Finding Fairytales

When you look for the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you are most likely looking for many different aspects; physical attractiveness, a sense of humor, intelligence, and similar interests, just to name a few. In my opinion, that last one, similar interests, is one of the most important elements to a successful relationship. If you have nothing in common with another person, what can you go do together? What can you talk about?

For a Disney fanatic, such as myself and many other single fans out there, finding someone who also has at least a tolerance, if not a love, of Disney is very important. This has become much easier with the introduction of the new website Disdates.com. This social networking dating site is for all single Disney fans to meet and mingle with each other with the hope that, just maybe, they will find their dream prince or princess.

This site is not just for dating though. You can join it just to find Disney friends to hang out with and talk to. There is also an option to look for a Disney couple, so if you and your special someone would like another couple to talk Disney with, you can find them there too!

This site is very new, so while there are not many people on it now, the only way to help it grow is to spread the word! The more people on the site, the better chance that its members may find their someone! Find your fairytale at Disdates.com today!

Internet Wonders: Disney Simulators

Whilst (yes, I said whilst) I was chatting in the Sorcerer Radio Chat Room one morning, listening to the Tiki Room Morning Show and having some fun, one of my fellow chatters put up this link and said it was worth a look. He said it was a ride simulator and me, always wishing I was in the parks riding the rides, excitedly clicked on the link.

When I got the site, called Themagical.nl, and clicked the tab at the top that said "Simulations", it brought me to a page with 6 rides on it, all of which are familiar from different Disney parks around the world : Big Thunder Mountain Railroad from Disneyland Paris, Expedition Everest from Animal Kingdom, Millionaire Play it! in Hollywood Studios, Phantom Manor in Disneyland Paris, Space Mountain from Disneyland Paris and Tower of Terror from Hollywood Studios.

You click on the ride that interests you and it brings up a screen with a warning on it. Once you click the button, you are sent to an overview of the ride or show with all of the controls to one side. You are now in charge of that ride or show; you are the main control man. Your job now is to set up what needs to be set up prior to the opening of the ride, let people in and running all ride operations and fixing anything that may go wrong along the way.

There are two types of the game for most of the simulators- Timed and Unlimited. With the timed, you are racing against a clock to see how many people go through the ride and trying to get a high score! Unlimited is kind of like the practice course for the timed one. That is what I have been playing under while trying to figure out how everything works.

These are so much fun, it makes you feel like you are an actual cast member in the parks! You get to be in control of a ride and making sure it runs smoothly! For all of those people who have always wanted to feel like a cast member or for those who just are missing the park and want some interactive magic, I would definitely check these out!!!

Visit Themagical.nl!

Its coming!!!...slowly, but its coming!!!

I have gotten questions from several people wondering if I have gotten the D23 membership information that was so generously given to me by Chris Reid of the Tiki Room Morning Show. The answer is, finally, YES!!!!....sort of.

Yesterday, I received a folded pamphlet with my official membership card! Inside the pamphlet, it said that I had been given the gift of a D23 membership and that in 1-2 weeks I will be receiving my certificate, welcome letter and first issue of Disney twenty-three. Sometime after that, the special gift from the Walt Disney Archives Collection should be coming separately.

So, after a long and anxious wait, I finally know when this awesome gift will be arriving! As soon as it does, I will be immediately be writing and putting up pictures about it, including pictures of the pamphlet and membership card, so stay tuned!

The remedy??

Just an update on my health situation for everyone:

I was approved for the Enbrel by my insurance and received it on Thursday by FedEx! It had to be shipped cold. I took my first injection yesterday morning. While it was quite painful, the injection part only lasted about 15 seconds and the pain afterwords lasted but a few minutes. I haven't had any side effects so far either! Hopefully this will be the beginning of the end when it comes to oral medications! I am still on the Prednisone just as a precautionary back up. When I go back to the doctor at the end of August, he will begin to ween me off of it, so I will be strictly on the Enbrel and we can watch its full effects with the new doctor. It looks like steps are finally going in the right direction!

As for the dizzy spells, nothing about them yet. I don't go to the Neurologist until the 11th of August, so we will have to wait and see what happens. I am still having dizzy spells almost daily, but I am learning to cope with them.

Interactive Disney Fun on Youtube

Youtube is a dear friend to many Disney enthusiasts. There are hundreds of videos of fireworks, parades, rides and just walk-throughs of the parks that could keep a fanatic who is missing the parks occupied for hours! Through my search around Youtube for these such treasures, I have found what I am considering the gold mine of Disney-Youtube interactions! It is a 10 minute video of the map of Magic Kingdom!!!!!

Ok, I know what you are thinking. "It is 10 minutes of staring at a map, how interesting is that?!" But this is no ordinary lamp!....err, I mean map. This is a map that you can click on and, when you do, it takes you to a new map of the area that you clicked on!! For instance, if you are looking at the Magic Kingdom map and you click on Tomorrowland, you will be transported to a close up of the Tomorrowland map. From this smaller, zoomed in map, you can click on stores, shows and rides that are in that section and you will then be transported to a video of that! From the videos that I have seen, they all seem to be of very good quality.

Here are the links to the maps:
Disney World Main Map
Magic Kingdom Map
Epcot Map
Hollywood Studios Map
Animal Kingdom Map

Disneyland Map
California Adventure Map

Check out the videos and enjoy the magic!!

Monorail Austin

The tributes continue in the Disney community to the pilot of the monorail who lost his life a week ago in a tragic crash. Austin Wuennenburg has had his name on Twitter and all over the websites of the Disney community and now, the next step is to get his name in a permanent place in The World. Admiral Duke of The Disney Fan Review (click here to see his website) has made a petition to get a monorail named after Austin and is looking for some help! Please go to http://www.petitiononline.com/austin09/ or click here and sign the petition for this lasting tribute to a man who brought magic into the hearts of visitors!

Dreams Do Come True!

So I was just wandering around the internet yesterday afternoon, minding my own business, when I decided to check my Twitter account. I go to my home screen and my feed is covered-and I mean COVERED-in people wishing me congratulations. I was scrolling down, staring at the screen trying to figure out what the HECK all of these people were talking about when I see this post from my friend, @Tikiroommorning:

The first-ever TRMS Disney Dream Come True!!! Announced at: http://bit.ly/TS2oY

I stare blankly at this for a moment, wondering what on earth it could be. I don't remember Chris announcing anything on his show, the Tiki Room Morning Show, about this. So I click on the link and this picture comes up on it:
Naturally, I was pretty darn speechless! I read it over a couple times, just to make sure I was reading it right and just teared right up! I could not believe that someone would want to give me something this awesome!!! I sent Chris a message and preceded to thank him about 50000 times! There is no way that I could fully express my surprise and gratitude for this gift! I am sitting here now, writing this, still not being able to find the words to express how happy this has made me!

Since I have joined Twitter and started this blog, I have met sooo many amazing people and I just want to say thank you to you all now for being such amazing friends and being there for me when I needed you guys! The road has been very rough recently, but I know that if I have a problem, I can go to all of you and you will know what to do or how to make me feel better. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!!! <3 style="text-align: center;">To follow Chris Reid on Twitter, click here.
The Tiki Room Morning Show

Tributes through the Tragedy

The Disney community was shaken early Sunday morning by the news of a tragic monorail crash that took the very young life of Austin Wuennenberg, 21. Since hearing the news, Disney fans around the globe have pulled together to show their support for the family and friends sharing in the loss.

Disney fans on Twitter pulled their powers together and made a tribute that fitting for the site; they got Austin's name on the Trending Topics board (started by the one and only DisneyFrankness). The feat was actually written about by Central Florida 13 News. Also in this article is a pictoral tribute to the monorail pilot that was made by the host of the Tiki Room Morning Show, Chris Reid.

After seeing the outpouring of love that was shown by all of the Disney fans out there, I decided to create my own kind of tribute. I have recently gotten interested in making knot friendship bracelets. It is a very fun and cheap way for me to be creative, and the hand motions that are used in making these bracelets are good to keep my hands loose. My tribute, as modeled by my little sister in the picture, is a bracelet design that I am calling Austin. It has purple and pink in it for the colors of the monorails that were involved in the accident, black as a sign of mourning for the loss that we all feel and white for the peace that Austin is at now. Every time I see this bracelet, I will remember the loss felt by all Disney fans.

For the CF13 Article, click here.
For the Tiki Room Morning Show page, click here.
For Chris Reid's Blog, click here.
For DisneyFrankness' Blog, click here.
For the latest information on the monorail tragedy, click here.

I am starting to not like words that end in -ologist....

Today, my journey to the -ologists takes me to the Rheumatologist (Rheumatoid Arthritis doctor). When we last left this doctor, he had prescribed me with some steroids to take and told me to come back in a month to see how we were doing. Ive been taking the steriods and they have been doing an ok job; I haven't been in daily pain but I have had strange, isolated incidents (pain when writing, strange stiffness in the left arm).

Oh, and quick side note, dislike this medication for two reasons- 1. has a god awful taste! and I take 3 of them a day! and 2. The main side effect is minor puffyness in the cheeks, so I do not look like a stinking chipmunk, but I have little baby-fat cheeks that make me look 5 years younger than I already did, so instead of being a 20 year old who looks 17, I am now a 20 year old who looks about 12....dislike!!!!

Ok, moving on...

The doc takes a look at all my joints, does the poking, prodding and bending (this is a very painful procedure at times, he basically is taking all my joints and bending them to see the level of resistance) He finds some random fluids in my knees and in a couple fingers and some resistance in my left wrist. He then tells me that, because I am transitioning in 2 months (2 months from tomorrow I turn 21, so I have to go to the adult Rheumatologist- I am at a children's hospital for my rheumatoid right now), he wants to try to get my disease in as much control as he can before shipping me off to the new guy...or girl I should say. So, he decides to give me Enbrel.

You may or may not have seen commercials for this drug on the TV, this along with Humira are two of the more popular commercial drugs for RA. It is an injection that I have to give to myself once a week, typically in the leg. There are really no side effects with this drug and it is practically guaranteed to work!

The bad side comes in when you find out that the cost of the drug is about $16,000 a year! Its pretty much a second college tuition. I thankfully have insurance, but because of the cost of the medication and I did not expend every single option before I am trying this one, getting them to pay for this is a fight. So now my doctors and I are going to fight with the Insurance for the next week until they decide to give me the drugs that I need. The nurse gave me this really cool travel bag to keep my bio-hazard box in for when I travel *coughDisneycough* and it has some good information for me!

I also left the doctor with a script to get an MRI done for my jaw. Its not opening as far as it should and he wants to make sure that the TMJ I have has not gotten any worse.

So, thats the (somewhat) short of my doctors appointment. Feel free to leave me any comments or questions you have.

Monorail Accident Information

At about 2 am Sunday morning, an accident occurred between two Walt Disney World Monorails on the Epcot track at the Transportation and Ticket Center. According to current reports, a purple monorail was sitting stationary in the TTC and a pink one coming from Epcot slammed into the back of the purple one at what seems to be about 15mph.

There were only about 6 people on the monorail plus the two drivers at the time of the crash. The driver of the pink car was killed on impact and his body was pinned in the car until emergency personnel came and cut his body out of the car. The driver was a 21 year old male.

You can view an article about the crash from the local Florida news station by clicking here.
You can also view a video that was taken right after the crash by a tourist by clicking here, but I do warn you that this video is very upsetting as the people are trying to make contact with the male driver.

This is a horrible tragedy at the Walt Disney World property and I would like to send my condolences to the Cast members and the family of the driver.

I would also like to let everyone know that this is not a typical occurrence at the Disney parks. This is the first fatality on a monorail at the Florida property and only the 5th problem with monorails throughout the 38 years of WDW (See list of the other 4 problems on the website above). The monorail system is a very safe mode of transportation and I do hope this does not deter people from trusting the Disney Transportation.

I will have news updates as more information becomes available.

Customized Maps Rock!!!

A couple weeks ago I made Customized Disney maps and they just came in the mail today! I suggest if you get a chance, make the customized maps!

When you get on the website, you get to choose what your favorites are in the four main theme parks and they highlight them specially on your map. The map when you get it will have all of the attractions listed, but your favorites will be in gold circles while the others will be in red (Suggestions) or blue (Even more Fun).

You also get to choose the theme of your map. There are a few to choose from, including one with characters that you might associate with the park. I chose the classic version, which you will see from the pictures are aged, fancy and I think quite pretty.

These are some pictures of the maps I received.

This is the letter that came with the maps
This was a list with some tips for your trip down to The WorldThis is an extra map that they sent that has the entire property on it. The detail is just awesome!
The Magic Kingdom Map
Epcot Map
Animal Kingdom Map

Hollywood Studios Map
The envelope the maps came in and the awesome stickers that you can put on the map to mark other favorites, including your favorite resort.

If you want to make awesome maps like these, you can check it out by clicking here.

Opening of Disneyland Article

The one good thing about being at the doctor yesterday was that while my dad was waiting in the waiting room for me, some guy came around and handed out these newsletters for the county for this month. What happened to be in the center of the newsletter? Why an article about the Opening of Disneyland of course!! Here's the article:

July 17, 1955: Disneyland Opens

Disneyland Park was opened to the public on July 18, 1955. The Special Sunday events, including the dedication, were televised nationwide. ABC broadcast the event live on its network- at the tie, one of the largest and most complex live broadcasts ever.

The event did not go smoothly. The park was overcrowded as the by-invitation-only affair was plagued with counterfeit tickets.

The temperature was an unusually high 101 degrees F, and a plumbers' strike left many of the park's drinking fountains dry. Disney was given a choice of having working fountains or running toilets and chose the latter. This, however, generated negative publicity since Pepsi sponsored the park's opening; enraged guests believed the inoperable fountains were a cynical way to sell soda.

The asphalt that had been poured just that morning was so soft that ladies' high-heeled shoes sank in. Vendors ran out of food. A gas leak in Fantasyland caused Adventureland, Frontierland and Fantasyland to close for the afternoon. Parents were throwing their children over the shoulders of crowds to get them onto rides such as the King Arthur Carousel.

The park got such bad press for the event day that Walt Disney invited members of the press back for a private "second day" to experience the true Disneyland, after which Walt held a party in the Disneyland Hotel for them. Walt and his 1955 executives forever referred to July 17th as "Black Sunday." Disney officially called July 17th "Dedication Day" and the 18th as "Opening Day."

On Monday, July 18, crowds started to gather in line as early as 2 am, and the first person to buy a ticket and enter the park was David MacPherson with admission ticket number 2 (Since Roy O. Disney arranged to pre-purchase ticket number 1). Walt Disney had an official photo taken with two children instead-Christine Vess Watkins (then age 5) and Michael Schwartner (then age 7), and their photo carries a deceptive caption: "Walt Disney with the first two guests of Disneyland." Vess Watkins and Schwartner both received lifetime passes to Disneyland that day, and MacPherson was awarded one shortly thereafter. The passes were later expanded to include every Disney-owned park in the world.

Just thought it was an interesting article that I could share with ya'll!

Article is from the Healthy Home Times via The Boothwyn Pharmacy, INC.

My Health

So, I've been complaining a lot about doctors and feeling bleh lately and I figured I would explain what its fully all about.

Freshman year of high school (2003-2004), I had some weird sick spells; from poison ivy on my ankle making it swell up to a melon size, to having pain in my wrist every time I would play my flute. My friend had been diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel and I thought I would get that checked out, so I went to the doctor after school was out.

That summer was filled with blood tests that told me that I had Lyme Disease, which I had to go on medication for immediately. After a brutal summer which included my second and worst trip to Disney World thanks to the insane medication I was on and a lot of blood work and false diagnoses, I went back to school in the fall with the final diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis.

What we later figured out was that the "poison ivy" that I had in the fall was not really poison ivy, but a tick bite that did not form in the usual bullseye mark, so I never knew it was that. So I had Lyme Disease festering in my body completely unchecked for almost 10 months and while it was wreaking havoc, it brought out my genetic disposition for RA about 50 years earlier than I would have gotten it if I did not get bitten.

I went to a rheumatologist and was given medications to take that worked well with only minor dosage increases for almost two years. It took some getting used to, but I was doing everything I could before with only minor pains.

Problems came back August right before senior year. I had maxed out on the one medication and was given a new one, one with sulfa in it. I was on it for three weeks and was feeling great! The fourth week came and I got really sick. Turns out that I am allergic to sulfa and I was on the brink of having total liver failure. We stopped the meds and went on the old medication so my body could be monitored. It took 5 months for the swelling in my liver to go down completely. After I was better, I started new meds, avoiding sulfa and trying to find something that would work well.

This is what brings us to today. For the last two years, I have jumped from one medication to another. Some have not worked for my arthritis and others just ripped up my stomach so much that I didn't care if the helped the RA cuz I was in too much pain otherwise. I have been on every single NSAID (Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug) that I can go on and none of them work for me and my difficult body. My doctor knows what he wants to do next, he wants to start me on methotrexates. Only problem is that I am switching doctors in September when I turn 21. I am at a children's Rheumatologist right now, so I have to switch in September. The methotrexates are a chemotherapy that my doctor like to carefully monitor because of the extreme affects it can have on the body and, since I will not be with him much longer, he does not have the time to monitor as he will like. So, I have to wait until Oct. 13th to see my new doctor and get the medicine that I need. Right now I am living on a steroid to kind of bide my time until I can go on the medication that I am supposed to go on.

That is my basic health spiel from the last 5 years. Sorry for the length but I figured you guys should have an idea whats going on in my crazy life.

My Sister, the Artist 2

Continuing as I said I would with the amazing art of my little sister, here is her latest masterpiece!

The original picture of the Cheshire Cat

And this is the picture as drawn by my sister:
Please feel free to leave comments and criticisms, she appreciates all comments about her art!

Whats wrong with me and doctors?

I keep mentioning about me going to the doctor and not knowing whats wrong with me and I realized that you guys don't really know what is wrong, so I thought I would shed some light on the subject.

I will write a longer post soon about my major problem, but the reason I went to the doctor today was because of dizzy spells that I have been having for the last couple months. They hit me out of no where and for what seems to be no reason. They happen almost every day and it doesn't matter if I am sitting, standing or laying down. I have had two sets of blood tests ran and no one knows why this is happening. My doctor today told me that I have to go to a Neurologist to get some more tests done. I am just frustrated because I am sick of dealing with the dizzy stuff and I want to feel better!

I'll start working on a post about my other problems soon. I will apologize in advance for its length, because it is a long story.