Simplicities of Complexities: August 2014

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Mail Call August 28

Super small mail week for us.

From Belgium

From Germany

From California, USA

This morning I woke up to find out that I've reached the "100 Postcards Sent" mark of Postcrossing. I know I've sent more than that, but for ones that get the unique ID and get registered, I officially hit 100. Which means I can now send up to 11 postcards at a time through their system. Having a few received the last two days and a couple expire :( I decided to fill some out to send today. I'm enjoying the day off at home alone so here's what I'm sending out.

To Waltraud in Germany

To Geri in Massachusetts, USA

To Seacky in China

To Aletta in South Africa

To Sari in Finland

To Dasha in Ukraine

Sunday, August 24, 2014

Villains Unleashed!

Yesterday was Disney's Villains Unleashed event. A separate ticketed event that guests were able to enter the park at 5 p.m. and begin their villainous night. My night started just shortly after 5 p.m. I entered the park and headed over to the Indiana Jones area to pick up my credentials. Which ended up just being an over sized laminate PhotoPass card. I thought it was a cute idea verses the normal wrist band procedure.

After I was done in that line I took a stroll around the back side of the park to get an idea of what characters were going to be where and their greet times. I knew Dr. Hamsterveil and Gantu were going to probably be one of the longest waits and Constatine. There were people already lined up for both at around the 5:45 p.m. mark. I ended up choosing to meet The Witch first and I got in her line at 7:00 p.m. Her meet started promptly at 8:30 p.m. I was fifth in line to meet her. They also gave out a bag of sliced apples as you left her meet.

After meeting The Witch I scurried over to the Star Wars area because Emperor Palpatine was on my "Must See" list. My goal was to knock out as many greets with characters I've never met before as possible. As I followed along with Kenny The Pirate and other people tweeting and posting wait times I started hearing "2 hour wait for this" "3 hour wait for that" It almost discouraged me. I'm walking by Darth Maul, Boba Fett, and Darth Vader and you can see the ridiculously long lines of people waiting to meet their favorite villains. I get to Sci-Fi Diner and see about 30 to 40 people in line. Seeing as this was considered a short line I jumped in and the line was moving very quickly. His set ended before I got in, but there was only about 10 people in front of me now and it would be 30 minutes before he came back. I decided to wait it out since I was so close and I came to meet characters! After a 45 minute wait I met Emperor Palpatine and two Imperial Guards. I count the Imperial Guards as 1 character since they are dressed exactly the same and do not have individual names.

Emperor Palpatine and The Imperial Guards were the only Star Wars characters I was after that night since all the others that were out and available I had met on previous occasions at Star Wars Weekends. I headed to Echo Lake to check out the status of the Hyenas. I saw that Br'er Bear and Br'er Fox were out and I asked the cast member at the front about the hyenas. She pointed to row of guests to her right and said they are waiting on the Hyenas and they will be out in 5 minutes. The hyenas line only had about 30 to 40 people in it. So with the knowledge I have of knowing it doesn't take 30 minutes to meet 30 guests I knew I would get in on the upcoming set. I met Banzai, Shenzi, and Ed and they were my favorite meet of the night. Very playful and interactive. Ed was just adorable.

As soon as I finished with the hyenas I noticed the line for the Br'ers was very short with about 15 people in it. The hyenas only had 3 minutes left after I met with them so I knew time was no on my side. After a 20 or so minute wait I met Br'er Bear and Br'er Fox.

My character count was now 8 characters met, and 6 of them were new to me meets. I was doing good. I let that bit of information keep my spirits up all the while I'm reading angry tweets and facebook comments about how lines are too long and people are only getting to meet 1 or 2 characters. I headed over to Streets of America to check out the Gantu and Dr. Hamsterviel situation. These two were at the top of my list that I really wanted to meet. Gantus line was closed for his last set and he was still meeting in his second set. The cast member informed me that Hamsterviels line was still open. I decided to go ahead and jump in. If I couldn't get both I would at least have one. It was roughly a 40 minute wait until I got to meet Hamsterviel and it was so worth it. He was adorable. I asked him if he'd like to take over the world tonight and he clapped with joy.

As I exited the greet I noticed the Gantu line only had 30 people in it. I thought to myself how odd it was that his line was closed off already when during a 30 minute greet with no autographs a character could easily meet up to 50 to 60 guests. So I lingered near the entrance to see if they would open his line up. Low and behold they did and I got in.

Seeing how it seemed I was having some dumb luck or maybe it was me being prepared or maybe staying in good spirits about the event, I thought I would try my luck with Constatine. I had been hearing all night about how great his meet was and how worth it it was. Afterall it was the actual puppet from the movie and it was said that the actual puppeteer for him from the movie was the one behind the frog for the occasion as well. Well as with all luck it does eventually run out. I did not get in to meet him and it was now 12:15 a.m. I headed off through Streets of America one last time to see what was going on. The streets was practically empty with most of the guests still standing in line for stationary characters. I happened to come across some roaming characters that were not annoyingly crowded and I found guests that were more than happy to take a moment to take a photo for me. So I ended my character hunting adventure at Villains Unleashed with Foulfellow, Prince John, and Sheriff of Nottingham.

Character Hunting totals for the night were:

13 Unique Characters

9 New Characters to my book

The night ended with Maleficent bestowing a gift upon us that lit up the skies. Villainy in the Sky was hands down the best fireworks show I've seen at Walt Disney World, with Symphony in the Stars as a close runner up. The actress they had for Maleficent NAILED it and her performance brought chills to my spine. Overall I had a great time and I hope they decide to do more events like this. I will gladly go back and pay the premium again. All it takes is a little bit of planning and a positive attitude to have a great time. I'm sorry for those who did not enjoy their time there and were only able to meet one or two villains. I do agree I believe they oversold this event quite a bit and crowd levels were extremely high for such a short event with so much stuff packed into one night. It was impossible to do even half of the things there, but I went in having that expectation and knowing that I would not be able to do everything or meet everyone. I went in with a plan, I executed it and deviated where I needed to so I could make sure I had an outstanding time. On the way out guests were handed a large autograph card from the event plus a goodie bag with different things in it including 2 other autograph cards.

Friday, August 22, 2014

Outgoing Mail August 22

Amaras Outgoing Postcards

Sending To Virginia, USA

Sending To Spain

Trishas Outgoing Postcards

Sending to Russia

Sending to France

Thursday, August 21, 2014

ONLY 30 DAYS!

Alright! We are now within the 30 day mark of the countdown to Epcot's International Food & Wine Festival. I'm getting more and more excited as the days draw closer. Today I will feature eight different things since it has been eight days since my last F&W post.

Kalua Pork Slider with Sweet and Sour Dole Pineapple Chutney & Spicy Mayonnaise

Chicken Souvlaki with Tzatziki

Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup

Kerrygold Cheese Selection: Reserve Cheddar, Dubliner with Irish Stout & Skellig

Seared Scallop with Ragout of Tomatoes, Peppers & Hearts of Palm

Chicken Potstickers

Orange Dole Whip with Creme de Cacao White

Beef Empanada

Mail Call August 21

It's Thursday, which means another round of mail received over the past 7 days. Amara received 5 lovely postcards this week and I got 4 postcards this week. Some pretty cute ones if you ask me. So here is the roundup.

Amaras Postcards Received: