Movie Review Round-Up #4 - Walt Disney, Tonto & Some Hobbits Save the Snow Queen

And here I thought I was done with movie reviews for a while - turns out my wife & I have seen quite a few moving pictures here lately, mainly because of the fact that we received a handful of gift cards to Regal Cinemas as Christmas gifts. (I was an AMC man growing up in Lancaster, SC - a city that exists in the shadows of Charlotte, NC - but Regal seems to dominate the theatrical landscape here in the midlands of South Carolina.) Therein lies a decent question to ponder: Would we have seen some of these films if we weren't able to get in for free? Going to the cinema is an expensive prospect seeing as how getting to a theater isn't exactly a 5 minute drive for us, unfortunately. Chances are we would have in the case of Frozen as both my wife and myself are suckers for anything with the Disney logo situated somewhere in the poster art. Similarly, Saving Mr. Banks was an almost automatic selection because you can't go wrong with Tom Hanks. He's essentially the Peyton Manning of Hollywood (Or maybe Peyton Manning is the Tom Hanks of professional football?) in that unless something extraordinarily unusual happens you can count on his performance alone being worth the price of admission.

Then we have The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey and The Lone Ranger, two titles we viewed at home. In the case of The Hobbit, I purchased it on Blu-ray right after it became available and it had been sitting on our entertainment center ever since (yes, that puts it there almost a solid calendar year). I can give no other justification for the delay than the fact I'd simply not taken the time to invest 3 hours of my time in the film. That and we both wanted to watch it so we could hopefully then go to the theater to see The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. As for The Lone Ranger, it fell into that most bothersome category of movie, that being the sort of flick that you're watching because you're halfway expecting it to be horrible due to what others have said/written about it and you want to either verify or discredit those experiences for yourself.

As an aside to this introduction, I'll note that this turned into a very Disney-heavy Movie Review Round-Up as 3 of the 4 films I'll be talking about originated from the House of the Mouse. I have no real reasoning for pointing this out other than to brag on the fact that my wife & I will be going to Walt Disney World again in May, this time for the 2014 edition of Star Wars Weekends at Disney's Hollywood Studios!

Frozen

Based loosely on a Hans Christian Andersen story called The Snow Queen, Frozen follows the story of Elsa and Anna, a pair of Norwegian sisters born into royalty, the former of happening to have been cursed (as her parents would have her believe) with the power to manipulate ice. Unfortunately she has difficult in controlling these powers and inadvertently injures her younger sister with them while they were playing. Their parents seek out the aid of a troll king who is able to heal Anna, taking away her memories of Elsa's abilities in the process. 

The most glaring issues that Frozen contains, to me, are plot related. They're the kind of problems that children may or may not pick up on but as an adult they stick out like a patch of yellow snow on an otherwise brilliant drift. My biggest gripe is that there's no origin story given to Elsa's powers. We are never told where they come from or why she has them and Anna doesn't, we can only assume it's some sort of supposed curse that befalls an individual every once in a while. As I watched the film I kept saying to myself that she's more or less Ice Man from MARVEL's X-MEN comic books, only she never has the blessing of meeting her equivalent to Professor Xavier.

Therein lies the source of my X-MEN comparisons; Elsa's powers might otherwise be thought of as a mutation in another mythology, not far from that of a character like Iceman. The difference between the two being that Iceman was fortunate enough to be encouraged to hone his abilities by the likes of Professor Xavier and that Elsa's powers appear to be incredibly vast. She's not just controlling ice, she has the capacity to create sentient life - Olaf and the castle guardian are examples of this. The implications of that never get touched upon in this particular narrative, although that's perhaps too deep for what's supposed to be a kid's movie.

In the grand scheme of Disney films, Frozen ranks up there with Beauty and the Beast as well as The Little Mermaid in terms of being captivating stories featuring brilliant vocal performances both in terms of dialogue and in song. It really is a fantastic picture for kids of all ages - if you're an adult, just do yourself a favor by not doing what I did in trying to analyze the thing, nearly forgetting to be entertained in the process.

3.75/5 Professor Xaviers

Saving Mr. Banks

When Walt Disney sought the motion picture rights to Mary Poppins, he wound up confronting author P.L. Travers head on, a woman who was seemingly unwilling to let go of her creation for fear that Disney would tarnish what it meant - not so much to the world, but to Travers herself.

I will be blunt in saying that I am not typically one to watch a film that would be best categorized as a comedy-drama. Likewise, romantic comedies aren't generally my mason jar of sweet iced tea, if you catch my drift. (It's like listening to a Nickelback album - you already know what you're going to get when you turn the thing on because they're all more or less the same.) However, I will be blunt again in saying that a movie like this is worth watching regardless of what your personal tastes may dictate because of the players involved. The combination of Emma Thompson's emulation of P.L. Travers and Tom Hanks' portrayal of Walt Disney makes for a masterful mix of talent. When you throw in the likes of Paul Giamatti and Colin Farrell as accessories, it's fairly difficult to go wrong. They aren't heavy-handed or overbearing in trying to impersonate the individuals they're hoping to represent, rather they all succeed in breathing life into them.

I'm sure that there are those who would look to discredit the historical accuracy of aspects to the plot of Saving Mr. Banks. I can't argue with such criticisms because my knowledge of the history behind this film is slim to none, although I will say that the dynamic tension leading up to the eventual reveal of Travers' reasoning for being so defensive in regard to Mary Poppins treatment by others is a real treat. It's a mixture of storytelling, acting, and editing that make it what it is - a movie that will tug at your heart yet still find a way to make you laugh.

4/5 Mouse Ear Hats

The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey

Long before Frodo, Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli set off to destroy the ring of power before the dark lord Sauron could reclaim it, there was another mythical quest across Middle Earth involving elves, Hobbits, and sorcery - only this one involved a dragon and the struggle of a small band of dwarfs hoping to take back their homeland.

Based on J. R. R. Tolkien's classic novel, The Hobbit - An Unexpected Journey represents the first act of what will eventually be a trilogy of films.

I am a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. I could watch those movies just about any day of the week and be just as entertained as I was the first time I saw them. The cast was so strong for that trio of pictures that I cannot think of anyone I would see replaced in the lineup with other actors. Unfortunately, the cast is one of the biggest problems I have with An Unexpected Journey but its also a reflection of the differences in this story versus that of the Lord of the Rings. There is no Aragorn/Viggo Mortensen here - what I mean by that is there's no primary hero clearly identified, even though some would argue that would be Martin Freeman as a younger version of Bilbo Baggins. (He may be the main character but he's not the charismatic center of the cast; perhaps I'm hoping for too much in expecting to see another similar warrior-type to what was had before.) Instead there's a whole bunch of potential leads none of whom we genuinely get that much of an opportunity with which to bond, and some of whom are almost unlikeable.

With this story, we have a crew of characters in the dwarfs who are almost always together. While they each appear unique in terms of their style, none of them truly have a chance to stick out from the rest aside from Thorin Oakenshield played by Richard Armitage. (I am not lying when I tell you that I could not recall a single one of the dwarf's names other than Oakenshield.) The problem with him is that he comes off as a giant prick right up until the end of the film. By that point, I had pretty well lost interest in anything he had to say; the sudden recovery seemed too forced, at least for me.

My wife & I watched An Unexpected Journey on Blu-ray at home and we're hoping to see the Desolation of Smaug before it leaves theaters. While I may not have enjoyed this film as much as I have some of director Peter Jackson's other offerings set in Middle Earth, I am looking forward to seeing what comes next as I hope the inclusion of Orlando Bloom who returns as Legolas will be a nice shot in the arm to invigorate the story.

3/5 The Preciouses

The Lone Ranger

The concept of a solitary sentinel fighting for justice isn't a novel one, especially not these days where it seems as though every superhero could be described as such. But where did that ideal begin? Probably with an actual member of society who was so inspired at some point in human history if you really want to try and nail it down, but in terms of popular culture the roots of such characters go back to one man, that being the Lone Ranger who first appeared on American airwaves back in 1933 and who has been an iconic figure ever since.

Unfortunately for modern audiences, the Lone Ranger's legacy isn't what it once was thanks to this mess of a film.

Disney and director Gore Verbinski had been on an amazing "winning" streak thanks to the overwhelming success of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies they assembled. With over $1 billion made at the box office, it seemed like the combination of Disney, Verbinski, and star Johnny Depp could do no wrong. Apparently all it took to break the streak was to have Depp play a Native American with a dead bird on his head.

In all honesty, the aesthetic choice of how to represent Tonto in this iteration of the Lone Ranger mythology is about the least troublesome aspect of the overall production. (Depp, to his credit, is his usual over-the-top self here; he's entertaining, I just wish the material he has to work with had been better.) The plot is so tremendously bloated and unnecessarily complex that it's at times difficult to follow but still horribly campy in what it tries to accomplish. To make matters worse, Armie Hammer is tasked with playing a heroic and vivacious action hero even though Armie Hammer has the personality of a loaf of white bread. Then to make matters even more worse, the action sequences are as over the top as any I've ever seen. They're not quite 28-mile-long-runway stupid (as was the case with Fast & Furious 6), but even so I cannot get out of my head how the state of movie-making seems to be that it's required to take anything plausible pertaining to action and throw it out the window.

I imagine the creative meetings for The Lone Ranger went something like this...

Writer: Okay, we've got an idea for a sequence where Ranger, Tonto, and some guys are fighting on a moving train.
Producer: That's not good enough.
Writer: What do you mean?
Producer: That's too simplistic, it needs more...More of everything.
Writer: Alright, what if the train is speeding out of control?
Producer: Not bad, still too vanilla though.
Writer: Um, how about the fight takes place on a speeding, out of control train that gets split into two sections and weaves back & forth between a pair of tracks causing the actors to have to do stunts that no human being could possibly survive or even logically perform?
Producer: Yeah, yeah...Add some explosions and a bridge, now we're talking!

If this movie had a giant mechanical spider it would be Wild, Wild West all over again. Disney had a real opportunity to make what could've been a great western, a real revenge tale involving classic characters. All it would've needed is a more serious tone and a better angle of how best to depict the origin of the Ranger. Instead we're left with this schlock-fest that has very few redeeming qualities.

1.5/5 Loaves of White Bread

Autograph Signing with Legendary Gamecock QB Connor Shaw

It should come as no secret to anyone that I'm a huge fan of the University of South Carolina Gamecock athletics program given that my blog is saturated with a garnet & black color scheme and that in my avatar I'm wearing my trusty Columbia booney hat that's emblazoned with the "block C" as it's known in these parts. (Funny thing about that hat - my wife hates it. I forget where we were at the time but within the past 6 months she said to me something to the effect of "You weren't wearing that stupid hat, otherwise I'd have had an easier time finding you...") I follow the football team closely as our squad is just about as good as we ever have been right now. Considering not that long ago there was a year where we didn't win a single game, where we are now is phenomenal! We're coming off of an 11-2 year where we were undefeated at home, laid waste to our in-state rivals at Clemson University (yet again, for the fifth straight year), and turned in an impressive performance at the Capital One Bowl, all of which lead to our being ranked as the #4 team in the entire nation at the end of the season (we were also declared the "champions of the bowl season", but that title came from an admittedly biased and unofficial source, the ol' Head Ball Coach himself Steve Spurrier).

A player who's been a huge part of our recent success is quarterback Connor Shaw, who was voted the most valuable player of the game after his performance at the Capital One Bowl where he threw 3 touchdowns, rushed for one, and even caught a scoring pass (which was thrown by Bruce Ellington, another guy who's value as a versatile athlete cannot be understated). I wouldn't consider myself an autograph hunter by any stretch of the imagination, but the opportunity to meet Shaw was too good to pass up. So it was that a plan was hatched when I found out he'd be making an appearance at a store specializing in sports memorabilia in Charleston, SC - ROAD TRIP!

The event was being held at The Fan Zone; I knew of the existence of this shop because my wife & I had been by it quite a few times in the past when we'd visited the Tanger Outlets in Charleston. If you've never been to a Tanger complex, they're all more or less the same - they look like a shopping mall, but they're in a mostly "open air" configuration meaning you're outside as you traverse from one store to another although there are sections that are covered. In investigating the details further I noticed that on The Fan Zone's Facebook page the map there pointed to a location that was near the mall but not inside of it. What's more, I remembered from having been there previously that their spot in the outlet mall was under one of the covered sections but the cover photo on their Facebook page looked as if it was getting hit by full sun.

I tried calling The Fan Zone in the days prior to the signing but I never got an answer, just a busy signal. I assumed they were either swamped with customers and questions or that they'd taken the phones offline because they were being swamped by customers and questions. Confusion set in, but I already had it in mind that I was going to go regardless of where the event wound up being.

My wife & I had been able to attend a signing with former Gamecock/current San Francisco 49er running back Marcus Lattimore last year at the Bower Parkway location of Garnet & Black Traditions in Columbia, SC. At that event we'd gotten several items signed, including two footballs - one for me and one that we'd held onto as a Christmas gift for my Uncle who's also a huge Gamecock fan as well as an alumnus of the University of South Carolina. I mention these balls because it has seemed to be the case at every signing I've ever been to that in order to participate you had to purchase an item from the store hosting the event. To my surprise, that wasn't true for Shaw's appearance at The Fan Zone. The event announcement was crystal clear in stating that patrons could buy an item from the store or that for $15 they could bring an item from home to be signed.

Come meet a Gamecock legend and you don't have to drop an arm and a leg on the experience? The only way it could've been more ideal is if there had been complimentary punch and pie!

I've mentioned my wife several times during this entry. Truth is, when one of us does something the other is typically there. That's just how we roll. Be that as it may, she's not a Gamecock fan - truth of the matter is that she's a Clemson fan. I know not everyone in the United States is up on the rivalry that exists between Carolina and Clemson but it's a big deal here in South Carolina, just as big I'd say as other college rivalries like Michigan and Ohio State, Oklahoma and Texas, or Auburn and Alabama. Be that as it may she typically will join me whenever I'm doing something Gamecock-related, be it out of love or the possibility that she's some kind of spy working for the enemy (that being Clemson). She wouldn't be with me this go-round, though. The co-pilot chair for this trek was reserved for my Uncle who, ironically enough, had earlier in the week prior to my learning of Shaw's appearance talked to me about how awesome it would be to get another signature on the ball we'd given him with Lattimore's autograph.

All I can say to that is that things tend to just work out they way they're supposed to.

We set out on the morning of Saturday, January 11, 2014 just after 8:30 AM. The signing was scheduled to run from noon until 3 PM; Charleston is a little over an hour away from where we live in Saint Matthews, SC but we wanted to leave early enough so that we'd have time to adjust as needed should anything out of the ordinary arise. The probability of that seemed to be somewhat high seeing as how I still wasn't exactly certain on where we were going. Be that as it may, I plugged the address for The Fan Zone into the GPS app on my phone and we set off.

The weather in our part of the world has been particularly peculiar here lately as within the course of the past week we've gone from temperatures in the teens at night to days in the mid-seventies. This past Saturday added to that mix of oddities as it was again in the mid-seventies but with lots of clouds, high humidity, and stiff winds as a storm system was making its way across the southeast. We held onto hope that the weather forecasters hadn't lied to us in predicting that the bulk of the rain wouldn't arrive until after the signing, but I came prepared for the worst with a hat and a rain coat.

Traffic was minimal and the ride to Charleston went quickly.  Good conversation has a way of passing the time more quickly, and my Uncle & I have never had difficulty in finding plenty to flap our gums over when we're around one another.

I knew more or less where we were going but I followed my GPS app all the way to where it believed we were to be going. I say that like it's to blame for something - truth be told, I hate it when people blame technology for their own misfortunes. It's not the computer's fault; it can only do what it's been designed and instructed to do after all. Regardless, where it took us was the Tanger Outlets. I wasn't convinced that was where we needed to be but we got out to investigate by locating one of the mall directories. The only reference to The Fan Zone on the directory was to a kiosk, not an actual store. There was a woman there in Gamecock regalia who looked just as puzzled as us, and it was at that point I figured I would try one more time to get someone from the store on the phone. Low and behold, I got an answer - sure enough, we were in the wrong spot but we weren't too far from where we needed to be. (Side Note: The guy I talked to on the phone used a Starbucks as a point of reference. Hipster directions, as it were?) The Fan Zone wound up being just around the corner from the Tanger Outlets, in a strip mall not too far from the North Charleston Coliseum.

By the time we got to where we were supposed to be (which was around 10:30 AM) the line of fans queued up outside the store was visible from almost a block away. As we pulled into the parking lot I suggested that my Uncle go ahead and get out so he could secure us a spot in line while I parked the truck. I prepared myself to have to spend an eternity trying to find a parking space as the lot looked to be nearly full. To my amazement, I found a space near the storefronts less than 200 feet away from The Fan Zone. I'm never that lucky when it comes to parking, ever, as in I could go to Walmart 100 days in a row and not get a parking space that convenient. I don't think many other folks who got there after us were as lucky, unfortunately, as the lot appeared to be packed. I have no idea where they all went but they were parking somewhere in the area and hoofing it back. I'm sure it was a point of frustration but the truth of the matter is that not many retail locations are intended to handle that level of traffic; the outlets would've been much more suited to that sort of volume than the strip mall we were at.

It's kind of fun to be in a line like that one, I find. You're amongst a bunch of like-minded people, after all, making it easy to strike up a conversation. We spent a good amount of time chatting with the guys who run a Facebook fan page called Gamecock Born & Bred, which happens to be a huge community with over 74,000 followers. They had some great posters and t-shirts that they'd made themselves - they made for great company while we waited patiently for our chance to meet Connor Shaw, so if you're a Gamecock fan who's on Facebook be sure to give them a "like".

For the purpose of the signing, The Fan Zone had its floor displays set up in such a way that fans were put through a U-shaped path that lead through one door, deep into the store, then back out another door. Vista Art (a company based in Columbia, SC that specializes in custom framing and printing) had a makeshift booth set up along the route to sell prints of Williams Brice Stadium and other framed & unframed memorabilia. Their wares are beautiful and we did see people buying some of the prints they had on hand, but I'll be damned if I'm paying what they were asking for a picture of a stadium. Connor was set up near the exit and he was surrounded by staff from The Fan Zone and people that I assume were his handlers and management.

I'd like to get to a point in my life where I'm so appreciated and valued that I need a handler, just so when people ask "Who's this?" I can say "He's my handler...He handles me." thereby making everyone involved feel THAT level of awkward.

Speaking of awkward, events like this can be weird from the perspective of what goes on within a sudden and forced interaction between two people, one of whom is typically a celebrity and the other who may or may not be mentally stable. I think a lot of fans come to signings and they think the person they're meeting is going to turn out to be their buddy. They're more than likely going to be friendly, sure, but as a fan you have to understand that unless you're very fortunate you're only going to have a few seconds with whoever it is you're meeting. This was very true for Shaw's appearance last weekend as I barely had an opportunity to shake the guy's hand before it was time for me to move on. I'm not bitter about that because I understand the circumstances; be that as it may, it would've been nice to at least get a chance to say thanks for all he's done in the name of Gamecock football.

That said, I feel as though The Fan Zone showed that they aren't quite as adept at hosting an event like this as somewhere like Garnet & Black Traditions. Not that The Fan Zone's staff were pushy or rude, but they weren't exactly cordial in their attitudes or incredibly willing to assist patrons with things like taking photos. Part of this, in my opinion, stems from the fact that they had no cap on the number of people who could get into the signing. This isn't usually an issue for Garnet & Black because they sell a limited number of tickets for a given event which limits the amount of traffic they have to process, thereby making the whole thing more manageable. The Fan Zone, on the other hand, apparently wanted to get as many souls through the door as possible and that's exactly what they did. Don't get me wrong - it was a great opportunity to meet a Gamecock legend and I'd do it again, these just weren't the most ideal arrangements.

I don't remember precisely what time we were finished at the signing but I want to say we were out of there before 12:45 PM, meaning we were in line for a little over 2 hours. Not a bad day's work, which was why we decided to cap off our trip to the Low Country by having lunch at Big Billy's Burger Joint. We'd planned on getting something to eat but we'd not figured out where we would be going until we spotted Big Billy's which just so happened to be in the same strip mall as The Fan Zone. Neither of us had ever been there before - seeing as how neither myself or my Uncle can turn down a good burger, we figured why not give it a try. We're both certainly glad that we did!

For starters, Big Billy's has kind of a beachy, surfer gimmick going on in terms of its presentation. Not to a point of it being goofy, just enough to clue patrons into the fact that the cuisine is inspired by tropical flare. The menu featured an assortment of offerings, everything from wings to seafood, salads to milkshakes, and of course an eclectic variety of burgers. For our meal we started off with the Big Billy's loaded nachos, a huge platter of tortilla chips served with black bean chili, grated cheese, jalapenos, sour cream, lettuce, and fresh pico de gallo. My Uncle chose the "smash" burger which is topped with chili, cheese, slaw, and mustard - somewhat of a throwback to the way hamburgers have been prepared traditionally here in the South for quite some time. I picked the bacon, black & bleu burger for my main course and it did not disappoint! The burger was piled high with strips of bacon and blue cheese, and it was generously dusted with blackening seasoning. I had fries as a side and they were the perfect vehicle for Big Billy's 5-spice ketchup. I make no bones about admitting that ketchup is one of my most favorite things in the whole world, and this 5-spice concoction was an awesome treat for me.

Big Billy's also had an impressive selection of regional beers on hand. Had I not been the driver for this particular trip I'd have permitted myself to try one of them. As it was, all I could do was sit and be thirsty - figuratively speaking, of course. Our waitress (Tamara, I believe her name was) never let our glasses of tea run dry and that, dear reader, is the mark of a professional member of the service industry (or at least it is in my mind). I'm certain that I'll be back to Big Billy's at some point in the future and hopefully in the company of a designated driver.

This was a fantastic experience overall. I can't tell you how much I appreciate a good road trip and one that you can spend with good company while enjoying similar interests makes it all the more memorable.

Of course a nice memento of the occasion never hurts...

Our Road to Building a Family - The Story So Far

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: My wife has done an auspiciously better job of detailing how far we've come in this process than I ever could in her own blog, The Truesdale Times, so please check it out as well - http://thetruesdaletimes.blogspot.com/]

"When are you going to have a baby?"

"You guys do want kids, right?"

"How much longer are you going to wait before you start a family?"

"You're going to be an old dad!"

I don't know that people understand how offensive or otherwise poorly timed their words can be. I can't count the number of instances where the questions above, or a variation on them, have been posed to my wife & I since we've been married. (I'm so jaded about it that I'm at a point where when I hear of a couple being pregnant, especially through some cutesy, staged announcement, my reaction is to smile and mutter a very sternly worded assault of their character, occasionally sprinkled with expletives, under my breath.) They've come from members of our family, friends, and people we barely know. The answer was always the same for us: "We've been trying - so whenever it happens, it happens." We were putting on a good face, as it were.

Except nothing happened. At least not what we were expecting to happen.

I've had a difficult time of convincing myself that I should write about this, mainly because it's a topic that involves some of the most painful realizations I've ever had to deal with. I wasn't sure I wanted to share those moments with anyone other than my wife, for various reasons all of which I'll leave to you, dear reader, to interpret for yourselves. Even so, I find that the path we're on now is one best not walked alone. For that reason, I am putting pen to paper - or finger to keyboard, as is actually the case - in an attempt to convey what I, we have been through in the process of building a family.

After my wife & I got married in May of 2010, we were living in a house in Orangeburg, South Carolina that I'd been renting since I moved into town back in February of 2008. It was a good bachelor pad and more than enough room for one person, but neither of us wanted to live there forever as we both had dreams of owning our own home, somewhere that we could settle into and enjoy as it would be ours, not just a space we happened to be inhabiting. My wife waited patiently as I asked her to give me two years to work on getting to a place financially where I felt like we'd have more stability. Truth be told, I had a plan in mind; first would come the house, then we would work on our family (not to say a baby wouldn't have been welcome before then, just that in my head that's the way it would've panned out best). Call it a blessing, clairvoyance, or just dumb luck but we closed on our house June 1, 2012.

So I needed an extra month. Sue me.

It was time to get down to business, and that became a problem for me.

I'm not going to beat around the bush here. Making love is awesome - or at least it should be. When it becomes a chore, you know something is wrong. And in my mind, when we were trying our hardest to get pregnant the whole thing lost its appeal. Sex had become not something we were doing for fun anymore, instead it was this thing we were doing because we had to and in my head that made it less desirable. It wasn't that I wasn't attracted to my wife, it was the stress and the pressure from the mindset of, "Okay, we've got to get this done now...If it doesn't happen now, people are going to keep bugging us about it and even though we're never going to live up to their expectations we have to do this or else we've failed as a couple."

Notice the word failed there. I'm not afraid of many things. I'm old enough to have a sense of logic that affords me the comfort of being able to differentiate between what's worthy of fear and what isn't. Failure never has been kind enough to make itself so conveniently sorted. The fear of having done all that I could and still come up short has always haunted me, ever since I was a child. I had terrible stomach cramps when I was in college because I had put myself into a position of being incredibly fearful about whether or not I'd be able to perform (I'd say taking advanced courses in logic and mathematics would be enough to upset most people's stomachs). I still deal with it to this day. It's a debilitating feeling, trust me. People act surprised when I tell them about this because they say I don't have the outward expression of someone who's constantly tied in knots. I guess I've dealt with it long enough that I hide it well, or at least better than others.

That said, the fear of failing in this particular instance was getting to me, mainly because I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what was going wrong or how it could be remedied. My wife had been off of birth control for a while and we'd had no luck as of yet. She was doing all that she knew to do, going so far as to take prenatal vitamins and at-home ovulation tests (she even had an app on her tablet that was supposed to help predict when she'd be at her most fertile, for crying out loud). It dawned on the both of us that we were getting to a point where we would have to look into the possibility of there being medical reasons as to why we weren't seeing any results.

My parents got divorced when I was very young and the only father-figure I had growing up was my Grandfather. Unfortunately, he passed away when I was 12 and as I grew up there was a hole in my life that never quite got filled. I've made it known in previous blog entries that there was a point in time where I didn't believe in the concept of marriage and that I thought I'd never get married. I think the desire to be a father set upon me around the same time that I became mature enough to put away those beliefs. I knew in my mind that I wanted to give a child (or children) the sort of love, guidance and upbringing that I had but in a complete, whole family setting. It had become a dream, the desire to someday go out in public with pride while wearing one of those baby slings you see dads wearing - you know, the kind where the baby is more or less strapped to the guy's chest or back? I wanted to be that guy, in the worst way.

Jill and I finally did consult with a specialist regarding the issues we'd been having in trying to get pregnant, and it broke my heart when we found out that it would be all but impossible for us to conceive a child of our own.

We had picked out names for our children, one for a boy and one for a girl.

To have a dream taken from you is one of the most painful things a person can ever experience. The hurt from that news is still there, to this day. The questions, the wonder about why this happened to us, the urge to shake my fist at the sky and scream with every bit of anger I could possibly muster - all still there and probably not going away any time soon. (I am saddened by the many prospects that were dashed by this turn of events but what weighs most heavily on me now is that the bloodlines of our families will end with us. That's a medieval concept, I know. I've just not been able to shake the hurt from that.) But life goes on, with or without you, and so has our effort to build a family.

We have talked openly about the idea of adopting at least as long as we've been married. It wasn't a stretch for us to discuss that opportunity, what with my wife having a background in social work and several cousins who were adopted. However, I'll admit that I never thought we'd actually pursue it because I didn't think we'd have no other option when it came to growing our family. I know that could sound harsh but the reality of the matter is that adoption prior to now, in my mind, would've been an effort of last resort. As it would turn out, it was always our best option.

Around the end of September, we began the process of getting involved with an organization called Heartfelt Calling which is associated with the South Carolina Foster Parent Association and the South Carolina Department of Social Services. Prospective applicants have the option of being foster parents, foster-to-adopt, or adoptive parents and we at least for now have chosen to take the latter route. We received an application packet from them, which was just shy of the thickness of your average textbook. It goes without saying that the sort of information they gather on prospective adoptive parents is vast (a background check complete with fingerprints, financial reports, a floor plan of our home with an evacuation route, proof of our dog's vaccination records, etc.), and not all of it was necessarily the sort of data you'd expect to have to submit. Apparently it was vital that they know my cholesterol levels as I had to have blood work done in order to get every piece of information required for the application to be completed. As of this writing, I believe the only portions of the application that haven't been turned in are reference letters from a few of our friends (if you're reading this, and you know who you are, GET ON THE BALL).

The paperwork was tedious and time consuming, and so too have been the classes we've had to attend. There's an old joke about how some people should be forced to take a training course before they can be parents. As it turns out, in certain cases, that's exactly what you have to do. When talking about them, I've referred to the trio of classes we've attended as Parenting 101, 102, and 103. Combined, we wound up spending about 20-25 hours in a classroom setting. (None of the meetings we've had to attend have been nearby; even though we're closer to Columbia than Charleston, a majority of the sessions we've had to attend have been in the Low Country, meaning we've sacrificed our free time and put a good amount of miles on our vehicles these past few months as well.) Fortunately the classes weren't a pass/fail scenario as all we had to do was show up and participate in order to receive credit. They weren't so much curriculum-based in regard to teaching people how to be parents or even better parents; they were sessions geared towards preparing prospective foster or adoptive parents for the kind of children who find themselves in this system (kids with disabilities, who have been abused or neglected, or what have you) and the associated issues that they may encounter as a result of inviting such children into their home.

This process of completing paperwork and going to class is leading up to our eventually being licensed to serve as adoptive parents. There's another aspect to all of this which involves in-home inspections and home studies. Thus far we've worked with the local Department of Health and Environmental Control and we're waiting to be seen by the fire marshal as well as a home study to be conducted by DSS.

Prior to the DHEC inspection we went about making a series of changes to our home - "child-proofing", as it were. The cabinetry locks were simple to add as they slip over your existing knobs and handles, however let me be frank in saying that I highly doubt the people who design the drawer latches we purchased have ever had to install them. Those things were an absolute nightmare to get into place because the cabinets we have are made from material that evidently was never intended to be modified. We got them in, though, albeit not without the usage of a variety of colorful metaphors, as Spock would call them.

We emptied out the storage spaces underneath our kitchen and bathroom sinks, tossing out a fair amount of clutter in the process, then gathered together all of our cleaning supplies. Our laundry room is more like a closet than a room as it's situated in the main hallway of our home and features a set of double doors. A friend of mine had shared an article with me on life-hacks a few weeks prior and in it was an idea about using over-the-door shoe organizers to keep all your cleaning supplies together and in one place. This was a brilliant concept for us as we were able to use the organizers and that closet to effectively secure every cleaning product we have.

My wife and I came to the conclusion that the term "child-proofing" is an absolute misnomer. It doesn't matter how thorough you may be or how many precautions you may take, kids are going to hurt themselves because they don't know any better. That's not a bad thing, though. It's how they learn about the world around them. I did it, she did it, we've all done it - we're all still here and more or less intact. One has to hope, as a parent, that dropping a TV on their heads isn't part of the learning process.

We made sure to cover a few other random items before DHEC had their way with our home, such as verifying that the temperature of our hot water didn't exceed 120°, that the refrigerator was at an appropriate level of chill, and that our firearms were stored in locked containers away from their ammunition (because a gun purchased with the intent of being used as home defense is useful in that scenario). Our home has a septic tank and so the inspector would have to walk over it as well - I assume the idea there being that you're in the clear so long as they don't see a puddle of turds and toilet paper in your yard. We felt like we knew what to expect because we were working off of a cheat sheet that had been given to us as part of the applicant packet.

As I expected it would, the DHEC inspection went off without a hitch. (I will add that we did something of a mad-dash cleaning of the house the night before as we were running short on time with all we had going on the week of the inspection.) What can I say, I was confident in the work we'd done. By some odd turn of events, it happened that my wife and the inspector had been acquaintances in college as they were both students at Winthrop University. He was thorough, nevertheless, as he did all the things we had counted on and he even went so far as to check our window blinds in order to determine if they were a variety that could potentially contain toxic metals (that wasn't on the cheat sheet). We were in the clear all around, though, as he signed off on our home without encountering any potential issues.

At present, we need to work on getting a fire extinguisher (which has to be mounted to a wall in our kitchen - I'm not thrilled about that, to be honest) and a carbon monoxide detector as the next phase of this process will involve the fire marshal inspecting our home. I didn't mention this earlier, but part of the applicant packet was a worksheet wherein we had to submit measurements of the openings of our windows. I forget what the specification was but ours appeared to have been up to snuff. It wasn't explained to us as to why the windows needed to be a certain size. I assumed it was to insure they were adequate evacuation ports; this is true but as it turns out there's also a consideration here for whether or not a firefighter wearing SCUBA would be able to get in through that same space. That's an example of the kind of thing that wouldn't cross an average person's mind unless you're being made to endure a process like this.

To that end, it's rather mind-boggling to think about what we've been through so far. We've jumped through one hoop after another in order to confirm that we're fit to be parents whereas there are people in this world having babies every day who don't want them and won't love them. It doesn't seem fair, is what I'm getting at. I'm a natural cynic and I can't help but express these feelings.

Regardless, we are where we are and we know where we're going, and that's what we will continue to focus our efforts upon. Building a family, one day at a time.

A Movie That Actually Deserves to be Remade

Almost 2 years ago, I published an entry to my blog titled "Rise of the Planet of Silly Remakes" (which you can revisit by clicking here). In that edition, I more or less lambasted the film industry for its reliance upon remakes of previous works to sustain itself. It's been a trend of theirs for upwards of a decade now to take an aging property and put it in a shiny new wrapper in order to sell that product to a new generation of moviegoers. I continue to ask the question: Why do this? What's the point of overwriting an existing movie with an updated version? Is there something so wrong with those movies that they can't be left as is? What did they ever do to you, huh?

I targeted 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes specifically in that blog as it came off to me as being a terribly unnecessary effort seeing as how there had already been one attempt to relaunch the Planet of the Apes mythology ten years earlier with Tim Burton leading Mark Wahlberg into a film that some thought was okay but most felt was rather iffy at best. Burton's incarnation was strong, visually speaking, however the plot was convoluted as it involved concepts of religion versus science and the conclusion was an absolutely ridiculous try at recapturing the twist ending of the original film.

Here again I ask did the world really need either of these movies? No, it didn't, quite frankly, although I will admit that Andy Serkis' work in Rise is quite worthy of praise. There is a film from my childhood that could greatly benefit from a remake, though, as it is one that made significant use of computer generated imagery when that sort of technology was in its infancy. (Much like TRON, but the film I'm talking about believe it or not was released prior to Disney's tech-driven masterpiece.) With the kind of magic that modern artists can create using digital techniques, a director with enough passion to treat the project seriously, and a cast that's believable in their roles I feel like this could be an opportunity to create a true epic.

Hollywood, I humbly request that you remake - The Last Starfighter!

If you've never seen The Last Starfighter and you're in your late 20s to early 30s, I immediately want to question the quality of your childhood. I might go so far as to encourage you to call your parents and tell them they failed you, as a matter of fact.

For me, The Last Starfighter is a movie that is remarkable in that it represents the era of film making from which it came (meaning that it's still watchable even though the special effects aren't that fantastic compared to what's possible today) and because of the fact that it has all the makings of a great piece of science fiction. There were a handful of movies that came out around the same time as TLS in the mid-1980s that I, to this day, can sit down and watch with glee because they're just that awesome. TLS, Flight of the Navigator, Space Camp, Explorers - put me in front of a television with those films playing back to back and you can forget about me doing anything productive for the rest of the day.

The plot of The Last Starfighter revolves around a young man named Alex Rogan played by actor Lance Guest, who you may also know from such films as Halloween 2 and JAWS: The Revenge (I'm somewhat ashamed that I used to really like JAWS: The Revenge - I blame Michael Caine's small but poignant role in the movie for that). Alex is a small town teenager who lives in a trailer park with his Mom, Jane (Barbara Bosson) and younger brother, Louis (Chris Hebert). Alex is a handyman at the trailer park and because of his responsibilities to the tenants thereof he doesn't have the most superlative social life. When he's not working or at home with his family, he spends most of his free time either with his girlfriend Maggie (Catherine Mary Stewart) or playing an arcade game called Starfighter. Alex has become tremendously skilled at the game - his abilities have not gone unnoticed by the population of the trailer park, and a few other folks who aren't exactly locals have taken note as well.

As it turns out, Starfighter is actually a testing platform deployed by an alliance of alien races known as the Rylan Star League whose base of operations exists on their home world of Rylos. It's purpose is to identify any nearby players who may be qualified to pilot Gunstars - think an F-14 Tomcat fighter jet but intended for use in outer space. The Rylans are engaged in war with the Ko-Dan Empire; they've heretofore relied upon a defensive array of satellites which they refer to as the Frontier in order to protect themselves from the Ko-Dan armada. The Ko-Dan are being aided by Xur, a Rylan traitor who has given the Ko-Dan a means to circumvent the Frontier thereby endangering all of Rylos and its inhabitants.

Having displayed great aptitude while playing Starfighter, Alex is recruited by the Star League. At first Alex is reluctant to accept the great burden that's been put upon him - it isn't until his family are attacked by a shape-shifting Ko-Dan assassin that he realizes if these evil forces aren't stopped now it will only be a matter of time before they make their way to Earth.

There were two major problems with The Last Starfighter, as I see it: 1) Filmmaking technology of the time didn't allow for a fully realized interpretation of the story, and 2) there wasn't enough effort put into making the audience care about the Rylans. The former is something that can easily be remedied these days seeing as how I think most Art Institute students are required to do a project involving spaceships and various planetoids during the first semester of their freshman year. This is the sort of thing that's old bag by now, is what I mean to say, and what's more I don't think there's a whole lot that needs to be done in the way of re-imagining the Gunstar or the Ko-Dan armada. The designs themselves are unique enough to still be workable, but that's not to say that they couldn't use a little "beefing up" in order to take advantage of the kind of graphical rendering engines in use by Hollywood now.

An updated interpretation of a Gunstar

Regarding the Rylan's and the fact that I, for one, never truly cared all that much about them as a kid watching The Last Starfighter, I don't feel as though there was an occasion where we as an audience see how genuinely evil the Ko-Dan are. We're spectators to the action, meaning we need a visible and hopefully obvious reason to dislike a villain. We never get that in the original version of the film - for that matter, it isn't until the Ko-Dan show up on Earth that Alex, the would-be hero of the Frontier, seems to care all that much about what happens on Rylos. That's kind of a dick move (I will say that the Rylan's didn't exactly inspire Alex to join their cause by chanting "VICTORY OR DEATH!" as he and the other Gunstar crew members are being briefed), but it's not his fault that the movie was written the way that it was.

Casting this remake is the real challenge as there are several roles within this mythology that require younger players and quite frankly I'm not all that up on the who's who amongst the youth of Hollywood. That said, here's my ideal cast for a remake of The Last Starfighter.

Alex Rogan - Josh Hutcherson

Most avid movie-watchers will recognize Josh Hutcherson from his role as Peeta in the Hunger Games, a franchise which is as hot as any. His involvement there will no doubt secure him a position of adulation from fans of the series and create an opportunity for him to go on to bigger roles in the future, roles where he'll be the lead and not a supporting character.

He's an ideal choice for the part. He's the right age and he has that classic, all-American look about him in that he's handsome but without the overbearingly good looks of a model.

The issue that I can see erupting from attempting to cast Josh as Alex is the notion that he may not, as an artist, want to dedicate himself to the realm of science fiction by getting involved with another project that could potentially grow into two or three pictures. He may want to delve into more dramatic waters and I can certainly understand that. It doesn't seem like he's quite to that point yet, though, seeing as how he's been willingly attached to the Journey to the Center of the Earth series for the better part of a decade. Getting on board with this production of The Last Starfighter would be a big step up from that and a great shot for him to show his range as a potential leading man.

Maggie Gordon - Anna Kendrick

Have you ever watched a movie that you thought you were going to hate only to come away from it having thoroughly enjoyed the experience? That was me after having watched the 2012 musical comedy Pitch Perfect - a film about rival glee clubs at a university competing for notoriety and, of course, love. Anna Kendrick starred in that movie and I've been a fan of hers ever since.

The role of Maggie isn't a terribly involved one, or at least it wasn't in the original version of TLS. She was more or less an area of concern for Beta Alex, which was a robotic clone of Alex left behind by the Rylans that was intended to keep his family and friends from realizing the real Alex was gone.

If you ask me (and you inadvertently did by starting to read this blog), Kendrick is ideal for this role as it would get her out of the realm of musicals and into something with a greater scope. In this version of TLS, I'd like to see her part highlighted by increased involvement in some way. The trick is getting around a premise of the plot which really leads into the potentiality for there to be more than just one film here seeing as how the original version of TLS ends (*SPOILER ALERT*) with Alex and Maggie flying off into the twilight in a Gunstar bound for Rylos, which is still in need of defending.

Lord Kril - Ron Perlman

I don't know anyone who doesn't dig Ron Perlman. The guy is the quintessential dual-threat as he has been blessed with amazing acting abilities but also one of the most recognizable and commanding voices in Hollywood. Add to those the fact that he doesn't seem to mind roles requiring intensive make-up effects and you've got precisely the man need to play Lord Kril.

In the original version of TLS, Lord Kril doesn't do much other than stand around at a command module and look imposing. That's kind of the Ko-Dan as a whole, to be frank - you never see them doing much other than laboring away at their individual stations (although I guess that makes sense since they're a fleet instead of ground-based). That would change in my version of TLS as the Ko-Dan should be a genuinely frightening example of what an intergalactic alien military force could be, and Kril should be the absolute worst of them. Not in a sense that he's a slimy, misshapen creature, rather that he's an ugly, intense, intelligent, and driven being whose black heart (assuming the Ko-Dan have hearts, that is) is filled with the need to lay waste to those who would refuse to bow down to his might.

Perlman has the perfect combination of an already imposing look with the added bonus of being able to rattle the windows with his one-of-a-kind voice. Get him into some updated make-up for Kril (I prefer practical make-up as opposed to trying to do the character with CGI) and he'll be ready to go to the set.

Centauri - Jeffrey Dean Morgan

I am somewhat embarassed to admit that I tend to get JDM confused with Javier Bardem. They do have a resemblance to one another, you have to admit.

Regardless of my cognitive issues, Morgan is my pick for Centauri because of the fact that I would want to reconfigure the character so that he's more of a covert agent of Rylos, for lack of a better descriptor. I can see him getting involved in some grittier action with K-Dan assassins than his predecessor Robert Preston did (who was 66 years old when TLS was released; sadly, he would pass away a mere 3 years later after having developed lung cancer), and being able to pull off the physical aspects of the role thanks to his size and physique. While Centauri isn't necessarily the leader of the Rylans, in my mind for the sake of the story he's Lord Kril's foil in terms of being the Batman to his Joker, if you catch my meaning.

Morgan has established himself as being able to handle this kind of work thanks to his being involved with The Losers, a movie I got a real kick out of and have always thought was under-appreciated. People know him from Grey's Anatomy and various other TV projects, but in the realm of geek-dom he's most loved for having brought life to the Comedian, an essential character in The Watchmen.

Grig - Simon Pegg

I, like a lot of other folks, have been a huge fan of Simon Pegg ever since he and Nick Frost graced the screen together as a bumbling pair of English guys trying to survive the zombie apocalypse in Shaun of the Dead. Pegg has such a unique comedic delivery and a fantastic ability to emote - he's the only one I'd want playing Grig, a reptilian alien who's an engineer responsible for maintaining the vital systems on board the Gunstar he and Alex will be piloting. He's the R2D2 of TLS, if you will.

Grig is the kind of character that most studios would likely want to produce using CGI. I feel like a broken record here, but I think CGI would be a real waste of talent in regard to Pegg seeing as how his capability to breathe life into the character would be removed by way of not physically being involved. I don't want him for his voice, I want him because I want him to be Grig.

I have to take a moment to mention actor Dan O'Herlihy, who played Grig in the original TLS. O'Herlihy isn't a household name but he's been in a handful of movies that count among some of my favorites, those being The Last Starfighter and RoboCop 1 & 2. He also has the distinction of having been in Halloween 3: Season of the Witch, a movie that gets brought up all the time as being one of the worst horror films ever made. It had nothing to do with Michael Myers, so in the realm of that franchise you've got 1, 2, 3 which is completely irrelevant to everything else Halloween, 4, 5, and what have you. It made no sense whatsoever, other than to try and take advantage of the Halloween name.

Xur - Benedict Cumberbatch

In terms of actors who reached "flavor of the week" status in 2013, Benedict Cumberbatch was close to the top of the list. His breakout performance as Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness was an astounding piece of work as he managed to do what few thespians tasked with handling the role of a villain can do, that being make the audience understand his inspirations thereby creating an antagonist who is identifiable and sympathetic but still terrifying.

Much like Heath Ledger did with his brilliant work as the Joker in The Dark Knight, Cumberbatch made moviegoers be at times more interested in the charismatic villain than they were in the heroes of the cast. Having said that, I don't want him to do that with Xur - quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. Xur is the kind of guy who is desperate for power and he's willing to do anything up to and including exterminating his own home world to get it. He's a slimy, backstabbing curse upon those who would've otherwise been his friends and family, all because of the fact that in his mind he should be the one running the show.

Much like the praise I gave to Ron Perlman earlier in this piece, Cumberbatch is worthy of recognition for his vocal abilities. His voice has a lot in common with that of Jeremy Irons, to my ears. This is the sort of God-given talent that you just can't develop and it adds so much to his repertoire as a performer.

An aspect of The Last Starfighter that I have always adored is the score. TLS was made at a point in time where composers like John Williams were crafting iconic themes for movies such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones. In that same vein is the work of Craig Safan who has the distinction, in my eyes, of having been essentially a one-hit wonder when it comes to his career of making music for movies. He turned in a real masterpiece for TLS in delivering as classic a theme as any and has more or less done nothing else all that worthy of note since then. With that in mind, I do not think there's much that could be done in trying to improve what he's already assembled other than to refresh the arrangement. No, that doesn't mean translating it over to dub step - that would be the antithesis of what I'm trying to accomplish here. All I'm looking for is a modern take on the theme.

It goes without saying that I think this has the makings of a real hit. (Of course, I'm biased, but if ever there was an arena where cheering on the home team is to be expected it's here within the confines of my own blog!) To me, The Last Starfighter deserves a second chance - not to say that the original film is bad, rather that it could be better than it is without necessarily disposing of what's come before. There's a certain amount of hero worship in this, you see, because people like me care enough about the source material to want new eyes to see it just with a clearer sense of vision and a renewed purpose.

10 Things That Will Help You Survive a Walt Disney World Vacation

My wife and I have just recently returned to the "real world" after having spent a week at the All-Star Sports Resort at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. It was a fantastic trip - a truly magical combination of experiences and happenings that we're both incredibly happy and humbled to have been able to take part in. This was our second trip to the House that the Mouse built (as a couple, that is) and by now we consider ourselves to be seasoned veterans when it comes to being a guest therein. We know the ins & outs of what there is to be had and, what's more, I'd like to think that we know how to make the best of any situation we might encounter.

I bring that last bit up because of the fact that one of the prevailing memories I have from this particular trek are the folks we saw who did not look like they were having a good time at all. (In my opinion, not having fun is a difficult thing to do around those parts - I sincerely believe that if you're having a bad time at Disney you're probably the one to blame.) From the sourpuss expressions to children screaming in disagreement, from grown-ups arguing with each other to kids in strollers being unwittingly used as battering rams to get through crowds, my wife and I have pretty well seen the worst of what being at Disney World can bring out in people. To be quite honest, it's kind of scary. Case in point, we witnessed a family squabble over how a check for a meal would be divvied up while having dinner at Liberty Tree Tavern in the Magic Kingdom and we also saw a couple get into a physical altercation while at Epcot Center.

Walt Disney World, despite all its beauty and grand assemblage, can be trying on a person's constitution. On any given day you're likely to be dealing with massive crowds, humid weather, transit issues, and ride queues with waits so long that you could conceivably pass the time by catching up on episodes of your favorite TV shows.

That said, instead of putting together a recap of our vacation in blog form (which I sort of did last year after our first Walt Disney World vacation - click here for that entry, then skip down to the section titled "Walt Disney World is Awesome") I thought I would do my best to share some tips with you, dear reader, on how you can best make your way through time spent in "the happiest place on Earth" without developing a sincere desire to commit an act of violence upon a member of your own family.

10) Bring Only What You Need To Survive

If you get the reference, give yourself 10 points and a gold star for the day

With this, I'm talking about stuff but I'm relating the point to two environments. The first is what you bring with you on vacation in general. Clothes, toiletries, medication - essential items necessary for each of us to function from one day to the next. The second and arguably more important point is what you bring with you when you go to the theme parks.

Almost every group or family that comes into the theme parks has at least one individual burdened with carrying a backpack of some variety. Bringing a backpack is a great idea. You can keep all your stuff together in one neat and fashionable package. However, problems arise when people bring more than what they need.

Don't bring your iPhone, your iPad, your biggest, thickest jacket, 3 pairs of flip flops, 9 bags of chips, a copy of War & Peace, and a 6 pack of Diet Dr. Pepper. Leave that crap at home - you're going to the Magic Kingdom, not on an aid mission to Haiti, for crying out loud. Along these same lines, I'll point out that any bag brought into the theme parks is subject to inspection prior to entry, meaning if you bring a bag expect it to be searched before you get so far as the ticket booth.

So what do you need? In the case of my wife and I, that's 2 bottles of water (you can bring in bottled water so long as it's sealed), our cameras, and a wallet. (Yes, we have our cell phones but we usually keep them in a pocket as you want to have quick access to it for photos and video or whenever the urgent need to tweet sets in.) That's a fairly light load, which isn't a bad thing because it means the person carrying the bag isn't going to be worn out from lugging it before lunch and it will also leave room to store any acquired baggage like purchases. Depending on the day and the park you're visiting, necessities might also include things like a change of clothes, a towel, rain gear, sun block, etc.

The bag also makes a difference. Your average backpack is great, but I would suggest something made from nylon as it's resistant to moisture and stains. We carry a Sitka Gearslinger made by Maxpedition - it's a great bag that's come in handy for a number of years.

9) Footwear is Your Friend

It's hot in Florida about 90% of the year. By "hot", I mean the temperature is at or above 85° and that's not even considering the sort of humidity you can expect to encounter which only exacerbates the situation. Sandals and flip-flops may sound like a good idea, however I would contend that they're actually a horrible choice if you're going to be spending your days pounding the pavement at the theme parks.

Running or cross training shoes are a great choice as they provide cushion and support. They also grant protection against things like rain (as well as other forms of moisture) and debris but also stroller strikes (more on strollers later) and sunburn. (Trust me when I say that you should consider yourself lucky if you've never had sunburn on your feet - it happened to me on our honeymoon!) Additionally, I will say that investing in good socks with padded soles can really do great things for your feet.

SIDE NOTE: I had the misfortune of coming down with what's referred to as golfer's vasculitis during our most recent trip. I include this here because golfer's vasculitis is a randomly occurring heat rash that typically affects the lower extremities of golfers but also commonly affects that of visitors to Walt Disney World. It happened to me the day we were at Epcot Center; I noticed the trademark red splotches and that my ankles were swelling. By the time we got back to our room, I'd begun to have chills. I was slightly worried about what was happening but as it turns out this is something you more or less just have to endure as it will eventually go away on its own.

8) Buses Be Crazy

My wife & I choose to stay on the Walt Disney World property at one of the resorts. One of the biggest benefits to doing this is the fact that you have free transportation to any of the Disney facilities provided to you in the form of a transit system of buses, boats, and monorails that will ferry you to and fro at no additional cost. You can literally park your car and not drive again for the entire duration of your stay (so long as you don't desire to leave the compound, as it were). Every morning we would look forward to boarding a bus near the lobby of our resort as we knew it wouldn't be long before we'd be at the front door of the park we'd be visiting that day. Each resort has its own designated bus stop with pick-up points for each of the theme parks; in turn, the theme parks have pick-up points for each of the resorts and, in some cases, certain of the other parks as well.

As great as the transportation services are, they are not without their share of quirks. The buses don't run on a schedule but there are enough of them in circulation that you can count on one showing up at a given pick-up/drop off point at least once every 20 minutes. That doesn't mean you're guaranteed a spot on said bus, though, as there are often situations during busier times where a bus will fill up. That said, we find that it's usually best practice to allow yourself a 30-45 minute window based on where you want to be and when for bus service.

The tricky aspect of Disney transportation is when you wind up having to transfer from your resort to a theme park in order to get to another resort. This happened to us this year on one evening in particular as we had dinner reservations for the Hoop-Dee-Doo Musical Revue at Pioneer Hall in the Fort Wilderness Lodge. To get to Fort Wilderness we would first take a bus from our resort over to the Magic Kingdom, and from the Magic Kingdom we took a boat to Fort Wilderness. We thought we were going to have to take another bus but Pioneer Hall wound up being within walking distance of where the boat dropped us off. We made it to where we were going in time, but the point of this is to say that leaving early is a good idea because you never know when delays might crop up.

Believe me when I say that these buses will take on passengers until they are nearly bursting at the seams. The Disney buses are equipped with handrails that are intended to let patrons stand in the aisles safely while riding. I wound up standing quite a bit during our most recent trip; it's not that bad, although I will point out that these buses don't exactly stop on a dime. When the driver engages the brakes, you'd best be holding on tightly else you're going to wind up in someone's lap or on the floor.

If you get into a hurry, though, and you feel like you'd be best served by driving to wherever it is you're going on the grounds, as a resort guest you do receive complementary parking at each of the parks. The only issue here is the fact that you don't get any kind of preferential parking, meaning you might get to the park quicker but you might also wind up in a lot about a mile from the front gate.

7) Hygiene, Please

I can't think of a gentle lead-in to this comment. Some people stink and I don't know whether or not they realize it. Several times during our most recent trip we would be in amongst a crowd of people and I found myself overcome with the stench of body odor. I'm talking about the kind of funk that not even an entire can of Axe body spray could cover up.

Before I go further, I know there are medical conditions that can cause a person to give off an odor; I'm not talking to those individuals. There's a difference between having an ailment and having poor hygiene. This is to the people who either don't bathe or think they can get one more wear out of their favorite shirt even though they had it on when the rode the Khali River Rapids and that was 2 days ago. If you're staying in a Disney resort, there's no reason for you not to bathe with soap and shampoo at least once a day because every room gets stocked daily with plenty of both. Please do the rest of us a favor - give yourself the classic "pit sniff" test and if you get a whiff of something foul, take 10 minutes to scrub off the cheese before you forcibly introduce your musk to the rest of us.

6) Don't Be Normal

How often do you get a chance to cut loose these days? Chances are if you're a working stiff like most of us are, the answer is not nearly often enough.

That's one of the best parts about being on vacation, and on a Disney vacation it gets even better. Where else in the world is it okay for a grown man to wear a set of mouse ears? Or a baseball hat shaped like Pluto? Or to have their picture taken with characters like Buzz Lightyear and Mr. Incredible?

Vacation is about having fun and there are very few occasions in the real world to do the sort of things that being in Walt Disney World allow. Did you grow up adoring a certain character? Go out of your way to get to a character meeting involving them! (Trust me when I say that the characters do an amazing job of creating a unique, one-on-one encounter with everyone they meet.) Bring silly t-shirts, wear Crocs with socks every day, or something of the sort - take full advantage of the opportunity, in other words, because when you leave it's back to wearing the monkey suit (a phrase I use to affectionately refer to the sort of clothes I'm expected to wear to work).

5) "Value" is NOT Synonymous With "Cheap"

I think people have the opinion that taking a Walt Disney World vacation is only slightly less expensive than taking a trip to the moon. I don't know where this comes from because the truth of the matter is that we've been able to do it two years straight now and at a tremendous bargain.

I will be upfront in saying that the time of year you want to visit the Mouse will dictate greatly the kind of offers that are available for staying in the resorts. For example, we have gone the week of Veteran's Day for two reasons: 1) We both have Veteran's Day as one of our paid holidays, and 2) by booking that time of year we were able to get a package that included the cost of staying in the resort, theme park tickets, and a free dining plan. Yes, you read that last part right - a FREE dining plan.

For our trips, we've thus far opted to stay in what Disney refers to as their "value" resorts (we were in the Pop Century Resort last year and this year we were at the All-Star Sports Resort), which puts them at the bottom of the spectrum as they also offer "moderate" and "deluxe" accommodations. Trust me when I tell you that this is a great way to save money. Sure, you could opt for nicer digs, but the fact of the matter is that we are typically in our room long enough to sleep, bathe, and get dressed. (PRO-TIP: All hotel rooms look the same when your eyes are closed!) The rest of the time we're out and about enjoying our vacation. Why pay more for a higher-end room?

The view from our front door at the Touchdown building of Disney's All-Star Sports Resort

What's more, I don't find there to be that big of a difference between the moderate and value rooms, at least not the ones I've experienced. I stayed in the Coronado Springs resort in 2008 when I was attending a conference - it's a moderate resort and I could not tell you anything about that room which was superior to the ones we've had on our recent vacations. All the rooms I've seen have been spacious and equipped with all the necessary amenities (including refrigerators).

I mentioned the free dining plan. In selecting a value resort, the offer included a free dining plan featuring what Disney calls "quick service" meals, which is more or less their descriptor for fast food. (If we'd have selected a moderate or deluxe resort we'd have gotten what they call "table service" meals, which involves more traditional, sit-down and order style restaurants.) The plan gives each guest an allotment of meals and snacks; in this situation, we received 2 meals and 1 snack per day which was fine for us as we brought breakfast items like Pop Tarts with us and kept them in our room. Don't let that fool you, though. Just because it's fast food doesn't mean all you have to choose from is hamburgers and hot dogs (although you could conceivably get that). When we were at Epcot Center we had lunch at the Seasons restaurant that's located inside The Land pavilion. My wife had a bone-in, seared pork chop that was probably 1.5 inches thick smothered in a tomato barbeque sauce and served with garlic mashed potatoes. She also had her beverage and a strawberry shortcake desert. It was the kind of meal that would've cost you upwards of $20 in a steakhouse but it cost us absolutely nothing! That's just one example of the kind of food you can expect to encounter while at Disney.

This was my lunch at Be Our Guest - IT WAS FREE!

We had a 7-day reservation with a 5-day theme park ticket package. So how much did all this vacationing actually cost us?

Right at $1,300.

You can't get a hotel room for a week in most resort towns for that kind of money and yet we had our room, our park tickets, and we got fed. Also, since we booked in advance we were able to pay an initial deposit of $200 then we had up until 90 days prior to our vacation to pay off the balance. It takes some budgeting and planning, but the point of all this is to say that YES, you can take your family to Disney without breaking the bank!

4) Pace Yourself

Something that any seasoned Disney veteran will tell you as a beginner is that it's important to understand in advance just how much there is to do and see at any of the theme parks. There is so much more to these facilities than what one day will allow for, even with certain of them opening early and staying operational later for resort guests. (Did I mention that if you stay in the resort you get access to Extra Magic Hours, a program wherein at least one park opens early and/or stays open late just for resort guests? No? Well, there, I did it.) The fact of the matter is you've got to have goals for your day and you've got to understand that you will get eaten alive by the grandiose nature of the thing if you try to do too much.

You'll see it on the faces of your fellow guests. It's a look that is equal parts 3-day binge hangover and post-awesome sex fatigue. Their bodies are utterly exhausted and yet they ache for more of what's put them into said condition.

How do you avoid this? (I know some of you reading this might not want to, given my description; that's fine, just pack plenty of energy drinks and consider getting a B-12 injection.) It may be unavoidable but the best means I've discovered are to set realistic expectations for your day. Make a list of the attractions you're most interested in experiencing, like a top 3-5, and have that as your goal. Anything you do on top of that is thick, luscious icing on top of an already bountiful cake.

Another part of this discussion is the concept of overexertion. I don't care if you're a triathlete, you're going to get tired while you're at Disney. It's vital that you take a few moments each day to rest and recover. Sit on a bench and get in a bit of people watching (trust me, it's more entertaining than it sounds). There are water fountains everywhere - use them in lieu of drinking 15 Cokes a day and stay hydrated.

3) Plan Ahead

It wasn't that long ago that Disney World guests were more or less forced to wing it in terms of trying to plot out their adventures with a schedule. You had to wait until you arrived on property to get an idea of what the park hours were, what were the show times, and if there were any ride closures to be concerned about. That's not the case anymore as Disney has done some fantastic things in making smartphone users the kings of their own virtual kingdoms.

Near the end of 2012, Disney launched the My Disney Experience app for Android and iPhone (sadly, and for whatever reason, no version exists for Windows phones). The app allows resort guests to manage literally every aspect of their vacation - from dining reservations to ride wait times, it's all in there.

Before I go further, I feel like I need to describe that for almost every attraction (meaning rides as well as shows) there are two lines - standby and FastPass+. Standby is your traditional first come, first served queue. FastPass+ is a line only accessible by patrons who have booked a reserved spot on a ride during a given time frame (usually an hour). Everyone gets the same ride experience, however FastPass+ patrons get preferred access when it comes to who gets seated first. In other words, if I'm a standby patron I might have to wait 30-45 minutes to get on a ride whereas if I'm a FastPass+ patron  I might have to wait 5-10 minutes to get on a ride.

"How does one get this FastPass+?", you ask. Read on, dear reader!

FastPass+ is an evolution of Disney's original FastPass system which saw park guests use their ticket in order to access a kiosk nearby a given attraction that would then spit out a paper ticket with a time on it. This time was when you, as a patron, were guaranteed a quick jump to the front of the line. Problem is and always has been the fact that only so many FastPass-es and FastPass+-es get issued per day. What that means is that preferred access to particularly popular rides is sometimes difficult if not impossible to get. In turn, this means a patron might wind up spending upwards of an hour waiting to get on a ride. This is especially true for one ride in particular, Toy Story Midway Mania at Disney's Hollywood Studios. It's a fun ride but FastPass-es for it are almost always gone within an hour of the park opening and the standby line is commonly posted as being anywhere from an hour to 90 minutes.

(SIDE NOTE: Is it a fair system? Kind of, but not really. It's been implemented in the hope that more patrons get to partake in more experiences, but I think it's wound up being a deal where more people spend more time in one line as opposed to less time in 5 lines.)

Using the app and FastPass+, patrons can schedule a window of time during which they'll be able to access a ride weeks in advance. All but gone are the days of having to run from one ride to another as soon as you get inside a park - the older paper ticket kiosks are still there for some attractions but they're in the process of being phased out. You'll more than likely still have a brief wait even with FastPass+ reservations but it will be significantly less than that of the poor sods relegated to kicking it in the standby line.

Trust me when I tell you that my wife had a ball in using this app as she was able to secure for us a range of FastPass+ reservations. The fact that it can provide up to the second wait times for rides as well as use GPS to locate your exact position on a map of the park makes it the perfect companion for a trip to any of the Disney parks and a great tool for scheduling your day.

2) Realize That Unique is Often Better Than Expensive

I mentioned earlier how much our vacation cost us. I think we're fairly frugal people and we like to get the most bang for our buck. It goes without saying, though, that if you want to do so you can spend untold thousands of dollars on a vacation like this (between your room, food, purchases, and other amenities). The thing is, just because you spent a lot of money doesn't mean you got the most out of your opportunity or, perhaps more importantly, that you were able to make lasting, valuable memories with people you love.

One of my favorite moments from our 2013 vacation was when we took several classes at the Animation Academy within Disney's Hollywood Studios. DHS when it first opened was called Disney-MGM Studios; the partnership with MGM eventually soured and they were dropped from inclusion. At one point in the history of the park, inside of it existed a functional animation studio - this was back when animators made cartoons and films using pencils, paper, paint, and cells. That studio has since been emptied of its easels, but the spirit of animation survives as in its place now sits the Animation Academy where park guests can come to learn how to draw some of their favorite Disney characters.

The classes are about 20 minutes in length and they feature instruction from an actual Disney animator. They don't cost anything extra, either, as it's included in standard park admission. If you can't draw at all you're more than likely not going to come out of the class as a Rembrandt but at the very least you'll come away from it with your own drawing, however good or bad it may be. More importantly, as was the case for my wife & I, you'll leave with a fresh set of memories involving time spent doing something fun and unique with a person (or people) you adore. It's the kind of experience that tends to get lost in all the hubbub of a vacation like this - I'm glad we took the time to make it a part of our plans.

1) Exercise Patience

You can ruin a Disney vacation by not observing just a little bit of patience. To that end, there are three things you have to accept when on a Walt Disney World vacation.

1. At some point during your stay, you will suffer an injury to your lower extremities as a result of having been struck by a stroller or motorized wheelchair (I'm convinced that certain people use these devices more as battering rams to make their way through crowds than as a method of conveyance)
2. You will spend significantly more time waiting to get on rides than you will spend on said rides
3. You're in the same boat as the guy or girl next to you - no point in whining or arguing because none of that will make it better

What I'm getting at here, especially with the third item in that list, is the notion that the lines and delays are unavoidable. You have to accept it but you can also do something about it. Play a game on your phone that's good for a group (we saw several folks playing Heads Up!), have random and rambling conversations about nothing in particular, or debate the subtleties of how Episodes I-III of the Star Wars franchise would've been better (or worse) if Jar-Jar Binks had been killed early on in a horribly bloody lightsaber accident. It's not that hard, and chances are once you get the ball rolling your time spent in queue won't seem that bad because you've got something to effectively occupy the time.

When we were on our 2012 vacation, we saw two families almost get into a fist fight while at the Magic Kingdom waiting to see the Main Street Electrical Parade. They were arguing over the fact that one group had taken up a position that was in front of the other. Maybe it's just me, but that didn't seem like grounds for a man to verbally threaten a woman with physical violence. The whole scene could've been avoided if cooler heads had prevailed - as it was, we wound up watching the parade on eggshells wondering when the first punch was going to be thrown.

Things happen on vacation just as they do when you're at home or at work. Don't be overly dramatic about it, whatever may come. Room keys malfunction, MagicBands don't always work, and occasionally the lady at the lunch counter serves you up a chicken sandwich instead of a bacon cheeseburger. Deal with it with tact and professionalism, not drama and spite. It frustrates me to no end to watch grown men and women make a scene out of an issue that's not exactly life-altering in its scope. You may think Walt Disney himself has something against you but I can assure he doesn't.

In wrapping this up, let me reiterate an opinion of ours that I hope has permeated this blog - when it comes to vacation destinations, we'd sooner go to Walt Disney World than just about anywhere else. Even going two years in a row as we have, we've managed to find new things to do and enjoy while also revisiting our favorite attractions. I don't know that we'll be back in 2014 but if we receive a similar offer we'll definitely consider it. Otherwise, and Lord willing, we may find ourselves on another big boat floating somewhere out in the Caribbean.