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I spent the first few days this week in San Antonio, Texas in financial controls training.  While that sounds incredibly boring, it actually wasn’t bad.  Due to a social networking policy, that’s the extent that I’ll discuss the work-related aspects of the trip.

On the way out, I lucked up by having the row to myself.  There was plenty of room to spread out!

Flying to San Antonio all alone

This was the first trip I’ve been on without my family, so it was a little strange.  I really missed my kids, but I still had a great time.  Like other places I have been, I thought I would hate the city but now San Antonio is one of my favorite cities!

The Alamo!

The main event of the year, called Fiesta, just happened to be going on during my stay there.  The first night, there was a night parade on the cities beautiful riverwalk.  There were 62 floats like the one below.  It was one of the coolest parades I’ve ever seen and it even topped many of the Disney parades.  Clay Walker was the grand marshall.

The River Parade

The next night was NIOSA, which stands for Night In Old San Antonio.  It was the coolest thing I think I’ve ever been to. Basically you pay to get in and you purchase tickets.  There are hundreds of food booths where you trade your tickets for food or drinks.  Each area had a different theme.  For example, the “French Quarter” area had sausage on a stick, beignets, escargot, and various french drinks.  I had the beignets, the best churros I’ve ever tasted from the Mexican area, and some fabulous curly fries.

I was amazed at how many ways there were to fry up jalapenos.  I also bought some cascarones for the kids.  I’ll post pictures whenever they crack them over each other’s heads.  It was weird toting what appeared to be a dozen eggs literally half way across the country through two airports.

NIOSA!

I can hardly wait to return to San Antonio, but next time I’m taking the family!

This will be my final Walt Disney World Marathon recap post for this year.  I wrote this article for the newsletter at work, so I thought I would post it here.

A Little Goofy?

What were you doing Saturday at 4:30 in the morning? What about Sunday? Sleeping? On both days, I had already been awake for two hours, and was standing on the side of a Central Florida highway, waiting for fireworks to send me off.

This past weekend, I completed Goofy’s Race and a Half Challenge at Walt Disney World, which consists of the WDW Half Marathon on Saturday and the WDW Marathon on Sunday — a total of 39.3 miles.  Over 56,000 runners competed in the weekend events, including which about 7,500 of us participating in Goofy’s Challenge. This was my fourth year conquering the challenge.

Both races have a spectacular fireworks start on a road right outside of Epcot. The half marathon takes you to the Magic Kingdom, where you run all through the park, including right through Cinderella Castle.  Then you head back to Epcot, through the park and around Spaceship Earth (the big ball) and to the finish line in the parking lot.  13.1 miles of fun.

The marathon takes you past all of Walt Disney World’s icons. First, you run through Epcot’s Future World around Spaceship Earth. Then, you’re off to the Magic Kingdom where you run through Cinderella Castle.  After that, you head over to Animal Kingdom where you circle the park and the Tree of Life and then to Hollywood Studios where you pass the Earful Tower and the Sorcerer’s Hat.  Finally, it’s back to Epcot for a loop around World Showcase before finishing in the Epcot parking lot. Another 26.2 miles of fun.

The races also take you through many “backstage” areas of the parks, which regular guests never see.  Some of the areas include the parade float storage facilities, recycling and maintenance facilities, horticultural areas, and animal care areas.

Along the courses are all types of entertainment to help the miles go by.  Local high schools send cheerleaders, bands, and dance teams to entertain the runners. DJ’s, rock bands, choirs, jugglers, and other entertainers can also be found along the course. Disney puts random parade floats, hot air balloons, animals, and other props along the course.  Also along the course are all of you favorite Disney characters.  You run past princesses, dwarfs, Mary Poppins, several incarnations of Mickey, and many more. And with so many participants, there are also thousands of spectators and cast members to cheer you on both in and out of the parks.

There are all types of runners who participate each year.  There are world-class elite runners who compete for cash prizes, walkers, and everything in between.  Some people run to raise money and/or awareness for their favorite charity while others dress as their favorite Disney characters.  You won’t find me wearing Mickey ears or Tinkerbell wings though. I find it hard enough to run with a camera!

All finishers receive a Donald medal for completing the half marathon and a Mickey medal for completing the marathon.  Goofy Challengers also receive a Goofy medal for finishing both races.  And when the volunteers put the medal around your neck, you temporarily forget how much pain you are in (and how hungry you are).

My strategy for these races, other than finish, is simply to have fun along the courses.  The first few miles of each race are pretty crowded, so much so that it is nearly impossible to get much speed.  And, I made lots of photo stops.  There are many awesome photo opportunities that are just not available to other Disney guests.  There were also lots of interesting people to talk to along the way, including celebrities.  Last year, I found myself running next to TV weatherman Al Roker.

Along with these two races, there are other events during Marathon Weekend.  My wife ran a 5K through Epcot Friday morning.  My 8-year-old son ran the “Mickey Mile” and my 5-year-old daughter ran a 200 meter race at Disney’s Wide World of Sports..  Each of them received finisher medals as well.

Somehow, out of the 56,000 runners, I managed to be one of only 40 who were invited to a “meet, greet, and tweet” and “training run” with former Olympian Jeff Galloway.  It was held early Friday morning at Disney’s Hollywood Studios, before the park was even open.  We had the entire theme park to ourselves!  We were joined by P90X creator Tony Horton, as well as Survivor winners Jenna Morasca and Ethan Zohn, who also later ran the half marathon. We were able to mingle and take photos with the celebrities and I even got to ride Tower of Terror with Ethan and Jenna.  Of course, I bought that ride photo and they were nice enough to autograph it for me.

So how did I do? I’ve posted much better times in non-Disney races because I took them seriously, trained right and ate well. With the Disney races, I’m pretty much the poster child for how not to run. (Besides, it is even possible to “eat right” in the months leading up to January?) So while I’ve done better in other marathons and half marathons, I haven’t had nearly as much fun!

So, who’s with me next year?

Check out the cookies I made for the Christmas party at work:

They turned out really good!

4 Halloween events yesterday, 1 today, 3 tomorrow.  Exhausted.

Sometimes, you have to go back to work to recuperate.

A little over a year ago, when I still worked for Mercer Law School, a student worker was cleaning out a faculty member’s storage closet.  They stumbled across a vintage Macintosh Performa 200 (by vintage, I mean 1992).  Thinking it belonged to the technology department, they brought it to us for disposal.  I decided to keep it to see if it would work.  It didn’t, but it was too cute to trash.  I remembered seeing photos and stories on Instructables.com about people turning old computers into working aquariums and I knew that this would be my next project.  I promptly took it home.

After some online research, I stumbled upon a great set of instructions by Andy Ihnatko. Like cleaning the insides out of a pumpkin, dismantling the computer required special tools and certain protruding portions of the case had to be removed as well.  Between a Dremel and a hacksaw, I finally removed the portions of the computer necessary to build the aquarium. (My apologies for using “Mercer Law” and “hacksaw” in the same blog post.)

The mac, still covered in Splenda

Gutting the mac

Out with the unneeded

Pretty chinese art from 1992

The garbage pile growing

Sawing off the protrusions

After getting the case like I wanted it, I cleaned the outside thoroughly.  When the computer was found in the closet, it was covered in spilled Splenda.  I also used black spray paint to give the insides a nice, new look.  Some vintage macs have Steve Job’s signature engraved in the inside.  This one, however, did not.

Next, I needed glass to build the actual tank.  I went to Lowe’s and learned they only carry 1/8 inch glass, which wouldn’t support water.  Home Depot had the same.  Specialty glass shops online wanted big bucks to cut the glass. At this point, I lost motivation and put the case in the attic for over a year.

At my new job, I desperately needed some sort of decoration, etc. to personalize my office.  Perhaps a conversation piece?  One day while riding down Riverside, I discovered a glass shop about 3 blocks from the office.  I printed out the dimensions I needed and took it in to see if they could do it.  Not only could they do it, but it was only about $9.00.  Score!

I came home and assembled the pieces using regular silicone and leak-proofed it with aquarium-safe silicone (which was difficult to find). I also constructed a wooden base to position the glass box on (and keep the electrical, etc. underneath).

Constructing the glass from instructions on the macbook

The glass assembly - waiting on silicone to set

Next, it was time to design the look of the aquarium. My friend/former boss Chris had an aquarium in his office at Mercer for several years and over that time I did a few different shots of the law school as the background for it. That background got rave reviews. Since I work in a beautiful building now, I thought that might be a good plan.  I also love bubble bars and Mackenzie picked out some neon-colored gravel, which I bought against my better judgement.

I also needed a light to illuminate the tank, for visibility and to make the fish think its daylight inside.  I wanted to go LED even though the price was a little steeper.  I found a great LED light that can even be submerged if I ever decide to put it under the water line for about $20.00 on eBay.

Because changing the water would be difficult, I also needed a filter.  I found an under-gravel filter online (powered by the same air pump that will generate the bubbles) that is supposedly perfect for small tanks.  Since I plan to start with cheap goldfish, a heater/thermometer isn’t necessary.  Of course, I can always add one later and go with a better filter.

Upside down case, mounting light into position

Aquarium safe silicone, found at Ace for 3x the price

Under-gravel filter, perfect for small tanks

Here’s the complete list of supplies:

Glass: 10.26 (also bought a second set, just in case — if you want it, let me know)
Silicone: 3.77
Aquarium-safe silicone: 7.41
Wood for the base (select pine): 6.84
LED light from eBay: 20.73
Under-gravel filter: 10.72 (shipping was more than the actual item)
Air pump, tubing, valve, gravel: 17.42
Fish catcher, food, and vacation feeders: 6.89
Distilled water: 1.21
Fish: 54 cents

Total cost: $85.79 (yikes!)

I went a bit over my $50.00 budget, but shipping killed me on a few items (filter, light) and I spent more to get better stuff on others (light, wood).  You can purchase a similar sized aquarium kit at a local pet store for $25 or so, but it wouldn’t be nearly as cool.

I also bought a small table to sit it on for $8.00 at IKEA so that any leaks wouldn’t damage my office furniture, but I ended up not using it because it was too small.

I initially set the tank up on Friday to give the water a few days to circulate, I ran into a few problems.  The air pump caused a loud vibration noise that was not conducive to a work environment.  I also had issues with the gang valve leaking and ruining my background print.  Currently, I have removed the bubble stone and I moved the pump to outside of the computer case. I set the filter up to run continuously, but put the LED light on a timer so that it simulates daylight for the fishies.

Today (Sunday), we added two goldfish from PetSmart: a regular orange one and a white one with an orange spot. Let’s hope they are still alive tomorrow when I get to work!

Finished product

Close up

Macquarium

The photos above as well as the video below were taken with my iPhone.  I forgot to take a camera!  I’ll try to post more shots soon.

Hopefully I don’t get fired for having this at work.  Nobody knows about it so far.  Remember my motto: It’s better to ask forgiveness than permission!

We bolted to Panama City Beach for Memorial Day weekend.  It looks like that will be the major trip this summer, since I still haven’t built up a healthy amount of time off at the new job.  We will certainly make up for it next year with our Disney Cruise.

As you might know, after nearly six years tomorrow is my last day with Mercer University.  It is very bittersweet.  I like the vast majority of my colleagues and Mercer is a great place to work.  In fact, I can only think of 3 people out of the hundreds that I’ve worked with that I will not miss. 

When I came to Mercer, I had a one year old.  Now, my children are 4 and 7 and have literally grown up with Mercer.  In some ways, it feels like my whole family is leaving Mercer instead of just me.  My wife knows the majority of my colleagues by name and we are good friends with many.  I hope we can sustain those relationships even without the daily contact at work.  I look forward to coming back to various events.

However, Mercer has a lot of challenges (mostly financial) to resolve.  For me, it’s exhausting hearing promises year after year with no results and watching resources being diverted to other areas.  I know it will be nice to be an outsider again, because from that perspective Mercer looks like a very positive place.  I’m leaving on good terms and I very much hope that they succeed.

I start my new job on Monday.  Unfortunately, I can’t tell you anything about it in this setting.  I just signed a social networking policy document with my new employer preventing me from discussing where I work or what I do on Facebook, twitter, blogs, etc. 

Doesn’t that make my new job sound secretive?  I can tell you that perception is not accurate.  I’m certainly no CIA or FBI agent.  If you want to hear about my upcoming transition, feel free to email me or ask me in person.  I plan to completely comply with any policy my new employer throws my way!