A Magical Adventure

Hi friends! It's been a while, huh? My last blog post was over four months ago in January. That was right before I started working in Walt Disney World...

Hold up. Did I just say Disney World? Oh yeah, I did! Sorry about that, I still can't really believe it happened!

You see, I applied for the Disney College Program last fall. I was accepted. I took a semester off school to go have the adventure of working at the Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida! What an adventure it was.

Going into it, I had no idea what role I would play in the grand show that is Disney World. Would I like my job? Would I be required to wear an embarrassing costume? The only thing I knew for sure was that I would be working main entrance operations. I prayed that I wouldn't be stuck driving a parking tram or working the entrance to a water park. I mean, those things are fine and good (driving a parking tram might actually be pretty fun!), but it wouldn't be the same as working in one of the parks.

It was with great, great delight that I learned on the day I checked in to the apartment complex that I would be working main entrance operations at the Magic Kingdom! As things progressed and I completed Traditions and several rounds of training, I discovered my specific roles were Park Greeter and PAC (Parade Audience Control). I also decided, after talking with many people in many different roles, that Magic Kingdom Park Greeter is arguably one of the best roles offered to Disney College Program participants.

In the Park Greeter role I was generally stationed at a turnstile at the main entrance to the Magic Kingdom. I had a vague idea of what a turnstile was before I started, but just in case you don't know, here's what it looks like:

You know, those clunky silver things, where you put your
 ticket in the slot, put your finger on the scanner, and then
 walk through the spinning arm. That's a turnstile!

Disney is also trying to do away with the turnstiles in favor of a more open, family friendly approach to park entry. They've started transforming the park entry points to these "touchpoints":

Sorry it's all noisy - iPhone camera at night, what would you
expect? I just walked up to take a picture of the touchpoints
 as I was leaving the park one night, and seeing as I knew
everyone who was working that night, they decided to make
my picture a little more fun!

These touchpoints are pretty cool, and make it a lot easier for families (especially families with strollers or wheelchairs) to come into the park. I frequently worked these in addition to the turnstiles.

There were various other tasks that I performed, especially during a closing shift (they say your CP status, which means College Program, actually stand for "Closing Person", since CPs get lots of closing shifts). Cleaning the turnstiles, putting the covers on, taking out the dirty towels that were used during the day, cleaning the break room. Can you tell I closed a lot? 1am, 2am, even 4am were pretty normal times to get off work.

The best and most coveted task for Park Greeters is stocking maps in the two tunnels that lead to Main Street, USA. This task involves walking backstage and wheeling out a cart filled with maps. You go to the map racks and make sure they're all filled 3/4 of the way full. If you fill them all the way, when someone grabs a map a whole stack will fall out since they're all squished together. It always was a competition to see who would get the maps task. How I loved seeing maps pop up when getting a new task!

Here's a photo of me in my Park Greeter costume:

I'm the one on the far right!
These are some of my fellow CPs who frequently closed with me.
From the left: Sarah, Matt, Nichole, Lauren, and I.
You guys are the best!

My other role was PAC. I was trained on PAC in early February, and I was scheduled four PAC shifts right after training. After those four shifts, I wasn't scheduled another PAC shift until my very last week of the program, in May! I think I was more of a Park Greeter person anyway - but an even mix of the two would have been nice!

PAC is interesting because for each shift you are put in a different position. There are positions all the way down the parade route, so there are many, many positions. PAC shifts are either PAC South, meaning Main Street all the way up to the Liberty Square bridge, or PAC West, which is Liberty Square to Frontierland.

The first thing you do on a PAC shift is attend the short pre-parade meeting, usually held two hours before the parade you'll be working. You will be assigned your position for the parade and given any additional info you may need (i.e. whether there are any bands/cheerleader groups preceding the parade, things to look out for, etc.). Then you grab the cart with the stanchions and ropes for your position and wheel it out to the proper location. Once you set them up properly, you wait for the parade. At about five minutes before the parade starts, the PAC team begins clearing the street, ensuring guests are on the sidewalk and no one is standing in front of trashcans, no video camera lights are on, and all guests are behind the appropriate rope and tape lines. During the parade you continue to monitor guests, watching especially for "runners", people who would risk their lives to cross the street or grab a piece of confetti in front of the parade floats. "Risking their lives" may sound like an overstatement, but it really isn't. Would you cross a busy street in front of a gigantic, heavy vehicle driven by someone with limited visibility, even if it was slow-moving? Don't do it! This has been a public safety announcement brought to you by the Walt Disney World PAC team :-)

But that brings up a good point - PAC is all about guest safety. Unfortunately some guests don't appreciate that. PAC cast members experience a lot of not-so-nice guest interactions from people who don't want to stand in the tape lines, don't want to obey the rules put in place for their safety. That's when you get help from another PAC cast member or a coordinator - and that's also when you bond with your co-workers, backing each other up and working as a team. That's one of the great things about PAC - you really feel like a part of a team, part of a family.

The PAC costume was my favorite - it's so dapper!

Me and my good friend "Japanois" Jamie.

On the West side the ropes are rolled out and in on rolls that people wear:

Felicia! Thanks for all your help and reassurance when I rolled!

I had the position of roller for the first time on my last day of work! I was so thankful to work alongside of experienced PAC cast members who helped me so much during that last day. 

On my days off I would visit the parks with some of the great friends I made! It was always a blast. Some of our exploits included riding Kali River Rapids four times in a row and getting drenched, visiting each of the four parks in one day, a Big Thunder Mountain Railroad marathon (once during Wishes!), visiting Chef Mickey's and laughing our heads off when we took a "family" photo, visiting "The Bench" late one night just to say we did it. So many good memories! Here is some picture evidence:

Arggh, pirates we be! Me, Anthony, and Dallin. You two rock!

We smile even when we are being blown away in a balloon! Angela, Patrick, Robert,
Dallin, Franny, me, Kevin, and Erika. Thanks for such a fun time, y'all!

The Bench. Erika, Robert, Tori, Dallin, Patrick, and me. We did it!

Sometimes all my friends would be working, however, and I'd visit the parks alone. I enjoyed this too, but for a different reason. I learned that I photograph things best when I am alone and there is no one to keep up with. Then I have the freedom to really look, experiment with different angles, and draw out the most beauty from a scene. I got some photos that I am very pleased with, especially since I shot exclusively with my iPhone camera! Take a look:

The facade of the American Adventure pavilion in Epcot.

Expedition Everest in Animal Kingdom at sunrise.

Another shot of Expedition Everest.

Dancers in the Frontierland Hoedown in the Magic Kingdom.

The lobby to the Hollywood Tower Hotel in the queue to the Tower of Terror.

And of course Cinderella Castle in the Magic Kingdom.

I'm thinking about making a sort of coffee table art photo book to sell with some of the photographs from my time in WDW. We'll see how that goes.

There's one more story I must share. I know this post is running long, but this is a good one:
Almost every day I would take a trip to Magic Kingdom's costuming building to pick up a new costume and return my soiled one. Each time I would pick up the same yellow shirt and blue pants, but I would pass by the rows and rows of other costumes. My favorite attraction in all of Walt Disney World is the Haunted Mansion. That may come as a surprise, but my aesthetic inclinations often lean toward vintage, shabby, distressed styles, so it really is a no-brainer. If I could choose, I would definitely work at the Haunted Mansion. So one day, as I passed a row of Haunted Mansion butler costumes, I wondered "Would it be possible for me to check one of those out, just to try on?" Once I had gathered my courage, I picked out a piece of the costume and brought it through the costume check-out system, anticipating an alarm to go off saying I wasn't authorized to check out the costume. No such alarm rang! The next day I acquired the rest of the costume, and later tried it all on. I actually wore it to the class that I was taking through Disney, since we were allowed to wear our costumes to class. After class I had my roommate take a few pictures. Here's how the best one turned out:

I'm a geek, I know. Dreams really do come true at Disney!

I returned the costume shortly thereafter, of course. Oh how I would love to have taken it home!

I hope you've gathered from my description of the time I spent as a cast member that it was a phenomenal experience. Any negative happenings were outweighed many times by good ones. I could see God's hand at work in so many things: the roommates I stayed with, the friends He provided, the work, how everything worked out for my family to visit several times, everything! I'm glad to be home, but I can't lie: I am already thinking about doing another college program, along with some of my new friends!

So there you go. My grand adventure. I plan to get back to more regular blogging here soon. Thanks for reading, folks!

Zentangle in Motion 2

That's right, faithful readers, newcomers, and everyone in between: Zentangle in Motion 2 is here! I've promised here and there that it was coming, that if I had time I would do it, and I have! I absolutely love how it turned out, and I hope you enjoy it too. So without further ado, I bring to you, Zentangle in Motion 2!

If you remember the original Zentangle in Motion, you'll remember how choppy it was, especially in comparison with part 2. I sped things up to 12 frames per second, which means each second of the video is comprised of 12 individual photographs. Basically I did a lot more snapping this time around - in fact, a bit too much! On some portions (like the entire "presenting" scene, the cursive "Zentangle", and adding all the lines in Meer), I wanted it to go faster and ended up taking out some pictures to achieve that result. 

Another change between part 1 and part 2 is that I did the Zentangle in part 2 on a 5.5" x 5.5" piece of paper, rather than the standard 3.5" x 3.5" tile. I did make sure to use the same paper as the regular tiles, though. Love that paper!

I think my favorite parts of the video are when sections fill up with ink, like Beeline and Jonqal. Those sections are also among the most mind boggling to produce, since I have to fill in a small section of each shape, snap a picture, fill in a space, snap a picture. But if I wasn't paying attention I'd lose track of which sections I'd already filled in for the current frame, forcing me to look back at the camera screen. But it was worth it!

Actual frame of the finished Zentangle from the video.

Another interesting difference between 1 and 2 is how I produced it. In part 1 I started with a blank piece of paper and let whatever happened happen, true to Zentangle form. However, pausing to take a picture after every single penstroke allows way too much time to analyze and think about what to do next. It's hard to be sporadic and true to the Zentangle method. I knew something had to change for part 2, so instead of starting from scratch I decided to copy a tangle created specifically for the video. Below you can see the video version and the version I started out with:

The video version is on the left, and the one I started out with is on the right.

You can see similarities and differences. I find this very interesting: two Zentangles, utilizing the same string, tangles, even the same hand to draw them, and yet they turn out so different.

I think this method really worked. It allowed me to illustrate a spontaneously derived Zentangle but also gave the advantage of being able to plan it out a bit.

In upping the quality of the video from number 1 to number 2, I had to make a few more expenditures than I did the first time around. Paper, pens, digital storage devices, and music licenses don't cost much individually, but they do add up. So if you enjoyed the video, would you consider donating to keep things like this coming? I'd truly appreciate it! You'll find the donate button in the left hand sidebar. Also, sharing the video with friends, family, neighbors, and the occasional stranger helps bunches too! Youtube makes it really easy: if you just go to the video on Youtube, you can click the "share" button for a cornucopia of sharing options. Tweet/share/email away!

As a special thank you for reading, I'm going to throw a contest! Do you throw contests, or is throwing only for parties? I'm just in a throwing mood, so I'll throw the contest whether or not contest throwing is allowed. In any case, here's the contest:


a Rafflecopter giveaway


You'll be entering to win the ZIA that I created to base the Zentangle in Motion 2 tangle off of (the one on the right in the picture above)!


And here are the offical rules:

No purchase necessary. Entrants must be 18 years of age or older and be US residents (sorry, folks from elsewhere, but it gets problematic when dealing with other country's sweepstakes laws.) Starts on 12/31/12 12:00 AM Central Time, ends on 1/9/12 at 12:00 AM Central Time. To enter, leave a comment on this blog post with your thoughts about Zentangle in Motion 2, then complete the entry form above. The prize: the original Zentangle Inspired Artwork seen above (the one on the right). The number of eligible entries received determines the odds of winning. Winners will be selected by random drawing after contest period is over. Void where prohibited by law.

And there you have it. Zentangle in Motion 2. Once again, thanks for reading, and keep on tangling!

Road Trip

Road Trip

Whoo! That picture looks like a road trip - pavement stretching as far as the eye can see, overpasses periodically punctuating the desolate landscape, all things draped in the yellow glow of a sunset. For me, that was last weekend! I'm blessed with such a great life!

My family and I didn't just drive around aimlessly, however. No, we had a definite goal. We traveled the six hours to Fort Worth, Texas to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. Our church's youth group planned the trip, and we decided to make it a family expedition. We stayed with our wonderful grandparents, who properly spoiled us (thanks Chi Chi and Nana!). While it was only a quick weekend trip, it was a welcome relief to the monotony of school, not to mention a wonderful chance to see an important piece of history - especially since the scrolls are typically kept in Israel. 

Faithful readers may remember how I went on vacation in August and took lots of double- and triple-exposure photographs, where two or three photos are merged into one. I called that post Sabbatical Doubles, in case you want to go back and look. In my mind a road trip presents a perfect chance to get artsy with my camera, and this trip was no exception. Sitting in the back seat, my camera pointed out the window at the wonders passing by, I snapped away. Here are some of the results:

Okay, I compiled a few photos in Photoshop for this one; it's not straight
 out of the camera like the others. But I like it!

Reminds me of Genesis 1:29:
"Then God said, 'Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed
 that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit
yielding seed...'

Hydrant Ring

And if those weren't surreal enough, check out the next pictures. Last vacation I stopped snapping when the sun went down. Boy, did I miss out! You can do fun things with a camera at night! Take a look:

Let There Be Neon Light

Web Tunnel

Wave

Southwestern Lights

Finding Neon
See the purple light? That's actually from a travel DVD player,
playing the jellyfish scene of Finding Nemo!

Emerald City

Light Up the Night

Faux Sine

These were fun. I developed several different techniques for moving my camera to create interesting light patterns: bobbing it to music, spinning it around, and allowing the car bumps to direct the lens.

Another interesting fact about these photos is they are the first I have shot in the RAW image format. I had been shooting jpegs, mainly because I previously had no way of editing RAW files. Now that I have added Photoshop to my arsenal of creative tools, I now have RAW capabilities. Just with these photos I am convinced that shooting RAW really is all that it is cracked up to be. The quality of the images just seems better  - and they were even easier to edit. The only drawback is the increased file size. I shot nearly 2GB of pictures on our jaunt, and that was only about 250 pictures! Shooting jpegs would have hardly made a dent in 2GB. I guess there are pros and cons to everything. I think I see an external hard drive in my future...

Snake String

Rick and Maria have done it again! The founders of Zentangle released a new tangle last week. It is called Bunzo, and I absolutely love it!

The Diva's challenge this week was to tangle a tile utilizing Bunzo. I'm always up for trying a new tangle, and since Bunzo consists of only one shape, how hard could it be?

Here the writer would normally state how difficult the seemingly easy task he just mentioned was, but in this case it actually was that simple, and I'm no normal writer! So if you haven't tried out Bunzo already, go do it! Now!

Last weekend I was watching my little 3-year-old brother, and he sweetly drew me a picture of our pet snake (the one featured in this post). It reminded me of a Zentangle string, especially since he drew it on a square piece of paper. So I adapted it into a string for my tile:

Thank you for the string, Seth!

I think my enthusiasm for this new tangle is evident in my final tile:

Tangles used: Bunzo, Paradox, Knightsbridge, and Bales.

I mentioned recently on Designed to Create's Facebook page that I wanted to do some night photography with my Zentangle tiles. Halloween offered the perfect opportunity! Of course, you need some light when you take photographs in the dark, or else you wouldn't be able to see anything. Desiring an unusual light source, I ended up using a candle's flame as my illumination. The long exposures required for the darkness allowed me to play around with the candle, moving it around while the shutter was open. Here is the result:

That's It (not!)

Well, kind viewer, that's my tile for this week. That's it. Have a good one!

Just kidding. This wouldn't be much of a blog if that's all that I said about my pictures, now would it? Although pictures speak a thousand words, here are a few more to explain the story behind this Zentangle.

Thread

Tangles used: Sankegg, Ixorus, Ix, Paradox, and Hollibaugh.

Do I have your attention now? In case you missed it, that is a Zentangle on a snake. Bet that's the first time you've seen that, huh? I'll explain why there's a snake in the picture later...

Unintended Destinations

What is that?

Is it a Zentangle tile?

A Whatsit and a Blog Schedule

Hi everyone! Sorry for the blog silence last week. I got sick and didn't get enough done that weekend on the blog, so I just decided to take the week off. I'm (almost!) back to 100%, and I'm ready to go!

I've also decided to make a change with my posts. I have been posting pictures of my random projects on Mondays, What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday posts on (obviously) Wednesdays, and the last few weeks I've been posting my Zentangle tile for the Diva's Weekly Challenges on Fridays. With school and such going on, I've decided to cut out the Wednesday posts and stick with random projects on Mondays and Zentangle on Fridays. Maybe I'll do WOYWW over the summers or just every once in a while, we'll see.

Well, today is Monday so you're probably wondering what random project I've been working on. I have several in the works, but for this post I'm going to challenge you with another Weekday Whatsit!

Whatsit (n):
A black and white photographic image, usually taken very close-up, mysteriously depicting an everyday object. See example below.

The Rhythm of Tangles: Weekly Challenge #85

This week was a tangly week! For one thing, we had Labor Day on Monday, which threw the whole week into a tangle (it feels like it should be Saturday when it's actually Friday!). For another thing I've tangled nearly every day this week - and only completed one tile!

I started on Tuesday working on the Diva's Zentangle Challenge. You can see the tile below beginning to form in my post from Wednesday. On Wednesday I tangled a bit at work as a study break. Thursday night I took my Zentangle kit with me to my haircut and tangled while I was waiting. Finally, I finished the shading on the tile today, just in time to post it. It's definitely a here, there, and everywhere tile!

I see a spot where I forgot to shade a section - do you see it?

Tangles: Crescent Moon, Shattuck, Hurry, and Copada.

Sabbatical Doubles

Well, bloggers, I just got back from vacation - it was so nice to refresh before the impending start of school! Just two more weeks of summer for me...very bittersweet. I'm ready to be back in school, but I also don't want the summer to end. I'm going to play things by ear blog-wise as I get into the fall semester. My continued regularity of blogging will depend largely on how my class load is, and whether I make anything blog-worthy in those classes!

Over the trip I took lots of pictures. They aren't your average vacation snapshots, though (but don't worry, I got some of those too!). They are double or triple exposures. To break up those long car rides en route to our destinations each day, I took my camera out and, right through the glass in the backseat of the car, photographed the scenes zipping by. I concentrated on finding interesting shapes, figures, and wording. I'm currently Photoshop-less, so I had to do the multiple exposures in-camera, shooting some interesting things and hoping for the best to turn up on the screen. I definitely went for a dreamy, lo-fi look as opposed to technically perfect technique. After all, how are you supposed to get a non-blurry image in the back of a moving car? The vintage feel was further enhanced by some creative filters. I really like the results, as it chronicles moments of the trip. Take a look:

My favorite! I have no idea what that swirly white
 thing is, but I love it!

Weekday Whatsit #3

Hello, Whatsiteers! I have a new Weekday Whatsit image for y'all to guess, to see if you can hit the nail on the head...

WOYWW - 165

Another Wednesday, another look at my workdesk. This week I'm at a different desk than last What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday. I'm transferring some pictures to free up some space on my SD cards and putting some Geocaches into my GPS for some Geocaching fun! Not much creativity going on, but you can see my pencil box (with all types of writing/drawing instruments and other tools) and a flyer that came with my sketchbook for the Sketchbook Project (which I have yet to start - but I will post pictures when I do!).

This picture shows more of my desk - and all the paper sculptures on it (plus some Zentangle and Polaroid glimpses too).

I decided to continue with the artsy desk photographs, so here is one with all the colors inverted.

Thanks for visiting my desk! 

WOYWW 164

I've been making the blog rounds the past few weeks, and have noticed a weekly installment many bloggers present called "What's On Your Workdesk? Wednesday", where artists share their creative spaces with the beautiful chaos of tools, supplies, and works in progress. I've decided to join in, so enjoy! (if you want to see other people's workdesks, check out the Stamping Ground blog, the host blog for WOYWW)

Weekday Whatsit #2

Happy Monday! Almost a month ago I introduced the Weekday Whatsit - if you missed it, see this post. I'll continue that series with a new image. Again, the photo above is a macro photo of an everyday object turned black and white. Think you know the identity of the object? Leave me a comment with your guess, and next week I'll reveal the answer. May your eyes be sharp!

Red Eyes and Orange Flames

If you've been following the blog, you know that I'm definitely into many diverse art forms. Photography is among them. You saw some of my photographs in the post Guerilla Art - Experiment #001 (other posts too, but in this one I really worked hard to make the pictures nice), and I wanted to share more of my images.

For the first three photos in this post and most of the photos in the guerilla art post, I used a special DSLR camera lens called a Lensbaby. This lens is unique because it looks like a ball in a socket, and allows you to tilt the lens (see this). You'll notice the pictures taken with it have a sharp spot of focus, but the rest of the frame is blurred. The ball and socket design of the optic gives you this effect, and you can tilt the lens to change the sweet spot of focus. Pretty weird, huh? Another weird thing about it is that I must shoot in full manual mode. It has no auto focus, aperture ring, or even exposure metering (with my camera, some cameras will meter with the Lensbaby)! When I first got the lens I was inexperienced in manual settings and knowing what button to push when. This lens quickly taught me manual mode - sometimes the best way to learn to swim is to simply jump into the pool!

While shooting the guerilla art images, our backyard box turtle was sniffing around my camera bag, curious about the black, squishy mountain that had landed in her abode. She's the most curious box turtle I've ever seen, and she's most interested about feet. She'll come right up to your shoe to check it out without a care in the world. It's also really interesting to watch her eat - an activity any other turtle would never partake in with us standing above.

Despite the popular stereotype, turtles can actually be pretty fast, especially if they're scared or in front of a camera, making them rather difficult to photograph! I came away with only three good shots, fleeting moments of stillness. Look at those beautiful, fiery eyes! That was the first thing that struck me when I first saw her. Green head, red eyes. Blue and yellow/orange shell. Complements. God knew what colors would be pleasing together when He designed this turtle!

July the 4th

I'll be brief today - after all, a picture is worth a thousand words and I have lots of pictures - but I do want to thank the heroes who have fought for our country and our freedom. I also thank the One who gives mankind the ultimate freedom, freedom from sin and death. Thank you King Jesus!