A New Goal

Next year, my little guild in World of Warcraft turns 10 years old. Lasting that long in a video game is notable. We need to do something as a guild, something big and splashy. So I put this to the guild's Facebook page. Things were suggested but what stuck was a Walt Disney World vacation.

I started talking with a guild member, Liz, who goes to Disney 3-4 times a year. The more we talked about the things we wanted to do, the more we explored resort properties, the more confusing the options became. It seems, with Disney, why have 5 options when you can have 45. Liz suggested we should look into Disney travel agent. Enter Hollie. She is paid by Disney so even if we don't have a huge number of people coming along or, if it was just me, she would still be paid to help with a trip. She helped me price out a vacation and, at the July meet-up, I gave a presentation.

The one thing we needed to decide was when did we want to go. The cheap time is January, the week after New Year's through the end of February. But, if we want to spend a bit more, we could go in March, when the Flower and Garden Festival is, or go in October, when the Food and Wine Festival AND Halloween run concurrently. Well, when presented with these options, it became a decision about how fast you could save the money and we decided October of 2017 was the best time.

The big attraction is the two festivals going on at the same time. You know that Disney will do Halloween fantastic. When I went to BlizzCon last year, Halloween was only at the Haunted Mansion. Christmas hadn't quite wandered in but Halloween had wandered out. We will be going at the height of the holiday. It's going to be exciting to see the decorations.  We're going to do Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. Rides. Trick or Treat. A special parade and fireworks and the Magic Kingdom all to ourselves and anyone else who buys a ticket to the party.

And then there is the Food and Wine Festival.

Located at Epcot World Showcases, this is a celebration of food. The World Showcase part of Epcot is my favorite place at Disney World. Even with a lot of people in that section of the park, it is peaceful. I love to wander through all the countries and see what they have to offer.

During the festival, each country has food carts and special food indicative of their culture.

Having been to Disney World 4 times, one of the things I've wanted to do is "Eat Around the World", stop at each country and eat something at each country. With the festival going on in October, I can do this just by eating at the food carts stationed around the lagoon.

It took the summer to figure everything out on what I thought I would want. Hollie and I met in mid-September to go over possibilities, and, after looking at everything, she gave me a price and I put down a deposit. Now comes the saving.

I have to say I'm excited. A year ago, I was excited to go to BlizzCon. I spent a whole summer and most of a fall, saving for that trip, which included 2 days at Disneyland. This is going to be a whole week. I'm going with guild members; people I respect and whose company I relish. I'm going to be sharing a room with Liz. I admire and respect her and her company will make this that much more fun.

We will be going for a week in the middle of October. We looked at going as a group, but the group discounts didn't amount to much and Hollie said there are usually always discounts on things which we wouldn't be able to take advantage of if we're a group. So, we picked the days and then let everyone decide where they wanted to stay and what kinds of additions to their vacation they wanted.

In case you are wondering, WDW shut down this month for only the 7th time since opening, due to Hurricane Matthew. People who couldn't use tickets for events slated for Thursday night through Saturday morning, received compensation and/or had their tickets rescheduled for other days. The price of the resorts in October is one step above the base rate and two steps down from "We're going tomorrow and it's Christmas" rate. We were told this is primarily because October still has the potential for hurricanes raining, literally, on your parade. I told guild members Hurricane Matthew is a good example of why trip insurance is a very good idea.

Liz and I are going to stay at the Port of Orleans, French Quarter resort.

It's a moderately priced resort and the theme is New Orleans French Quarter area; heavy on the jazz. I can't wait. They serve beignets at the cafe in the main building.

They won't be the Mickey beignets that the restaurant in the French Quarter of the Magic Kingdom at Disneyland had, but, beignets!

I've needed to make some decisions with regards to what we're going to do so people can plan. I'm arriving on a Saturday, so I've decided my "Eat Around the World" at World Showcase can start then. Liz assures me there will be ample credits from the middle priced food plan and I will be scrambling on the last day to use them up. I remain unconvinced, but, several of us are going to Epcot and will take turns buying snack items to share. I'm planning for needing cash for meals.

We're going to the Halloween party on Sunday evening, to give people a chance to get to WDW. A Halloween party ticket acts like park admission so we can go to the Magic Kingdom as early as 4 pm and get in. Costumes are encouraged, within reason, so we'll have to see what we can do about that. Eighty percent of the rides are open so I expect to cross most of my "must ride" off the list then.

I want a Character Breakfast and a final meal. Those were things I felt were important to me. What people did with the guild wasn't as important as those two things, such as going to the same parks or eating at the same restaurant. But people were coming in and leaving on different days so trying to schedule within those constraints was hard. I finally decided, as guild leader, I could pick the dates we'll go, as a guild, to breakfast and dinner and then hope that people can fit those things into their schedule. I also made the decision on where we're going to eat breakfast. Guild members decided they really wanted Goofy at our breakfast so I've settled on the Tusker House in Animal Kingdom on Monday. Look! Goofy!

Dinner is going to be a majority vote decision. Liz and I have looked at a wide variety of places. We're going to pick 4 and offer them to the group, with plusses and minuses for each place. Then, we'll let the group decide and that's where we'll go. We're going to do that on Friday night. I leave a week after arriving.

Also in my sights are a foot and leg massage, a Steam Train Tour, a fireworks cruise and game night on Wednesday night, where everyone will come to the French Quarter, if they aren't already staying there, and we'll play games. My feeling is that it's their money and outside of a few suggested things, they should spend it however they want. They don't have to come to anything I arrange. I hope they do, but it's not required. I feel requiring things takes all the fun out a special vacation like this. Ben and Natalie are engaged and may use this as their honeymoon. If they do, we have plans, oh boy. Wendy is going to rent a scooter as she has an issue walking a lot and you will walk, a lot. We've already decided to trick out her scooter.

So, that's the current savings goal. It's been kind of an expensive year so I'm very glad we decided to do this in October of next year. It's going to be such a fun time.

Beverage:  Cookies and Cream hot cocoa

Deb

Flying

Bits and pieces of the house are undergoing transformation. I don't have a lot of time to do things and, lately, my stamina has been suspect, so I look for small projects which accomplish a couple of goals. 1) They make a section of the house whimsical or more enchanting and 2) They help me continue on the long journey of tidying up. Last month, I did another small corner.

This is the end of the hallway. To the right is the back bedroom. To the left is my bedroom. On the wall to the right are photo collage frames containing a wide variety of photos of my life; both family, alive and deceased, and friends, alive and deceased. Above the chair is framed The Simpson's "Wanted" poster from TV Guide from the two part "Who Shot Mr. Burns" episodes of 1995. Below that is a plaque which reads, "Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons for you are crunchy and good with ketchup." The chair was owned by my mother's father. His third wife did the needlepoint chair seat. It is very worn and I think, some day, I'll have the seat recovered. In my fantasy life, I actually do the needlepoint for the seat but reality usually points out that I don't know how to needlepoint.

On the left used to be a drawing of a sunflower. I did it years and years ago, when life wasn't sunny. It was to remind me to turn and follow the sun; follow the light; be open to the light. For the last few years, that's felt rather 'new agey' to me and I've wanted to replace the piece, but didn't know what to put there. So, this corner was ripe for a minor redo.

In the winter, I ordered a poster which featured the cover images of the Cedar Rapids Gazette's coverage of the Iowa Hawkeyes 12-0 Big Ten football season last year. I got a frame for it and took it to the office, intending to put it up on the wall next to the Fantasia poster for which I did a frame make over.

It's a big poster.

Fantasia is the only thing I want on this wall. The Hawkeye poster would go on the right wall, above the bookcase. The more I looked at the poster, as it leaned against the wall, the more I realized I didn't like it over the bookcase. I moved it to the wall where the large Hawkeye wall decal is.

But I wound up not liking it here either because it's big. The other side of the pass-through window doesn't have enough space unless I want to hide the poster behind the office door. I never close my office door. I have no reason to close it. The poster came home. Maybe I can...wait...it can go on the wall in that spot where I'm removing the drawing. That's what's up against the wall on the left, in the top photo, the framed poster.

The best thing I did to this corner involved some stuffed animals.

I got the little orange bird, named "Pepe", and the black and red dragons back when I went to BlizzCon last year. Dragons feature in World of Warcraft extensively. These represent baby dragons, called "whelplings".

Essentially, the stuffed animals just sit around. I don't do anything with them, other than move them because where they are sitting is in my way. Blizzard released the green dragon in April and, well, there are some things one simply must have. That means I have to move all four of them around when I need the spot where they were sitting. Such a pain. Then, I had a singular idea. They are flying creatures. What if I had them fly?

I bought some neon bright variegated yarn and crocheted a thread for each dragon, Pepe, and Figment, a dragon I got from Walt Disney World back in 1990. I bought cup hooks and screwed those into the ceiling. The thread was looped around each character and then tied to the cup hook in the ceiling. Viola. Instant flying bird and dragons.

Now, the plaster ceiling holds the cup hooks, but I was surprised they didn't screw in as tightly as I would prefer. Right now, nothing's fallen, but I kind of expect one of these guys to wind up on the floor if we have a really windy day and the windows are open. At that point, I'll have to evaluate this arrangement and consider how else to anchor them.

The poster went up on the wall. You can see the hanger to the left in the above photo.

I'm very pleased with the overall result. The drawing wasn't applicable to me anymore and these items reflect who I am.

Beverage:  LaCroix raspberry seltzer

Deb

Spectacles

I saw my eye doctor back in October, two weeks before BlizzCon. There was a slight change in my prescription which would necessitate new glasses. I really like Coastal.com so called them to see about glasses. It was determined that I probably wouldn't get new glasses before leaving for California and I really didn't want them to come while I was gone, even though Pam was picking up the mail. I would order new glasses when I came back. In hindsight (isn't that generally the truth), I should have ordered glasses and had them waiting for me because I got busy and then I had other expenses and it was the receipt of my tax refund which spurred me to finally buy that new pair with the new prescription. It was time.

Here is the old pair.

In this light, the frames look black, but they were a dark navy blue. I liked them the first 6 months after getting them, but, since December, I had a problem with them sliding down my nose, even if I didn't bend over. I probably wouldn't have considered new glasses even with a tax refund if they hadn't been problematic. There's nothing you can do with plastic frames, about nose slide. They are formulated for a specific measurement.

With this problem in mind, I searched the Coastal site and found these.

I've gone back to a wire frame. The gal who helped me at Coastal said there is much more room to adjust the fit with wire frames than with plastic. I can adjust the nose pads and bend the glasses slightly to fit an odd size.

I went with a more pronounced blue and it's sparkly! I like the bigger lens size. Coastal was having a 50% off sale on lenses when I ordered. That's where eyeglass manufacturers get you. A $29 frame is nothing if you have to put no-line bifocals in them.

There's been a bit of an adjustment. I still take them off when I read or when I do cross-stitch. Sometimes, things are blurry in the distance, if I look through the bottom of the lens and not the top. It's about unlearning habits because the glasses I had were out of focus for me.

I expect this is what my life is going to be like going forward. There may, or may not, be an incremental shift in my sight and I'll need to get glasses roughly every year or 18 months. Dr. Park was very happy with my eyes, saying there is no sign of any RA complications affecting my sight. Any incremental shifts are simply age-related. Ah yes, age. I've been on this earth for a few years. Some day, when I'm bored, I should try to figure out how many pair of glasses I've had since I got them in 7th grade.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Will They Work?

I still clean a bit here and there, tossing things into a give away pile which is growing more massive as the weeks pass. I really need one of the veterans groups to call me for donations, mainly so I can start all over making a pile.

While going through the closet in my bedroom, I found these items.

I remember when Carole and I were going to use these for Halloween costumes. I hesitate to guess how old they are.

So, I wonder, would they still work? I know it's a "simple" chemical reaction that happens when you apply pressure to the item which makes it glow. I wonder if the potential for that chemical reaction diminishes over time. Can these be stored indefinitely? At BlizzCon, Liz had glow bracelets for us to wear. She got 100 of them for $10 on Amazon. Ashley and I had great fun looking through the colors and deciding which ones went with our outfits. I don't have a reason to wear these so I don't want to "crack" them to make the glow, just to see. If it still works, I've lost one item. Guess I'll just hang onto them and maybe wear them to the opening night of the World of Warcraft movie in June.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

Thursday Disneyland

Going back to all the photos I wanted to post and comment on but never had the chance to until now. If you're bored with this trip, skip this and a few more upcoming. This is a review of Thursday, November 5th. It was a sparkling morning.

Because of the lingering drought, this is usually how mornings start, I'm given to understand. For a Midwesterner who does not anticipate this kind of sunshine in November, when it can be more cloudy than sunny, it was exciting. Liz and I walked the equivalent of 6 blocks north to the park. We got there, on purpose, with time to spare, to have a quick breakfast and then to wait.

It really didn't seem real until we went through security and into this plaza where all the light posts were festooned with the celebratory 60th Anniversary banners. Oh that's right! Disneyland is celebrating its 60th year in operation. Liz had mentioned this and said there would be all sorts of fun stuff going on. It did not hit me until I was standing in that square and there were these banners.

Liz handed me my ticket. Wow. She was ever so patient and amused at my slack-jawed yokel-ness amazement at where I was. When we decided to do this and I made the decision to pay for 2 days of Disney, it was a long ways off. Liz, the admitted Disney "freak", kept getting more and more excited to show us the parks she loves. It was exciting, but, jeeze, I need a new washer and then the car dies and any celebration is simply that I can pay all my bills at the end of the month. But then, she hands me this small piece of paper and  I walk into the plaza between Disneyland and California Adventure and, my mouth drops open. I really am here.

I was given the option of going to California Adventure or Disneyland first. I thought about it and decided on California Adventure as Disneyland would be quasi-familiar due to my visits to Walt Disney World. I handed the pass to the gentleman at the gate. "Welcome Princess," he said. I laughed and said, "No one has ever called me a princess. I should get that in writing." He pulled out his marker and wrote on the back of my pass. There. "Proof", such as it is, that I am a 'princess'. Yeah, tell that to the cats.

We headed into the park. Of course, I had to take a photo of the map.

It is quite easy to get completely turned around. That is probably by design. The longer you are in the park, the more chance the souvenir shops can part you from your money. North is at the bottom of the map. The ferris wheel, which I've already blogged about, is at the top of the map. Part of my job is to know which way I am facing when I discuss what I see on a building's walls. I abandoned my kind of meager sense of direction and just surrendered to the fun. This is supposed to be part of "the happiest place on earth". I should enjoy the sensation.

We walked about the park. Around every bend are the unusual and photogenic. Disney, of course, plans for this, although there aren't a lot of the obtrusive "Kodak Photo Spot" signs I remember from Disney World.

This is hilarious. All the eateries are in cone-shaped buildings in Cars Land.

The obligatory humorous photo conveniently provided by the park and, of course, you have to do it.

Oh my gosh! Real birds! You don't expect to see those. You kind of think, because Disney is a leader in animatronics, that any animals you see are going to be of the mechanical kind. I had to take a photo of real, live, seagulls. Here's another spot where there were real birds.

These are the fake mountains in Cars Land, in the ride area. It's hard to see in the small photo, but there are seagulls perched on the top of this hill. I thought, "Gee, they do think of everything" when I saw it and then a couple of them flew off.

We didn't see many birds or chipmunks or squirrels in the park, in spite of the huge amount of food around. Even though there is an army of people with brooms and small waste cans, food is everywhere. Yet, those scavengers I'm so used to at other large venues where nowhere to be seen. I wonder how much of that is due to the diligence of park personnel in keeping the place clean and how much is due to the presence of feral cats. If you didn't know about the feral cats making their homes in Disneyland, here's the link to an article about them. I have noticed an uptick in wildlife in my backyard now that I don't have outdoor cats roaming about the yard.

At noon, we went across the plaza to Disneyland. Of course, this is the first thing you see when you walk in.

I didn't get to ride the train. Guess I'll have to come back.

So I wonder if this is the most photographed human sculpture in the world. That's Sleeping Beauty's castle in the background. Cinderella's castle is at Disney World. This one isn't as high and it's a different coloration. Lots of people were trying to get just the right photo of the statue with the castle in the background. Everyone was respectful and waited their turn, even offering to take photos with other people's cameras so they could be in the photo.

We didn't hang around much because we were coming back for an extended period on Sunday. Disneyland feels more like a park should. You're entering from the south and working north instead of the other way around. I don't know if situating your amusement park along cardinal directions has anything to do with attendance, but Disneyland felt more comfortable. That could also be the problem of California Adventure trying to figure out what it is. It's always been something of a step-child to Disneyland. There aren't as many rides and it's more heavily shop-based than Disneyland. It's supposed to be a Disney-fied version of the Anaheim Walt came to in 1920. It's fun, but if you're a tourist, you gravitate to Disneyland. That's only natural.

We left at 3:30 and walked back to the hotel. I had a blister on my right foot; on the ball of the foot below the middle toe. It made walking painful. We met up with Ashley, who had arrived at 3, and headed over to the Convention Center.

Again, I felt that awe at being in a place I'd spent 6 months preparing for. There were people everywhere, although no one in costume, yet. We walked in and got in line for our convention badges. The line moved swiftly and I think we had everything in 15 minutes. There is no merit to showing up early. You can't do anything other than stand in line for hours to buy things from the Blizzard store. Ashley and I went to the store on Saturday morning and spent 30 minutes total, making purchases. If I ever do this again, that's when I'm going, first thing on a Saturday morning.

From here, there was a "party" in the Hilton which wasn't real spectacular. There was an art exhibit and, later, meet and greets with people from WOW-themed web sites. But we weren't really interested in them so we met up with Amy and her hubby and went to dinner. Friday would be the big day.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

First Look Vacation - Wednesday

More vacation photos. It was such a grand time and I have so many impressions and there was just no time to blog about everything so, here we are, some two and a half months removed, and I still have a lot to post.

I have all my BlizzCon/Disneyland photos in a folder and I go through them to see what is worth blogging. I took a lot of photos from the airplane window. It was clear both going to and coming from Los Angeles. I love looking at the ground from the air. There is so much diversity and difference in our country. It almost takes an airplane flight to appreciate the change from the lush and green Midwest to the tan of the Great Plains to the Rocky Mountains with snow to Los Angeles. But, because there is no giant line on the ground delineating where one state ends and another begins, I sort of have to guess that we might be flying over Kansas at the moment or maybe this is western Colorado. The photos, while interesting to me, aren't going to be interesting to anyone else. So, I've decided to go with a "first look" theme. I can say something about those photos.

Wednesday, November 4th, was a travel day. I got up at 5 a.m., showered and finished packing. The limo to the airport would pick me up by 6:45. I wanted to be completely ready. I had cats to reassure and feed and one last swing through the house to make sure it was reasonably clean. I hate coming home to a dirty house.

I set my luggage on the sidewalk in front of the steps. I saw a limo drive down the street, go to the next intersection and turn around. When I got back to the front door, the driver had parked and claimed my luggage. One last chin and ear scratch with a promise I'd be back soon, and I left. It was foggy.

Sometimes I think I should print this or have it made into a print. It was an accidental photo taken more to document that it was a) fall in Illinois, b) foggy and c) before sunrise. Generally, I don't try for an arty photo. My photos are to document things. When something like the above happens, I'm quite surprised. It looked okay on my phone, just what I needed.

My flight left at 9:45. I got to the airport at 7:30, owing to the limo being at the house at 6:25 and me ready to go. Thanks to an app, I had curbside check-in of my luggage and a boarding pass all ready. The guy at curbside checked all my paperwork and pointed me in the direction of the security line. Yeah...about that.

There are debates and debates about whether this makes us safer. When you have something like RA, standing in lines like this can be tough. Three years ago, this would have been a nightmare for me. I found, at the end of the day on Sunday, November 8th, when we were waiting for the evening light show and the security personnel from Disney were telling everyone to stand, it was too much. I had to sit down, irrespective of calls to stand up. It's about knowing your limits.

Here, it was early morning. I hadn't had a whole day to be on my feet and the line was moving, albeit slowly, but it was moving. The one thing I don't "get" is the person who has a 7:45 flight, arriving at the airport at 7:30 and expecting to make said flight when the security line is this long. There was one guy walking this middle row, calling out flight times and then pulling people for special fast screening. But after this was the metal detectors and there was a line for that. I cannot imagine those people made their flights. Some comments from people around me were quite "colorful" in their opinion of folks who seem to think they can just run up to the gate. Those days are 15 years behind us. I wasn't happy that the limo company said 6:45 for pick-up, but I see why. And TSA people, when you finally got to the screening point, were shouting that there would be more restrictive screening upcoming "for the holidays".

Once I got through all that, I found the gate and got breakfast. As early as I was, there were empty seats near the windows. Airports are fascinating places, akin to hives. Planes are the worker drones who bring their cargo, passengers, to the hive. On this day, the hive was slightly obscured by fog.

Had this been a clear day, you would have seen the Chicago skyline. As it was, sky and ground merged. The backlash of a foggy day in Chicago is the delays across the country as planes have to land in a slow fashion. My flight wasn't delayed getting out, but others were because their planes were stuck flying circles over Memphis while waiting for permission to proceed north. I thought the seats next to me would stay empty but the couple who finally occupied them made it on at the last minute. They were coming from Traverse City, Michigan, and had been delayed because of the fog in Chicago. Every seat was filled.

It's a 4 hour flight to LA, give or take a new minutes depending upon the weather. I took a nap and read. I packed a Discworld book and wound up coming within 50 pages of finishing it on the flight back. After my nap, I had no idea where we were. The ground was brownish green. There were foothills and eventually, towns merging into one another. The pilot informed us we were 30 minutes from arrival. I looked up.

In the distance, the sun glinted off the Pacific Ocean. I'm here. Excitement started building.  We flew over some of LA's Interstates.

I have an aunt in Pasadena. I haven't seen her in decades, other than photos on Facebook. I tried to arrange my schedule so there was time to visit, but I would have had to rent a car and drive to and from some point. When we flew over this interchange, I could feel anxiety rising. Generally speaking, give me a map and I can find anything. But I looked at this and decided I was very grateful I opted not to rent a car and try to drive. If I lived out here, eventually, I'd probably have to navigate this, but I'm just a tourist and I know how I feel about tourists who suddenly discover they have to be in the right lane to go south on the Dan Ryan and they are in the far left lane headed into Chicago. I made the right decision. Terror is never a good passenger.

And then we landed.

Hello LA! Hello Disneyland! Hello BlizzCon 2015! I have arrived. With signs and people from whom to get directions, I found my luggage and got to the SuperShuttle. The Shuttle was filled and everyone was going to BlizzCon. The guy in the far back was from Germany and was staying at the flagship hotel, the Hilton. I was the last passenger picked up so I got to ride in the front.

Car pool lanes. We don't have those in Chicago. And there are four lanes of traffic in addition to the car pool lanes. My feeling of "I can drive anywhere" faded very quickly. Nope; a big nope.

The only palm trees we have are in the Garfield Park conservatory. Yeah, this landscape is a bit different than a leaf-shedding maple on a quiet street in Wheaton, Illinois.

We drove past the entry to Disneyland.

I grew up on The Wonderful World of Disney. I remember some programs which gave you a tour of Disneyland. It seemed like such a far-off place and here I was, going right by it. I would be there the next day, with avowed "Disney freak", Liz. Even though I was passing it, it didn't seem real.

We went 6 blocks south and made a right turn.

The Anaheim Convention Center loomed into view. You can't see from this distance, but it's festooned with all things Blizzard. Ive seen photos of the convention center with the banners but here it was. It didn't seem real. Everyone in the shuttle got quiet. We were all first time attendees and I think it had now dawned on all of us that we were, in fact, at BlizzCon. I didn't say a word other than "Have fun. Nice to ride with you." as the others disembarked at their respective hotels. I was the last person to be dropped off.

After getting to the hotel room, I sat down and looked at the photo of the convention center. All the planning and saving. I really was here. I had seen the convention center with my own eyes. So this is Southern California, Disneyland and Anaheim. This was going to be an amazing 4 days.

Beverage:  English Breakfast Tea

Deb

Identification

Conventions have their own rules for ticket holders and BlizzCon is no exception. You must wear the issued name tag at all times when you're in the convention hall.

Players take that mandate farther and commission artists to draw their game toon. I wasn't exactly sure how that worked, but I knew I needed some sort of temporary ID until I could get the official one. The official one comes with a lanyard.

Casting about my home, the only lanyard of any note was one I got about 10 years ago when I visited Colonial Williamsburg. While that was okay, it came with a heavy duty clear ID pocket, it was absolutely NOT geeky enough for me.

Speaking of geeky, there is a service called "Loot Crate". Every month, you get a box filled with miscellaneous stuff tailored to your gaming interest, or your dog. (They don't do anything for cats.) I think it was in either August or September's Loot Crate, there were World of Warcraft items. One of my coworkers, Tara, gets a crate and, knowing my game play, gave me a few items she didn't want. She also got these in her crate and she didn't want them.

At first, I thought it was a lanyard. One of my guild members who also gets a crate said, "Um...Gimm? (Gimmlette is my game toon's name. Everyone calls me "Gimm".) Those are shoelaces." Okay. I can make this work.

I've accumulated some lanyards which are very lightweight and tried to create a stronger necklace to wear until I got the BlizzCon one. I found an old luggage tag and, with some experimentation, this was the end result.

The shoelaces were long so I wound up folding them in half to make it work. The Marvel design was clearly visible and, after printing out a screenshot of my toon, the whole thing worked moderately well. This was credit card size and, if I had so desired, I could have kept an ID or a credit card in the pouch where it was easily accessible. But my purse (see below) did such a fine job, I never resorted to sticking anything other than the photo in the container.

Once Ashley arrived, the three of us set out to get our tickets and goodie bags. Part of what you get is a premade lanyard and ticket combo.

This is nice. If I wanted to, I could reuse this for some other event. It's got my name and my toon's name on it. When you're in a convention like this, your real name is almost secondary to your toon's name. The few times I introduced myself, I was "Hi, I'm Gimmlette, from Spectacular Death on Llane." It's your toon name, guild name and server name. That's who you are. That realization was rather humorous. The ticket pocket is big enough to stick something behind the official ticket, if you wanted. My shoelace improvisation can't hold a candle to this.

I don't know where, exactly, to display it. I'm extremely glad I got to attend this event. This lanyard and ticket are treasured keepsakes. I just need to find a place worth of them with which to display this. Onward with the cleaning and purging.

Beverage:  water

Deb

Wordy

On the secretary in the living room is a 365 New Word-a-Day calendar. I have purchased one of these every year since 1980. That's 35, well, 36 since 2016's is in the box waiting for New Year's day, years of words. Some I know. Some I've never heard of before. Some I have just an inkling of what they mean. It's a great way to maintain my vocabulary.

It's always a source of immense humor when the word of the day accidentally corresponds to what's going on in the day itself. Let's look at the November vacation.

For some reason, I don't have a photo of November 3rd, which was a travel day, but I do have the words from the 4th through the 9th, when I returned. November 4th's word was perfect.

My "temporary or second lodging" was a hotel near the Anaheim Convention Center. How apropos.

Friday's word?

I guess I could say I used dirty clothes as dunnage to surround the few souvenirs I brought back.

Saturday and Sunday's words, on the same page now, (I remember when they were separate days.) are easier to tie to the day itself.

Ashley and I attended the Legion (World of Warcraft's upcoming expansion of the core game, with new quests and excitement) question and answer discussion on Saturday. There were seven developers trotted out onstage to answer fan questions. They might be a bit uncomfortable being referred to as a "pleiad" but it fits.

And, I made one of those facepalm connections which I'm sure everyone else knows, except me. One of the easiest constellations to find is the Pleiades, or The Seven Sisters. It's a cluster in kind of a stretched-out "w" near the north star. I looked at the word when I got home and had an "aha" moment. I don't know that I'll have a reason to use the word, since it requires a group of seven, but we'll stick this in our verbal arsenal and trot it out, assuming I can remember.

What to say about "mesmerize"? I know this word and, boy, if ever there was one more apt for the day we spent completely at Disneyland, I don't know what it is. This is a perfect example of how, sometimes, eerie it is when the word and the day dovetail.

Monday was "go home day". The shuttle came to the hotel at 5:35 a.m. Technically, I got up at 7 a.m., my time, but tell that to my cell phone alarm clock. It took a full 75 minutes to go from the hotel to the airport, picking up three more people along the way, which resulted in a full shuttle, something I'm sure they like.

When I arrived, I was hustled through a different security line. This one went much faster than the line I could see when I walked through the door. Oh the goodness of deciding to download United's cell phone app which allowed me to check in completely, luggage and all, while waiting in line for the Cars ride.

I was able to by-pass a huge line by the front door and speedily get through the first check point. I don't know what benefic I was privy to, but I'd take it. That lasted until I rounded a corner to go to the TSA metal detectors. Um...yeah. As bleary and hungry as I felt, I was ever so glad I had been made to get up at 5 and get to the airport by 7:15 for a 9:30 flight. By the time I got through screening, got some breakfast and made it to my gate, it was time to board. But all benefics stopped once we were on the plane.

There was an issue with a paper copy of our flight report and FAA required paper manuals. Then there was a problem with a defect in one of the cargo sections of the plane. When I finally landed at O'Hare, a confused older gentleman tried to walk off with my luggage, even though a very nice security guard kept telling him the suitcase was mine and not his. My limo driver was nice about the whole thing, once we finally connected, but he was a bit put out when I didn't arrive at the destination point because I was dealing with my luggage.

The biggest benefic was good traffic so the drive home only took 45 minutes. My house was still standing and my cats were waiting.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb

The Little Things of Travel

So, I got my ipad for the California trip. One of the hardest thing about adding a new electronic device is suddenly having to figure out all those passwords you have Google remember for you. I decided setting up the ipad was a very good reason to change passwords I've used for years. Even if they are alpha-numeric, someone could, given enough time, crack them, so I needed to update. I'm not that paranoid, mind you, but we'll use the word "prudent". Yes, that's a good word.

The whole point of the ipad was to be able to update my World of Warcraft guild's web site and Facebook pages with photos and information from BlizzCon, the whole reason for going west in the first place. Some sites were easy to update to a new password. It was clear where I had to go and what I had to do. Other sites...

I have a Yahoo account. After I'd found my way onto the Internet with AOL, I quickly moved to ATT/Yahoo when upgrading my phone and Internet. It works adequate and has become my web address of choice for online shopping. But it seemed to need an act of some god and probably a sacrifice of a large number of small animals to get the password changed.

The other issue is that I access personal accounts during lunch at work, so there is my work computer which has access to all my passwords. Add a cell phone and it can be a headache and a half to change passwords, even when it's a good idea. No wonder people don't want to.

Once that was done, and I was only able to get the guild's Twitter account up and running (yes, my WoW guild has quite the social media presence) once I was in California, but everything worked on the ipad exactly as I wanted it to. (Passwords don't work if you write them down wrong, just an fyi there.) I took a large card and wrote all my important passwords on it. I keep it, usually, with the ipad. The card doesn't have my name on it so, even if someone were to steal the ipad, actually getting into the thing (which is password protected) and then finding one's way around, would be more hassle than it's worth. When not in use, I keep the ipad turned off and the card's by my computer. I recently cleaned all the cookies off my main system and had to type in all the passwords for frequently used sites. I have a planner, with all my passwords for places I've gone written in it, but it's a hodge podge of web sites and is on the list of things to clean up in an effort to find my Dunkin' Donuts password when I need to recharge my card; you know, important stuff.

Anyway, I got a hard back for the ipad, to protect it, but what I really needed was a case. If I just stick it in my carry-on, it could get scratched. Looking about, I found the following case from Incase.

I don't see this version on their web site anymore, unfortunately. It came in a variety of colors and I toyed between a royal blue and this color.

My ipad fits snugly inside. There's a layer of foam that goes over the screen and a small silica packet at the bottom of the case to absorb any moisture which might get in. The plastic zipper is crisp and I don't have a problem zipping or unzipping the case. It works wonderfully well and I keep the ipad in it when I'm not using it.

Another item I purchased was this purse, well, clutch, by definition.

The issue for me was I didn't want to be hauling my purse around BlizzCon. The purse is two and a half times the size of this and while it could stow pretty much anything I might want to carry, did I really WANT all that stuff with me? The reality was I wanted something about hand size which wouldn't get in the way. I got it from Target and they still have a few in the price I paid.

I had a difficult time deciding on color. Black goes with everything and the purple was kind of cool, but blue won in the end.

There are so many pockets in this thing. I can sort business into one pocket; receipts and bills and credit cards into another, and change into a third. In the main part of the clutch, there are two sections, which are big enough for my camera and my cell phone. I had to clean out the purse and decide what, exactly, needed to go with me; what was essential. The wrist strap is sturdy and the whole thing is just a bit over the size of my hand. All the time at BlizzCon and Disneyland, I could carry my life with me and know it was safe. It fits in the glove box or center well of the Jeep or under the seat, safely stowed from anyone looking inside.

My original purpose was to use this just for the vacation but I like it so much, it's my purse now. It fits neatly in the top drawer of my desk, now that the junk which was in there has been removed. I've whittled my carrying to just what I need and I'm finding I'm really okay with this.

Lastly, Liz mentioned in an email, we should do what we can to protect ourselves from the onslaught of germs. At the time, I hadn't gotten my flu shot; there hadn't been time to schedule it. Her comment, "If you haven't gotten a flu shot, I recommend it. 25,000 people in reasonably close quarters to each other can pass the crud very fast." Oh that's right. I'll be around people; me, with the compromised immune system. I don't think I've ever picked up the phone faster to call my doctor.

Liz also recommended hand sanitizer. I had some in the Jeep, but, over time, it seems to have dwindled to just a bit in the bottom of the container. Open the top left desk drawer and look what I have.

I happened to have a "few". Took the whole mess with me. These bottles were the perfect size to tuck into my new clutch. I didn't wind up using them as much as I probably could have, but I didn't shake hands with people. I stood next to them. I didn't meet anyone, other than costumed characters, at Disneyland, and I assume Chip and Dale have had their shots.

Beverage:  Dr Pepper

Deb