Teh Vacationxorz and Starcraft Twooooooo

Well I am back from vacation now. I actually got back on Friday and since then, I have been enjoying Starcraft 2 the whole time. I'm only really making this post right now because Davis is over playing it and I figured I would use this time to be productive now that he seems to more or less understand how to play. Hopefully you readers were not too sad after my dryest month of posting ever (only one post in one month), I plan to have more than that this month and next month. I will be posting pictures of my trip here on the blog for you to comment on. I will also post more to facebook after the summer is over because I find that to be a slightly more secure place to have pictures of my family on since I can have really strict security settings on facebook. Anyway, check back in the next few days for some pics and then leave some comments. I think this post will be interesting to you because I spent time on vacation thinking about the things I would write about and as a bonus, I will only mention Grandpa once! (well, once besides that right there). And now to the vacation.

Part 1: New Orleans:
We had a 6am flight out of Sea-Tac and got into New Orleans after a layover in Dallas/Fort Worth at about noonish. We noticed immediately how hot it was there. Unfortunately, it's the super humid kind of hot where you can't escape it. For dinner that night, we went to go see some live music. We were staying in a hotel on one side of the French Quarter and the place we went was on the opposite end. It was a good place, but to get into the actual room where the music was being played, there was an unecessarily large cover to get in. We were able to hear them fine though from the eating room, so that worked out. After we had heard enough and felt awkward for taking up a table for so long, we went back home. On the way back, we stopped by a place where "Washboard Chaz" was playing. It was a guy on washboard (named Chaz presumably) along with a good harmonica player and an adequate guitar player. I never though I would say this, but that guy on the washboard could really shred. It was pretty great and we stuck around for a while because he was so cool. The harmonica guy also was playing really well.

The next day, we got up and went to Cafe Du Monde, which is a cafe in the French Quarter that you pretty much have to go to if you are in New Orleans. After that, we checked around the outdoor marketplace and saw some crafts and things before going back to the hotel to escape the crazy (about 115 with humidity) heat. That night, we went to another restaurant right off Bourbon Street and got to see a lot of drunk people on the way back to the hotel.

On Monday, we got up and went on our tour of some plantations out in the bayou. The first one we toured was an old creole mansion, so we got to learn about creole history. The second one we toured was an american one, so we got the american perspective on plantations too. It was pretty cool to compare the two, but I definitely preferred the american one because they had some super cute tourguides. On our way back into New Orleans, we stopped at the capitol at Baton Rouge and then drove back to New Orleans via the lake pontchartrain bridge. That night, we went and saw the Preservation Hall Jazz Band play. They were really good and apparently that's another one of those things that people always recommend when you want to go see good music.

Part 2: Road to Tampa + Keir(!!!!!!!!!!)
On Tuesday, it was the release day for Starcraft 2. We had other plans though as we had to make our way from New Orleans to Gainesville in one day. Our first stop was in Mississippi where we got some pictures of entering it. After that, we stopped at a tourist center in Alabama for the same purpose. One odd thing about the South is that they seem to have a Waffle House at every exit. As we drove by them mile after mile, we couldn't help but wonder if they were as skanky inside as they loked outside. More on that later though. We finally arrived in Gainesville that night and after a little bit, I met up with Keir (ohhhhh so essiting!!!!11). We hung out at his place mostly working on the rap and talking about Starcraft 2 until late at night.

The next day, Keir picked me up on his way to school and we toured around the campus for a bit. He had a class to go to, so I used his laptop to make some pictures for his rap while he was in class (I will post the pictures I made along with my vacation pictures). After that, we went back to his place to record the rap, but I was only able to record my part before I had to get back on the road since we had to make it to Tampa by dinner that day.

We arrived in Tampa and met up with our relatives that we would be spending most of the remaining time with. We were seeing mom's two cousins, one's husband, and their 4 kids. One of them is my age, but she is kind of snobby at times and she doesn't like to interact with myself or the younger kids. The other 3 are triplets that are about 8 months younger than Kathryn. It is two girls and a boy. I like hanging out with the two girls because they remind me of Stashley. One acts a lot like Steven and the other acts a lot like Ashley. Their brother is a handful, but he is cool too. That night, we all had a good barbecue dinner at their place. Kathryn decided to sleep at their place.

Part 3: Tampa:
The quote of the night came as my parents and I tried to find our way back to the hotel in the dark from my mom's cousin's house.
Mom: I'm pretty sure we turn right up here.
Me: No, it's definitely left. Dad and I agree.
Mom: Okay, well when can I say I told you so?
Dad: Maybe another day when you're actually right!
She was wrong after all, but the next morning we did make a right turn as we went back out so she got to be technically right at that point. That day, we were going to the Rays game to see how real baseball teams play baseball. I must say, it was much more exciting than a Mariners game because both teams had skilled players. It was actually really depressing to realize how terrible our team is back here. That night after the game, we had dinner back at their place again. The boy triplet was learning a song on piano and needed some help putting what he was doing onto sheet music (since he was learning by ear), so I helped him with that.

The next day, we all went to the beach. Mom was dead set on going and since we went to a Rays game, she made sure that we went to the beach the following day. It was a pretty fun day or just messing around on the beach. Mom and Dad and Kathryn all insisted that I would burn, but I was the one that did not and the rest of them got epically burnt (and I do mean epically burnt). My cousin enjoyed making a point of pointing out the hot girls on the beach to me as if I could not see them walking right by me. Now I had my aviators on and I know how to politely look at hot girls going by on the beach (look, don't linger); but my cousin did not. He would point at them, turn his head around as they passed, and generally make it very obvious that he was checking them out. All it did was creep a lot of girls out. At one point, I was getting annoyed of hearing "Oh check that hot girl out over there" again for the thousandth time, so I said "Will, what if I told you I was gay? Would you still point out hot girls to me?" All the adults found that to be very funny for some reason. Unfortunately, he said he would probably still point out hot girls, so I just endured for the rest of the day. That night, we all went to a benihana-esque place for dinner. The chef at our table was a white guy who dubbed himself the "Asian Cowboy." He was pretty entertaining with his asian accent that he put on while cooking. After that, the four of us had to get over to Orlando to check into our hotel.

Part 4: Disneyworld:
We spent most of Saturday the 31st on our own at Hollywood Studios, one of the four dry Disney parks. It quickly became our favorite because of the rides and the low wait times on them compared to the other parks. Of course, it also helped that the park was the location for Star Tours at Disneyworld. The others got there later in the day and we spent the rest of the day in the park with them. At the park, they had an American Idol experience there at which people at the park could try out and perform. Each night, they have the top 7 perform and the audience votes for a winner. That winner gets a ticket to go to the front of the line at any Idol audition nationwide. We went to a final and this one kid that was 16 was actually pretty awesome. He didn't win, but the lady that did was too old to try out so she gave him her ticket. My cousin promptly obsessed over him because he was so super cute. More on that later.

The next day, we went to Animal Kingdom which is a pretty suck park. It's like a park where you go to get lectured on how you're destroying the environment by a company that DOES NIGHTLY FIREWORKS DISPLAYS LASTING 20 MINUTES IN 4 LOCATIONS WORLDWIDE. Also, there are a lot of tall trees and thick plants that trap the heat in the park so it gets insanely hot during the day because no breezes blow through and there are significanly fewer places with air conditioning in that park than in the other ones. After deciding we didn't want to linger there long, we decided to head over to Epcot to check it out. I liked Epcot a lot, it was pretty neat having all the little sections for different countries (that I'm sure paid a lot to be in a Disney park). There was a perfume shop in the French area and my mom's cousin's sister (the one not married) was trying on a bunch of the perfumes. At one point, she was offered one and said "I shouldn't try on too many of these or I'll smell like a French whore" which is a pretty old saying. As she said that, two older ladies turned their heads around super fast and insisted on getting a picture with her. I'm not sure if it was because they thought she was a park employee dressed as a French whore or if they were just that surprised to hear that phrase, but it was pretty funny. Also in Epcot, I ran into a guy who was wearing a nametag that said Odrik. Was I surprised? Yes, for I had not seen a more interesting thing before.

On Monday, we went to Universal Studios, not affiliated with Disney. The rides there are a lot bigger and cooler in my opinion. On a lot of the rides, there were warnings posted like "don't go on this ride if blah blah blah..." We saw a new one, warning that if we wore a prosthetic leg, we needed to remove it as it could fall off during the ride. How embarassing would that be to have to do that when you go get on a ride? Even worse, how embarassing would it be if you forgot and it came off during the ride and was lost? We got to visit the new Harry Potter land that they added. It was pretty cool and if you like Harry Potter, I think you would like it. If you don't, then I have no idea how you would feel about it. That night, we were walking around on a boardwalk and as you might expect, there were some games. My cousin who is like Steven was trying to win a soccer jersey from one game, but she needed more people to be in the game. It turned out to be a water shooting at a target game which I am excellent at, so I helped her get her jersey from that. After that, I made her night even better by noticing and pointing out the boy that won the American Idol thing a couple days before. We shouted over to him from our group (he was with his parents) and told him we thought he was really good. His mom was really excited that we remembered him and she informed us of the ticket switching thing that the lady did with him which was really nice. He was kind of shy about it, but I could tell we probably made him happy by telling him we thought he was good at singing.

On Tuesday, my mom's cousin had to get back to work, as did my mom's other cousin's husband. Those of us remaining went to the Waffle House. We pulled up to it and it was next to this giant orange orange shaped building. We called them to make sure it was next to an orange building. They said they couldn't remember, but they thought it was next to an Ihop. What? How could you miss this building? I'll post a picture of it so you see how ridiculous it was to miss this building. When they pulled up, they realized that they should have noticed it. After that, we went to the main park, Magic Kingdom. It's like Disneyland in California, but I like the California one a lot better. It's simpler and the layout is a lot better (and I'm used to it). We saw Chase (the American Idol kid) once again that night. This time, my cousin asked if she could facebook friend him. Oddly, his mom said yes instead of him and she even told her how to find him. She has since gotten his cell phone number. Maybe if she ever finds herself in Utah, she can meet up with him.

On Wednesday, it was back to just the four of us. We spent the day cleaning up doing rides that we had missed at the three parks besides Hollywood Studios.

On Thursday, we went to Kennedy Space Center. It was something mom and I wanted to do (it's rare for the two of us to want something when dad and Kathryn do not). It was pretty awesome, though I would have liked more focus on space itself. I understand how they were mostly dedicated to getting into space, but I got bored of just that after a while and I wanted knowledge about outer space and other galaxies and stuff like that.

On Friday, we spent the day at Hollywood Studios, riding our favorite rides and whatnot. I rode Star Tours several times in what would be my last times riding that ride. I'm sad to see it go, but I'm going to see if Disney will let me buy a seat from the ride if they're just planning on tearing them out when they redo the ride. They were pretty cool seats. We had a nonstop flight, but those are generally a risk because you're stuck on a plane that long with the same people, good or bad. This time, it was bad. In the back half of the plane, one person had his seat reclined. He was in front of me. I'm fine with that and all because it seems to always happen to me, but not only did the guy lean forward most of the time to sleep (so not even using that space he stole from me), but he also tried to put stuff under his seat, which is where my feet go. He ran out of room in the space under the seat in front of him which is where you put stuff on a plane. Eventually, I just told him to move his shit because I was sick of him deliberately shoving things under my feet. Also, after 3 hours of flight (on a 6 hour flight), the kid behind me showed off how loud and annoying he could be and for the last half of the flight, nobody got any sleep in our half of the plane. The parents were equally loud and I was surprised nobody went back there to shut that kid up because there were a lot of annoyed faces about the plane.

After we got back, I got a text from Steven about the proleague finals. I was tired, but still decided to go check it out since I could also see SC2, which I had to wait another day for. Long story short, it wound up with both of us falling asleep before the finals were over, but KT won as we expected after the results of the first two matches were in, so that was cool.

On Saturday, I got my copy of SC2 after dropping Grandpa off at his place after taking him to lunch. I've been playing it since then and not doing much else.

So I'll post some pictures this weekend. After that, I'll post right before PAX, so sometime in early September. Until next time, peace out.