The Troll

Oh, I don't know about that.  Jar Jar is quite marketable, and quite tasty.
 

I'm really enjoying the blast from the past, Aaron.
 
This photo is cool- the Sunshine Pavilion with no carpet ride blocking the view:
 

 
But what is that?  A pumpkin on a stick?
 
I also think the scene in Pirates has the men chasing the ladies.  Which is how Walt wanted it, before the days of political correctness came along and made them swap the men with the ladies.
 
I'm sorry to say this, but a lot of the dark ride photos (Pirates and HM) make it appear that your family friend was one of "those people" who used a flash to take photos on the dark rides.
 
TCD

Cool stuff!!!  Another difference I notice is no hidden/intentional/deliberate Mickey on the table in the ballroom scene at HM.

Fixed.
 
 
And with that, you have won the internet today.

Dropping my Troll gimmick for a bit, I wanted to comment on the article. I enjoyed the article very much and I think it's very well written and interesting. How they developed the system and made it work are fascinating.
 
I am very "pro corporation," if you will, and am very much for Disney making record profits, so long as they don't cheapen the product or leave me feeling I didn't get my money's worth. Yes, you pay more at Disney and I joke about it A LOT, but bottom line is this: It's worth it. I love the damned place and just about everything about it and am willing to fork over the extra cash to continue experiencing it.
 
With that in mind, I'm trying to look at the Magic Band system objectively.
 
TCD makes very strong points. The big one, I think, is breaking the rides into tiers and then limiting you to one "main event" ride per day. I am also very suspicious and displeased with the long gaps that are scheduled in between rides. I think when the author of the article wrote this: Disney’s servers crunch your preferences, then neatly package them into an itinerary calculated to keep the route between stops from being a slog—or a frustrating zig-zag back and forth across the park, I'm with TCD. I think this is propaganda for, "We're programming in big waits in between rides to deliberately leave you with nothing to do but eat and shop."
 
Let's face it: The Magic Band doesn't give you any "itinerary," and how does scheduling you for the Hall of Presidents at 4:15 and Splash Mountain at 6:30 save anyone from zigzagging?
 
Heck, while I'm at it, what's with that, "Disney servers crunch your preferences" tripe? That system doesn't know anything about my preferences. It just pops a generic list of available rides on my laptop and says, "Pick three, bitch."
 
And this makes no sense: In fact, it’s called the paradox of choice: You make people happier not by giving them more options but by stripping away as many as you can. This construct can certainly be true in, say, the restaurant business, but it runs counter to the Disney culture. The whole point of Disney World is its vast array of choices. You don't have to go anywhere else because we've got everything you want right here. I really suspect this is more propaganda for, "The rides are too crowded. So to fix that, we're going to let people just ride three. The rest of their time, they can spend in shops and our delightful eateries."
 
Now to be fair, I do think the problem of guests gobbling up the Fast Passes at rope drop had to be fixed. Casual and/or first-time guests would show up later in the day, only to find signature attractions had already run out of Fast Passes by 1PM for the entire day. On top of that was the problem of "hacking" the Fast Pass system. While I admit I may have been guilty of that myself once or twice in the past, overall, it was bad for the system, from park management's perspective.
 
Bottom line -- So far, for me, the Magic Band is a lot of technology for the sake of technology. It really doesn't make anything much easier or faster. So it has my debit card number on it. So what? Whipping out my debit card took me, what, three seconds? Personally, I believe the Magic Band destroys the concept of "Let's do it all!" days at a given park. You just can't do that anymore unless you're willing to endure the standby lines. Instead, Leslie and I book a "main event" ride, pop into the park, ride it, maybe eat a snack or sit in a rocking chair, then pop out. I would expect a lot of annual passholders like us are doing the same. And isn't that defeating the very intent of the Magic Band to begin with?

Agree. Let's see if we can get into their heads. Let's look at this from a senior park manager's perspective. Here are the goals I could see them having for the system. Keep in mind, these goal must promise a $1 billion ROI, at a minimum:
 
Fix the Fast Pass gobble-up. First-time guests unable to ride signature rides equals many never-to-return guests 
Keep people in the parks but out of the attractions. Let's face it -- you're not spending money while sitting in the Hall of Presidents. So let the guests ride some rides, but not too many. Spread ride times out to keep people in the park (and away from their hotel rooms or campsite), waiting for their ride reservations 
Forcibly steer people toward less popular attractions. By forcing people to less popular attractions, you increase ridership and have to replace attractions less frequently 
Spread the "main event" wealth. With the Fast Pass system, I could conceivably get a Fast Past for Splash Mountain, Big Thunder, and Space Mountain all in the same day, hogging Passes from other guests. Now, instead, I get Splash, Hall of Presidents, and Buzz Lightyear 
Steer guests to bigger merchandise rides. That is, some rides like "Pooh" are bigger merchandise movers than rides like, say, Astro Orbiter. So when lines at the merchandise-movers are thin, steer people toward them rather than the slower-movers. Make sure the merchandise-movers are filled up before making the slower-movers available. Simply bamboozle the public by calling this marketing ploy an attempt to  "customize the guest's experience according to his/her preferences." Then I sense maybe there was yet another goal. I think they suspect there's something big to be gained by them linking the guest's credit/debit card to the band. At first I dismissed it as being mostly a wash, since it's almost just as easy for me to whip out my debit card as it is to use my band. But is there a psychology they're trying to defeat? That is, do they suspect guests will psychologically spend more credit money using the band rather than their actual credit card? Do they predict the band will psychologically "trick" the guest into thinking that all the money their spending isn't really real?

Dropping my Troll gimmick for a bit, I wanted to comment on the article. I enjoyed the article very much and I think it's very well written and interesting. How they developed the system and made it work are fascinating.
 
I am very "pro corporation," if you will, and am very much for Disney making record profits, so long as they don't cheapen the product or leave me feeling I didn't get my money's worth. Yes, you pay more at Disney and I joke about it A LOT, but bottom line is this: It's worth it. I love the damned place and just about everything about it and am willing to fork over the extra cash to continue experiencing it.
 
With that in mind, I'm trying to look at the Magic Band system objectively.
 
TCD makes very strong points. The big one, I think, is breaking the rides into tiers and then limiting you to one "main event" ride per day. I am also very suspicious and displeased with the long gaps that are scheduled in between rides. I think when the author of the article wrote this: Disney’s servers crunch your preferences, then neatly package them into an itinerary calculated to keep the route between stops from being a slog—or a frustrating zig-zag back and forth across the park, I'm with TCD. I think this is propaganda for, "We're programming in big waits in between rides to deliberately leave you with nothing to do but eat and shop."
 
Let's face it: The Magic Band doesn't give you any "itinerary," and how does scheduling you for the Hall of Presidents at 4:15 and Splash Mountain at 6:30 save anyone from zigzagging?
 
Heck, while I'm at it, what's with that, "Disney servers crunch your preferences" tripe? That system doesn't know anything about my preferences. It just pops a generic list of available rides on my laptop and says, "Pick three, bitch."
 
And this makes no sense: In fact, it’s called the paradox of choice: You make people happier not by giving them more options but by stripping away as many as you can. This construct can certainly be true in, say, the restaurant business, but it runs counter to the Disney culture. The whole point of Disney World is its vast array of choices. You don't have to go anywhere else because we've got everything you want right here. I really suspect this is more propaganda for, "The rides are too crowded. So to fix that, we're going to let people just ride three. The rest of their time, they can spend in shops and our delightful eateries."
 
Now to be fair, I do think the problem of guests gobbling up the Fast Passes at rope drop had to be fixed. Casual and/or first-time guests would show up later in the day, only to find signature attractions had already run out of Fast Passes by 1PM for the entire day. On top of that was the problem of "hacking" the Fast Pass system. While I admit I may have been guilty of that myself once or twice in the past, overall, it was bad for the system, from park management's perspective.
 
Bottom line -- So far, for me, the Magic Band is a lot of technology for the sake of technology. It really doesn't make anything much easier or faster. So it has my debit card number on it. So what? Whipping out my debit card took me, what, three seconds? Personally, I believe the Magic Band destroys the concept of "Let's do it all!" days at a given park. You just can't do that anymore unless you're willing to endure the standby lines. Instead, Leslie and I book a "main event" ride, pop into the park, ride it, maybe eat a snack or sit in a rocking chair, then pop out. I would expect a lot of annual passholders like us are doing the same. And isn't that defeating the very intent of the Magic Band to begin with?

Agree. Let's see if we can get into their heads. Let's look at this from a senior park manager's perspective. Here are the goals I could see them having for the system. Keep in mind, these goal must promise a $1 billion ROI, at a minimum:
 
Fix the Fast Pass gobble-up. First-time guests unable to ride signature rides equals many never-to-return guests 
Keep people in the parks but out of the attractions. Let's face it -- you're not spending money while sitting in the Hall of Presidents. So let the guests ride some rides, but not too many. Spread ride times out to keep people in the park (and away from their hotel rooms or campsite), waiting for their ride reservations 
Forcibly steer people toward less popular attractions. By forcing people to less popular attractions, you increase ridership and have to replace attractions less frequently 
Spread the "main event" wealth. With the Fast Pass system, I could conceivably get a Fast Past for Splash Mountain, Big Thunder, and Space Mountain all in the same day, hogging Passes from other guests. Now, instead, I get Splash, Hall of Presidents, and Buzz Lightyear 
Steer guests to bigger merchandise rides. That is, some rides like "Pooh" are bigger merchandise movers than rides like, say, Astro Orbiter. So when lines at the merchandise-movers are thin, steer people toward them rather than the slower-movers. Make sure the merchandise-movers are filled up before making the slower-movers available. Simply bamboozle the public by calling this marketing ploy an attempt to  "customize the guest's experience according to his/her preferences." Then I sense maybe there was yet another goal. I think they suspect there's something big to be gained by them linking the guest's credit/debit card to the band. At first I dismissed it as being mostly a wash, since it's almost just as easy for me to whip out my debit card as it is to use my band. But is there a psychology they're trying to defeat? That is, do they suspect guests will psychologically spend more credit money using the band rather than their actual credit card? Do they predict the band will psychologically "trick" the guest into thinking that all the money their spending isn't really real?

Dropping my Troll gimmick for a bit, I wanted to comment on the article. I enjoyed the article very much and I think it's very well written and interesting. How they developed the system and made it work are fascinating.
 
I am very "pro corporation," if you will, and am very much for Disney making record profits, so long as they don't cheapen the product or leave me feeling I didn't get my money's worth. Yes, you pay more at Disney and I joke about it A LOT, but bottom line is this: It's worth it. I love the damned place and just about everything about it and am willing to fork over the extra cash to continue experiencing it.
 
With that in mind, I'm trying to look at the Magic Band system objectively.
 
TCD makes very strong points. The big one, I think, is breaking the rides into tiers and then limiting you to one "main event" ride per day. I am also very suspicious and displeased with the long gaps that are scheduled in between rides. I think when the author of the article wrote this: Disney’s servers crunch your preferences, then neatly package them into an itinerary calculated to keep the route between stops from being a slog—or a frustrating zig-zag back and forth across the park, I'm with TCD. I think this is propaganda for, "We're programming in big waits in between rides to deliberately leave you with nothing to do but eat and shop."
 
Let's face it: The Magic Band doesn't give you any "itinerary," and how does scheduling you for the Hall of Presidents at 4:15 and Splash Mountain at 6:30 save anyone from zigzagging?
 
Heck, while I'm at it, what's with that, "Disney servers crunch your preferences" tripe? That system doesn't know anything about my preferences. It just pops a generic list of available rides on my laptop and says, "Pick three, bitch."
 
And this makes no sense: In fact, it’s called the paradox of choice: You make people happier not by giving them more options but by stripping away as many as you can. This construct can certainly be true in, say, the restaurant business, but it runs counter to the Disney culture. The whole point of Disney World is its vast array of choices. You don't have to go anywhere else because we've got everything you want right here. I really suspect this is more propaganda for, "The rides are too crowded. So to fix that, we're going to let people just ride three. The rest of their time, they can spend in shops and our delightful eateries."
 
Now to be fair, I do think the problem of guests gobbling up the Fast Passes at rope drop had to be fixed. Casual and/or first-time guests would show up later in the day, only to find signature attractions had already run out of Fast Passes by 1PM for the entire day. On top of that was the problem of "hacking" the Fast Pass system. While I admit I may have been guilty of that myself once or twice in the past, overall, it was bad for the system, from park management's perspective.
 
Bottom line -- So far, for me, the Magic Band is a lot of technology for the sake of technology. It really doesn't make anything much easier or faster. So it has my debit card number on it. So what? Whipping out my debit card took me, what, three seconds? Personally, I believe the Magic Band destroys the concept of "Let's do it all!" days at a given park. You just can't do that anymore unless you're willing to endure the standby lines. Instead, Leslie and I book a "main event" ride, pop into the park, ride it, maybe eat a snack or sit in a rocking chair, then pop out. I would expect a lot of annual passholders like us are doing the same. And isn't that defeating the very intent of the Magic Band to begin with?

Dropping my Troll gimmick for a bit, I wanted to comment on the article. I enjoyed the article very much and I think it's very well written and interesting. How they developed the system and made it work are fascinating.
 
I am very "pro corporation," if you will, and am very much for Disney making record profits, so long as they don't cheapen the product or leave me feeling I didn't get my money's worth. Yes, you pay more at Disney and I joke about it A LOT, but bottom line is this: It's worth it. I love the damned place and just about everything about it and am willing to fork over the extra cash to continue experiencing it.
 
With that in mind, I'm trying to look at the Magic Band system objectively.
 
TCD makes very strong points. The big one, I think, is breaking the rides into tiers and then limiting you to one "main event" ride per day. I am also very suspicious and displeased with the long gaps that are scheduled in between rides. I think when the author of the article wrote this: Disney’s servers crunch your preferences, then neatly package them into an itinerary calculated to keep the route between stops from being a slog—or a frustrating zig-zag back and forth across the park, I'm with TCD. I think this is propaganda for, "We're programming in big waits in between rides to deliberately leave you with nothing to do but eat and shop."
 
Let's face it: The Magic Band doesn't give you any "itinerary," and how does scheduling you for the Hall of Presidents at 4:15 and Splash Mountain at 6:30 save anyone from zigzagging?
 
Heck, while I'm at it, what's with that, "Disney servers crunch your preferences" tripe? That system doesn't know anything about my preferences. It just pops a generic list of available rides on my laptop and says, "Pick three, bitch."
 
And this makes no sense: In fact, it’s called the paradox of choice: You make people happier not by giving them more options but by stripping away as many as you can. This construct can certainly be true in, say, the restaurant business, but it runs counter to the Disney culture. The whole point of Disney World is its vast array of choices. You don't have to go anywhere else because we've got everything you want right here. I really suspect this is more propaganda for, "The rides are too crowded. So to fix that, we're going to let people just ride three. The rest of their time, they can spend in shops and our delightful eateries."
 
Now to be fair, I do think the problem of guests gobbling up the Fast Passes at rope drop had to be fixed. Casual and/or first-time guests would show up later in the day, only to find signature attractions had already run out of Fast Passes by 1PM for the entire day. On top of that was the problem of "hacking" the Fast Pass system. While I admit I may have been guilty of that myself once or twice in the past, overall, it was bad for the system, from park management's perspective.
 
Bottom line -- So far, for me, the Magic Band is a lot of technology for the sake of technology. It really doesn't make anything much easier or faster. So it has my debit card number on it. So what? Whipping out my debit card took me, what, three seconds? Personally, I believe the Magic Band destroys the concept of "Let's do it all!" days at a given park. You just can't do that anymore unless you're willing to endure the standby lines. Instead, Leslie and I book a "main event" ride, pop into the park, ride it, maybe eat a snack or sit in a rocking chair, then pop out. I would expect a lot of annual passholders like us are doing the same. And isn't that defeating the very intent of the Magic Band to begin with?

Great post, Andrew. To this one I would also add the area around the bridge that connects the 900 loop to the group camping area. There's a log bench there now along that dog path. Sit on that bench and marvel along the same lines -- you're sitting in the original heart of Disney World, a place visited by what? A hundred million people per year? And yet you'd never know it.
And so few people, such a tiny, tiny fraction of those visitors know about that bridge and that bench.

Oh, by the way, this is a castle:
 

 
Suck it, California tree hugger people.

Whoa! Stop the bus! Stop the bus! Back up the damn boat!
 
Snow White had to WALK?! That's bullsh*t!
 
Let's face it, people, it all did NOT start with a Mouse -- it started with a princess and her name was Snow fricking White. If there was no Snow White there would be no Disneyland, no Disney World, no Fort, no Space Mountain, no rotting River Country, no gargantuan lodge, no hotel/blimp hangar with a monorail running through it, no geodesic sphere with a boring ride narrated by a lady with an annoying British accent, no Obama android, no dude getting a rhino horn crammed up his butt, no racist log flume ride, no debate over what's better -- the taller floats or the garland, no train ride where the narrator thanks me for putting up with him for the past couple of days when I've only been riding it for ten minutes, no circus tent store where there's a zombie-apocalypse feeding frenzy for stuffed Olafs and Elsa dolls, no pirates selling innocent women into sex slavery, no wealthy nobleman committing suicide by hanging himself from the rafters of his own mansion, no soda machines with advanced programmable integrated circuit chips to prevent hardened thieves from "sip stealing," no stupid wristband that's advanced enough to record my credit card number and my location in a particular park when my picture was taken but not advanced enough to record that I'm an annual pass holder, no animatronic Yeti that is bad ass but turned off because the foundation is cracked and they're too cheap to fix it, no grouchy retired electrical engineer who's sunk to driving a bus and insulting guests, no renovated Star Wars simulator featuring Jar Jar Binks even though Jar Jar Binks is universally reviled and the symbol of a ruined franchise, no walkways clogged up by lazy people riding scooters designed for disabled people...
 
Now, it's OK that Elsa gets her own float. She is this generation's Snow White. Can you say, "$1.274 billion box office," beyotch?
 
See this lady?
 

 
You may not know it, but Disney awarded this lady their evil Iron Cross with Oak Leafs, Swords, and Diamonds. It's the highest honor a person can receive from the evil Disney Empire.

This trip report kicks ass, BTW.

Whoa! Stop the bus! Stop the bus! Back up the damn boat!
 
Snow White had to WALK?! That's bullsh*t!
 
Let's face it, people, it all did NOT start with a Mouse -- it started with a princess and her name was Snow fricking White. If there was no Snow White there would be no Disneyland, no Disney World, no Fort, no Space Mountain, no rotting River Country, no gargantuan lodge, no hotel/blimp hangar with a monorail running through it, no geodesic sphere with a boring ride narrated by a lady with an annoying British accent, no Obama android, no dude getting a rhino horn crammed up his butt, no racist log flume ride, no debate over what's better -- the taller floats or the garland, no train ride where the narrator thanks me for putting up with him for the past couple of days when I've only been riding it for ten minutes, no circus tent store where there's a zombie-apocalypse feeding frenzy for stuffed Olafs and Elsa dolls, no pirates selling innocent women into sex slavery, no wealthy nobleman committing suicide by hanging himself from the rafters of his own mansion, no soda machines with advanced programmable integrated circuit chips to prevent hardened thieves from "sip stealing," no stupid wristband that's advanced enough to record my credit card number and my location in a particular park when my picture was taken but not advanced enough to record that I'm an annual pass holder, no animatronic Yeti that is bad ass but turned off because the foundation is cracked and they're too cheap to fix it, no grouchy retired electrical engineer who's sunk to driving a bus and insulting guests, no renovated Star Wars simulator featuring Jar Jar Binks even though Jar Jar Binks is universally reviled and the symbol of a ruined franchise, no walkways clogged up by lazy people riding scooters designed for disabled people...
 
Now, it's OK that Elsa gets her own float. She is this generation's Snow White. Can you say, "$1.274 billion box office," beyotch?
 
See this lady?
 

 
You may not know it, but Disney awarded this lady their evil Iron Cross with Oak Leafs, Swords, and Diamonds. It's the highest honor a person can receive from the evil Disney Empire.

As always, what a fantastic trip report. I feel like I was there. Still more to come, yes?

Hey! Who's this guy? I kinda like him. But didn't you spell "mega" wrong?
 
 
Mmmmm...Disney Kool Aid...mmmmm...cherry flavor...
 
 
Just don't request those sites when you check in. Let the other suckers get them.
 
 
More people watching. More people for me to poke fun at.
 
 
We might actually benefit...if the Fort and the DVC share a dock, that is.
 
 
I have been going to the Fort off and on now for around 40 years.
 
I have never seen a kid playing in that grassy field.
 
Especially nowadays. Nowadays they're much more likely to hog up a rocking chair on the porch, screwing around with a cell phone.
 
 
It's all about money. Right now there is serious money to be made in the posh, way overpriced real estate hustle. The amenities help sell the joints to all the suckers visiting Disney for the first time. It's a business framed on smoke and mirrors and impulse purchases. And the more urgent and exciting you make the impulse, the more purchases you secure.
 
They ain't gonna throw all those amenities at us cheapo campers.
 
All joking aside, I certainly understand where you're coming from and a very big part of me feels exactly as you do. But they're gonna build this thing. We can look at the glass as half empty or half full.

Time for another panoramic shot!
 

Time for another panoramic shot!
 

Correct.
 
Travisma, it's great to meet you and I'm very happy to see you posting here, but I'm afraid I must rescind your invitation into Troll-kind. Sorry.
 
Oh, hey, everyone! You know what Santa is bringing the Troll for Christmas this year? A Red Ryder BB gun! I hope he delivers it early so I can put it to good use.

TDD fan boys.

Yes, the Empire clearly needs a PT program (that's physical training for you non-military folks) and they need to learn how to march in step!
 
And one hair to split with Devores on his point about added scenes. He is mostly correct, but not entirely. There were numerous new scenes -- or, well, shots -- added that were not originally filmed in the 70s or 80s. For example, the shot of the wampa eating the tauntaun in his cave is totally new. It is not the footage originally shot in the 70s. In ROTJ there is a collection of cheesy shots of reveling people all across the Empire celebrating the destruction of the Death Star. At one point a Jar Jar Binks thing says, "Weesa free!" Yeah, that. Not originally shot in the 70s or 80s.
 
One interesting tidbit about the Han Meets Jabba scene -- it was also cut out because the editor pointed out to Lucas that it was totally redundant. Han's plight with Jabba was already clearly communicated in his confrontation with Greedo, so meeting Jabba was unnecessary and somewhat confusing. Plus it took away from the Big Reveal of the mysterious Jabba character when we finally get to see him in ROTJ. But, hey, there was money to be made, so Lucas threw it back in so suckers like me would pay again to see it in the theater.
 
I'm firmly convinced that Lucas did not make Star Wars, that it was largely a product of people around him. And now that those people are gone, he is too dimwitted to understand what was good about "his" movies to begin with, so he ruins them.

Ahem. As a former Star Wars junkie, may I point out that Greedo did not speak English. Jawas did not speak English. The Sand People did not speak English. Ewoks did not speak English. Jabba did not speak English. The Imperial spy did not speak English. Nien Nunb did not speak English.
 
Everyone understands English, however. Oddly. And almost everyone understands the foreign languages spoken to them. 

OK, let's press on!
When we last left off, we had gone to the campfire and sing along. After that, we hit the sack, as the next day would be a busy, busy day.
Our anniversary was on Tuesday, the 30th of April. We wanted to have dinner at 'Ohana's, as it's our favorite restaurant, but even months out, the closest reservation we could get was the day before, the 29th, at 9:40. Oh, well...close enough! At least we had reservations.
So that's what we'd be doing at nighttime. During the day, our first item up for bids was the ol' swimming pool:


Here's a very rare sight:

Hey, what's this sign for?


Anybody?
Hey! It's the "Rock of Love" guy again!

I couldn't get away from that guy.
Anyway, if you're a follower of Troll Trip Reports, you may remember that in my last report I had a terrible experience with an unruly 8-year-old who thought it was fun to punch -- with his fists -- the button that resets the red light/green light at the top of the slide.
Well, true to form, I had another child experience while minding my own business, attempting to ride down the slide.
As you can tell from the above photos, there weren't many people at the pool. And there was NO line whatsoever to ride the slide. So seeing a golden opportunity to ride the slide over and over and over without being annoyed by children, I dove into the pool, swam across, and climbed up the stairs for my first trip around the water tower.
But no.
Sure enough, there was a kid at the top of the slide, preparing to ride down. And this kid looked to be, oh, five. He had floaties on his arms that had a matching floatie breastplate. So anyway, this tiny child was waiting for the light to turn green when I arrived at the scene. When it did, though, he stood there, transfixed. So I said, "It's OK to go, buddy!"
But he just stood there, transfixed. His eyes were focused like lasers on that water that gushes from both sides of the slide entrance to feed the slide water to make it slippery.
Finally, he sort of worked up the courage to sit at the edge of the slide with that water spraying all over him from both sides. He then looked back to me and announced, "I don't like slides."
I got parity error.
Don't like slides? So...why...are...you...on...one? I didn't know what to say. I hate that awkwardness when a kid says something weird to you and you don't know exactly what to say back.
So I said, "Oh."
The kid nodded slowly. "Yep," he said. "I hate slides. All slides."
So he just sat there at the slide entrance, sitting in the deluge of water, blocking me from enjoying the slide that I do happen to like.
So now I was stuck. This was a situation. How do I get rid of this kid?
You know how the Terminator has that infrared vision? You know, you see the world through his eyes and get to see what he's thinking? And you know how like when the Terminator is faced with a decision, a list of possible choices appears? Like this:

Understand what I'm talking about now? It's cool. And every time you get to see through the Terminators eyes, you get to hear the computer noise in his head, too. It goes like, "Waaaa, waaaa, waaaa..."
Anyway, us trolls have similar Terminator vision. When faced with difficult decisions, a menu of action choices appears in our brains. Here are the choices that appeared in my brain when faced with the child who didn't like slides blocking the entrance to said slide:
1. Kick child in back to knock him down slide
2. Throw child from slide platform
3. Trick child by telling him that if he slides down, he will surely drown
4. Pry child's fingers from sides of slide so that gushing water washes him down slide
Fortunately, this Troll was raised by nuns, so my nun-guilt blocked me from executing any of those choices. So instead I had to pretend I was a responsible, caring adult.
"So you're kind of scared to go down the slide?" I asked him.
"Yeah," he said.
"Well, would you like it better if I went first so I can catch you at the bottom?"
He nodded excitedly.
So I went first. Here I am coming up from landing:

But now I was in yet another awkward position -- I had to catch some 5-year-old kid whose parents may not take kindly to my doing so. So my other choice was to get the hell out of there, but then the kid might drown if I left him to his own devices.
"Well, he has floaties on...he won't drown..." that little devil on my shoulder whispered in my ear. "Let's get out of here while the getting's good!"
But then my nun-guilt kicked in again, so I decided I had to catch this child.
But fortunately at the last moment I noticed a 49-year-old woman in a string bikini with a serious addiction to spray tanning standing near the end of the slide. I assumed she was the boy's mother. She was. So I was off the hook.
Anyway, I didn't want to have to deal with the afraid-of-the-slide kid anymore, so I went back to my pool chair. When I got there, I noticed that this lifeguard liked to keep his whistle in his mouth 100%, just in case he gets the opportunity to blow it at someone:

I tried to snap a picture where I freeze the water droplets in midair:

Random shot of sign:

OK, enough for now. Coming up next, I prove the urban legend of some crane over the Fort to be wrong.

All right, thanks to everyone for reading along so far. Let's move on!
 
I mentioned in our last installment that Mrs. Troll and I now love the 900 loop. I also mentioned that site 916 is our favorite site. Let me tell -- and show -- you why.
 
First, the 900 loop backs up to the dog walk. Second, it backs up to the group camping area:
 

 
 
Notice that when we arrived, the group camping area was in use. In fact, it was jam-packed with Boy Scouts. I mean, jam-packed.
 
Also, there is a bridge that connects the 900 loop to the group camping area:
 

 
Notice that shoe in the frame? That's my foot. How did it get in the shot? Well, this way:
 

 
Yep, that's my view from my hammock at the back of my site! I can do my troll bridge duty from the relaxing comfort of my hammock!
 
The wildlife and foliage back here are awesome:
 

 
 
And to all the mutt-lovers out there, drumroll please, I present to you this:
 

 
The blonde dog is Zoe. The black dog is Elma. Both are rescue dogs.
 
Elma has an interesting story. There's a no-kill animal shelter near our house. It's run by the wife of a very wealthy car dealer. Since it's a no-kill shelter, however, it's always full. So evidently Elma's original family decided they couldn't afford her or didn't want her anymore, but they didn't want to take her to a kill shelter. So instead they threw her over the fence at the no-kill shelter in the dark of night!
 
Now she lives with us. Their loss, our gain. She's a great dog. We love her so much. She loves going for walks:
 

 
Florida is a beautiful state:
 

 
When I was younger I took all of this for granted. Paid no attention to it. Funny how as you get older little things matter more.
 
Anyway, the Fort management pays lots of attention to the 700, 800, and 900 loops. They take care to plant stuff in between sites to restore the wilderness, unlike the miserable 1700 loop. More on that later.
 
There was talk here on the board that in the late 90s, early 2000s, the Fort was being swallowed up by potato vines. So the Fort management decided to cut it back. And that's why the Fort is still so barren. The foliage seems to be taking root and making a comeback, but some parts are really, really bad. Now, I understand a lot of people consider potato vines a weed, but you know, I see that stuff all over Florida, all over the panhandle, all over Alabama...do the trees die there? Everything seems OK...just covered in potato vines, which are pretty to me.
 
Oh well. The new planting just needs more time, I guess.
 
Anyway, there's one story I forgot to tell. I mentioned in my last installment that Mrs. Troll and I hit the magical Porch of Tranquility and Happiness after I smashed my knee with a hose nozzle. What I forgot to tell was the fact that we needed ice for our cooler and my Bloody Mary.
 
One thing about Mrs. Troll -- she is the iciest woman alive. I don't mean emotionally or spiritually, I mean literally. The woman loves ice. And coolers. It seems like every fifteen minutes I'm hearing, "We need ice!"
 
So she sent me on a quest to obtain ice before we went to the porch on our first day. I hopped into our Kenny cart and obliged.
 
There are two places to get ice at the Fort -- the comfort stations and the trading posts. I elected to get a bag of ice at the comfort station. This requires many steps.
 
First, you need $2 in quarters, which I didn't have. So you have to go into the laundry room:
 

 
To get in, you need your "room" key. They have a new room key system that requires that you simply wave your card in front of this reader:
 

 
Once inside, if you decide you're thirsty, you can buy a Coke for a very reasonable price:
 

 
Time for a Troll Rant!
 
[TROLL RANT ON]
There's a fundamental concept in neoclassical economic theory called elasticity. Elasticity is the reality that as a vendor raises his prices on something, the more demand goes down. Some things like gas and prescription drugs are very inelastic. That is, you can raise the price and demand doesn't go down much. After all, if you need insulin to stay alive, you'll pay pretty much any price to get it. Other things, like Coca-Cola, are very elastic. The more you increase the price, the less people want it.
 
So let's put this into plain English for the nitwits who run the Fort: If you lower the price on Cokes, you'll probably sell more Cokes, nimrods. And you'll make more profit in volume.
 
But, hey, I'm just a government worker. What do I know?
[/TROLL RANT OFF]
 
Anyway, back to the tutorial on buying ice.
 
After you are floored and disgusted by the ridiculous price for a bottle of Sprite, you need to get quarters:
 

 
I was pleasantly surprised that there wasn't a surcharge to use the change machine. I actually got four quarters for my paper dollar!
 
Next, you need to grab a bag off the wall:
 

 
Now I wonder how many zillions of bags of ice have been wasted by kids sent to purchase a bag of ice who failed to realize you need to grab a bag before inserting the quarters into the machine? There's another revenue generator for Mr. Disney.
 
Child: "Mom, I need another $2."
 
Mom: "Why? Where's the ice?"
 
Child: "All over the ground."
 
Mom: "What?! Did you drop it?"
 
Child: "No. I forgot to put the bag under the ice nozzle before I put the quarters in."
 
Mom: "You moron!" *Smacks child*
 
I did not make this mistake. However, I may have when I was 10 years old.
 
Instead I had my bag in position around the ice nozzle as I was inserting the quarters:
 

 
This is kind of awkward. You have to insert the quarters with one hand and hold the bag in ready position with the other. You need to be ready! That ice comes out fast and it's heavy! If you're not ready, the ice will start flowing out, the bag will get suddenly heavy, and it'll slip out of your hand. Then you'll have an angry Mom or Mrs. Troll.
 
Now you can see the product of my expert handiwork:
 

 
Ta da!
 
Coming up next, some looping.