With two weeks to go until Christmas we went up to Disneyland Sunday for a little shopping and a chance to for our little Sith Bobblelord Darth Santa to check out the decor.  The results were great, and are all in their very own little gallery.  Honestly, I haven’t had this much fun with a little plastic toy in years, and the response from other guests and cast members at the park were fabulous.

Didn’t watch much of the recent Winter Olympics. Not much interest in winter sports, and NBC’s archaic time-delay policies pretty much eliminated any suspense in the competitions.

Did see this photo of the U.S. Bobsled Team circulating the internet the last couple of days though. It’s been kinda hard to miss.

We’ve done our fair share of bobsledding.  We hit the local faux-Swiss alps regularly and catch sight of the Yeti now and then.  But somehow our post-ride team photo looks a bit different.

Maybe we need to get suspenders?

Rain stopped for the weekend, and for the first time in too long neither Spinner nor I had any outside commitments.  We started the weekend on Friday night with Killer Pizza and (500) days of Summer, bumped it up with dinner and martinis at 333 Pacific on Saturday night.  Said martinis led to a nighttime walk on the Oceanside Pier admiring the monster surf and committing a few PDAs.  Headed up to Disneyland for a few pre-crowd E-ticket rides on Sunday morning, and then just chilled our way into a new workweek.  Life as it should be.

Yes, I’ve been a little busy. Yes, that’s distracted me a bit from this site. Not just work and having a life, but Facebook and Twitter and texting with real-life people all leave the fingers a bit sore and the brain a bit fried. I should be generating billables, but I’m hanging out with y’all for a few minutes. Why?  Because I miss it here. Facebook and Twitter both started off cool, but now they spend all their time trying to introduce you to new people and products rather than just letting you hang out with the cool kids that brought you there in the first place. So I’m hanging here today. Me, iTunes, and a pile of dead tree pleadings that need to be highlighted and stickied and generally digested.  And when the fingers get tired and the eyes start glazing I’ll try and dig up some orange to make the place a little more presentable for the holidays.

We’ve had a running joke here about roller coasters ever since the Mouse tried to kill Spinner back in ’07.  Now I’m not even going to be able to get him on the Monorail.  Maybe we can just sit around the Carnation Cafe on our next visit to the Magic Kingdom and sip sodas while the Dapper Dans sing. That’s gotta be safe, right?

Disneyland’s Jungle Cruise can certainly be one of the cheesiest rides in the Magic Kingdom.  That said, with the right skipper, it can also be one of the better experiences there.  The experience is one of the rare parts of the Disney magic where there’s individual variation based on the skills, talent and sense of humor of the operator.  That’s why this event, a jungle guide convocation of sorts to be held at Disney Tokyo, sounds so interesting.  The best of the best, running the rapids and returning the tourists safe in time for their lunches.

Well, what is a blogger supposed to do after completing a grueling quasi-athletic event such as the Penguin Plunge?  Well, go to Disneyland, of course. 

Actually the plan was for a day of Disney and two of central coast surfing, but weather forecasts and surf conditions suggested we postpone the central coast leg until another time.  The end result has me back home two days early (and two days before any clients think I’m supposed to be back!), exhausted from a day with the Mouse, and feeling kinda old after brunch in my hometown, a place I barely recognized. 

The visit to the Magic Kingdom allowed Spinner to work on his fear that the Mouse was still trying to kill him.  Since we survived with no further injuries, that goal was successful.  We also had the opportunity to check out their holiday decorations, especially the Jack Skellington ‘When Holidays Collide’ version of the Haunted Mansion, which absolutely, totally and completely ROCKED.  For the first time in years the Small World attraction looked fresh too, even if our boat’s dispatcher looked like he was sending us off to some unimaginable fate. 

This morning we shot up to Huntington Beach in hopes of finding some decent surfing, or at least a good brunch.  No surf.  Good food.  Great restaurant location.  Even a same ol’-same ol’ cholesterol scramble goes down pretty good when you can watch dolphins doing flips while you’re waiting for more coffee.  The classic prints on the walls helped set an atmosphere that almost overwhelmed the big-chain management. 

This was the first time I’d been back to Huntington’s pier in many years.  Even the pier had little in common with the one I grew up knowing, with big chunks of the original destroyed years ago in a storm.  The rebuilt pier and renovated Main Street both struck me as just too commercialized.  It’s not the place I knew anymore, even though two blocks away were the same old cottages that have been there since before I was born.  It’s attitude that’s important, and that’s changed.