DH: The premise is that an EMP kind of thing takes out everything electronic, and it’s 15 years later, so there’s no electronics, and everyone is living without it. It’s post-apocalyptic, and there’s no cars or batteries or lights or anything. Electricity doesn’t work anymore.
TK: No. That’s not possible. That cannot be true.
DH: Well, there was an EMP, a massive one caused by something.
TK: It’s still not possible. You can’t destroy electricity. You can destroy electronics, but you haven’t destroyed the brains that made the electronics. We’d just rebuild them. Yes, it would take time. World economies would be messed up because banking records would be destroyed and there’d be economic collapse, but it could be restarted, probably in less than 15 years. Is that what they’re talking about? Is it about the re-building of the world?
DH: No, in the show, things still don’t work. They can’t start the cars. They’re all just growing moss on the interstate.
TK: That makes no sense. If that’s what they’re saying, this show is utter crap. [Ed. Note: I may have said bollocks. If I didn't, I wish I did.] The premise is fantastical. Unless they’re employing magic, it can’t work that way. Electricity doesn’t STOP existing. You can make more batteries and you can re-start power plants. You can just build the computer again. I mean, maybe they run it off of water and wind in a personal sense instead of a grid…there’s an infrastructure hit, for sure…but still, you’d have electricity and thus technology, certainly within 15 years.
DH: JJ Abrams is involved in it.
TK: I don’t care who is involved in it! It makes no sense. You can’t get rid of electricity. Lightning exists! What about storms? What about flying a kite with a key attached? If electricity is gone, it would screw up the entire planet! What would happen to magnetism? The tides? Is this only on earth or every planet? You can’t yank electricity from the world without it having impact on magnetism! It’s not an element, like iron or oxygen, it’s a force tied into the fabric of how stuff works. How could this have been greenlit at all?
DH: They landed a plane on an island that apparently moved through time and space. That didn’t bother you.
TK: That was magic! And eventually just an imagining, but it was never something they tried to explain as real science or anything, nor did it affect the entire planet. Is there magic involved? That’s the only way this works, is if you’re ignoring the laws of physics and are employing magic as a key point of the plot. Are they saying there’s magic?!? I mean, I can’t imagine this ever got made with that kind of gap unless there’s magic or something.
DH: Um. Let me show you the trailer. Maybe I misunderstood it.

So, he showed me the commercial for the show, which you can view here:

Then, our conversation resumed:

TK: Given what I saw, I think they’re using magic. And I’m willing to have some faith that they will explain in the first episode that there’s some mystical or other reason that things still aren’t working. They say in there that things just don’t work, and they imply no one knows why. But, then they show that things are working, so it’s not that there’s no electricity.
DH: Still, it will be interesting to see how they explain it, and to your point, how they explain that it’s still in nature, or what impact it has…or whether magnets still work.
TK: They better not explain it as the EMP. That will bother me and anyone who took basic science. It has to be magic. Somewhere in the first episode, they’ll explain that they tried to re-build and they couldn’t, and no one knows why…and that’ll be the magic, like all the time travel and stuff was the magic on Lost.

You may hear that this show is highly anticipated. I am highly anticipating it, but not necessarily because I think it will be good. I look forward to finding out how they’re going to explain this. I also look forward to all of the articles that will inevitably have to explain to people that an EMP would kill electronics, not electricity.

I wanted to remodel for a few reasons:

• I wanted a bigger bathtub. Mainly, I wanted one that was deeper. Wider wasn’t as much of an issue. I ended up finding the American Standard Cambridge tub, which is made out of a proprietary blend that emulates cast iron for heat retention and durability without the weight. It’s also fitted with a Deep Soak drain, and so without increasing the wall height very much, it gives a good 4-5 inches of water depth over other tubs.
• For some godawful reason, the previous owner (or maybe the home designer) had put carpet in the bathroom. Who does that? It would get wet and mildewy and gross. We had one corner where the wall was going soft because of the moisture. Note for others: do not put carpet in a bathroom. I wanted good tile everywhere and waterproofing, similar to what we did with the laundry room and downstairs bathroom after the flooding incident back in ’09.
• The vanity was out of date and somewhat annoyingly designed. There were only two tiny drawers, the whole thing was annoyingly low, and there was a whole section that was set up to be a sit-at vanity, but that’s just an area that gathered clutter for us.
• We briefly considered having a separate shower instead of the shower/tub combo, but our space really isn’t designed for that, and neither of us really wanted it. Instead, we installed a cool handheld/rainshower shower head and went with a tub (discussed earlier) that worked in our space.

I decided to use the same company I used for the bathroom/laundry work before. The company is Handymen & Mrs. Helper. They’re a husband and wife team, Rod and Faith, though they have a lot of great people who work with them, too (like Steve, who did most of the work for me here). They do work directly and also do contracting for larger projects like this one. Rod is terrific because he doesn’t try to oversell me on things I don’t need, but he points out practical things that I wouldn’t think to do but which makes tons of sense. For example, he pointed out that we could add a fan to the shower area with a timer to alleviate some of the humidity issues we have in there (which were causing the paint to bubble and peel along the tape edges). I’m very happy with working with them, so if you have a similar need and live in our area, give them a try.

Without further ado, here’s the pictures:

Bathroom Remodel - Before

Remodel of our master bathroom with "before" pictures

11 Photos

Bathroom Remodel - After

Remodel of our master bathroom with "after" pictures

17 Photos

Eating dinner in the Tambu lounge at the Poly #fb #

Morning at Animal Kingdom, lunch at Sanaa…next stop naptime and swimming. #fb #

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Note: I’m going to start with the long and winding story of my experience on the Expedition Everest Challenge and then finish with some tips for folks planning to do this race in the future. So, feel free to jump to the bottom if you’re mainly interested in tips and less interested in my rambling. Also, here’s some abbreviations I’ll use freely in this post:
EEC = Expedition Everest Challenge
CM = Cast Member (WDW employee)
AK = Animal Kingdom
5K = 3.1 miles

Today is the last day of this trip to WDW. I’m sitting in the Animal Kingdom Lodge lounge area, which overlooks one of the savannas. Zebras are grazing, ducks are swimming, and giraffes are being evil.

This trip was for the Expedition Everest Challenge. It’s half race, half puzzle hunt. (They call it a scavenger hunt, but it’s really a puzzle hunt. They also call it a 5K, but it’s actually a bit more than that.) Here’s a photo of the course map from the “base camp” (the meet-up to pick up your bib, t-shirt, etc.):

The EEC is a night race. It starts at 9:30pm in the Animal Kingdom parking lot. As I was staying right nearby in the Animal Kingdom Lodge, it was a very short bus ride. While on the bus, I met up with another racer who told me about a Facebook page for the event that was coordinating a meet-up. I ended up hanging out with that group before the race.

As you can imagine, it’s pretty hot in Florida. When I got off the bus, the temperature was reading at 87 degrees (with a “feels like” of 89). I dropped off my bag at bag check (which had sandals, a warm sweatshirt, and a few other odds and ends in it) and headed straight away to the water station. They smartly had a big table with cold water set up in the parking lot. I drank 4-5 cups of water down while waiting at the start. Sitting on the parking lot pavement was like sitting on a hot pizza stone, but it also felt kind of good to my legs. I snapped some photos, sent some tweets, and generally prepped myself for the race. My plan was to time myself on the Garmin, but stop it just before (and restart just after) the obstacles on the race, so that I’d end up with my “real” 5K time at the end, without the impact of obstacles.

I was in the first wave to start, which is an experience I was not used to. This race puts you in waves based on when you register, not how fast you are. That was a wonderful thing, because I got to experience being in that first group at the start line and seeing the fireworks go off and all of that. Then, of course, most of wave 1 ran past me as I did my toddling pace over to the first obstacle, just before the end of mile 1. The first obstacle was a set of haybales that made little hurdles for long-legged runners. For the kids and short folks like me, it was step up, step down, step up, step down. There were only around 6-8 of them so it wasn’t too bad.

Then, we headed into the park. Animal Kingdom is a bit more hilly and bumpy than the typical course for me, and that combined with the heat took an expected toll. Fortunately, they had tons of fans set up along the course to help keep us all cool. I have no idea if any animals were out; I don’t remember at all. I remember that the moon was pretty and bright.

The second obstacle, just past the halfway point at the far end of the park, was tires. That was super-slow for me, as I didn’t want to trip, and again, short legs don’t help you out here. There was a water table just before and just after the tires, which I happily took advantage of, both to douse myself and to drink. Then, I was on the final mile, so I kicked up my speed a bit. (I’d slowed down in the park.) I remembered where we were running from doing my half back in January, and that was kind of fun. We were running by the electric fence on the service road toward the parking lot. I saw the 3 mile timer, and I realized I was definitely going to beat an hour for my 5K time, even with the obstacles, which was very exciting. I was afraid the heat would slow me down too much to hit my goal. I started a sprint so I could really get a good time, at which point I saw the third obstacle. I had forgotten about that!

The third obstacle was a net that you had to crawl under, in a sandy area with that super-soft dirt sand. Some people call it sugar sand, but it’s even softer than sugar…more like flour. Anyways, I got sand all over me and all in my shoes. When I stood up, it felt like there wasn’t room for my toes in my shoes anymore, but I knew I was so close to beating my goal time by the official clock, so I dashed to the mat and across. I started looking around, because I’d heard there would be water bottles and bananas, but there weren’t. They had more cups of water, but no food or powerade. That was a bit worrisome for me. I hadn’t brought a goo or anything (because I’d read that they would have things after the 5K part), and I also hadn’t eaten since noon. So, I determined to not rush myself through the hunt and to carefully monitor myself for dizziness, headache, etc.

Instead of foodstuff handouts, they handed us a mini-sharpie, an LED light, and a clue card. The clue was very simple to solve. I had it before I even got past the clue-givers. Unfortunately, I managed to Britta it in a different way. Here’s a picture of the clue, and I’ve blurred the answer so you can have fun solving it:

Now, keep in mind that I’m reading this in the dark while sweaty, tired, and covered in sand. Thus, I blew past most of the text at the top (which was tiny and hard to read while in motion, at dark, using a tiny red LED light). There had been a sign along the 5K course indicating “Scavenger Hunt”, which was inside the park near Camp Minnie-Mickey. But, before I even got into the park, there were all these CMs holding signs with words on them. So, I figured I needed to look for a CM with the answer word on it…yet I couldn’t find one in the group outside the park.

I went up to a CM holding a sign marked “Desert” and asked for help as to where to turn in my clue. He said, “You have the right answer, but the place to turn it in is over that way, farther down.” I re-read the clue and realized that my clue said “Oasis – Springs”…so, in my head, I was like, “Oh, okay! I need to go to the Oasis (which AK fans know is actually inside the park, just before the big tree) and look for the Springs (which I figured was probably the fountains and waterfalls near the flamingoes). These signs must be for a later part of the course.” So, I happily trotted off into the park and into the Oasis area of Animal Kingdom. At that point, I realized there were no signs anywhere. There were some 5K people still on the course, too, so I was dodging some of them while trying to criss-cross the Oasis.

So, I asked another CM where to go, showing him my clue. He said, “Oh, keep going. It’s up farther, in Camp Minnie Mickey.” I thought to myself, “Oh, yeah…duh! I remember seeing that while I was on the 5K. Of course the hunt starts at Camp Minnie Mickey!” So, off I ran! I dashed into Camp Minnie Mickey, and sure enough, there were more CMs with signs. Except…their signs also did not match my clue answer. Now, I’m getting worried, because I have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing. I ask another CM for help, and they’re like, “Oh, you’re on Clue 1. That’s back outside the park. You need to go back to the beginning.” DESPAIR! I was so sweaty and tired, and now I realized I had wasted time because I missed a sign somewhere. Augh!

What could I do? I dashed back to the beginning and hunted for my sign, but again, I had no luck finding it. At this point, there was a CM standing in that area shouting, “DO NOT LEAVE THIS AREA UNTIL YOU HAVE CLUE 2!” So, clearly, I was not the only confused person dashing about mindlessly. Since I couldn’t find a sign with the answer on it, I went to a CM again and asked more specifically, “Which sign am I looking for? I know I have the right answer, but I can’t find a sign with this written on it.”

This time, the CM said, “Oh, sweetie! You’re looking for this word [points at the word SPRINGS], not the answer.” D’oh! That was my problem the whole time. Took me no time at all to locate the SPRINGS sign once I was looking for it. By my Garmin’s reckoning, I lost around 22 minutes in my confusion.

After showing my correct clue at SPRINGS, I got my next clue:

This one only puzzled me for a few seconds, as I was thinking I might need to skip letters or something. But, I finished it while speed walking before being back in the park again. Now, I knew exactly where to go and ran/walked to Camp Minnie Mickey, to the PLUTO sign. At this point, things moved pretty fast, so here are the rest of the clues:

At the end, they had two chutes. There was the “you got all the clues right” chute and the chute of sadness (for people who had missed a clue or otherwise hadn’t really done the hunt correctly). I was in the good chute (yay) and trotted in to the end. Finally, there was Powerade and bananas and bottled water. But, the lines to grab these things were huge and disorganized. I’m not sure why that was the case here when it never has been on any race I’ve done before at Disney or anywhere else. I mean, keep in mind that I’m a pretty late finisher. Was there more demand or less availability? Did they not have it out in time and so people were coming back for it? I don’t know. The line to get a medal was actually more of a mob scene, too. They didn’t have people standing around handing them out like normal, so this mob had formed by the rack of medals. I could have easily grabbed more medals, but, of course, I didn’t. I hope other people didn’t either.

Advice for people planning to do Expedition Everest Challenge in the future:

• Train for more than a 5K. Ideally, train for 5 miles, or even an 8K or 10K distance. Those of us who had trained for long distances had no trouble, but the folks who trained for just a 5K were clearly hurting during the extra 1-2 miles of the hunt portion.
• If your running gear pack allows and if you have one, bring a headlamp. While they supply a little light during the hunt, a headlamp would have been a godsend. I have several at home and totally kicked myself for not bringing one.
• There’s far fewer character greetings on this course than most races, so having a camera with you is less necessary.
• Bring a goo or other snack for post-5K recovery. If you have a way of carrying water with you, save your water for post-5K, as there are no water stops or aid stations during the hunt.
• If you can leave your bag in a car or locker, or even get by without needing to check a bag, that’s the best bet to avoid a long line. (Knowing RunDisney, though, they’ll have solved that issue for next year.)
• Bring glowy stuff (glow sticks, necklaces, blinky lights) to decorate yourself, since it’s a night race. (Note: This will also apply to the Wine & Dine Half and Tower of Terror Ten Miler.)
• My racer friend from the bus noted: If you need reading glasses, make sure to bring them with you during the 5K so you’ll have them for reading the clues afterward!

You can view all my photos from this trip in the Photo Gallery, or by clicking this link: Expedition Everest Challenge WDW Trip, May 2012

Results are posted. I set a new PR and beat my goal time by 1:20. And that's with obstacles! #zoomy #fb #

Rode Kali 5 times. I think I am sufficiently cooled off now. #fb #

The line for bag check may be the longest line I've ever waited in in WDW. #fb #

Race starts at 930. Met up with some cool folks in the waiting area. here is me: http://t.co/kyVOXetW #

They have lots of new plus size shirts at WDW DHS Couture shop, in sizes up to 3X. I got a sparkly one and a jersey-ish one in 1X. #fb #

I pick wines for drinking the same way I pick horses and dogs for betting. #

Sipping on a glass of Frog's Leap zin. Yummy and good name #fb #

Headed to a 940pm ADR at California Grill. Wishes at 10pm. yay! #fb #

I'm going to Disney World! #fb #

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The plot of ABC’s fantastic series, Once Upon A Time, involves a curse placed on “fairytale” land, a place where all the fanciful creatures and people from fairy tales live. This curse took the characters to a place with no happy endings, namely the city of Storybrooke in Maine, in our world. However, Snow White’s daughter was protected from the curse by being placed in a magical wardrobe that sent her unscathed to our world, to live among us until she could be reunited with the residents of Storybrooke and somehow save them from the curse.

This magical wardrobe had a limit on how many people it could carry. The initial plan was for Snow White to get in the wardrobe before giving birth, so that she could help her daughter, the “savior” identified by the Blue Fairy, understand her destiny. Snow White’s husband, Prince “Charming”, could not go because the wardrobe could only hold one person. Unfortunately, Snow White gave birth early, and so the child had to be sent alone.

So, to re-cap: the wardrobe could only hold one person, namely a very near-term Snow White *or* her daughter once born.

In fairytale land, despite the Blue Fairy knowing the incredible potential of Snow White’s unborn daughter, it was never even a question as to whether or not Snow White could use the magical wardrobe while pregnant. After giving birth, however, the child had to go alone. Now, the reason that the wardrobe couldn’t send more people was because of the amount of magic it had left. It just didn’t have enough magic for more than one person.

Interestingly, I think this means that in the OUAT universe, fairy-tale land is pretty clearly on-board with life beginning after birth, not at conception. After all, if life began at conception, the tree’s magic could not have carried both Snow White and the unborn daughter. If it was some kind of issue of a baby taking less magic than a full grown person, Snow White could have gone along after giving birth. It is fairly clear that something magical (forgive the term) happened at the moment of birth that conveyed full “personhood” to Snow White’s daughter, at least in the eyes of Snow White, the Blue Fairy, and magic in general.

It’s a relatively subtle nod, but I think it’s a very cool thing. I do wonder whether it was a conscious decision by Kitsis and Horowitz (two former Lost writers who have shown amazing attention to detail in this series and that one) or a matter of plot necessity and never thought through. Even if it’s the latter, it goes to show that there is an inherent belief that a person becomes a person at birth, once separated from the mother, not as a zygote or embryo. Otherwise, someone would have raised it in the writer’s room or in any of several reviews the pilot went through.

I'm about to get into some things that are past the pilot, though still not super spoiler-y. Be aware. Read responsibly.

It makes you wonder if fairytale land is pro-choice, if such a concept even exists in that world. For example, does Rumpy perform magical abortions on demand (for a price, of course)? Rumpy does occasionally offer fertility assistance; maybe he does the opposite as well. Does the Evil Queen use some kind of magical birth control? (After all, we know she gets the occasional hook-up in fairytale land, not to mention having been married for quite awhile.) Do normal folk get abortions and such when the situation demands? I doubt the show will go there, but it’s fun to speculate.

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Chicago is a beautiful city to land in at night. #fb #

Done with my mandatory games for voting. 5 of the optional games left and then I played everything. #fb #

Thanks @amazon for shipping me the charger I forgot to pack, which no local store had. #fb #

Landed safely at IAD. #fb #

Just kissed DH at the gate before he boards….a rare treat. #fb #

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Too sick to go on frog walk. So sad #fb #

Woke up with chills and nausea. Drove to palatine but not feeling better so headed home with bunny tail between my legs. #Zoomy fail. #fb #

Just opened a bottle of Lime seltzer and it did exactly what you'd expect a bottle of seltzer to do. #fb #

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My Tipsy Painting, which I forgot to photograph before leaving http://t.co/QLq3WFso #

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