Friday, February 26, 2010

The Magic Kingdom's SpectroMagic

New Post on Youtube for me. Spectro is great!

Thursday, February 18, 2010

An Unexpected Walt Disney Biography Book Review

I usually leave the the book reviews to the experts like George over at Imaginerding or Didier at the Disney History Blog, but I came across a book today that I wanted to share. What makes it so great a find is the point that I almost did not even pick it up. My daughter is 9 and working on a biography report for school. She chose to write about Walt Disney bless her heart. Her school library did not have any Walt biographies so I borrowed a couple from my school library. The first was a 20 page or so book and the other was a book of pictures. As I said I had really dismissed these books. After all, I have read a number of 300-400 page biographies about Walt Disney, what could these elementary books offer. Well once again I am proven big time wrong. The picture book was "Walt Disney His Life in Pictures" edited by Russell Schroeder with an Intro by Diane Disney Miller. This book, with the help of the Disney Company archives, has over 170 pictures chronicling Walt Disney's life sprinkled with many of his life lesson quotes in chapters broken up through the decades of Walt's life. Granted, a lot of the pictures here I have seen before but there are a number that are totally new to me. I really like the sweatbox series of pictures of Walt acting out scenes in Snow White and Pinocchio and there is a really great picture of Walt, Ub Iwerks and Les Clark taken late in Walt's life. All three men are laughing and are said to be reminiscing over a short they had all worked together on in 1929. There are some other pictures which I had not seen before. The quotes also are not the common "It was all started by a Mouse" type quotes, but more specific about different items as he moved through life. One that caught my eye was about a live action movie he made called So Dear to My Heart. This is about a young boy growing up on the farm. Next to another picture I had not seen before of Walt lounging on the bed of the old farm house of Granny Kincaid was this quote, "So Dear was especially close to me. Why, that's the life my brother and I grew up with as kids out in Missouri. The great racehorse, Dan Patch, was a hero to us. We had Dan Patch's grandson on my father's farm." I had known about Walt's life on the farm but not his feeling in regards to his upbringing and this movie. I will be adding that to my must watch list of movies now. This was a nice little book that unexpectedly added a little bit to what I know of the history and story that is Walt Disney. And, you can get yours right now on Amazon for .48 cents each.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Give-A-Day-Get-A-Day Step 3: I'm Going To Walt Disney World

I got my voucher notice the other day...and here it is. I am planning a trip in June. We decided that we will volunteer again with the kids if I can find something appropriate.
The idea is to take this voucher with ID to the Park and get a one day ticket. I will look into exchanging it for a 10 day ticket once I get down there. All in all this was a very positive opportunity. I had a great time helping out with the seniors. I am sure that they liked getting their questions and needs look at and resolved. I will be helping out with a program at our school that will bring seniors into the school's lab and then train them on how to use the computers and the Internet. I have been following other peoples stories about Give-A-Day-Get-A-Day and for the most part it has been positive.
If you have not looked into doing this yet, you should. It is not that much time, and the reward is what any Disney fan can ask for, another chance to go to the parks. I'll re-visit this thread of posts once I get to the parks and turn in the voucher.