Day 1298: A Closer Look

Since there's so much to see in Marceline, Missouri, I figured it might be fun to give you an extra glimpse inside the museum before my video on the town next week. The museum is in the old train depot, which offers plenty of space, and the majority of the artifacts inside were either donated to the town by Walt himself or to the museum by Walt's sister Ruth. It means the building is filled with unique pieces that you can't see anywhere else on earth! 

The above pictures are in one of the front rooms, which is filled with train memorabilia and artifacts from the film that premiered in Marceline, The Great Locomotive Chase. Just off of this room, you can enter the majority of the museum, which features the artifacts from Walt's sister. One of the room also features a documentary on Walt Disney, which is over an hour long, but offers a nice chance to sit and relax if you're there for more than a few hours. I happened to walk in at the perfect moment of the documentary, when Walt was giving the opening speech for Disneyland. Since I visited the museum on Disneyland's birthday, it seemed like fate that I would catch that portion of the film. 

The brick you see in the picture above is from the original school that Walt attended when he lived in Marceline. Walt had the town promise to keep the cornerstone of the building if they tore it down, and when they did, they were sure to listen. The stone, which is much larger than it looks in this picture, is sitting next to the school replication on the second floor, nearby the model of Disneyland. 

When I mentioned that the Train Depot houses the museum, I'm not kidding. Much of the original building remains, only refurbished to house the museum. The ticket office still stands, filled with extra artifacts that would have been normal during Walt's time in Marceline. Outside, you can still stand on the platform where Walt would as a child, watching one of 70 daily trains go by, and yes, they do go by. You can't spend more than a half hour at the museum without hearing at least one train pass, and it really brings the entire thing together. 

Oh, and if that wasn't enough Disney for you, just as you used to be able to do at Walt Disney World, you can buy a brick to be engraved and added to the path just outside the building. I loved the connection, whether they did it on purpose or not, and while I didn't purchase a brick this time, I hope to do so next time I'm there to continue to help support such a wonderful museum! 

As I said, I'll have a video out next week on more of Marceline, so be sure to keep an eye out for that too! 

Have a magical day!

Day 1164: Spaceship Earth History

What is it about Spaceship Earth that's so interesting? Why in the world do I like it so much, and how in the world did it get there? After all, an 18-story geodesic sphere doesn't just build itself in the middle of Florida! So instead of just talking about how great Spaceship Earth is again, let's take a second to appreciate it's history...and talk about how great it is. 

Way back before Epcot opened, Spaceship Earth was designed with the help of a well known science fiction writer named Ray Bradbury, who also happened to assist with the original storyline for the attraction that would call the geodesic sphere home. The term "Spaceship Earth," however, came from Buckminster Fuller, who developed the structural mathematics, which many compare to a large golf ball (even I called it that once). If you really want to get technical, it's geometric shape is a derivative of a pentakis dedecahedron, which features each of the 60 isosceles triangle faces divided into 16 smaller equilateral triangles. Each of the 960 flat panels is then divided again into four smaller triangles, which are divided again into three isosceles triangles. So, in theory, there should be 11,520 total triangles on Spaceship Earth. However, some of them don't exist or are only partially there due to structural supports and doors. Instead, the official number is 11,324 full triangles, with some 200 partial panels. 

Gosh, all that math and we still haven't gotten to the actual construction, which took 26 months and 40,800 labor hours. So, in other words, the next time you feel like that lego building your working on will never be finished, remember how long Spaceship Earth took to take shape. Technically, the attraction is two separate structures, with the external shell of the sphere itself and the internal ride system we all know and love. To support the structure, they drove six legs deep into the ground (somewhere between 100' and 160' feet down), meaning Spaceship Earth is almost as tall underground as it is above ground. Oh, and if you've ever wondered how heavy it is, the weight listed on most websites is 15,520,000 pounds. Try fitting that on a scale. 

Inside, Spaceship Earth was originally sponsored by the Bell System from 1982 to 1984, until AT&T took over until 2004. And finally, starting in 2005, Siemens became the sponsor of Spaceship Earth, and continue to do so today. The interior attraction, of course, tells the story of communication all the way from the earliest cave dwellings and far into the future, whether that future be portrayed through audio animatronics like the rest of the attraction or a short video featuring you as the main character. And if you were wondering about the historical accuracy of what you see, just remember that several universities and the Smithsonian were called in to help make the experience historically accurate, and every item is an authentic representation of the time period. 

If you want to know more about the history of Spaceship Earth, here's a fun documentary from 1982! 

Have a magical day! 

Day 372: Forfit

Remember back on like January 1st when I said I was going to do a Disney Fact a day? Yeah, not working so well for me. It's not really that it's hard to find Disney facts either (although it does take some time to make sure that the facts are correct), it's just that in general, it takes a lot of time.

It's no secret that while I generally intend to blog everyday of my life, I often get behind. Goodness, I've been behind this week again, and we're only a few days into 2014. Granted, exactly a year ago I was sick and also missed blogging, but still. Not good. Not good at all.

But truthfully, I wrote many of the blog posts for the past couple of days, it's just that I didn't have a chance to find my Disney Facts to add to the end and I didn't want to post them until they had the facts on the bottom. It's then that something occurred to me. All last year when I was doing Disney History, it was fun and everything, but I HATED finding the history. Ok, maybe I'm going a bit overboard here, because I did always find it to be really interesting, but sometimes things just got to be really busy, and to be honest, the number one reason I would get behind on my blog was not because I didn't have the time at the end of my day to sit down at my computer and write a blog post, but because I didn't have my History ready for that month.

If I'm going back to college in a few weeks, and I know that my schedule and classes are harder this semester, why should I be adding on hours of work that I really don't have to have? I'm not sure what, or if, the Disney History or Daily Disney Facts will be replaced with, but maybe something will come along eventually. For now I think it's just a better idea to focus on what IS on the blog...and to complete the rest of the missions I have set up for this year.

Plus, it's kind of hard to keep multiple New Years Resolutions, especially considering it's hard to keep just one. Let's just focus on that one...year two of Everyday Disney.

Have a magical day!

Day 364: 2013

And here's part two of the end of the year posts. Really this one should go after the other one, but it just didn't work out schedule wise, so here we go. It's taken me hours and hours on end to total and tally all of this stuff up, and in order to technically have the numbers correct I have to finish this post before I can finalize the numbers. Because I want this post to include absolutely everything from the entire year.

So, let's start out by looking at the number of words from each month. You'll see the statistics by month and then overall.

January: 13,637 Words (0 Disney History)
February: 8,679 Words (973 Disney History)
March: 15,162 Words (1,688 Disney History)
April: 14,709 Words (1,690 Disney History)
May: 16,948 Words (1,543 Disney History)
June: 17,237 Words (1,559 Disney History)
July: 17,710 Words (1,608 Disney History)
August: 17,366 Words (1,385 Disney History)
September: 19109 Words (1,419 Disney History)
October: 20,741 Words (1,556 Disney History)
November: 24,406 Words (1,418 Disney History)
December: 20,299 Words (1,652 Disney History)

And then I went through and looked at some of the keywords from the entire year. My best friend and I came up with a list of the ones I probably used the most, or at least were the most interesting or funny.

Disney (w/o Walt Disney/Walt Disney World/Everyday Disney): 2,329
Colin O'Donoghue: 12
Emma Swan: 170
Hook: 213
Once Upon a Time (OUAT): 93
CaptainSwan: 37
Harrison Ford: 70
Star Wars: 211
Han Solo: 61
Epcot: 195
Spaceship Earth: 124
College: 214
Walt Disney: 142
Indiana Jones: 70
Walt Disney World (WDW): 211
Everyday Disney: 33

And then I calculated all the different pictures from each month on various fronts. For instance, Overall I had 803 pictures, although there might be a couple of them that are doubled. I mean, I didn't count Frumpstagram pictures or my Once Disneybounds more than once. Of those 803 pictures, 177 of them were from my Instagram account, 57 were movie posters, 50 were of Harrison Ford, 71 had to do with Star Wars, 108 were from Once Upon a Time, 171 were of Walt Disney World, and 25 at Disneyland. Throughout the year I also had 119 videos, most of which were from Youtube.

Of all the posts, 245 of them had at least one picture, 73 without any pictures at all and 47 of them had no pictures, but at least one Youtube video.

Overall, I think it's been a pretty good year, don't you think? Now to finish up this post so I can make the final counts and publish this post, which will, ultimately, be the last post I publish in 2013. Crazy, I know. But I think I'm ready for a new adventure once 2014 comes around. =)

Here's today's Disney History: 1980: The longest-running series in prime time television history, The Wonderful World of Disney, is canceled (on NBC) after more than 25 years on the air.

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on December 31 due to obvious reasons).

Day 321: A History Book

My family is currently in the process of cleaning out our basement so we can finish it. Yeah, my house may be big, but without that basement, it really isn't big at all. Anyways, the latest project was finishing my mom's craft room, meaning that when that's finished the total of rooms finished moves up to like 2 and a half (because one of the finished rooms is just a storage room, so does that really count?) While cleaning out a small portion of the room next door to that, the room that will eventually become a theater room, my parents came across box after box of books, one of which had a bunch of old textbooks, which happened to be from my Great Grandma and a few from my Grandma.

I wasn't home at the time, but my mom was telling me about how they had found all these books, so when I was home this weekend I went and looked through them, including the box filled with old textbooks. There were a bunch of random ones in there, but the first one I happened to pull out (probably because it was sitting on top) was a book titled "The United States: A History for the Upper Grades of Catholic Schools."

This book was probably the one that interested me for two reasons. First off, as you know if you've been reading my blog for a long time, history is one of my favorite subjects thanks to, namely, Spaceship Earth and The American Adventure. So the history aspect seems obvious. But second, I'm currently studying racism in the Catholic Church in my Theology class, and one of the things I wrote down in my notes when watching a movie the other day was about history books, so it was really interesting to see how a history book from the 1920's is so different from a history book of today. I mean, thinking about it, World War II hadn't happened, meaning Pearl Harbor did not yet occur, The Great Depression hadn't happened yet, nor had the Cold War or Civil Rights Movement. JFK wasn't even born much less assassinated yet. Yeah, it was pretty interesting.

But how does this relate back to Disney? Well, I already referenced it. Within the first ten pages of the book I felt like I was on Spaceship Earth, and I'm actually watching my recording of it as I write this because, well, I love that attraction. Let's take a closer look at a few of the things mentioned in this textbook so you can see what I mean:

"They [the Egyptians] manufactured a kind of paper from the papyrus plant, which grew in the Nile. From the name of this plant has come our word 'paper.'"

"The Egyptians and the Babylonians had thus begun the development of many of the industries and sciences which form the basis of our civilization to-day. Between these two peoples on the extreme eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea lived another people, the Phoenicians...Nothing they carried with them was of so great importance as their alphabet, which they may have adopted from the natives of the island of Crete. In this alphabet signs represented sound and replaced the picture writing of the Egyptians and of the Babylonians. These signs are the basis of our modern alphabet."

Those were the big two, but the book goes on to describe the Greeks and the Romans. After that the book gets more indepth the closer to the year it was printed it becomes. I really think it's interesting because those are things I did NOT learn in my own classes in school. Those are all things that I learned from DISNEY.

Funny how Spaceship Earth can be a History textbook.

Frumpstagram for today called for an "action shot," and honestly I can't think of an action shot better than one from Indiana Jones. It's seriously one of my absolute favorite shows at Disney World, and I try to see it as often as I can. Hopefully when I go with my band I can get a group of people together to go see it and we can all meet Indiana Jones!!!






Here's today's Disney History: 2007: New versions of two classic board games are revealed at Once Upon a Toy in the Downtown Marketplace in Florida. Disney Theme Park Edition Monopoly and Disney Theme Park Tower of Terror Clue both premiere at the special event with guests and Game Artists, Quhyn Kimball and Cody Reynolds from the Disney Design Group.

Have a magical day!

Day 298: #ProudMomentsOfLizziesLife

I really hope this is different from any previous post I've done because I really just did a search through my entire blog for key words that go along with this, and while I found a couple posts that are kind of similar, one specifically, I don't think I've had a blog post on this specifically, so it get the honor of being it's own post!

Here's the backstory and explanation as to what the title of this post means:

Whenever I'm texting or talking with my friends, they will sometimes make a reference to something Disney, whether it be a quote or a saying from a movie or something about the parks that I really didn't think they knew. They surprise me with them all the time now, meaning that, as I've discussed before, I've done a great job teaching them about all things Disney, especially since for the most part, my friends have never been to Disney World (and certainly not as often as I have).

So when these moments arise, I have a saying, and I'm sure you can guess what that saying it. Yep, you guessed it, Proud Moments of Lizzie's Life, although I tend to put it in a hashtag because that's just how it works.

But now I'll share a few of the recent Disney references that they've come up with and have made me smile:

Dole Whip: 

Today one of my friends had surgery at the dentist, meaning that her diet now consists of everything and anything that you don't need to chew...mostly shakes and pudding and jello and the such. Earlier when I was asking them what I should write about for this blog post (and others), her only comment was: "What to eat after you go to the dentist Disney connection? A dole whip would be nice right about now." Yes, a proud moment of Lizzie's Life indeed.

Movie Quotes: 

These seem to come up all the time, and some more than others. For instance, when I go back to see my High School Band perform, sometimes I'll ask "How's it Goin'," in which someone will respond, "Same as always" and I'll reply "That bad huh?" Yeah, Star Wars for the win. And it goes right hand in hand with the fact that whenever I see one of my friends I'll be like "I love you" and she always responds "I know."

But tonight when I was texting my friend we were talking about decisions people make and she added in "A terrible decision really," and I just sat and laughed. Flynn Rider always has the best quotes if you ask me.

Disney History: 

Today at lunch there was a Proud Moment of Lizzie's Life when I was telling one of my new college friends about Disney and showing her a few pictures of my last trip to Disney because we were talking about something or another and got onto the topic of Disney, because, really, when don't I get on the topic of Disney? Anyway, one of the pictures was this one:

And my college friend goes "Some guy with Minnie Mouse" and I responded "Roy Disney," to which Megan replied "Walt Disney's Brother?" Yes, yet another moment that makes Lizzie Proud.

But then there are the random times in which my references are lost on them. I mean, yesterday we were talking about our deaths approaching with finals, and Megan and I decided we would share a Crypt....and of course a wealth of Haunted Mansion references popped into my head, from "No Mourning, Please" to "The Crypt Doors Creak" and back to the numerous headstone sayings. Yeah, I wish they would understand my jokes sometimes, but maybe after we all go to Disney they'll totally get more of them!

For now, let's just continue having #ProudMomentsOfLizziesLife

Here's today's Disney History: 1971: The formal dedication of Walt Disney World in Florida takes place with Walt's Brother Roy O. Disney officiating. The park has been open since October 1. Standing alongside Roy O. Disney during the dedication in Town Square is Mickey Mouse. A grand opening parade down Main Street USA, featuring a 1076 piece band and led by Music Man Meredith Wilson (the composer of 76 Trombones) kicks off at 2 p.m.

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on November 19 due to time restrictions).

Day 59: End of the Month 2!

That's right, it's the end of yet another month in 2013. It's sure going by quickly isn't it?

Anyway, today marks the day that I've been blogging for two months. Once again, it's been kind of interesting, since I don't always get on. But I do go back and create a post for every day I miss, so I figure it ends alright.

It's been an interesting month, considering the fact that I had musical, and auditions, and I've been gearing up for Solo and Ensemble. I've watched several movies over the past month, and I've done the Disney history everyday now! There's just a lot that's been going on, and it's all so fun!

So here's to yet another month here at Everyday Disney, and to finish it off, here's your Disney History: 1997: Wookiee Chewbacca and actress Carrie Fisher (who portrayed Princess Leia) cut an opening ribbon with a lightsaber during a Star Tours re dedication ceremony at Disneyland. The event highlights the attractions 10th anniversary and the 20th anniversary of the original Star Wars films.

Have a magical day!

Day 37: The Muppet Show

It's days like today that I wish I could do a few things.

Of course, I really wish I could just go to Disney World for the evening, specifically Epcot, ride Spaceship Earth and Test Track a few times, catch a showing of the American Adventure and eat a dinner of food from around World Showcase. Of course, that's not how things work...and that can't happen...but if I could teleport, that's certainly where I'd be!

I've talked before about how I instead listen to Disney Parks music...but I didn't do that tonight. I grew very frustrated at my musical rehearsal, for a number of reasons that I won't go into, but it was frustrating and I was tired and just no longer wanted to think. Instead of listening to the music I did the work I had to do and then watched an Episode of The Muppet Show with my cat, LillyBelle.

This past Christmas, my parents bought me the first three seasons of the Muppet Show, as four and five aren't out yet. I've been watching them all in order, and I haven't had time to watch the past few weeks because I've been so busy. But I watched last night, and just like any other time I watch the Muppet Show, I had my cat take a nap on me while I curled up in a blanket on my living room couch and I watched.

Last night's episode really made me feel better too, because it is totally my favorite of all the episodes I've seen. It was the Julie Andrews episode, and the reason I love it is probably because I love Julie Andrews (but then again, who couldn't love her?), but it was still a really great episode.

And so, there's another way I tend to de-stress after a tough day at school. It's always Disney, of course, and it always makes me feel a lot better. 

Here's today's Disney History: 1859: Elias Disney (the father of Walt Disney) is born to Kepple Disney II and Mary Richardson in Bluevale, Ontario, Canada. 

Have a magical day!

Day 34: History

If you didn't notice yesterday, or the day before, I've begun my Daily Disney History posting here, something I've been doing on my Facebook Account for the last month.

This, obviously, won't be a long blog post, as I'm really just talking quickly about this...since I've had an extremely long day, but I wanted to explain how the entire thing works, and what I hope to do with it in the future.

I use GoogleDocs a lot...more than I ever used to. I create a separate document for each month, and then organize it by day. Then I search for something that happened on that day, record it, and then as the days go by I just copy and paste from the document. It's easy enough to do.

In the future, I'm hoping to create pictures for each day, and go back and do the ones I missed. This takes a lot of time, and since I already have several other personal projects, as well as school work that I'm doing, this might get to be a little difficult. It just looks like I'm going to have to use my time wisely and plan everything out. I've got a lot I want to do and not a lot of time to do it, but I will get it done!!! =)

So here's today's Disney History: 1925: John Fiedler, the original voice of Piglet in many of Disney’s Winnie the Pooh movies and TV programs, is born in Platteville, Wisconsin.

Have a magical day!

Day 33: FBLA

Today was my regional FBLA competition. I know I talked briefly about it the other day, but since today was the actual competition and it largely involved Disney for me, I figured I'd talk about it a little more.

I participate in Public Speaking II, which means I write a speech, memorize it and then present it to a group of judges. This is my third and final year in FBLA, and I'm more determined to go to nationals than ever. Why? Because it's in a little city called Anaheim, California...which just happens to be the location of Disneyland. I have been excited about it for quite a while...and I really want to make it to nationals. At the moment though, I really want to focus on state and getting to finals. One step at a time. One step at a time. 

But anyway, we don't have a lot of guidelines for writing this speech, other than it needs to include an FBLA goal and be centered on Business. This year, since it is my final year, I decided to do a speech on just how much FBLA has impacted me. I don't want to talk too much about the content here though, just in case someone out there is reading...but it does center largely around how FBLA has changed me as a person and has helped me in my decision to become an Imagineer. Of course, it's a challenging occupation  but basically because of FBLA I am prepared to do whatever it takes to reach that goal. 

And so, I ended up recieving first place, and that means I'm going to state competition. I won first place the last two years as well at the regional level, once in Public Speaking I and once in Public Speaking II, and at state I got 1st in public speaking I and 5th in Public speaking II. Overall pretty successful I think. I'm exciting to be headed to state for my third year, and I can't wait to continue work on my speech and make it the best it can be. 

Here's today's Disney History: 2006: Disney announces that the Disneyland and Disney World Pirates of the Caribbean attractions will be undergoing a 3-4 month makeover to work in character and plot elements from the movie series that took its inspiration from the original attraction. (The attraction now features Jack Sparrow, Mermaids and several other elements of the film series).

Have a magical day!

Day 32: Illuminations

This week Illuminations celebrates 25 years...which I have to say, is pretty impressive. I've grown up with the show myself...and honestly can't think of a better fireworks display in the entire world.

I remember this one time when I was much younger. My parents took my brother and I to a fireworks thing not far from our home, and I didn't want to go. I distinctly remember using the excuse of "It's not like Illuminations!" and what happened...the FIRST display (it was a bunch of different ones put together), used Illuminations music. It wasn't as good of course...but still!

And then there was the Cassette tape. Oh yes...the cassette tape. But it wasn't just any cassette tape...it was my Illuminations cassette tape, and we played it in our van every time we went somewhere for many years. I don't think it mattered where we went...it was playing. It's probably the reason I know the music by heart and my friends look at me funny when I do these little actions to go along with it.

A few weeks ago I was listening to it on my car ride into school for Jazz Band, and I pick up one of my friends on the way. It was towards the end, and I was very carefully telling her what was going on in the show based on the music. "So now there's this globe floating out on the water, and it's slowly opening, and now...wait for it...there! Fireworks shoot from the center of the globe. And now it's shooting in opposite directions. And now everything stops. Single firework. More...and boom boom boom...." Yeah. She was kind of freaked out that I knew the show that well.

But either way, I'd like to wish my favorite fireworks show a happy 25th birthday...and may it amaze many more people in the future. I'm not sure what my childhood would be like without this show...so I'm glad it's still around. =)

Here's today's Disney History: 1998: The "25" is removed from Epcot's Illuminations 25 (as Disney World's 25th anniversary celebration has ended) the same day Illuminations 98 debuts.

Have a magical day!

Day 31: End of the Month

Wow! I can't believe it's the end of January already! It feels like the year just started!

I have to say that while I sometimes have had to make up posts...I'm very happy to report that I made it through the first month...and I now come to look forward to writing for my blog each and every day. Sometimes time won't permit me to write...but I always go back and write that day, and I continue to notice all of the little ways Disney creeps into my everyday life.

Today I'm watching Casablanca...and I'll talk more about that tomorrow probably, after I have finished watching the entire thing...as right now I'm in the middle of it.

Remember also that tomorrow I will start a new series...this time of "This Day in Disney History." I'm not positive how I'm going to do it all yet...probably just start with regular words in each post, but I fully plan on making pictures for everything if I have time some day. Maybe Sunday if I don't have a lot to do...but like I said we'll see.

This really had no topic...I'm just excited about having completed an entire month on this blog!!!!

Have a magical day!

Day 27: Daily Disney

I've been debating for a while if I want to include something on this blog, so starting February, I'll try it.

Everyday on my facebook page I post "Today in Disney History" and I happen to be recording my daily history for February. I have it all in one document so I can easily just copy and paste from GoogleDocs onto my Facebook, but I have to say, there are some really interesting pieces of Disney history each and every day.

So, as I said, starting February 1st, I'll be including a "This Day in Disney History" here on Blogger. I'm not sure how I'm going to do it yet, but it should be pretty interesting!

And since this is a shorter post, here's a great picture I found on Pinterest!

Have a magical day!