Early Birthday Present

The first post in quite a while I know. Truth be told, I'm not a very exciting guy. (Don't tell anyone.) You could have expected a post when I got back from the coast because we got to go to Monterey and to conference and my birthday, but you get an extra treat because I was surprised with an early birthday present last night. Taa Daaa! I got a Shuffle!!!!! I am firmly convinced that the iPod is an amazing machine. They are far superior to other music players. Since Lauri's Pod was recharging, I used a Mp3/Cd player (a thing that played CD's with Mp3's on them) and I stuck the big old thing in my cargo pocket on my shorts and the big ole headphones. I was stylin' let me tell you. It's sooo great! Here's a picture:
I haven't listened to it yet but I'll have it for the ten hour drive to the coast.
Did any of you know that Dr. Pepper changed their logo? It looks pretty cool.
In other news we watched Temple of Doom today. I was expecting a little gross and nasty but other than that a good flick. What others had not told us was that this was one of the lamest movies this side of Time Bandits. It was awful. Horribly, horribly lame, corny, and just poorly done. What were Steven and George thinking? I'm ashamed of them. Here are some reviews from others in the family:
"On a scale from 1 to 10, it'd be hard to bring this one above a two." Dad
"Whew." Mom
"How much longer is it?" Lauri
I would not recommend this movie or even watch it again. It is amazing that Raiders and The Last Crusade were such great movies and this one was a bomb.
Another news, only three more sleeps 'til the coast!!!!!! Yay! It'll be great. I have probably twenty geocaches in the areas that we'll be in. We're planning on doing some caches with our friends from conference on the Friday after conference ends, my birthday. In sadder news, I have to drive some of the way to the coast and driving is almost as bad as the Temple of Doom. Almost.

Well, What do I want to talk about?

By a show of hands, how many of you have seen Minnesota Cuke? Now put your hands down and tell me how many of you have seen the Indiana Jones trilogy. Now tell me which one is your favorite. Thank you. This having been said, I'm on an Indiana Jones binge (is that the word I'm looking for?) right now. The Indiana Jones ride was mine favorite of all of the rides at Disneyland and we just got the Indiana Jones trilogy on DVD!!! And there was much rejoicing. Technically it was a Father's Day present but Dad decided to buy it early so we just told him it was one. None of us have seen the second one before and none of us have had the desire to. But now that we have the DVD's, we're going to have to. Since all of the hubbub about Indiana Jones, the video game for Xbox has climbed to near the top of my birthday list. I had forgotten that George Lucas had produced these movies and that John Williams did the music. I noticed that the love themes for both movies were very similar. I'll change my song to something else soon probably cause I don't want the songs to get stale.
In other news, (sorry, no gnus today) Dad and Mom have to go to a NARFE (National Active and Retired Federal Employees) meetings and Dad has to "give a prayer." We don't really know when they'll get home. There are plenty of questions in this post so in case you claim that you have nothing to comment on, here's one more: Have any of you been to the Indiana Jones thing in DisneyWorld?

Disneyland & Other Gnus

Disneyland was great! We all had so much fun and it was just a blast! I won't give you a time schedule seeing as how that concept has kind of been used by others in the WEBNET a lot recently. We spent the first day in Disneyland Yay!!!! Well, that is only half true. When we first got there, we went to Downtown Disney to take a quick look at the park and the shops. I really liked one of the shops but it was too big and I didn't really know what stuff I wanted to look at. My favorite shop was not Disney at all but rather a Lego shop. However, Legos are not what this post is about so I will stop.
When we first got into the park, we rushed over to Indiana Jones per Granddad's request, (even though he had printed out a nice schedule for us that didn't have Indiana Jones first.) I was more than a little nervous at first because I don't like any drops. They tested it out for me and loved it and told me that I would and what do you know? I loved it. It turned out to be my favorite ride in the entire park. Pirates was closed because of remodeling and that was a bum. Grandmom and Granddad had us go on Haunted Mansion and it was better than I was expecting. We went on some other rides but no pictures taken with characters, (sorry Brenda, but we did get this We went on some other rides and I didn't quite work up the courage to go on Star Tours yet. Then came my favorite part of the day by far: the fireworks. They were amazing. I enjoyed them so much that it's hard to write about them. So I won't try too hard.
Next day was California Adventure. We first went to Soarin' Over California. Better known by Dad as, California Adventure. Don't ask me why, I don't know. I loved it. It was all that it was cracked up to be and more. But if I loved it, Dad was crazy about it. After we had ridden it three times or so, we finally convinced his to see some of the rest of the park. We really enjoyed the 3D Muppets and were kind of let down by all of the hype of Monsters Inc. the new ride. Lauri and Mom loved Screaming. I, obviously, didn't go. We did wait in a ridiculously long line for the Ferris Wheel. We did get a picture from the top of the world: It's kind of creepy I'll admit, but it was fun. Another really fun thing we did was to see the Aladdin real life play. It was excellently done and we enjoyed it so much that we started to watch the video last night. Then we watched the fireworks again, man they were awesome.
On the third day I finally did work up the courage to go on Star Tours and I did enjoy it. Granddad and Zachary said that it made them sick and I started to get motion sick but it didn't get too bad. I forgot to mention that the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blaster ride was among my favorites too. It was great but I think those guns cheated me.
Here's another picture, this time from the 50th Anniversary display: I really like that one.
Souvenir wise I did very well. I walked off with three shot glasses, one deck of cards, and seventeen, count 'em, seventeen smashed pennies. And a penny display case to boot!
I have to say that, between the two parks, I enjoyed Disneyland more. It was more happiest-place-on-earth-y.
In other news, we're back to school and this week are those retarded tests that come once a year. At least we don't have to take them at the mormon church. Oh, and guess how many smashed pennies I have but not those of you who already know, that kink of goes without saying.
A couple more pictures:
And a gnu: