The Briar Patch

Again, this is another entry in a long series; you may want to read them before you hop into Venice here. We are such tourists. We saw Hotel Canada and had to point it out to each other. When we were in Paris and saw the Canada pub, we had to comment on it. I don't know if every tourist is like that, but every Canadian on our walking tour noticed it. Not sure why I just remembered that, but anyways... I think I left off that we had just gotten free time and went back to the square for lunch.  So we sat down at the first place we saw with a free table in the square. I do not remember what the issue was, and it was nothing bad, but we left before we even ordered drinks. We walked across the square to another place, and unfortunately, a pigeon flew by and shit on the guy from GP's shirt. Earlier, he had offered to clear the square of these birds, and maybe it was their revenge. Seriously, though, he handled it pretty well. I could tell he was extremely pissed off, but he went to t...

 We docked and took a short walk to a gondola station. Today, we saw a bit of the island, but in general, it was just about the water taxi and gondolas, so this was a quick walk. Then we broke down our groups further, 4 per gondola. We went with our new friends from GP. This one had one nicer bench and one bench, probably for a family with kids. After a skill-testing game of paper, rock, scissors, they got the good bench. Honestly, probably better. I am not a big guy, but he is, and his sitting on the tiny seat would have been interesting. So yes, like the Bugs Bunny cartoons, there are gondolas with a singer; ours did not, and actually, I am okay with that. This is actually an art, passed down through generations. That kind of thing still exists. I guess "drivers" often are the children of drivers. The business is handed down, and an actual gondola is expensive to buy and maintain. I found it interesting that something like handing the business still happened. No corporate t...

 Mexico time number 5! Twice at a private condo and this is time number 3 at an all inclusive. First off 3AM is an ungodly hour. If you are up until 3 that's one thing and my old ass is tired if I do that now BUT getting up at 3 is ungodly. I am a morning person and it still hurts 5am fine 3 ouch. But I got up, took my dogs out for a pee, made a coffee and tried to poop. NO success on the last even though every other morning a single sip of coffee and I am good to go. Had a shower finished packing the last few things I needed, my wife is a packer. When we go somewhere if you need it ask her and she will have it. So this time I said throw a bit of your stuff in my bag so it isn't over the limit. When we got there she was a couple pounds under and I was less than a pound over. So they put a red sticker on my and we are good to go. That means though we had 98LBS of luggage.... Anyways my mother inlaw drove us to the airport. From here it goes down hill. First my wife gets randomly...

So this is a fluff piece! The fact is I am starting 10 days off (Down to 8 now, started this 2 days ago!) and I really wanted to have a rough draft done for a kids story that a friend might do some drawings for. I hit the common stumbling block I often hit. I work on at least 3 stories in my head at a time. Then one over powers another and I want to focus on it. Well after thinking the kids story for weeks a different one has taken control. This week I NEED to focus on the kids story but cant, so hoping some fluff will put me in the right mind set to get back on that. So fluff time, then FOCUS! Firstly 10 days off! I have never had this much time off and not had something to do. Like last times we had weeks off we went to Disney. If only I could I would be on a plane there now! Before that we went to Victoria. Stay Cation it is, trying to find ways to not be bored. So I made a small list of shit to do. (Another update, list done.... 8 days to go) Some staining and painting around the...

Friday, the final day and back to Disneyland. I didn’t think I would become a stickler but I am. I do think that they should be called what they are Disney and Cali. I mean we had hopper passes but never did hop. So really you can go to Cali and never step in Disneyland. But that isn’t really important. So I don’t know if it was cause it was Friday but the bus was packed. The whole thing is to have two buses on one line so people aren’t waiting. So stagger them!!! It drove me mental the whole time that both buses ran side by side. Here is another side rant. If you work at Disney be fucking happy. Some people are just crabby and if that’s you don’t work at Disney. This comes from a ticket taker not validating my pass right. It did some strange ding which my girlfriend noticed. I said don’t worry no one will let you in without it being right. Turns out I was wrong. My girlfriends was valid and I wasn’t. So even though this ticket taker knew my shit wasn’t valid she let us through. D...

So we started off Thursday with a buffet again. I gotta say, starting the day off with custom omelette's is the way to go. The fruit really wasn’t all that great considering we are in Cali but oh well. So it was cold. I have heard the term June gloom when you cant see the sun and we were getting it. We tried to go on Toy story mania again but it was crazy busy so we played some games. Won a couple small stuffies. Unlike a real carnival I guess you cant upgrade! Then we went to soaring over California. The line was half an hour, which wasn’t bad. Listening to the trailer park folk behind me was mind numbingly painful though. Seriously, a chunky white dude in line trying to teach his 5 year old boxing combos. Oh ya and tattoos and a tank top. Like seriously wtf. My personal fav was him whining about how season pass holders don’t get treated well enough. Ya they should get treated well but I think a huge chunk of Disney's revenue comes from suckers like us who come down and...

So California Adventures! Day 2 in the parks, day 3 here. We started with a buffet breakfast, that is the way to go in my mind on trips like this. Now first thing in the park we were told get your fast pass for cars. Well we didn't, we simply braved the 45 minutes line for the ride. Did it live up to the hype. Yup. It has both the Disney story elements and the speed of a good ride. AND they did the set really well. At this point it is cars or Indy for my top ride. On the way out of Carsland we did Maters tow. It is more a kids ride but gotta get them all in. Then we kinda wandered around to see the park. We were going to do the Monsters inc ride when they guy gave us a Buddy pass?? For some reason we got to line cut, not complaining about that but a few people ahead of us wondered WTF. Also it is a decent ride but it is just a story ride. We then did flics flight which is another kiddie ride. Ariel's adventure is a good story ride, a lot of detail. However I am noticing kid r...

Today we do some foam... or froth as they called it in the new TMNT movie. By the way if Micheal shoemaker hates Megan fox how did she land the April role? AND Joseph Gordon Levitt I see what you did there good job on making your first movie and making it about having sex with Scarlett! Anyways just some random top fives from my life! Hockey teams 1 - Detroit Red wings. Love or hate them they are winners 2 - Washington Caps. Ya it started as an Ovi fixation 3 - L.A Kings. I as there when you won your first cup, 4 - San Jose. Your like the Dany Heatly of teams, vanish in the playoffs. 5 - Edmonton Oilers. Ya Ya gotta root for the home team Movies / Series 1 - The Dark Knight. Damn Nolan makes good shit and brokeback Joker wow! 2 - The Departed / The Town / Gangs of NY. Are they at all connected dunno but love em. 3 - LOTR and the Hobbit. Sorry Star Wars fans this is just way more epic and better acting 4 - Forrest Gump - The is a reason it won so much and is still on TV reg...