by Mark Smiley | May 27, 2014 | Travel
by Mark Smiley
A father in 
modern secular America has relatively few sacred duties, but there is one task he must perform. That obligation is taking his family on a hajj to one of the twin Meccas of material consumption, Disneyland and Disneyworld, before his children reach adolescence. Cost can be no impediment as it is your familial duty.
Eleanore, my almost three-year-old highly precocious child, had talked of little else since my wife, Gwen and I had tentatively broached the subject with her. She has seen every full-length Disney movie from the 1937 “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs” to the latest mega hit “Frozen,” with the latter viewed in whole or in part almost one hundred times. She is a card carrying member of the Mickey Mouse Club and has our television permanently set to the Disney Junior Channel. Any attempt to change the channel results in a caterwauling that curdles the blood of any nearby adult.
No, the only question was Disneyland or Disneyworld. After much deep thought and meditation Disneyland was chosen as we had lived for a time in the Inland Empire west of Los Angeles and had friends in the area.
Sunscreen. Check. Boarding passes. Check. Manual on how to take a toddler to Disneyland. Doesn’t exist.
I pre-purchased tickets to Disneyland. I packed little toys to surprise her with throughout the trip as to not spend a small fortune on them inside the park. I even purchased a photo package that allows for a download of all photos taken at the park by cast members.
We landed in Ontario, California. Having lived there for three years, we knew that early May would be a lovely time to visit. The temperatures would be in the 70s, the winds would be mild, and there would be fewer fellow sojourners circling the Kaaba of Disneyland, better known as Sleeping Beauty’s Castle. We got one of these right. At the time we landed, it was 98 degrees with the Santa Ana winds howling at 55 miles per hour. This was weather more befitting of the an-Nafud desert than Southern California. Moreover, there were fires in Rancho Cucamonga so the winds were blowing the smoke across the inland valley. The blowing dirt caused the sky to turn an ominous blood red. We felt we were less entering the Magic Kingdom and more descending into the rings of Dante’s Inferno.
We had rese
rvations at Goofy’s Kitchen at the Disneyland Hotel on our first evening. The restaurant features character dining with characters such as Goofy, Pluto, Minnie Mouse, Chip and Dale, etc. Leading up to this dinner, my wife and I prepared our daughter to meet all the wonderful Disney characters in larger than life costumes. The food was expensive and just o.k., but you were really paying for the entertainment and not the cuisine.
As Goofy and Pluto approached our table to meet and greet Eleanore, she began to scream. “Help Mommy! The monsters from under my bed are here!! Please lock and load, Daddy. Quick.” I am not sure where she got the “lock and load” part but she was clearly terrified and wanted her parents to act decisively, if not murderously. We hurriedly left the restaurant with child in tow and escaped into the night with Eleanore slightly miffed that her parents had not permanently taken care of the “bed monsters” problem when the opportunity had presented itself.
The next day we prepared for our foray into the park. As the designated parental mule, Gwen loaded me up. First was the backpack with sunscreen, extra set of clothes for Eleanore, baby wipes, etc. Next came the cooler with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and iced downed water bottles. Finally, a foldable stroller and miscellaneous and sundry items were piled upon my shoulders until I reminded my wife of the allegory about the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Fully loaded down I began lugubriously marching toward the bus stop with Eleanore and my wife strongly urging that I pick up the pace. We proceeded to go curbside and wait for the bus. It was so crowded, that there wasn’t room for us on that bus so we had to wait 30 minutes for the next one. Luckily, I purchased bus tickets from the front desk and we would have an easy boarding process. Wrong. As that bus pulled up, I searched for the tickets I had purchased over one hour ago and couldn’t find them. I unloaded all of my burdens and ran up to the 9th floor of our hotel and searched the room to no avail. A call from my wife to my mobile phone made me realize that I had run out of time. We now had to drive to make it on time for the opening of the gates at the park. As I entered the car my wife ominously held one finger and from the passenger seat intoned: “Strike One.”
As the day clipped along, things appeared to be going well even as the temperature climbed to three figures. As anticipated the lines were less than other times of the year and Eleanore appeared to be having a wonderful time. A series of Disney characters were coming down the street. I decided that we had to get Eleanore over her strong phobia about costumed Disney characters. Carrying my daughter in my arms I walked directly up to a large and almost ferocious looking Pluto who she quickly made friends with. I did feel sorry for the poor teenager working for a little more than minimum wage inside a rubber costume in which the temperature can climb to over 120 degrees. The employees must put this modern Iron Maiden on eight times per day. They are in costume 30 minutes of every working hour. I had to wonder myself whether Dick Cheney and the CIA might have considered this routine as a possible enhanced interrogation technique in lieu of the more prosaic waterboarding.
We visited numerous fun exhibits and rides including Dumbo the Flying Elephan
t over the next couple of hours and then decided to take a break resting under a shaded tree with Eleanore falling asleep in the stroller. I thought this would be the perfect time to indulge my inner adolescent and skip over to Space Mountain and ride one of my favorite roller coasters. I told my wife I had to accomplish an unspecified important task but would be back momentarily. Unfortunately, numerous other dads apparently had a similar idea and I waited over 40 minutes to get on the ride. I waited, rode the ride, looked at the picture of myself screaming on the ride, and returned to New Orleans Square to reunite with my family. As I walked over with a smile from ear to ear, I began to wonder what would happen if they weren’t still there. The smile turned into a concentrated look and my walk became more brisk. As I arrived at the spot where I left my family, I came across a beautiful woman with her child. The only trouble is, it wasn’t my family.
I literally didn’t know wh
at to do. I reached in my pocket for my cell phone to try to call Gwen only to realize I had left my cell in the backpack. In a panic I found a Disney employee who was kind enough to lend me his cell phone. I then remembered that I hadn’t committed Gwen’s cell phone number to memory and just pushed a speed dial letter when I wanted to call her. I hiked over to the human lost and found section of the park. There was a room for children who had lost their parents or other adult supervision and a room for parents, et al, looking for their kids. There was, however, no place for a lost adult like myself. I stumbled back into the park in a daze. In a fit of desperation I headed over to Tomorrowland where we had planned to visit at some point and in a minor miracle located them awaiting the Astro Orbitor ride. I was overjoyed. Gwen’s words of greeting were simply: “Strike Two.”
After finishing an otherwise enjoyable trip around Tomorrowland including riding the popular Autopia car ride, it is almost time to leave. But, we decided to visit Downtown Disney, just outside the main gate before heading into the parking lot. As we passed by the extraordinary Lego Store, my wife insisted I pose for a picture with the enormous “Beauty and the Beast” Lego display just outside the store. Exhausted by this time I put my arm to rest on the Beast over the short guard ra
il undoubtedly put there to prevent exhausted dads from leaning on the artwork. Too tired to care I leaned in with my full weight and found out to my horror that it was a genuine Lego sculpture that had not been glued together. As a part of the Beast’s arm began to crumble the Smiley family hot-footed it toward the parking garage.
We hit the exit at full stride, afraid to look back to see whether Lego personnel were trying to track down the man who had trashed the Beast sculpture. Being an ever prudent dad I had written down where we had parked — “Donald 5.” But thousands of cars had come after us and Donald 5 now encompassed an enormous field of automobiles. The non-descript Japanese white four-door rental car looked like thousands of other automobiles. The rental cars beeper on the key chain worked only if you where within a dozen feet of the automobile. Leaving mother and child in the middle of the garage, I walked up and down the endless rows and rows of cars in Donald 5 relentlessly pushing on the key chain until after 30 minutes I finally heard a blessed “Beep, Beep.”
As we left Disneyland and hit a traffic filled Los Angeles area streets my wife put everything in perspective. “Look Mark, Eleanore is not quite three-years-old. Humans have no permanent memories of events much before their fourth birthday. Eleanore will never remember how you totally flummoxed up her first trip to Disneyland. Of course I might. Just saying — Strike Three.” She then commenced the official and dreaded “silent treatment.’’
As I was feeling at the lowe
st level of the entire trip, Eleanore broke the long conjugal silence declaring “I had a great time, Daddy” and gave me a big toddler smile. It was now all worth it. No matter what the ups and downs are, there is nothing like taking your child to Disneyland.
by Mark Smiley | May 27, 2014 | Featured Stories & Advertisers
by Mark Smiley | May 27, 2014 | Uncategorized
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nitial work — grading, installation of water mains, storm water, sanitary sewers and construction of new roads — is underway at Boulevard One, the Lowry neighborhood under development that was once the tail end of the historic Runway One at the former Lowry Air Force Base. Work was barely started when the Lowry Redevelopment Authority Board did an about face on plans to increase the amount of parking in the development. Instead of increasing parking to either two or 1.5 spaces per unit, the new code now only requires 0.75 or one space per unit. LRA also voted to include several “conditions” that will further modify the new development. They include an increase in lot coverage; an increase in heights; a decrease in setbacks plus decreasing the amount of parking.
The Lowry Redevelopment Authority is grading the Boulevard One site to create new roads and lots in the first phase of the residential site, south of First Avenue from Magnolia Street to Oneida Court. Five new streets are being graded and will connect to First Ave. They are Magnolia Street, Niagara Street, Newport Street, Oneida Street and Oneida Court. The First Avenue berm is being removed to accommodate the new streets.
Beginning in August overhead utilities on the south side of First Avenue will be removed, and new utilities buried. Then the south side of First Avenue will be improved, with a new sidewalk, street trees and bicycle lane.
The LRA is transplanting a number of mature trees from the First Avenue berm to the south side of First Ave. and to a new park within the Boulevard One site. The varieties include honey locust and Austrian pines. A full-time contractor is hand-watering existing trees throughout the Boulevard One site, including lindens, ash, crabapples, ponderosa pine, blue spruce and scotch pines. These trees will be either transplanted or kept in place. More than 2,500 new trees will be planted in parks and lawns at Boulevard One.
Approximately 130,000 cubic yards of soil is being graded and stockpiled near the center of the Boulevard One site. The stockpiled soil will fill the hole left by the former Defense Finance & Accounting Service Center building. A pavement-recycling program was started in April. There are about 24 acres of roads, parking lots, tennis courts and tarmac on the site. About 54,000 tons are being recycled near Lowry Blvd. and reused as road base and parks materials. More than 16 tons have been recycled to date. Finally, approximately 80 lots for single-family detached homes are being created. Information: 303-326-7102.
by Mark Smiley | May 27, 2014 | Feature Story Middle Left
The best job I’ve ever had and ever will have is being a dad. I can insert hardest, most rewarding, most fun, exciting, before the word “job” in the previous sentence. We’re lucky. Our two sons are healthy, energetic (OK toddler app is energetic, baby app is only two-months-old) and very loving. Yet, there are moments each day that I wonder, “What is going through your head? It was not a good idea to kick the soccer ball off my French doors in the office! Why are you upset all of a sudden? Six hours of Disney Channel is more than enough.” I’m certain I’m not alone. We use as much positive reinforcement as possible. We reference Kiddie, an app based on positive parenting. More importantly, it gives us some ideas to encourage good behavior. It provides ideas around with being sweet, better eating habits and going to bed nicely for our three-year-old. Holy cow! Toddler App’s going to bed routine is an hour long coronation. We love our kiddos, but we’re always open to soaking up ideas around positive parenting. I just hope to keep ahead of my children because I’m certain there will be a day, in the not so distant future, they’ll find an app that will teach them how to drive us nuts.
Of course, we finished our tax return in the 11th hour. Typical procrastinator. Part of the delay was due to the recreation of 2013 data, such as mileage. Luckily, our friend Keith Hollingsworth suggested that we use an app to track our mileage. What? There’s an app for mileage? Genius, Keith! I should’ve known better. One may even call it, eating my own dog food. There is an app, Mileage Log+, which appears to be the most favorable based on features and reviews. I haven’t tried it, because I’m frugal and the app is $9.99. There are free mileage log apps, such as MileIQ, TripLog and Track My Mileage. I like the MileIQ app because it’ll run in the background based on actual mileage. No need to enter miles by trip. Thanks for the suggestion, Keith. My CPA will appreciate my preparedness on April 15, 2015.
Now that baseball is in full swing (yes, that is a bad cliché), I like to have the schedule built into my calendar. In the past, I would download the schedule into my Outlook calendar. It wasn’t ideal, because the download often recreated reminders that would annoy me by July. UpTo is a refreshing way to have the best of both worlds. It is a calendar app that syncs your calendar of choice (i.e. Outlook, Google) with your interests. You are able to add in your favorite television shows, sports teams or topics. At a daily glance, you can view your personal and work calendar along with that evening’s shows, the Red Sox (ok, Rockies) game and any relevant topic (i.e. movie or music releases, this day in history, etc.). Now, you’ll know what you’re up to at a quick view.
A smart practice prior to an initial meeting is to research the individual, learn about their background and find a commonality to break the ice. This requires some time to search each individual. Refresh is an app that syncs with your calendar. There are some similarities between Refresh and UpTo, however Refresh provides the background of your meeting attendees. This app parses multiple social media sites, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, Twitter and then summarizes their history. Quickly, you can view their hometown, college, work history, interests, recent tweets and LinkedIn posts, your last meeting and mutual connections. I used this app during a phone call to drop a Boston reference knowing that person attended a Boston university. This broke the ice and our conversation around business flowed easily. Lastly, it provides a key tool that many miss, which is the follow up. The app can schedule follow up reminders with notes and list the follow up reminders.
A friend noticed the amount of junk mail on my desk. He suggested PaperKarma to reduce this pile. Thanks Jeremy Tasky! Take a picture of the junk mail address label using the app, and your contact information should be removed from that list. It will not work on labels addressed to “our friends or neighborhood.” I won’t miss the yellow pages. I’m glad Jeremy noticed the pile on the desk and not the pile of laundry outside the office.
I am a heavy user of the app Prezi. As a refresher, Prezi is a creative way to present material instead of using PowerPoint. One of my challenges with Prezi was the inability to advance the presentation without being at my laptop. This affects me because during a live presentation, I need to walk to the laptop to advance the presentation. I have used my iPad with a connection to the projector, however most conference rooms are not set up with an accessible cable. Apptui turns your mobile device into a remote and mouse. Connect your laptop and mobile device to the same wifi network and they’ll connect to each other. This allows me to advance the Prezi presentation from the device without walking back to the laptop. It also eliminates the need of the presentation volunteer that advances the slide for you based on a secret code, “hey, every time I touch my ear, advance the slide.” There are other applications for this app. Since your device is now a remote computer, anything streaming to your laptop can be controlled through the device. You can control Netflix, Vimeo or surf the web from the device.
Do you have a favorite app you’d like to share? Contact Brian at brian@brianzabro ski.com, on Twitter @BrianZab or LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/brianzab.
Brian has focused on helping technology companies grow their businesses for nearly 20 years. He currently serves as the Director of Channel Management for a cloud-based software business, which specializes in network monitoring, phone system usage analytics and mobile device analytics. Simply put, if your business’ network, phone system and corporate cell phones are slow, have issues and are expensive, then his software reduces and eliminates these challenges. The software is resold through an international channel of technology partners. He travels across North America educating technology companies how they can increase their business value nearly five-fold through his hybrid managed service selling technique.
by Mark Smiley | May 27, 2014 | Feature Story Bottom Left
The sun is out, the laundry is coming off and hormones are flowing like a spring runoff from the glorious Rockies. In my last column, “Secret Fishing Holes,” I wrote about places where you can find single women who are ready to be reeled in by the guy who is aware of how to use an effective approach. So to sum it up, the last article was all about the catch and this one is to help ensure you don’t end up with a dead fish by night’s end (if you are sensitive because I used a fishing analogy as a dating comparison, you may want to discontinue reading any further).
Dating season is a very important time of year if you’re single. But it can be as depressing as waiting in line at the DMV for what seems like days only to be turned away because you failed to bring all of your documents, forcing you to repeat the process. Date like you’re going to the DMV — be ready and be patient.
It breaks my heart when I hear from guys who tell me stories how “the big one got away,” meaning a woman they were really in to but she slipped through their fingers because they weren’t equipped with the proper technique. Yes, I said technique.
I hope the following dating techniques prove to be helpful to you, leaving your pond stocked for you to enjoy all summer long.
- Get your poop in a group. Personally, if you’ve read my column long enough you would know #1 should go without saying. But just like the DMV the smallest overlooked detail can send you packing. So for the sake of review make sure you are date worthy. Do what you can to be attractive and be aware of what attracts women. Get a haircut and get some color on your skin, it’s June for crying out loud, if you’re still pasty you scream inactive. Freshen up your summer gear and make sure the clothes you choose are geared toward the type of women you’re looking to attract. If you’re looking for an earthy stoner then buy some Birkenstocks and get a tie-dye. You get the picture. Obviously, not everyone can still have a body of a 21-year-old but do what you can to be healthy and feel good enough about the effort you put in, and that will translate into how you carry yourself. Women can sniff out an unconfident man in one-half of one second.
- Have options. Don’t have all your eggs in one basket. Speaking of confidence, I can’t impress upon you enough what confidence does to a woman. It’s a God-given aphrodisiac and it should be used to your full advantage. The key is building real confidence and keeping it while you’re battling all of the other fellow date warriors in this survival of the fittest world. You may say, “How do I build and sustain such confidence?” You’re good, that’s right, have options and lots of them, you’re dating after all. Don’t shoot the messenger but guess what, women like guys that other women want as well. Again, I didn’t write the book of nature, I’m just telling the story. I know it seems twisted and hard to wrap your mind around, but ladies don’t want “relationship guy” right off the bat. Unlike being in a relationship with a woman, when you’re dating she doesn’t want to feel like you need her. A needy guy who she knows will do anything for her at a drop of a dime is what she wants down the road, but not while she’s dating. Remember resistance causes attraction and women love a good chase. They can become more ferocious than men when they have their eye on the prize. Bottom line is having other options creates value and kills the needy bug in you. Remember this tactic only works if you are an open, honest gentleman. Word of warning, when you find a woman who is into you as much as you’re into her, you better start eliminating your rotation, quickly.
- Stay even. In other words, keep your cool. Here’s the deal: you will be tested whether it be by her or yourself. Remember guys, this is dating. This isn’t business where you can conduct yourself and make decisions in a logical, clear, fact-based thought process. Welcome to Emotionville, a town scarier to a man than living in New York, in the classic movie Escape From New York. First off, I say it time and time again; girls just want to have fun. Your biggest challenge while navigating the rough dating waters is to not let your emotions keep you from being upbeat or having a fun and even demeanor. These emotional obstacles could be as simple as having a bad day, perceived rejection, being shy, jealousy, non-ideal surroundings, the list goes on but you get the idea. She is going to test you as well, maybe not consciously, but your emotional limits and stability will be tested. A woman wants to know who she’s dealing with. She ultimately is looking for certain qualities in a man. They want to figure out if you can be strong in adverse situations as well as gauge your patience meter. A man that can take control of a situation with finesse and style wins every time.
If you can manage to go out there in datingland and arm yourself with those three techniques, you might just have yourself a fruitful summer and go into nesting season with quite a catch — no pun intended. If you get your poop in a group you will have more options allowing you to stay even so you can go have fun. Fun is the key boys, fun.
Shameless plug: If you want to read more of my musings or hear the podcast of my dating show “The Modern Dater,” which airs live Saturday nights live at 7 p.m. on 630 KHOW, visit www.themoderndater .com. Have fun and keep it classy!
— Sheik
