World Showcase

World Showcase... New Years Eve...
Spectacular!
Great alternative to Magic Kingdom.

Happy New Year!

On the other hand... Magical!

On the other hand.... Simply Magical!... 

If you can deal with the crowds....
New Years Eve...
Magic Kingdom fireworks is unsurpassed!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year...

Magic? Kingdom

Magic? Kingdom. Like anytime during the holidays, Disney is especially busy and crowded.  Especially being grossly understated. Just imagine how wonderful it would be to be in the most magical place on earth,  at the absolute most festive time... Christmas Eve, Christmas Day,  and New Year's Eve. Well,  you wouldn't be alone.... You and 100,000 other people... with the same idea. Years ago, a typical normal day in the park use to be around 35,000 - 40,000 people... during busy times 55,000 to 60,000. In recent years the numbers continue to grow so that just about all days are busy and Magic Kingdom would occasionally stop admitting guests.
So now,  you spend more money than ever to go top Disney,  and during holidays, like New Years Eve, the park will stop admitting guests, and crowds will reach 100,000. Every place it crowded,  many times elbow to elbow... And you will wait in line for everything.  Rides, attractions, food, even something to drink. 240 - 300 minutes for the most popular.
Magical and spectacularly special vacation? ... entirely depends on your perspective.
Today.... New Year's Eve... Magic Kingdom stopped admitting guest by 11:35 am. But Disney is handing out $50 Disney gift cards.... as compensation.
If you were fortunate enough to get in... I'm not sure how much of a magical experience you and your family will have.
But,  it is what it is.
Personally... I'd plan my vacation for a better time.

Reconnecting

Reconnecting with childhood friends. Growing up in the country ridge development in Essex Maryland was simply the best environment. Urban row homes made popular in the 1950s was the perfect community to grow up and be close to everyone that was neighbors and classmates. After moving away and loosing touch some 45 years ago,  reconnecting with childhood friends via a newly created Facebook site is certainly nice. To hear show lives turned out, and hear of those no longer with us.   Here's to old friends & neighbors.
Wishing y'all a happy and healthy new year. It's nice to hear about childhood friends that I lost touch with so many years ago. Sad to hear of those that have passed, but that's what happens the older you get. This new years eve... raise a glass to childhood friends, remembering a wonderful childhood that made us all, the people we are today. Growing pains aside, I'm sure we all turned out to be wonderful adults, parents, and grandparents.

Time travel? Time Slip? Deja vu?

Time travel? Time slips? I need a but more proof, although Einstein said that it was theoretically possible. Although currently beyond our ability to scientifically prove or technology achieve, but the possibility has intrigued man probably for thousands of years. But who knows... look how far we have technologically come in the last 100 years, or even the least 30 years.
 
Genetic memory? I'm more inclined to put some stock in genetic memory. Science has a couple of elements that many support the possibility.  One,  we know that only a portion of our brain is being used... And two,  our DNA contains billions of bits of information that still remains unknown. Information passed down in our DNA for generations.

Question... why are people somehow emotionally drawn to specific past events and not others... and how it's different for everyone.  Secondly, how or why do some people experience a feeling of deja vu when going to someplace that they have never been, not only experiencing a feel a familiarity, having a slight mental vision from the past, but also knowing what's around the corner before they get there. In some cases, not only is there having a faint mental vision of the past, but also experience a faint and fading sense of smell, and that of hearing sounds or voices. Kinda like 90% reality, overwritten by 10% double vision, like a dream while awake. You can faintly see something, smell something,  hear something, feel something, and emotionally experience something... feeling that you have been there before when it's your first time there.  More intriguing,  but not scary.... passed off and dismissed as deja vu. Genetic memory from past ancestors? Seems entirety possible.

Example... You go to a civil war battlefield that you have an interest in.  It's historical,  but for some reason you are drawn to a particular location,  a very specific spot, that for lack of a better description,  gives you a faint flashback of emotions as if you were there when history was taking place. There's that faint vision of what was, the faint recollection of sound and smells... you can almost hear the sounds of the battle, the thundering booms of the cannons, smell the gunpowder, the emotions of that day. Real.. but not real... at least for your current reality. Unexplained.

Faint glimpses of the past... in some small way a mixing of realities past and present as if it was a version of time travel or more accurately a time slip? Or genetic memory? Or perhaps a bit of both? Intriguing concepts and theories,  unproven, unexplained,  yet there's something to it, something happened and was experienced if only as a dream like shadow faintly invading your current reality.
Just something to ponder until the next time to experience deja vu of a place from the past. It's something... but what exactly is it?

Winter Wonderland

Winter Wonderland...
As much as most people hate the cold, wanting and waiting for Spring & Summer, there is still beauty all around.

Unexplained map.

Unexplained map. Modern man has never seen the continent of Antarctica when it wasn't covered with hundreds of feet of ice & snow, obscuring all the land features including the coastline. Yet, a map drawn in 1532 shows a very accurate mapping of Antarctica derived from an earlier unknown source... since in 1532 Antarctica was completely covered with ice and snow for thousands of years prior.
Just another mystery where history is not what we thought or were taught.
There's conjectures and theories, plenty to go around, but no scientific proof about the map or its original origins. Just a map that as to history as we know it shouldn't exist... yet, it does exist... unexplained. Certainly much more to history than we know. Science deals with facts and absolutes and offered no explanation. Theories in part, give at least a possible explanation as to how an detailed accurate map could exist, that's origins would have to date back thousands of years before modern man had even discovered Antarctica,  a detailed map of mountains, valleys, and rivers long before it being covered in ice & snow. Was an ancient civilization on Antarctica 12,000 years ago, or possibly earlier, before it was consumed by ice & snow? Or something else, a technology advanced race that created such a detailed map. Just because there's no scientific proof,  doesn't means there's no evidence of something beyond our history. Some day, no doubt beyond my lifetime,  perhaps the answers will be revealed.  Answers to this and many other unsolved mysteries.

Cars vs floods

IN THE NEWS... EVERY TIME WITH HEAVY RAINS... Cars verses flood waters. It's almost inconceivable, that in this day and age, be with all the warnings, that people still drive into flooded roads. And then responders have to risk their life to save them. Even Forrest Gump  saying "stupid is as stupid does" can not express what people do.

Wonderful Time

It's the most wonderful time of the year.
Perspective... It's all about perspective. Time of season and place, who you are with family & friends.... add in crowds... and the concept of having a memorable time and it enjoying it... it becomes very subjective. Myself, given the atmosphere of the holidays verses the stress of dealing with the huge crowds, I wouldn't go there beyond the first two week of December. Simply much too crowded to even have a good time. But to each his own. Here's some photos of Christmas weeks.