT race this year) the family headed over to watch the Olympic Trials for the afternoon. It was a lot of fun having such a high profile event in the area, especially as a big Olympics fan. While tickets were just too expensive for us to afford ($800/pass) we decided to just enjoy the atmosphere of the big festival that was set-up around the track. With giant TV screens set up, we could still watch the main events of the day and see who we could meet. Dawn was working at the festival as a CERT Captain and so the plan was for me and Little Calvin to hang out and the festival while she worked, then we'd all find a fireworks show somewhere in town, if not at the trials.

But that's not what happened... Instead, as Little Calvin and I wandered the festival, we went up to a booth to see what they might be giving away (you could get something at almost every booth). When I got to the front, the guy running the booth asked if we were here for the festival only or if we were going to the trials. I said "Yeah.. I wish we were going on, but we're enjoying the atmosphere." He said "I'll tell you what.. you answer a question and I'll give you two free tickets for the day." Needless to say, I was ecstatic, and Dawn just looked at me with her "you've got to be kidding me.. no fair!" look. My "big question" was just a throwaway thing, "Name the host city for the 2008 Olympics".. Ohhh.. toughie. But the guy admitted he had been trying to find someone he felt would appreciate and enjoy the tickets and I guess Little Calvin and I had just the right look.

The trials were great! Many awesome races! Little Cal loved watching the Javelin (the big sticks) and we even got to meet some athletes when Sanya Richards, American record holder in the 400 meters, signed our tickets and took a picture with Little Cal. And our seats.. 10 rows up, about half-way down the straightaway near the finish line. Just perfect.

Luckily, once Dawn's shift was done, she was able to cash in some favors and get into Hayward Field. She wasn't sitting by us, but was at least able to see the event. And when it was all over, we stayed and watch a fantastic fireworks show right there over the track. Just the perfect way to spend a fourth of July.. right before we got yelled at by security for taking our pictures on the track.. oops. Oh well. Great Day!

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The next day, we headed back to the festival to finish exploring. The highlight was watching Little Calvin at the tree climbing booth, learning how to do some rope climbing. He quickly got the hang of it and just had a ball. Since the pictures are both cute and make me proud as a parent to see my kids conquering challenges, I'm posting a few:

Finally from Florida: Kennedy Space

Saturday: Having waved goodbye to my sister and her family, who left to begin the long drive back to Texas, the now smaller family headed east to Kennedy Space Center. We had gone as a family on each of our earlier family trips to Florida and it was nice to see that, while there were some changes, the space center remained very similar to how we remembered it way back when.

A few highlights:
In addition to our regular admission, we took the "NASA Up Close Tour". This two-hour bus tour allowed us to see many of the NASA administration buildings (exciting.. I know) as well as both shuttle launch pads, the shuttle landing area, and the Vehicle Assembly building (insanely giant building).

At the conclusion of the tour, the busses dropped us off at the Saturn Rocket center, a new exhibit featuring a large scale film, a recreation of the control room from the Saturn V launch along with a whole recreation of the launch morning. Finally, we got to see the actual Saturn V rocket itself which is GIANT. Very cool to see!

Once back at the Space Center complex, we rode their shuttle launch simulator. On this ride there are no funky g-forces like EPCOT's Mission Space, but there is a whole lot of shakin' going on. The coolest part was just after lift off. According to the story of the ride, us "trainees" are sitting in a module in the shuttle's cargo bay. Once up "in space", they open up the bay doors so we can see the earth below. In reality, the doors open up to a giant domed IMAX screen playing a film of the rotating earth, a rather cool effect.

After looking through the exhibits, and taking in a 3-D IMAX film, we began sorting through the gift shop for souvenirs. It was right then that a major Florida afternoon thunder storm came barreling through the area. Bringing booming thunder and lightning striking just across the street, security recommended we stay inside to ride out the storm. Plus, we only had a few ponchos and with the rain POURING, we knew we'd be soaked on a long walk to the car. So.... we stayed put. And this storm was not a quickie. I think I studied every item in that gift shop, multiple times. Eventually the rain slowed a bit and my Dad and I decided to make a run for it to get the car. But even so, we were soaked within seconds. Good thing the the day was over.

Sunday was our quiet day. We took my folks to the train station (they have to take trains everywhere..) did some final souvenir shopping at Downtown Disney and spent some family time in the pool back at the house, before packing up to fly back to Oregon on Monday. As much as it pained me to come home.. it was time to leave Florida and return to the real world.

Disneyworld: Part 2

In my previous entry, I wrote about the first half of our Florida Vacation including the Magic Kingdom and Disney's Hollywood Studios. With so much to report on, I had to break this up a bit.. and so here is the second part of our trip report, starting off with Wednesday.

Wednesday... Day 3: Epcot, my personal favorite of the Disneyworld parks. The day began early as my sister and her family had made reservations for an early morning "Princess Breakfast" over in the Norway pavilion. They also invited Amanda to go along, figuring she could use so more "girl time" after having to endure so many "boy attractions" over the last few days. She gladly joined them and had a wonderful time meeting all matter of princesses.

We joined back up with them after taking advantage of the low morning ride lines for Mission: Space (which the boys loved) and a favorite Test Track (Although I sure do miss the old World of Motion at times). But with the heat rising, one we finished exploring the Seas pavillion and Journey into imagination, we felt it was time to head back for a cool pool soak at the house. We finished off the day with Soarin, Spaceship Earth, and starting through World Showcase with Mexico and Norway. Finally, we finished with the family gathered for my favorite of the nighttime shows: Illuminations with its explosions, and fire.

Thursday: Animal Kingdom. This was a first for me since I was a little kid: I actually got to explore a Disney park that was completely new to me. Unlike all the other parks that I seem to know every little corner of, I have never been to Animal Kingdom so it was rather exciting to me to not really know where I was going, to see things I had never seen before. That said here are my initial thoughts ot the park:

It was far different from what I had mentally pictured. It was much greener and thick with foliage. Being the premier attraction: Kilamanjaro Safaris, a ride through the African savannah, I had pictured lots of wide open spaces in the park. Nope. IT's very green and jungle like almost all the way through, making it very easy to hide areas and attractions. And to add to all the jungle ambiance, a storm moved in in the afternoon DUMPING rain all over us. We finally had to break down and buy some ponchos, otherwise we would have been soaked.

Some highlights: Loved the safari tour.. very well done, The new coaster Expedition Everest was lots of fun as well although it was over in what felt like a blink of an eye. Dinosaur was fun but, although it is built with the same ride track and vehicles as Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Forbidden Eye at Disneyland.. the latter is a much better ride.

Just as the rain picked up the hardest we all headed inside for a nice family dinner at the Rainforest cafe. That's where we learned an important lesson: when the family is all covered in ponchos (along with all the other people visiting the parks) suddenly everyone looks the same and it is very easy to think that someone else's kid is your own when doing a head count. Just as we were leaving the park, we re-checked only to discover: No Little Calvin. I high-talied it back to the restaurant and found him. Luckily, he has been trained well. He immediately went to the counter, asked for a manager and reported himself as lost, to which the manager stayed with him until I arrived. The manger complimented him on his handling of the situation, doing the right thing and staying calm under pressure. Although the situation was quickly resolved it scared the heck out of both of us. He still claims he is not going back to Animal Kingdom calling it the "Bad Place". Poor kid. At least we were able to end the day on a fun note, going back to EPCOT to finish World Showcase and enjoy Illuminations one more time.

Day 5: Odds and Ends and Star Wars Weekends. Having now explored all 4 theme parks, in our final day was all about the places we wanted to spend more time. And the morning held a certain treat: Star Wars Weekends. This special Star Wars fan gathering is held each weekend in June. Although some don't believe me, I did not purposefully plan this trip so that I could be there for this, it was just a great bonus that I discovered after our reservations were made (seriously!!!) This event included special Star Wars shows in the park, a character parade, special merchandise, meet and greets with actors and characters from the films, etc.. Lots of fun.

Being on site just as the gates opened we were able to watch Storm Troopers take over the park, then (geek alert) hurried to get in line to get Darth Vaders autograph. As it was we had to wait about 30 minutes. During the first 25 minutes our Darth was full of life, taunting the guests, making menacing lurches, just enjoying hamming up the part he was playing. Just before we got up there, suddenly "Darth Vader" had to "take a break to check on some issues with running the galaxy". It was obvious that this guys 30 minutes of blazing hot suit in the Florida heat was over and it was time to bring on the next guy. But this new Vader (although he looked the same) was not nearly as fun. He'd just stand there and not react to anything. Sure, you'd shove a pen in his hand and he'd sign whatever was given to him, but it was overly obvious that we had gone from an actor just having fun to some guy with a bad attitude forced to deal with people. Even without any dialogue it was amazing how much you could tell just from the suit movements. Being disappointed that we got "no fun" Vader for our encounter, I tried to liven him up a bit. I went up to him after our group photo and said "I have always wondered what there were for" and I began to push the buttons on the front plate of his vader suit. Needless to say, cranky Vader didn't appreciate this much and got quite agitated. I taunted him a bit more, just trying to get more reaction out of him to better match the lively Vader. Oh well, must have gotten a bad phone call while running the galaxy. Proof that even Sith Lords get cranky.

Next it was on the the Indiana Jones Stunt Show and the Star Wars parade, which the kids loved. Lots of costumed characters interacting with the fans, just having fun, although I have never had Sand People in my face whooping away. Very cool. Well done.

Afterwards, we were just walking down the street when we happened to bump into a very friendly Jawa, who accommodated us in our photo requests. But then, just behind him, we spotted a Guarmolean Guard, a pig like created that guards Jabba the Hutt. Little Calvin got all excited and run up to try to get a picture. But this character would have no such thing, really playing the "tough guard" role. Little Cal kept getting frustrated,, "I just want a picture!!" But the thing would just march away. Finally Little Calvin had had enough (and quite possible taking a que from my previous Vader playbook) decided to take matters into his own hands by going up and kicking the guard in frustration. Yes.. my son.. kicking the costumed characters. I immediately grabbed him and yanked him away, and the guy was TICKED.. he immediately, quickly marched away waving his hands to get people out of the way. Oops. Needless to say we had a little chat about why you don't kick people, even Star Wars aliens. Lessons learned for both of us.

The second half of the day was spent back where we started: The Magic Kingdom, waiting eternally for The Jungle Cruise (which seemed so anticlimactic after experiencing the real animals the day previous) and many of our other favorite classic attractions. One more story for today's blog: We had just ridden Pirates of the Caribbean and as always, you are let off the ride into a gift shop. Here, we could look at all manner of pirate stuff. We worked our way out of the gift shop and over to a smaller version while we waited for the whole family to catch up. In front of the shop was a whole rack of toy guns and Little Calvin was fascinated by them as he is not allowed to have toy guns in our house (mean parents, I know). So he's running around playing with a little pistol begging for me to buy it for him. Suddenly a little light goes off in his head, he walks into the middle of the gift shop, holds the gun up over his head and yells "NOBODY MOVE! HANDS UP!" Again, I immediately grabbed him, yanking him out of the gift shop. The girl working the counter just rolled her eyes and Little Calvin and I got to have yet another "things you don't do" conversation. That's my boy... committing assault AND holding up a gift shop,,, all in one day.

Soon, (and much to my disliking) the day came to an end, with tours of Mickey and Minnie house, Autopia, the Teacups, Haunted Mansion and finally Space Mountain, our final ride of the Disneyworld vacation. Time to head back to the house not knowing when our family would return to this magic again. But at least we got to leave in style with the boys getting to ride in the front car of the monorail, so that they could learn how to drive it and get their "Junior Monorail Drivers License". The perfect ending to the perfect trip.

Although the trip isn't over yet... Next up: Kennedy Space Center!

Disneyworld: Part 1

It's the happiest place on earth... the place of a million dreams.. and after 18 years of dreaming, 5 years of wondering, 1 year of heavy duty planning (and careful budgeting) my year of a million dreams finally arrived: I finally got my entire family to Disneyworld.

Rewind 18 years. I had just graduated from High School (sheesh, has it been that long?) I was weeks away from starting my 2-year long church mission, and as a graduation present, as kind of a last hurrah of being a kid, my folks gave me (and the rest of our little family) a trip to Disneyworld. And so for a week in August, 1990 we had a ball in the Florida heat, riding rides and making family memories. Sure part of those included rigging a bucket of water on top of my hotel room bathroom, thus drenching the maid as she went in to clean, a little secret that kept my sister and I laughing all day and my folks giving us dirty, questioning looks. But wether the memories were of our childish pranks, or quality time in the parks, or even elevator jumping in Philidelphia (a story for another blog), we had a great time.

Late on the last night of the trip, we were leaving the Magic Kingdom. And for those that have been there, you know that you don't just walk out of the park and jump in your car. You must either take a monorail or boat to get back to the parking lot. To just enjoy the moment and try to make it last forever, we took the boat to enjoy the night air. As my dad and I watched the dark lake float by, our vacation leaving us behind he said something that I took very seriously. He said "I want you to make me a promise. Once you have a family and you decide to bring them here for the first time, promise that you bring us along so we can experience this magic with you again." "No problem, Dad... you'll always be invited." And I had every intention of keeping that promise and filed it away into my memory banks, to make sure it would happen.

Now, fast forward back to last summer. I began to feel old. I suddenly realized that I only had 4 - 5 summers left before my daughter graduated from high school and started her own life. This whole Disneyworld promise I had made way back when hadn't happened yet and unless I made it a major priority, it very well may NOT happen. And that just couldn't be. I had dreamed too long for it to slip by. So right then, I vowed to make this top priority for the next year. During the summer of 2008, I was taking my family to Disneyworld.

I began to plan in secret, saving up from odds and ends, and just before Christmas I made the financial commitment and presented the park tickets to each of my kids and wife on Christmas morning. Meanwhile, my Mom and Dad and my sister and her family began to make plans to join us on our quest. Suddenly, the end of June couldn't have come fast enough. And yet look what happened, I blinked and it arrived.

And so, last weekend, from all over the county, the family began to descend on Orlando. My family flew in from Portland, my folks flew from Denver and my sister, her husband and 4 kids drove from San Antonio Texas. And then, FINALLY, we were all there, driving under the big "Welcome to Disneyworld" sign, all cheering away, despite the insanely hot temperatures and extreme humidity. It's Disneyworld.. Who cares!!!

So here is our Disney trip report, for the vacation I thought may never happen:

Day 1: Monday: Magic Kingdom

This was the tired day. The day to deal with huge crowds while getting used to Florida heat, a new time zone, cousins that hadn't seen each other in 4 years, and 2 previous days of traveling. But even with all those conditions, we had a ball. We explored Fantasyland with Pooh and Dumbo, my favorite Haunted Mansion and much more. We also established the plan of attack for the week. We'd go to the parks from their opening until about 2 in the afternoon, then return to our rental house (about 5 minutes from the parks) for our big meal of the day and to either rest or relax in our pool, then return to the parks until the evening fireworks show was over. This makes it so we don't have to pay for park food and gives the kids a nice mental break mid day, so there are no melt downs later in the day.

When we returned for our evening in the park we managed to get on quite a few rides, but, I was without a wife. Poor Dawn's back never quite recovered from the long plane ride and she could barely move on Monday, thus causing her to have to stay back at the house. Poor girl. No Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Carribbean, Autopia, Stitch, TTA or others for her. She was ticked. Not a good time to have a sore back!!

Day 2: Tuesday was Disney's Hollywood Studios, a park that my sons loved due to more thrill rides (and Little Calvin's first major roller coaster: Rockin' Roller Coaster.. he and I in the front two seats as we rocketed away at 60 miles and hour) Also a first for Little Cal.. Fighting the Dark Lord of the Sith. Yup, he got to participate in what is called the "Jedi Training Academy", a show where kids are selected to train with a Jedi Master. Just as they finish their first lesson, Darth Vader himself shows up and each kid gets to fight him. It's a very well done show and so much fun watching your offspring take on movie villians. Just a great bit of Disney magic!!

Other highlights: "The Lights, Motors, Action Extreme Stunt Show", what they can do with stunt cars is just amazing, convincing my Dad to do the Hollywood Tower of Terror, riding "Toy Story Midway Mania," the resort's newest ride, and an amazing showing of Fantasmic.. great day.

And so for the sake of my eyes and yours, I will end today's blog with a link to our vacation gallery:

But stay tuned for stories from EPCOT Center, Animal Kingdom, Star Wars Weekends with the "Guarmorean Guard incident" (You'll see photos in the gallery, but come back for the story..), the pirate gun incident.. Star Wars weekends, and even the "stranded.. in a gift shop" tale. All coming soon.. to Calvin's Chimerical Cosmos.