Seaworld – Thursday (day 4)

We decided to switch gears and go to Seaworld. But we couldn’t drag ourselves out of bed early, three fun filled days started to add up. We weren’t that late though, we pulled into the Seaworld parking lot a half hour after the park opened.

Disclaimer: we really like Seaworld. In fact, for spring break earlier this year we drove the whole family to San Diego and went to Seaworld there. We still chant Shamu, Shamu, while making the sign of the whale’s tail and I believe. But because of this we weren’t dying to see all of the shows at Seaworld, Orlando, we just didn’t have the energy. So we focused on the rides and a few favorite exhibits: Penguin Encounter, Shark Encounter, sea turtles, and Wild Arctic – I take every chance I get to see a walrus in real life.

The only big ride at Seaworld, San Diego was Journey to Atlantis. Shipwreck Rapids is good, I just wouldn’t classify it as big, it’s not scary good, it’s only wet good, for those who like to get wet. The big rides at Seaworld, Orlando include Journey to Atlantis (not exactly the same as San Diego’s version), Kraken, and Manta. The exhibits, shows, and wildlife in San Diego are every bit as good as the ones in Orlando, some were better. There were a lot more sea turtles at the exhibit in San Diego, and a lot more beluga whales to name a few.

This is sounding a little negative, but remember this: Seaworld wasn’t our main focus, it was a bonus because of Discovery Cove. And that’s how I’ll remember it as a nice bonus that added a little variety in between our hard trudging days at Islands of Adventure/Universal Studios.

My wife may not think it was a bonus, but that had more to do with my daughter and I than Seaworld itself. In the spirit of full disclosure here’s what not to do, from my own personal experience. Hopefully you’ll be wiser because of it. I call it: “How to Torture Your Spouse.”

How to Torture Your Spouse

Step 1 – first thing in the morning, right after breakfast, take her on a ride that not only loops several times, but the riding position is leaning forward like you’re riding a crotch rocket motorcycle. So right off the bat you’re just dangling there on your stomach. And just before the first loop you twist onto your back in preparation for the first loop. This means you enter the loop head first, on your back, up-side-down.

Step 2 – after walking around a crowded amusement park for a couple of hours, ask your spouse to save you a place at the Seaport Theater 45 minutes prior to the next show. Be sure to emphasize you want good seats, right up front in the middle. While your spouse saves those good seats, you and your daughter go back and ride that ride again. It's ok though because you promise that if the projected wait time is more than 30 minutes you'll return without riding the ride so your spouse doesn’t have to endure telling everyone else at the show that you’re on your way. But… despite your best intentions, and a projected wait time of 15 minutes, you arrive back at the Seaport Theater 10 minutes after “Pets Ahoy!” begins, extremely lucky to even be allowed inside the doors once the show has started.

Step 3 – after a long day of walking, sitting, and walking some more, fighting crowds, baking in the sun, paying $5 for a carton of raw fish to feed the sea lions, $6 for a cup of Dippin Dots, $10 to paddle around for twenty minutes in a two-seater flamingo (while your spouse saves good seats in the Nautilus Theater for “A’Lure… The Call of the Ocean”) and paying $31 for a small stuffed dolphin and a medium sized stuffed penguin, completely exhausted on the way out of the park you pass that ride again and ask your spouse if she'll wait the projected 35 minutes, holding all the stuff you accumulated throughout the day, while you and you daughter ride that ride one last time.

My wife is awesome, durable, patient, and selfless -- heck, she can even endure torture. Journey to Atlantis is fun, it has an interesting theme. The Kraken is fast, exciting, and inverts 7 times in loops and twists. But the Manta is a completely new experience – it is the ride.

The Manta was such a unique ride, at least for us, that we ranked it our #2 favorite ride overall. We were glad we went to Seaworld because of it.

Next: Day 5

Universal Studios – Wednesday (day 3)

We woke up still riding the wand high from the day before. We were again excited to get an early start. Universal Studios is very different than Islands of Adventure, there are exciting rides, but a lot more movie-ish attractions too.

From the park entrance we ran to the Rockit rollercoaster. The line was short enough that we missed most of the instruction by the super cool animated teenagers. Not a huge deal, but when I sat down in my seat, pulled down the lap bar, and stared at the music selection touch screen I was unprepared to make my decision. I didn’t love any of the genres, so being pressed for time I took a shot on Classic Rock/Metal hoping I could find something I liked. I chose “Gimme All Your Lovin’” by ZZ Top. It was an enjoyable addition to my ride. My wife thoroughly enjoyed her selection of “Livin in Fast Forward” by Kenny Chesney; she’s a country girl at heart. The best part of Rockit is the beginning where you blastoff facing straight up through rings that remind you of a real rocket launch pad. And what goes up must come down, and Rockit does come down in a rush towards exciting twists, turns and loops. The second best part of Rockit is watching videos of yourself, and people around you, once you get off the ride. Our facial expressions were hilarious. Rockit was a solid lock in our top five favorite rides overall.

We picked a good day to visit Universal Studios because it didn’t feel like there were very many people in the park at all, completely different from the day before at Islands of Adventure. Our next target was the Revenge of the Mummy. It was close by and I knew my daughter would like it. Unfortunately they were having some mechanical problems with the ride so we couldn’t ride at that time. Walking away from the Mummy we were approached by a man working in the park – watch out they like to do a lot of surveys. Because we didn’t really have a destination at that moment we fell for his trap to screen a new television program. After answering more questions than you can shake a stick at (right now I’m visualizing Howie Mandel shaking a stick while the guy is asking us questions, and before the guy is done Howie gets tired and stops) we were plunked down in front of a monitor placing headphones on our heads. More questions on the computer before the actual screening took place, then finally we watched a new show called “Love in the Wild.” I’m embarrassed to admit that I kind of liked the show, but I blame my wife because she makes me watch a lot of other shows like it. Love in the Wild is a cross between the Bachelor and Survivor – it was funny watching how the couples handled the jungles of Costa Rica. After more than an hour, and more questions on the computer after the show, we were done. They paid my wife and me $15 for our effort. But I regret taking so much of my daughter’s time this way. She was stuck in there for an hour watching “Deal or No Deal,” the park outside beckoning to her. If they could have hooked her up with Nickelodeon she’d have been much happier. My recommendation when approached by a park worker at Universal Studios is to ask them how long whatever they want you to do will take, and if you don’t want to use your time that way, politely say “No thank you.” Word!

There was some good news, by the time we were done with the screening the Mummy was up and running. Plus, the line was super short. My daughter was a little scared walking into it, the line has some scary images along the way. But, hey, it’s the Mummy right – it’s not Little Red Riding Hood. My daughter’s comment when we got off the ride, “Worth it.” We hit the Mummy several more times during our week on vacation. The Mummy was our favorite place to warm up after getting soaked by rain – there’s a spot on the ride where the entire ceiling is on fire.

We walked through New York towards San Francisco/Amity. On the way we decided to try the Disaster experience. It’s not really a ride, it’s one of those movie-ish things I was talking about. The best part about Disaster was the extremely enthusiastic girl leading our experience. I really wanted my daughter to volunteer to participate, but for some reason she was timid that day. The attraction takes at least 20 minutes, so even though we were at the front of the line it didn’t move very fast. I think my daughter enjoyed it, especially the movie at the end which included some audience volunteers, and us as extras. It’s worth trying at least once.

When we found the Jaws attraction in Amity it had started to rain. We worried they’d stop the ride, but instead they kept announcing “You will get wet, if this is not in your best interest” get the heck out of the line, or something similar to that. I remember when Jaws came out in movie theaters when I was a kid. I had read the book and I was excited to be scared – that movie didn’t disappoint. So, I enjoyed the ride more than my daughter who didn’t have the same attachment to Jaws that I did. She didn’t hate the ride, she just didn’t love it either. I don’t think she’s even seen the movie.

We ran between rides to avoid getting soaked. MIB (Men in Black) was a great place to be while it was raining outside. This is a fun and competitive ride. You get to shoot aliens during while you ride. And if Will Smith says you’re not so good at the end, well then, you need to ride it again until he proclaims you the best agents. So we did.

When the rain let up a little we went over to The Simpsons Ride. The Simpson’s is one of my guilty pleasures. My daughter and I laughed through the videos played while waiting in line, especially the ones right before you get on the ride. And we laughed through the entire ride. It was definitely the ride we quoted lines from most often, “I’m not changing that diaper,” was one of our favorites spoken by Homer when Maggie grows fifty feet tall after being exposed to radiation. It’s much funnier there than my description here, trust me. There is a full sized Kwik-E-Mart right outside the ride, one of the more unique gift shops.

We ate lunch at the International Food and Film Festival restaurant mainly because it had a nice variety of options. Once again it was expensive but mostly good food. Our afternoon was spent on/in ET, the Terminator, Animal Actors on Location, Shrek 4-D, and Beetlejuice’s Graveyard Revue, then repeats of the Mummy and MIB. We wanted to ride Rockit again but it was closed, I assume because of the rain. Of the things we did in the afternoon I enjoyed Shrek, the Mummy and MIB the most. The others were good though.

There were other movie-ish things we could have done, but by the end of the day we started dragging. I think the biggest reason was the rain. We had to run through a downpour from the Terminator to get to the Animal Actors on Location and our shoes got soaked in the process. When we found out Rockit was not going to be operational for the rest of the day, and we were within an hour of Universal Studios closing, we park hopped over to Islands of Adventure. It stays open an hour later so we had enough time to ride the Forbidden Journey and the Dragon Challenge – the lines were perfectly short then too.

Next: Day 4

Islands of Adventure – Tuesday (day 2)

Tuesday morning we couldn’t wait to get to Islands of Adventure. We woke up early and made it to the entrance almost an hour before the park was scheduled to open. Did I mention we were excited? A nice treat that morning was when they started letting people through the gates 30 minutes before the scheduled opening.

Once inside we skirted through Seuss Landing, under the tracks of the Sky Seuss Trolley, plowed right through the middle of The Lost Continent, and in no time we were staring up at the entrance to Hogsmeade. Wow! It’s enormous.
A cobblestone street winds through the middle of Hogsmeade, shops line the edges: Zonko’s, Honeydukes, the Three Broomsticks, and the Hog’s Head are on the left; the engine to the Hogwarts Express, the entrance to Dragon Challenge ride, the owlery rest area, Dervish and Banges, and Ollivanders are to the right. The buildings were all slanted and misshapen, like magical buildings usually are. The roofs held patches of snow, large icicles dangled in a few places and there was a snowman too. Hogsmeade has so much to take in, so many little details; we just walked through staring in wonder and amazement, trying not to bump into the few hundred other people who filled the streets that morning.

Past all the shops in Hogsmeade Hogwarts castle jutted out of a rock foundation, looming high into the sky, more impressive still. That is where we wanted to go, no matter how long the line was – our first experience at Islands of Adventure had to be Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey. The entrance to the castle was visible, as was the line. We followed the line backwards, out through the other entrance to Hogsmeade, from Jurassic Park. We found the end of the line close to the T-Rex photo op. Undaunted we fell in line along with many other Harry fans right behind us. The line moved faster than I expected. And as a side bonus we got to reenter Hogsmeade from a different angle, with plenty of time to soak it in. A young wizard who worked at Hogwarts castle, near the gate, was dressed in a robe; he may have been a prefect. I asked him if we were in the right line for first years, and how soon the sorting would take place. We all had a chuckle. Then another couple walked up and asked him what the line was for. He said it was “to place your bags in a locker.” My wife and I looked at each other thinking he’s messing around with these people. Then some kids behind us say, “Is he going to tell them he’s joking?” Right then we noticed a fork in the line – one side was completely crowded, and the other side was wide open. So we ask him again, “What is this line for?” He answers, “It’s for lockers, you can’t take any bags on the ride.” So, first tip of the day, if you’re not carrying any bags, which we weren’t, you can bypass a lot of standing around. Live and learn I guess.

We raced through the entrance of the castle, only daring to stop briefly to inspect the décor fearing we’d be passed by others rushing in. We finally caught up to the end of the line, back outside the castle in a greenhouse, which is positioned between the castle levels. The line winds up and around inside the greenhouse past rows of mandrakes protected inside a cage along with various tools I guess Madame Sprout doesn’t want stolen.

Once you go back inside the castle there is so much more to see. It starts off with a couple of statues and the enchanted hourglasses that keep track of the House Points – spoiler alert: Gryffindor is in the lead. The line winds around the large gargoyle guarding the entrance to the headmaster’s tower. Past that is the headmaster’s office filled with many curious gadgets, including a pensive. At this point Dumbledore speaks to you. From here till you get on the ride you’ll see: talking portraits of the house founders, the portrait of the fat lady, and the sorting hat among other things. Another big room is the defense against the dark arts classroom; Harry, Ron and Hermione make an appearance there.

The ride itself is exciting; it’s a mixture of projected video, 3d animatronics, and an enchanted bench which moves, tilts, and twists you around in dramatic fashion. This ride was hands down our favorite for overall experience, including all the stuff to look at while you’re in line. The little details make it great.

The journey ends like most rides, in a gift shop. But not just any old gift shop: Filch's Emporium of Confiscated Goods. The only thing I didn’t like about it was all the other people jam packed in there. It was like that in all of the shops in Hogsmeade. If it wasn’t for the crowd I would have picked up and thoroughly investigated everything for sale in the entire store, as it was I only got to touch half the stuff.

Right outside Filch’s is the entrance to Flight of the Hippogriff. This line winds around the front side of Hagrid’s hut, and past a baby hippogriff. The ride is brief, it wasn’t terrible but we had no desire to repeat. From there we walked back into Hogsmeade and noticed quite a long line outside of Ollivanders. Unsure exactly why there was a line waiting to enter the wand shop, we bypassed the crowd in hopes that later on, the line would die down enough for us to figure out what we were missing. The Dragon Challenge was more interesting anyway, before entering the castle there are lots of banners cheering on the Triwizard Tournament Champions. You also walk past the backside of Hagrid’s hut and Arthur Weasley’s flying car. The Goblet of Fire sits in the entrance to the castle, make sure you’re the proper age before submitting your name. The ride itself is the old Dueling Dragons, Fire & Ice, that was in the park before the Harry Potter World. Nevertheless, it still ranks high on favorites list, second only to Harry’s Forbidden Journey.

As much as we loved Hogwarts and Hogsmeade we felt compelled to investigate the rest of the park. So we headed back the way we came. My wife kept trying to get my daughter to try something in Seuss Landing, but she’s just “too big” for that I guess. Instead we hit The Incredible Hulk Coaster. I love how that coaster blasts off at the beginning. But my head tends to bang around in the safety restraints. So, I like it, but not as much as the other rides where I don’t have to hold my head together after I get off.

We started looking for food after the Hulk. We ended up in the Comic Strip Café in Toon Lagoon, passing up a couple of so-so options on the way there. Once you get past the sticker shock of the park food this place was one of the better ones.

After the food break we had unfinished business in Marvel Super Hero Island. The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man and Doctor Doom’s Fearfall were calling out to us “ride me, if you dare.” My daughter wasn’t about to back down from the dare, but my wife and I were longingly wishing we were back in Hogsmeade slurping down some butterbeer. The Spider-Man ride is one of my favorites, but it always seems to have one of the longest waits. Doctor Doom’s line was plenty short as is the ride, someone must be compensating.

Having conquered our super hero and super villain fears, we went back to Toon Lagoon. Now, forgive me for being critical, but by the time we got back there I wasn’t really in the mood for toons, especially the ones that get you wet – I hate walking around any park soaking wet. And I’ll be danged if just about every ride in Toon Lagoon didn’t get you wet – hey, maybe that’s why lagoon is in the name? I seriously just noticed that as I was typing, must have been too many head banging Hulk rides for me notice while I was there.

This is where our day turns a little sad. Even though my daughter opts to skip Popeye & Bluto’s Bilge-Rat Barges, no argument from me or my wife, she stands in front of Dudley Do-Rights Ripsaw Falls and looks at it longingly. She does like to get wet. And to be honest, the people on the ride looked like they were having some real fun, I get that. I was close to caving, but it had 90 minute projected wait time. We didn’t even wait that long when we rode Harry’s Forbidden Journey. There was no way I was going to wait 90 minutes to get drenched and then walk around the rest of the day with squeaking shoes. That’s the moment when the camera’s zoomed into my heart and found it was 3 sizes too small. I talk a good game but we all know who’s really calling the shots. In the end I had to make a deal to postpone my encounter with Dudley Do-Rights’ 90 minute torture chamber. How do I know it’s a torture chamber you ask? Maybe the projected wait time was inaccurate, or maybe the line is really fun like the Harry Potter ride. You think? You can skip down to Friday’s events if you’re an impatient person. Anyway the good news was I didn’t have to wait 90 minutes to get wet. The bad news was I had one disappointed daughter; in case you didn’t know, disappointed daughters aren’t very much fun.

We moped all the way to Jurassic Park. On the way I tried to sell her on the Jurassic Park River Adventure, “This ride is going to be awesome: dinosaurs, action, suspense you name it. And we’ll probably even get wet.”

“I just wanted to get wet on the log ride,” she said through a frown, her forehead scrunched up for added emphasis. She wasn’t having any of it.

“Yeah, but remember, we’re going to do that ride when we come back here on Friday or Saturday – I promise.” Hoping the last part would cheer her up.

“Ok.” She said, this time with her patented attempt at smiling while at the same time displaying extreme disappointment in her eyes. She’s 9-years-old and she’s already mastering manipulative looks. Look out future husband.

The wait for the Jurassic Park River Adventure wasn’t particularly long in actual minutes, but it sure felt like a long time. The ride itself was enjoyable, and I think given almost any other circumstances we would have appreciated it a lot more. As it was it became the buffer ride we needed to get past the disappointment in Toon Lagoon.

The best news after that was the fact that Hogsmeade is just a hop, skip, and a jump from the river adventure. And what better place to cheer up than that wonderful wizarding world. It was getting late in the day, around 5:00 pm when we walked into Hogsmeade. This is when we learned a valuable secret about Islands of Adventure: the lines are a lot shorter at the end of the day than they are at the beginning. We strolled past the main entrance to Hogwarts castle, all the way through the greenhouse, and found the end of the line right at the second entrance to the castle. Score! Nothing cheers up disappointed spirits like short lines. When we were done in the castle we tried to prove our theory about the end of the day short lines and it held true – the Dragon Challenge ride line was even shorter.

Feeling downright saucy now, we wandered over to the Three Broomsticks to see what it was like inside. We ordered 1 butterbeer and 1 frozen butterbeer, found a table tucked away in the corner next to a huge wall filled with antlers, sat down and laughed at each other taking turns making butterbeer mustaches. We made silly jokes like “Got butterbeer?” Then licked the butterbeer cream off our lips and did it again. It was, um, magical. I’m not sure if it was a really great drink or the fact that we were drinking it inside the Three Broomsticks, it just doesn’t matter. Our mood had changed for the better.

While we laughed and drank our butterbeer we decided to go see what all the hubbub at Ollivanders was about. The line had died down significantly, still though, people were waiting. My wife approached one of the wizards in charge there who explained that they take in 36 people at a time and have a little experience in the wand shop. He estimated the wait time to be about 30 minutes. Since the line was the shortest we’d seen it all day we decided to wait. When we finally got in the door my daughter was chosen by Ollivanders’ assistant to participate in the demonstration. He handed her a wand and told her to summon the ladder propped against the wall. “Accio ladder.” She said. A bunch of boxes of wands on the shelves went haywire popping in and out, but the ladder stayed put. He handed her a second wand then told her to simply swish her wrist and ring a single bell on the wall above us. She flicked her wrist and all the bells started ringing. “That’s no good.” He said. Then he asked her, “When is your birthday?” After her reply he thought out loud, “I have one more wand for you to try it’s a 12-inch, made of holly, with a unicorn core. It’s very unique, but it might be …” he trailed off looking for the wand on the shelves. He found the box he was looking for, opened it and handed her the wand. As soon as she touched it it was clear the wand had chosen her – as if a light from the heavens shown down upon her. The grin on her face showed more excitement than I’ve ever seen before. My daughter was happy again. Yahoo!

Behind the scenes: after the wand chose my daughter one of the shop helpers, he might have been a muggle, whisked her away into another wand shop next door; that’s where everyone is herded to view wands they can purchase, thus vacating the room for the next 36. I ran to catch up, not wanting to lose sight of her. As they crossed through the doorway he leaned over and asked her, “So, do you wanna buy that wand?” Her head bounced up and down, “Yes!”

Now, I don’t mean to complain, but come on, like she’s gonna say no, after all that. The going rate for wands these days is $30 whether it chooses you or you choose it. Well played Ollivander, it was worth every penny. I actually ended up getting myself a wand too, I just couldn’t resist – if you herd me, I will buy. I should print that on a t-shirt. There were so many wands to choose from it was hard to decide on just one. I liked Sirius Black’s and Neville Longbottom’s, but how could I resist Dumbledore’s wand – the lure of the Elder Wand was too compelling. I’m admiring it right now as I write this. Thanks JK Rowling, for all the memories.

Nothing could top our experience at Ollivanders – it was the highlight of the whole trip. I think we rode the Dragon Challenge a couple more times then on the way out we rode the Hulk and Spider-Man. But all we could think about was the wand that chose my daughter. And the best part? She only attempted two killing curses on the way back to our hotel. Daddy's little girl is growing up, way too fast.

Next: Day 3

A Family Tradition: my daughter’s 10-year-old trip

My wife and I have a family tradition of taking our children on a trip when they turn 10, by themselves without any siblings. It’s our way of celebrating a decade of their life. We try to do something memorable for each child with a focus on stuff they are interested in. This makes the planning exciting for the children and the anticipation is a big part of the experience. We talk about where they want to go and what they want to do for 6 months to a year prior to going. We’ve made a lot of fun memories together.

This year my youngest child, my only daughter, turns 10. That means it’s our last 10-year-old trip. She spent a lot of time deciding where to go before finally settling on Florida. Her brothers helped by sharing stories about their trips: number two son went to Discovery Cove and Seaworld, and number three son went to Islands of Adventure/Universal Studios. The tipping point was my daughter’s love of everything Harry Potter. The first time she read about The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Islands of Adventure that was it. She also loves animals; she’s talked about being a marine biologist when she grows up. With six days to fill up we decided to include a visit to Discovery Cove so she could swim with dolphins too.

That gave us four different parks to visit from Monday through Saturday: Islands of Adventure, Universal Studios, Discovery Cove and Seaworld (Seaworld passes are typically included when you purchase admission to Discovery Cove).

When I started this blog I thought I’d be able to give you some highlights from our trip with a couple funny stories sprinkled in for good measure. The problem is my wife and daughter and I kept remembering fun stuff. So I kept on writing till it turned into quite a behemoth. Rather than force an elephant down your throat I’ve sliced it up into daily, bite-sized, chunks that I hope are easier to consume. Since I’m a blogger neophyte feel free to comment if you have tips on how I can format it better. I’ve included day one below. I’ll post the rest of our week once I polish each piece.

Discovery Cove – Monday (day 1)

We went to Discovery Cove on Memorial Day because daily attendance is limited; we thought the other parks would be more crowded on a holiday. After we checked in we ate a nice breakfast then headed over to the Sand Dollar cabana, near the west end of Dolphin Lagoon – our dolphin swim was scheduled for 8:50 am, first thing.

We were assigned to a group of eight, my daughter and I plus six others. My wife stayed on shore to record the event. After filling out some waivers, and listening to a short lecture about what we could expect, we headed over to Dolphin Lagoon. Once in the water a trainer whistled and Akai swam right up to us. The trainer had him swim close so each person could give him a rub. We learned hand signals that told Akai to swim by splashing us with his flippers. We also heard the different sounds Akai could make with his blowhole. One at a time each person was led away from the group for some alone time with Akai. We were instructed to put our hands together and gently place them under Akai’s chin and give him a kiss on the nose. After the kiss we wrapped our arms around his middle and gave him a hug while he posed for a picture raising his head and tail out of the water at the same time. The moment was brief and unfortunately we weren’t quick enough to capture it with our camera, but we’ll remember it for sure. Akai was a real ham.

We were having fun up to this point but they saved the best part for last. My daughter and I swam out about 20 yards where Akai met us and one at a time he towed us back to the group standing in the shallows. We held onto Akai with one hand on his dorsal fin and the other hand on his flipper. My daughter was nervous at first, mostly about treading water. But she only had to do it for a minute. When it was all over she was glad she did it. Before our dolphin swim time was complete all the dolphins in Dolphin Lagoon had a chance to show off, right in front of us. They jumped high into the air, some did flips – a couple flipped at the same time.

After our swim with Akai we headed over to the Tropical Reef – the saltwater swimming area. We waded into the shallow stingray section where we played with some small stingrays. There was even one tiny pup only a few weeks old; “So cute,” said the girls. This area is small so it doesn’t take long to see it all. There is a larger area adjacent to the stingray pool that is deeper. There are lots of tropical fish, way bigger stingrays, plus barracuda and sharks in that section. Before you get too alarmed the dangerous fish are safely contained in glass enclosures. Still it’s fun to swim underwater and be face to face with a ‘cuda or a shark, and feel comfortable at the same time. My daughter wanted to try her hand at snorkeling so that’s where we went. For a soon-to-be-ten-year-old she did great. I think she swallowed less than a gallon of saltwater, well below the recommended daily limit.

The rest of our day was pretty low key. We made a couple of visits to the Explorers Aviary feeding and trying to identify exotic birds; that was high on my list of favorites for the day. We traversed the Wind-Away River multiple times, it’s a freshwater river encircling the main swimming areas. Hanging out on the white-sand beach near Serenity Bay the soothing sounds of the waterfalls almost lulled me to sleep; I never seemed to have quite enough time to fall completely asleep. We snorkeled a couple more times in the Tropical Reef too.

Having the food included as part of the admission price to Discovery Cove was a definite plus. The breakfast was good, and the lunch was even better. There were also plenty of snacks; my favorite was the dolphin shaped pretzel.

It started to rain about 5:00 pm, but since the park closes at 5:30 pm we just packed up and left. I wish we could have stayed later, but I guess Akai and his friends need to rest sometime.

Next: Day 2

My digital evolution: eBooks and vFriends

Next month marks my 20 year anniversary as a professional computer programmer (that means I get paid to write code). And as such, it’s pretty much expected that I keep up with new trends in technology. It’s been interesting to watch things like the Internet, cell phones, facebook, and TiVo become such integral parts of our lives. But I’m not easily swayed to the newest, latest, or self-proclaimed greatest advances in technology, especially when they want to “fix” something that to me “isn’t broken.”

While it may not be surprising to anyone else, in fact some of you may be saying “finally, you old fogey,” I have digitally evolved in two surprising ways this year. I say surprising because one year ago I couldn’t have predicted how much these two things would change my behavior on a daily basis. The first is: I have purchased and read eBooks, and the second is: I have vFriends.

eBooks

I used to say things like “I can’t switch to digital books I’d miss the tactile feel, and the smell of paper.” Or “I don’t want to be chained to a device that requires a battery; I’m just fine with my simple printed book.” Another subconscious inhibitor was the reality that I had a hard time reconciling the price of eBooks vs. printed books. Because some of the production cost goes down with digital books I thought the price should too.

Ironic isn’t it? A computer programmer complaining about the price of soft copy while at the same time making a living producing nothing but soft copy. I should have known better. But it wasn’t until I listened to a couple of podcasts discussing the future of eBooks, including both the pros and the cons, that I recognized the similarities between producing eBooks and software development. Both take months if not years to produce a finished product. Both require many hands and eyes to design, implement, market and eventually deliver a quality product. I now recognize when I buy an eBook I’m paying for a lot more than just a copy of a word document.

I would still like to see some pricing adjustments on eBooks, like if I buy a paper book I get the eBook for free, or at least for a nominal fee like a dollar extra or something. But in order to keep the generally high standards we expect to see in published eBooks I am comfortable with the current price range on most eBooks today. But I digress.

Here’s how I took the eBook leap. I confess, I like gadgets. I’d been toying with the idea of buying a Kindle for a few months, but just couldn’t let myself pull the trigger. I was working on a project at work that gave me access to an iPad so I thought, before I buy a Kindle I should trying reading an eBook on the iPad. That way if I don’t like it I won’t have another useless gadget in my drawer – BTW, that drawer is quite full. I chose to use the Kindle app on the iPad instead of iBooks so that if I decided to buy the Kindle, whatever books I acquired in the meantime, I’d have access to in the future. Plus I read many good reviews in favor the Kindle app.

At the time I made this decision I was reading John Brown’s “Servant of a Dark God” – I picked up a signed copy from him at LTUE this year. I thought I’d do a comparison read, some parts paper book, some parts eBook. So, I purchased the eBook version too – you’re welcome John. Well, once I started reading the eBook, I stopped reading the paper book. The eBook was so much more convenient.

A couple of things hit me right off the bat. I was reading SoaDG and came across the name Lumen. It sounded familiar but I couldn’t remember who he was. I pulled up the search box, typed in “Lumen” and instantly found every occurrence of that name. I touched the first one and found the place where John Brown first introduces Lumen – exactly what I was looking for.

The second big thing is that I love looking up words in the dictionary. In fact, one of my favorite apps is a dictionary app. Well, in the Kindle app, if you want to know the definition of a word all you have to do is touch it and the definition instantly pops up; you don't even have to type it in.

Ok, eBooks you have me hooked, on these two things alone.

A few other conveniences I really like:

Highlights – built-in, I don’t need a pencil sharpener, or even to remember to bring a pencil, if I have my book I have my highlighter. I can even see highlights from other readers.

Built in backlight (at least on the iPad) – I don’t need anything else that requires batteries too. I know the e-ink on the Kindle is popular for reading outside, but I read a lot more often inside in low light than I do outside.

Accessibility – I can read on my iPad, my iPod Touch, my PC or my iPhone. The Kindle app syncs my current reading position so I’m always up to date no matter what. It’s like having a book mark that can’t get lost.

Purchasing an eBook is almost instant – really good for the “I want it now” generation.

It’s easy to change the font size and text color – so my wife can read too (she needs glasses, but don’t tell her I said so).

I’m not predicting the end of paper. I still do like the smell of paper, it reminds of reading as a kid. But if there is an eBook version available that’s what I’m going to buy from now on.

vFriends

Let’s start with my definition of the term vFriend. A vFriend (virtual friend) is someone I feel attached to because of interactions that take place mostly online via blogs, twitter, podcasts etc. The attachment is mostly one sided, the vFriend doesn’t usually reciprocate directly to me; I’m simply one of many followers to them. I may or may not have met them in person – mostly not.

Now, before this starts to sound too creepy I want to clarify that vFriends are good. I’m perfectly comfortable with our relationships in this fashion. I have received advice and encouragement this way. Sometimes I agree with my vFriends and sometimes I disagree, but I always gain something – otherwise I wouldn't go back to listen or read more.

I know blogs have been around for many years, over the years I’ve read several that I enjoyed. But I had a hard time keeping up. It was work to keep checking for new updates. Before anyone points out the many numerous tools that could have solved this problem for me I need to say that for some reason none of them were convenient enough to get me to use them. Then came RockMelt.

RockMelt is a browser built on top of Google Chrome that incorporates facebook and other social feeds right into the frame of the browser – super easy access. I first heard about it on NPR. To be honest my first impression was do we really need another browser? But RockMelt has succeeded where other tools have failed me. I added all my vFriends’ blogs to the right side of RockMelt. So now, when I launch RockMelt to surf the net, all of my vFriends with new posts show a number next to them, notifying me they have something new for me. And when I click on that notification I see a quick list summary of the new post, and all the older posts show in a greyed-out “I already saw that” background color. Adding vFriends to my RockMelt frame is as simple as navigating to the blog. If there is any type of RSS feed there RockMelt will find it and ask me if I want to add that feed to my list – incredibly simple and totally nonintrusive. If I want it it’s there, otherwise I surf the net as usual. One more cool thing about RockMelt is that my notifications, bookmarks, and vFriend information follow me no matter where I access RockMelt from: desktop computer, laptop, or even the new mobile RockMelt app gives me access to the same stuff – so I don’t’ have to remember any that stuff myself.

Another form of vFriends I have to mention is podcasts. I’ve been using my iPad to listen to Writing Excuses and The Appendix podcasts. It’s so easy to download them from iTunes and listen whenever I have the time. Once again I know I’m late to this game, but for those of you who haven’t found them you should go check out all of the many podcasts that are available, and are mostly free. I’ve learned a lot by just listening to them a few times a week on my drive home from work.

The last type I want to talk about is my vFriends on Twitter. I joined Twitter quite a while ago, in my attempt to “keep up” with technology. But since I started writing and trying to learn as much as I can I’ve realized the incredible wealth of information available via Twitter. The idea of a micro-blog (140 characters or less) is brilliant; it loosens the fetters that prevent most people, myself included, from general blogging. There is so much going on out there, so many hash tags to follow; if you’re in need of almost any kind of info you can probably find someone to answer it on Twitter, if it’s not already out there. On Twitter I get a chance to follow interesting people, who are sharing mostly useful tidbits about what they are doing. As someone who is trying to learn about writing and the publishing industry this is incredibly helpful.

There you have it, my latest digital evolution progress. I’m sure I’ll digitally evolve even more in the future. I’m always looking for new ways to be more efficient. But I prefer simple tools so I can focus on what’s most important – the content not the tool. In summary here are my top 5 most useful, and most used, tools I started using in the past year.

iPad (podcasts, eBooks)

Kindle reader app

Rockmelt (blogs, facebook, twitter and the net on my desktops, laptops, and mobile devices)

Twitter (I joined more than a year ago, but I’m using it differently lately)

Wireless mouse (I finally shelled out the money for one – did I mention I’m cheap and that I’ve been using freebie mice for a long time. Anyway I got a new wireless mouse for my Netbook and I love it, I can’t believe I waited this long to get one. I use Netbook to write, and my iPad for almost everything else Internet related.)

Where are you at in your digital evolution?

#amwriting

I started writing. Finally! It feels so good to say that. I found several sources that helped me along the way and I want to share.

Last year I took a writing class through my local adult education program. Annette Lyon, the instructor, was excellent. She taught the basics of writing. But she taught more than just foundational skills; she gave sound advice from her own personal experiences on being published. And she gave us encouragement and the confidence to give it a go.

I made the decision to write young adult (YA) fantasy – the biggest reason is my kids. We started reading some of their books together and I was hooked. I still read adult science fiction and fantasy, but I’m continually drawn back to YA.

At “Life, the Universe, and Everything” (LTUE), a local writing symposium, I attended a session where a publisher said she was looking for novels with multi-cultural characters or main characters from different cultures. That sounded interesting to me so I started researching. My main POV character is a First Nation Cree (Native American) from Canada. And I have several other characters from around the globe including: Tanzania, Korea, Brazil, Mexico, Denmark, England, and the US.

Once I found my characters and developed a little of their personal history I was so excited to start the novel. I officially started writing the first draft last year in June. Finding time to write was hard, but the more I wrote the easier it was, and the more excited I was. Even so, my output wasn’t great. I had maybe 10K words by the end of October. Then came National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) – what a great thing. I know the pure goal of NaNoWriMo is to write an entire novel in a single month, but I twisted it a little to meet my own needs. I just wanted make progress on my novel. The great part about NaNoWriMo is the constant reminder to write something, anything. The inspirational messages focusing on quantity over quality were exactly what I needed at the time. I finished the month of November having written an additional 18K words. That is far short of the 50K goal, but for me, producing almost two times my starting word count in a single month was a significant step forward. At the same time it was kind of grueling. So, since then I’ve tried to maintain a more moderate pace. But, without the constant reminders – and encouragement – my production hasn’t been as consistent as I had hoped. My current word count is around 38K, which overall I’m happy about. But I am disappointed I was stuck on one particular scene for a few weeks – I should have written more.

This past weekend, though, was rejuvenating. I received a jumpstart. I literally feel like someone attached jumper cables to my attitude and said here you go, have some of my energy. The source of that energy was another writing seminar, “So You Want to Write a Book,” conducted by Luann Staheli. I heard about it on twitter from Annette Lyon. I saw Luann at LTUE on a couple of the panels. But meeting her in this class was so much more personal. The seminar participants included me and one other aspiring writer – so pretty much one on one instruction. Luann covered a wide range of topics from genre definitions to plot structure. Along the way she told encouraging stories from her own life and from the lives of other writers—she knows a lot of writers. She made me absolutely jealous listening to stories about her own writing group.

While the instructional part of the class was great, my biggest takeaway was Luann’s encouragement. There were several opportunities during the class where Luann asked about my current project, and used my answers in examples of how to do something – like generate a plot. Each of us took time to outline our plot starting with the initial incident and ending with the resolution. I struggled at first, this is an area where I needed some help. By the end I had some new ideas and some needed focus that I’m confident will make my novel better.

I have to confess something at this point. When I say I struggled when we worked on our plot outlines here’s what I really meant. I’ve never felt so fragile in my life than when I was trying to express my ideas in that class. It’s not that I didn’t have something to say. I’ve been thinking about it, working on it, and discussing it with my family, and even a few select friends, for over a year now. But sharing it with someone new, the entire class no less, was, and still is, a scary experience for me. Look, I consider myself a fairly confident person. I’m a computer programmer with 20 years of experience, 19 in my current job. I’ve played sports, coached my kids in sports, plus planned and carried out activities with scouts including winter camping for so many years I stopped counting. But sharing my story ideas, and as an extension of that, writing something that other people will hopefully read, is scary. This is tough to admit. I know as a male I’m supposed to bottle up my feelings rather than share them this way, especially in such a way as to emasculate myself in public. I blame this uncharacteristic expression on the fact that I recently watched “You’ve got mail.” We actually talked about “You’ve got mail” in Luann’s class, then that night it was on TV. I even stayed up late to watch the ending. Ok, I feel better now. Hey, maybe the fact that writing is scary to me is why I want to do it so bad – I have to prove to myself I can do it. I think I just had a psychological breakthrough.

Ok, getting back to my jumpstart. Another insightful thing Luann asked us to do was to write our top ten list of things we’d do if we had no obstacles stopping us. That was illuminating. The thing I learned was I can do all of them now. But like most things in life, it will take effort and a plan to balance those things in with the rest of my “busy” life. One of the things I want to do is to blog more consistently – this blog is my first attempt to make good on that one.

And now I’m almost as excited to write as I was when I started last summer.

To sum things up what I've learned about writing over the past year is to never give up, write about what you are passionate about, and surround yourself with encouragement – especially people who will encourage you. If you feel scared reach out and connect with others who are in the same situation – there are a lot of us. Annette and Luann are awesome at that – but I bet that wherever you are you can find people like them who are passionate about writing and willing to share.

My goal is to finish the novel I’m working on as soon as I can – I’m shooting for 90K words – then see what happens. I want to blog at least once a month; in order to practice writing, and to give me small writing breaks from the “big” novel. And I’m hoping to find a writing group; I feel like that will help me make more consistent progress, and that it will help increase the quality of my work.

I have to try.

Starting to Write

I’ve had false starts before, many of them. So…, why now, why this time?

Reading as a kid
I’ve loved reading for as long as I can remember. More often than not, when other kids were playing outside, I was reading. Some of my most vivid childhood memories are of browsing through libraries or riding my bike down to Main Street in Logan, Utah to visit the Book Table bookstore – I could always find something I wanted there. Book orders were an exciting time at school, at least for me – I’m sure my mother secretly wished the school would stop handing them out. Adding to my collection of books and organizing it was almost as fun as reading. I read all kinds of books but my favorites were mysteries; Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators, the Hardy Boys, Agatha Christie, and The Westing Game are some of the most memorable. Finding clues and solving cases was endless fun.

My reading lean years
I never made a conscious decision to stop reading. I can’t put my finger on the exact point when it happened; maybe there wasn’t just one point. Cars, girls, sports, jobs, movies and TV began to occupy my former reading time. Compounding that, going to college, starting a family, and embarking on a career as a computer engineer dominated my time. Spending significant portions of my day in front of a computer monitor or reading about computer science the last thing I wanted to do in my spare time was read. I started fly fishing to escape – but that’s a whole other story.

Back in the saddle
I credit movies for reviving my reading appetite. I fell hook, line, and sinker for the advanced previews of the Lord of the Rings – it seemed like nearly a year in advance on the first one. I bought the trilogy plus the Hobbit and devoured them before the movies debuted. The Chronicles of Narnia were next – I enjoyed all of them. My taste gravitated towards fantasy.

Reading these classics reawakened my childhood dream of writing a book. However, being away from reading for so long, I felt compelled to research a variety of authors in hopes of discovering my own story to tell. I started perusing recommendations on Amazon – I love Amazon by the way. I picked up titles from Anne McCaffrey, Ursula K Le Guin, G.R.R. Martin, Cornelia Funke, Christopher Paolini and Naomi Novik. During this time I read the Harry Potter series – who didn’t? Also, based on editor’s picks on Amazon, I read Stolen Child by Keith Donohue and the Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger – thoroughly enjoying each of them.

As my children grew older they started reading too. My fourth son introduced me to Fablehaven, the Ranger’s Apprentice, and Percy Jackson, all of them excellent and worth reading.

Ready to try writing
That brings us into the calendar year 2010. Now, I’m not saying I’ve read enough to be a writer – I’m not sure if I can ever do that --but I’ve read enough to know what I like. I’ve cherished those works that make me feel alive, that make me want to read more. I want to do that for someone else. My hope is that I can evoke an emotional connection with my readers – if I’m ever lucky enough to have some.

Nudges
I’ve received nudges along the way too. In January my wife signed me up for a writing class through the Spanish Fork city adult arts education program. It was an excellent class taught by Annette Lyon. Annette has published several books, she really knows her stuff. I gained confidence, not that I am a good writer, but that I can become a good writer. And the only way to become a good writer is to write.

Big nudge
My biggest nudge so far happened in February. I knew that writing would be hard work, and take a huge amount of effort. Given my status in life, I’d been wondering if writing was a worthwhile endeavor. So, one morning I happened to be reading from A Disciple’s Life (the biography of Neal A Maxwell) and Standing for Something by Gordon B. Hinckley. In A Disciple’s Life I read:

“Yes there would be problems ... yes there would be challenges ... yes there would be unevenness and disappointments ...

He knew all those things, yet ... he did not wait until everything was perfectly in order before acting... If one tried to solve in advance all the problems which might occur later, he might never start! The capacity to trust the Lord for continuous revelation as to what would later need to be done was clearly a part of the makeup of this very special man.” (A Disciple's Life page 467)

In Standing for Something I read:

“[God] allows ... disappointment to occur on the threshold of every human endeavor. It occurs when the boy who has been enchanted in the nursery by Stories from the Odyssey buckles down to really learning Greek. It occurs when lovers have got married and begin the real task of learning to live together. In every department of life it marks the transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing.” (Standing for Something page 134)

I refuse to believe that reading both of these passages on the same day was a mere coincidence. I’d been reading A Disciple’s Life off and on for several years. I’m not saying I’m destined for greatness, in fact, in all likelihood I’ll never be published. But the direction I should go right now seems crystal clear.

Hope + dream + work
I’ve had false starts before, many of them. So…, why now, why this time? I’m not sure I’ll ever be good. But I have dreams I hope I can turn into reality. I want to write a book. I know it will be hard work, but I’m eager to make the “transition from dreaming aspiration to laborious doing.” I have to try. And the first step is to start.