On This Day
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Jeff and I started dating sometime around January 13, 2004. So, on this day, five years ago, January 31, 2004, we decided to take a day trip. From what I remember, I had class that morning and then that afternoon we decided to head out to St. Augustine. It’s one of my favorite cities in Florida to visit and Jeff had never been there.
We went for a walk around the city (ie. the oldest jail and all of those shops), went down to walk around at the beach and then headed out to go to dinner. We stopped at Chili’s and had some food. (Please remember, we were 18 and 19 at the time, so NO, there wasn’t any drinking.)
After dinner, we headed back home. Less than 5 minutes of being in the car, a women made a left turn on a red light. Right in front of us. I slammed on the brakes tried to avoid her, but as the saying goes, it all happened so quickly. Jeff was singing in the passenger side of the car and the next thing I remember is him hitting the windshield and then his head was on my right shoulder. We t-boned the car that made the turn and hit the passenger side. Neither of us were wearing a seatbelt and that is something I NEVER did. I always had my seatbelt on, and for that split second, I did not. Thankfully, I had an airbag. Yet, Jeff did not.
From what I remember after the impact and after talking to people that were there, my car spun and hit another car that was at the red light on the right side road. I remember thinking and I believe saying, “Just get out of the car. It might explode.” No idea why I would think it would explode, but that’s one detail that I quite remember. It didn’t register at the time, but my car was kinda still in the middle of the intersection. I don’t remember watching out for oncoming traffic, I just remember running over to the side of the road nearest a gas station and yelling that I needed to call 911 and then call my parents. A man had thankfully already called 911 and then let me borrow his phone to call my parents. They were at the drive-in, which means that my mom’s phone should have been off. But it was not. So, they made the drive from Ocala to St. Augustine.
The paramedics checked Jeff out and I remember hearing that they were grateful that he didn’t lose conciousness because that would have made it even worse. They rushed him off to the hospital. Once they got to the hospital in St. Augustine, he then got air lifted to Shands hospital in Jacksonville. The reason: St. Augustine doesn’t have a trauma center. Shocking news for me to hear when I’m sitting in a convience store in St. Augustine talking to the owner of the vehicle that got hit at the red light, waiting for my parents to arrive.
Once my parents picked me up, we got the stuff that was left in my car. I don’t remember the condition of the car, but apprently it was classified as totaled. The three of us headed to Jacksonville, it was the longest/quickest drive of my life. We arrived, the hospital did some x-rays on my knees and I got the news that as I get older, my knees are going to hurt more — from slamming on the brakes. After that, the nurses said they were still stitching up Jeff’s face.
I was given some pain medicine and it put me right to sleep, sitting in the little side room off of the emergency room area. I was woken up and we went in to see Jeff. He was pretty tore up and quite drugged up as well, I do believe. We stayed with him for a bit and then went to get a hotel room. Slept a few hours, went to a car dealship, picked out a car, went and picked up Jeff and went to finish purchasing the car and then Jeff and headed back to Orlando. Got stuck in traffic and had a looooong drive home.
Jeff had to take a month off of school, due to his scars needing time to heal, his nose needing time to fix itself and the windshield glass to work it’s way our of his eye.
It’s amazing what one night, one mistake that someone else makes, can do to your life. Not only did it make Jeff and I really close, knowing that we could make it through this. We also found out that we had a great support system. Plus, we’ve been very fortunate these past 5 years since the accident — Jeff didn’t have to have any surgery what so ever, we bought a house, and had some major moments happen. Of course, some were good and some were bad. And one, well, one we’re still trying to figure out.
The other car contained an older couple. The woman was driving — she told the police that she had been turning around to get something out of the backseat. (I could scream every time I think about that) and the man was in the passenger side. It took everyone months to tell me the following, the man had had a bad heart and once they got him to the hospital he passed. It’s one of the roughest things to think about. Even though it was not my fault, she turned in front of me, but I was driving a car that killed a man. Had she had not been turning around to get God knows what, her husband may still be alive and none of this would have happened.
The only reason I put the last part was because if just ONE person reads this and that ONE person is a bit more careful when driving and wears their seatbelt, that will make me a very happy person. I don’t care if you’re going a half a mile down the road, PLEASE wear your seatbelt.
**Pictures: Jeff in Feb. 2004, a couple of days later and Jeff today, Jan. 31, 09, 5 years later**
On the Search For…
Friday, January 30, 2009
I keep saying, “As soon as I get some extra money I’m going to rent a camera lens to try out.” Well, where is that extra money? And now that I finally picked up a shift from Disney (see previous post), I should have enough money to at least rent one for a day. Okay, maybe even a week. The problems now are: Where do I rent a lens from? And where am I going to venture out to take pictures?
The potential websites I have come across for renting DSLR camera lenses are: rentglass.com, borrowlenses.com, lensprotogo.com, photolensrental.com and lensrentals.com. I am still in the process of trying to find other sites and then I want to compare some reviews and prices. Ideally, I’d like to start renting a lens every month / every other month and do up a review on here about not only the lens, but the website I got it from (costs, shipping turnaround, packaging, etc).
As for where I will be going to take the pictures, I’ll probably just go wonder somewhere around town, whether it be one of the theme parks or a park or just some place.
I am now asking/begging for you to give me any websites you may have used before or have come across to rent camera lenses. I would love to have quite an array of places to go through over the next few months. As for places for me to go visit and take pictures, I am up for places around Florida/Central Florida area. As long as I can rip Jeff (peakarts.com & twitter.com/bananakin) away from the house for a bit, I’d like to be able to drive to the place over a weekend. So pass on any places, websites, etc. Comment below or send me an e-mail at kelly@peglegpug.com.
All In A Day’s Work
Thursday, January 29, 2009
This is a recap of my experience of my first day back to working at WDW/Magic Kingdom since August 2008.
This past Monday I received a call from my friend saying that a fellow cast member wanted to have the day off on Tuesday (the next day). I happen to be off Tuesdays from my main job, so I said I’d do the shift and she confirmed that a manager would take care of it.
I arrived Tuesday morning around 9AM, knowing my shift wasn’t to start until 10AM. As we were walking through the tunnel on the way to Main Street, she decided that I should try to log in since Disney had been having problems with Seasonal cast members, which is what I am. As expected, I couldn’t log in, so my shift didn’t exist. We got to Main Street and my manager took care of it, but what a way to start the day!
As I walked into the turnstiles breakroom I got all kinds of stares..stares from people that I hadn’t seen since August and stares from new castmembers that thought I was “the new girl”. I didn’t really say hi to anyone at first as I was trying to figure out if I really had a shift or not. But after it was all straightened out, I went back out and before I could even say anything, one of the people that I used to talk to all the time said to me, “Have you been spending a lot of time in the sun? Your face has really broken out.” Wow, okay, thanks. Glad to be back. And to clear everything up (no pun intended), it was my chin..just a couple of marks on my chin. Some people just say things, I however am not one of those people and wouldn’t say something like that, so it took me back a bit.
On my first break, I was sitting in the break room and next thing I see are ballons bringing brought in. Well, alright then, it’s a party when I come back after 5 months. Ok, the party wasn’t for me, but it was for a co-worker whom had been a Disney employee for 30 years! And it was also her birthday. Amazing, 30 years. I could hardly complete a 6 hour shift.
After a couple of songs by the Daper Dans and a cookie, I went back out to greet some guests and spread some…magic. I was out there waiting on the ferry and resort monorail to unload, when the TTC monorail took off and a poor bird met it’s death. Wow, was that just strange to see. It wouldn’t have been twitpic of the year, but it would have been weird to get it right at that moment. One of our coordinators went and got the bird so some child wouldn’t be scared for life.
30 minutes later, a couple came in wearing Anniversary buttons. So I did the normal “Happy Anniversary!” and asked them how many years..when they said 60 I about fell over. 60 years with the same person and they were so happy and so loving. It was just too darn cute. Here he was in an electric wheelchair and she was walking and helping him. She was giving us the “secrets to a long, happy marriage” and the only thing he chimed in with was, “She trained me and I’ve been good ever since”. They honestly didn’t look like they could have been married for 60 years. It was just amazing. It’s things like that that make me want to continue to go into Disney.
And it’s things like this that makes me never want to go back: about 10 minutes after the happy couple, I was helping a father and his 5 or 6 year old daughter with their tickets. When the little girl said something to me, to which I heard “blah blah blah, wild.” So I asked her what she said…”Why is your hair so wild?” It was funny yes, but at the same time I was thinking..wow I have been “insulted” twice today. First my face is just not right and now my hair. WTF. Oh how I love life.
If you are not familar with the Orlando/Kissimmee area, you’ve probably never heard of 192. It is pretty much the tourist capital of the world. And don’t try to tell me it’s not, I live less than a mile off of it. I drive it everyday. But yeah, tickets purchased off of 192, from some shady little barn on the side of the road (oh yes, I’ve seen it..seen it daily) don’t really go over that well at the turnstiles. When the finger biometrics don’t match, when there aren’t any days left and the person says they never used the ticket — the light normally goes on in our head that the ticket is not yours. Sorry, it’s true. But you more than likely bought it on 192. So sad. Maybe guest relations can help you out. So that’s how I ended my day. Being told off by a group that didn’t purchase the tickets from an official Disney place. Love it!
Next time you go to Disney, you’ll think about this and the excitement all of the castmembers have when we are not entertaining the guests. Man, how I love my time spent working at the park.
Places I Visit
Sometimes when I sit at a computer I get really lost just looking for things to read or look at. Here are some of the sites that I visit quite often.
Hulu — if you don’t know what it is, you need to find out. There are so many shows and movies on there, and it’s FREE! Sometimes it’s just nice to have some background noise on at work, get some Hell’s Kitchen going in the background and I seem to work faster..it must be Gordan Ramsey yelling!
Flickr — What can I say? I love pictures. I love taking them. And I love to see what others in the world are taking pictures of. My flickr page
Twitter — It’s just an amazing tool. It can be a fun time waster and also can be great for contacts. What a way to see what everyone is up-to and thinking. My twitter account
Myspace — I get to check in on my friends, plus see how many kids people I went to high school with have, which is just weird and funny all at the same time. My myspace page
Team Sugar — Lots of random information on one site, plus I get my fill of celebrity gossip. My Team Sugar Page
Facebook — Another way to keep up with my friends on their up to the minute updates. My facebook page
Well, that’s all of the links I will post for now. There will be others that I’ll get to when I can think of the rest of them. And lots more that I will soon come across, I hope!
WWAD? aka What Will Apple Do? -Updated-
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Woke up this morning to Jeff cursing and trying to hook up the laptop to the tv..something he does often, so it’s not that I was shocked to hear/see it happening. But, the next thing out of his mouth was “My laptop screen is not coming on”. My first thought was “uh oh”. Of course, I had been waiting and waiting to get a laptop and seriously less than TWO days after I get one home, his decides that it doesn’t want to work. What are the odds? Really?!
He did some “research” on MY laptop 
to figure out that it was probably the GPU that was out, since no matter what display he hooks it up to nothing shows. After some further sulking and being depressed, he came across an article that stated that this guy went through the same thing not too long ago.
In it he stated that Apple was replacing this problem with MacBook Pros that were manufactured between May 2007 and September 2008. Jeff called Apple shortly after and they looked up his info (you know, the norm) and he said there wasn’t much they could do over the phone..Wait you can’t repair my computer over the phone? Where has technology brought us if we can’t even do THAT? Thankfully, we have 3 Apple stores relatively close to us. The one nearest us (Millenia) didn’t have any appointments for today. So, here we are, in the car, heading to the Florida Mall to get this checked out. More to come soon. And hopefully it will be good news! *Crossing fingers*
Updated on Sunday, January 25, 2009 5:13PM
Good and bad all at the same time. I don’t hate Apple. But the guy was acting like he was doing us a favor not charging..thanks, but we haven’t seen anywhere that someone with this problem has had to pay, out of warranty or not. Either way, Jeff is without his laptop, which of course is pretty much one of his appendages. In 5-7 days, he should get the grand call that it is fixed and ready to be picked up. Until then, he has an empty case..
Allergies Go Away! Please?
I don’t know about most of you, but I have really bad allergies. I have an inhaler that I use WAY too many times throughout the day and I take over-the-counter allergy meds for a stuffy/runny nose. It probably doesn’t help that we have a cat. But there is no way that I can get rid of her..she’s just way too freakin’ cute.
Anyway, we have purchased two air purifiers for the house. One is a small Holmes HEPA-Type. Every month or so, we will have to buy a replacement filter to make sure that the air is circulating through and actually getting the “germs” out of the air. We use the small purifier in the bedroom. That was the first one that we bought and it seems to work pretty well, seeing as though I was using my inhaler about half as much throughout the night and some nights I wasn’t even waking up needing to use it. About a month later, we decided we needed one for the living room. We got a Ionic Pro, which doesn’t require a filter to be replaced. All it needs is its weekly cleaning on the outside and then monthly the collection blades need to be taken out and rinsed off.
When we went to my parent’s house for Christmas, we took the small Holmes HEPA-type purifier. My mom smokes cigarettes, and I must say, you really can’t smell the smoke when you walk into the house because she keeps the house completely clean and spotless. When we left our house to go there, I could tell that it had been used. But it was amazing, when we got back to our house, I checked the filter to see how it was. Completely brown! (Which is NOT on the reference colors to see when you need to replace it..it goes from white – light gray – gray – dark gray)
To say the least, it works. It really truly works. If I had the extra money, I would buy one of these for every room in my house!
Fun in a Parking Garage
Friday, January 23, 2009 – Happy Birthday to my other, other half, Angela!!
Jeff is doing an open for a SXSW contest. So last night, we went to the backlot of the Disney’s Hollywood Studios (formally known as Disney-MGM Studios), not to go to work this time *since i.d.e.a.s. was closed*, but to shoot some footage in the employee parking garage. Last night, it was about 40 degrees, which to Florida people is freaking COLD. So here we are driving around with the windows down and the sunroof open to make sure that Jeff gets the right shot.
We use a Canon HV20 HD MiniDV Camcorder, which is an amazing little camera, along with one of my newest purchases, a Joby GP3 GorillaPod SLR-Zoom Flexible Tripod. Joby makes all kinds of different sizes of flexible tripods and I would recommend any of them to someone that is even remotely into taking pictures.
As Jeff was busy working on getting some stuff shot, I was taking full advantage of the parking garage being empty (which it NEVER is when we go to work). I was running around taking pictures of the “water tower” that guests would see while they are on the Backlot Tour of DHS.
Jeff has to be done with the SXSW graphics in about a week..
so check back then, when I post the completed project!
More pictures from our little shoot on flickr.
Tea Time Equals Party Time!
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Over the past 4 months or so, I have been drinking quite a bit of tea. I know this is not a new thing for most people, but since I don’t drink coffee or really like the smell it I felt like I needed my “thing”..something to get me going in the morning/afternoons/evenings/etc. Well, I am proud to say that loose teas are now my “thing”.
I have tried quite a few teas from Adagio Teas and I seem to like the mixes the best. For a while I was using the IngenuiTEA Teapota few times a day. Some of my favorite teas from Adagio include: White Peach, Love Child (blend by Glenn McElhose — diggnation.com), Green Pekoe ,and Sip Smart (blend by Sarah Lane — sarahlane.com).
Apparently I was talking about tea quite a bit last year because for Christmas, two of my best friends caught on. One of them bought me a tiny little Alice in Wonderland teapot set. And the other one gave me a Tea Infuser with a handle and a stand along with some Famous Wuyi Rock Oolong Tea. At work I had been using a Mesh Tea Ball, but once I used the Infuser with the stand, I just never knew that life could be more complete. Thanks C!
I am still trying to find more teas that I like and hope to find other websites to have good teas. If you know of any teas that I should try, any websites that sell/talk about teas or any tea products, please comment below or e-mail me at kelly@peglegpug.com so I will know.
Now onto the exciting part where I show you in less than ONE minute, how I make tea..You’re pumped up now, I can tell. ENJOY! (Oh and if you get a glimpse of my pants..don’t mind the pattern, I’m ready for bed..)
#tbtweet — better known as the Tampa Bay Tweetup
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Tampa Bloggers put on a wonderful tweetup last night (Saturday, 1/17/09) at MOSI in Tampa, very special thanks to the two that made it happen, Josh Carrico and Julia Gorzka. I’m not sure of the exact number of “tweeps” that showed up, but there were over 100 RSVPs. It was so great to meet so many different people and hear about what they do in their day-to-day lives (you know, when they aren’t twittering).
The meetup was catered and there was a cash bar, so of course, fun was had by all.
There was a big screen set up so any tweets throughout the night tagged with #tbtweet or @tampabloggers would show.
Julia gave a short talk about MOSI wanting Virtual Ambassadors. (Which I am all for!)
Then, we were invited to go to the top of the IMAX Dome to see Tampa. It was so cool being up there seeing the USF Sun Dome and the cars driving around while we’re up on top of this eight story building.
All throughout the night, the DJ played all types of music. Jeff tried to climb the side of the IMAX Dome (not the brightest thing to do, kids).
We met some awesome people and had an absolute blast! Can’t wait for the next one! Oh and #tbtweet was the number one trend of last night for a while!!
People I met and recommend you to follow:
Louis — @oracle_ace — www.databasewisdom.com
Cate & Ginger — @gifts.tv — www.gifts.tv
Julia — @juliagorzka — www.brandtampa.com
Josh — @SIGEPJEDI — www.tampabloggers.com
Sarah — @sarahintampa –www.sarahintampa.com
MOSI — @MosiTampa — www.mosi.org
MANY other pictures on my flickr page!
Currently..Reading
Sunday, January 18, 2009
I am currently reading Can You Keep a Secret? by Sophie Kinsella. I am two chapters in and like so far. But then again, I am a sucker for a good chic-lit book.
–Updated Friday, January 23, 2009– I am only to chapter five, as I haven’t been reading nearly as much as I would like to. It’s not that I can’t get into the book, it’s just that after reading “No Time For Goodbye”, this book just doesn’t add up (even though they are two TOTALLY different books)..Can You Keep a Secret? is still quite enjoyable..yet, I’m not sure if I’ve read it before..more on that later.
