I met Jim Dale last night!!!

Okay... for you non-Harry Potter lovers out there, I'll tell you who Jim Dale is. Jim Dale is the gentleman who performs the US version of all 6 (so far) Audio Books. He won a Grammy for HP4 and was nominated for HP5. He's a multiple winner of the Audie Awards and Queen Elizabeth II has honored him with an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire). He's even a Guinness Book of World Records Holder for "Most Character Voices in an Audio Book" for HP5!

I absolutely love, Love, LOVE the audio books! Getting the Audio CD for Book 6 was of the MOST importance on release night.

Anyway... our original plan for the night was to take the kids to downtown Crystal Lake for Thursday's Classic Car Night. It was going to be cooler than the ordinary car night since this time it was Corvette night and the famous Budweiser Clydesdale horses were going to make an appearance and march through downtown. I brought my camera to work with me because I didn't want to stop back at home.

I was tied up all morning at work so I didn’t even get a chance to do my daily morning routine of checking CNN, MacNN, TCF, MuggleNet & The Leaky Cauldron. (The previous day I read about Jim's reading in L.A.) It wasn’t until around noon that I was back at my desk and had the time to check my regular sites.

Then I saw it...
Random House has sent us the rest of Jim Dale's booktour schedule:
Thursday, June 28, 7:00 PM
The Levy Center
300 Dodge Avenue
Evanston, IL
Arranged through The Book Stall at Chestnut Court
847-446-8880

Sure it said June but I figured that was a mistake and that it really meant July. I called both the book store and the Levy Center to confirm and find out about parking. I immediately calculated train schedules to see if it was a viable option (it was not) and told my boss I was leaving an hour early.

There was no time to run home to get my video camera & tripod so at 4:00pm I picked up the kids at my parents house. I borrowed my dad's digital camera so I would be able to take a few 30 second video clips. (Better than nothing because my DSLR doesn't do video) and headed to Evanston (about 20 miles away) stopping to get gas along the way.

We arrived at The Levy Senior Center at 5:20pm. The doors opened at 6pm. When we arrived it didn’t surprise me that there was already a line. Only about 8 people, but a line none-the-less. It didn’t take very long before that line of 10+ turned into 50+

While we were waiting we watched the book store employees setting up a table with items for sale. Included on the table were HP 1-6 on Cassette & CD. Books 1-5 in Paperback and book 6 in Hardcover. Also included were a few of Jim's non Harry Potter audio books.

Once the doors opened a couple of minutes after six, we headed in. The room was a gym complete with basketball hoops and a stage.

We passed the time by talking HP with people sitting around us. After about a half hour I headed to the sales table. My problem was that I had nothing for Jim to sign. Had I known about this earlier I could have planned better. I own 4, 5 & 6 on CD but years ago I got 1, 2 & 3 from the library so I figured that I'd buy HP1 so I'd have something for him to sign. As I expected from the beginning, they were charging FULL retail for everything. So HP1 cost me just over $53 with tax. I could have purchased it for $33 at Amazon.com. I'm not complaining though, the Jim Dale reading was free, if they did charge, I would have paid the entrance fee, so the way I see it, it's a wash anyway. I grabbed my purchase and headed back to my seat.

At 7pm a Lady from the Senior Center introduced the lady from the Book Stall at Chestnut Court (who arranged this whole thing) and then she in turn introduced Jim Dale.

He appeared on stage and after a few microphone issues, he began telling us of the process in which an Audio Book is created. After that he began his reading. Instead of reading from a set book, he picked a collection of scenes that he enjoyed from all of the books. Between scenes he told us some stories about how he came up with some of the voices he created. Somewhere along the line his reading glasses broke and after a few funny moments (trying on some woman's) he put on a spare.


Click images for larger version

Video Clips... 30 seconds per clip is all the camera would do (sorry)

Bubotuber Puss - 5.6MB, 320x240, MPEG-4
Divination - 5.7MB, 320x240, MPEG-4
Howler #1 - 5.7MB, 320x240, MPEG-4
Howler #2 - 5.8MB, 320x240, MPEG-4
HP5 Dobby - 5.7MB, 320x240, MPEG-4

Contest time. He called 12 kids up on stage that aspired to be narrators. He broke the kids up into 3's and had the four groups read one of these parts...

* Part of the Sorting Hat song from HP1
* Ron’s Howler from HP2
* Aunt Marge talking about leaving Harry in a orphanage if he were dropped on her door step from HP3
* Professor Sprout talking about Bubotuber puss from HP4

The audience decided by applause which of the 4 moved on to the final round. Once there were 4 winners, they all competed for the grand prize by reading part of the Sorting Hat song from HP1. The girl who won that received all 6 audio books. The remaining 3 received the HP6 audio book.

About an hour and a half after he first was welcomed on stage he departed and people started to line up for the book signing.

We were about 10 people back from the front of the line. It went quickly. I had hoped that I’d be able to take a picture of my kids with Jim but the areas on both sides of the desk he was seated at were roped off. Some people leaned over the desk to get a pic with him but there was no way my kids were tall enough to even bother trying that. I also noticed two things. 1. I did not see anyone shake his hand. 2. No one really said anything to him but 'hello' and 'thank you' That wasn't gonna happen when it was my turn.

Nicholas was first. He shyly gave him the CD Sleeve and he signed it. Next up was Alyssa, she handed him her CD Sleeve and he signed it. Alyssa thanked him. It was my turn...

“Hello Sir”, he said

“Hello... It’s a real pleasure to meet you... " I replied.

"Thank you"

"...You are the one who got me into Harry Potter!"

“Really?”, he asked.

“Yes, listening to book one in the car. I got hooked and went on from there.” I responded.

"Excellent! It's nice to meet you sir." he replied.


I shook his hand and said “Thank you”, I snapped one last picture and we were on our way home. I would have loved to chat with him some more but there were over a hundred people waiting in line behind me.

Alyssa & Nicholas were excited that they got the autograph of someone famous and they couldn't wait to tell their mom. We hopped in the car and about 41 miles later we were home.

I must say that this VERY last minute addition to my week was a nice surprise. A few weeks earlier when HP6 was released and I closed my self off from the world to read along with Jim Dale on my iPod, I never would have guessed that by months end, I'd get the opportunity to meet him. I absolutely can't wait for book 7!

I must also thank The Leaky Cauldron because if they didn't post the schedule, we never would have had that amazing evening!

Google Earth: The ULTIMATE Walt Disney World Collection File

This is a project I've been working on since I bought Keyhole in late April. As you can tell, I've put a lot of time and research into it. I don't work for Disney... I'm just sort of a Disney geek. Lots of books, lots of vacations and aerial shots of WDW is what actually got me into the world of Satellite Imagery years ago on Terraserver.

You can download version 1.0 here. Follow the Keyhole BBS thread here.

So you're into Google Earth now right?

Now it's time to check out this site...

http://www.googleearthhacks.com/

So maybe he shouldn't die and spend eternity in the fiery pit of hell....

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Release

Taken at the Crystal Lake Barnes & Noble Store during the HP6 Release Party. We were yellow (reserved) wristband #33.





Yes, that's people way down there... click to enlarge.

My clock says... 2 days, 5 hours and 26 minutes to go...

Yes, we'll be at a midnight party! I can't wait!!

Shuttle Launch Scrubbed

Screw you Barry... I'm right!

It's been confirmed by a very knowledgeable source. The restaurant that is now Sun Shui in Arlington Heights WAS INDEED a Red Lobster many years ago!

Finding the Right House - Part XII: The Wait

Then the waiting game began. Even as Thanksgiving had come and gone, we still didn't let anyone know we found a house. There were still just over 2 months of time that things could go wrong with these sellers. After all, they weren't the most stable people in the world. My philosophy was, whoever we told we'd also have to explain the how's and why's if it fell through. I didn't want to have to do that.

During our LONG wait Valerie and I made it a regular routine to drive up to the area after she got off of work. Once there, we'd drive around to familiarize ourselves with the neighborhood. That ended up being a very smart thing to do since we got used to where things were and where the best shortcuts are.

Fast forward a month...

Our file was submitted to the lender on 12/15/04. That would give them plenty of time to get it processed by our lender in order to receive the commitment letter by 12/20/04. The wait for the letter wasn't long because we got a copy of the commitment letter faxed to us two days later on Friday 12/17.

It wasn't till Christmas that we told everyone we were moving. We seemed to get a mixed reaction.

As the New Year approached we began to pack. There were a lot of things that I didn't want in regular boxes so I insisted that we buy some of those big plastic bins at Wal-Mart...


After getting about twelve of them at a rough cost of $140 total, I put all of my computer, home theater & office stuff into bins... They were a good purchase... hell I filled up two bins alone with just DVDs! And now we can use them to organize our Christmas, Halloween & Easter stuff.
Every week we'd do a little more and get the bins "staged" for the move.

The Movers Decision
We had expected to do the move ourselves. We already reserved the longest U-Haul they had and figured we'd be able to pack & unpack it ourselves. That was a good idea in theory, until after packing a while we realized how much shit we really had. A few weeks before the move, I decided to look into movers. I knew that U-Haul had been advertising the emove.com service and that was among the ones I researched. Because it was a local move I was able to use the same guys and have them "Load" it up and then "Unload" at the new house. I knew that it wouldn't be that difficult a job since we had no major furniture that we were moving. I booked 2 movers for 2 hours each location. That is the minimum the company will do per location. It was quite reasonably priced at $150 per location. Now that we knew we were having movers a lot of the stress for us would be removed especially since that moving day would be stressful enough without having to do it ourselves.

As the final weekend before the move grew closer more and more of our stuff was packed away. On our final late night Friday drive, we noticed that the sellers had moving trucks in their driveway. Then on Saturday night we drove to the house again and they were all moved out. The drapes in the living room were opened and the dining room light was on. Sunday was spent taking apart the last pieces of my desk and removing the TV from the entertainment center. I put the finishing touches on my "Master Plan" which detailed our schedule for the next two days. By Sunday night we were too tired to drive by again.

We packed both cars with cleaning supplies, tools, new locks, and other stuff that we didn't want to end up in the U-Haul.

We fell asleep knowing that tomorrow would be a long, exhausting day.

Back to Part XI --- On to Part XIII

Finding the Right House - Part XIV: Moving Day

The day began way too early for me! We were already at U-Haul by 6:45am. I was happy when they opened 10 minutes early. The U-Haul guy asked me to do a favor for him. “There is only a 1/4 tank of gas in the truck. The truck costs $39.95 + mileage to rent. If you put in $39.95 in gas and give me the receipt I will waive the $39.95 charge and all you'll have to pay is the mileage”. His goal was to get more gas in it. I certainly didn't mind since that meant that the gas I'd use was at U-Haul's expense. I accepted his offer and headed to the truck.

If any of you have ever driven the 26' U-Haul (the LARGEST they offer) you'll know exactly what I was feeling at the time... "Can I really drive this fucker?"

The U-Haul guy showed me how to start the engine (it's a diesel truck and you have to wait for a light to turn on before you engage the starter) It soon roared to life! So there I was... A bit overwhelmed… Sitting in a HUGE empty truck.

I pushed hard on the clutch, put it in second gear as instructed and drove forward about 100 feet to the end of the parking lot. My goal was to go all the way across the street to the Mobil station. That might seem easy... but to those of you who have done this from the Palatine U-Haul you know that there are like 5 lanes of traffic to cross. Thank god it was just before 7am so traffic wasn't that heavy yet. After about a minute of waiting I was able to shoot across the street.

After filling it up.... wait... that's not the case... the $40 I put in gas didn't even give it 3/4 a tank! It must cost over $100 to fill that bitch up! After getting gas it was on to the In-laws house to get items that we staged there. What really sucked was that WE had to load the truck. I could have paid the movers another $150 to load from that location but it was only 45 minutes of work and with a 2 hour minimum with the movers we both agreed to load shit from there by ourselves.

Yes, we could have just done this bit by bit in the next several days with the Blazer... but my goal was... 1. To get everything moved in one day. and 2. Have the movers do the unloading for me. Because while we had to load... we wouldn't have to unload.

My schedule was pretty on the money because 45 minutes later we were driving home to begin the "REAL" move. At 8:00am sharp the movers were already waiting for us. When I opened the truck they saw that most of the truck floor was occupied by shit from the in-laws. They told us that they would have to compact that stuff before loading could begin. We obviously knew that would be the case and helped them move the stuff. The movers began by staging a lot of stuff in the driveway. Valerie and I were helping by loading up the Blazer with little stuff and stuff we didn't want in the truck.

I was pretty amazed at what these guys could do. A couple of times I warned them… “That one is heavy” to see a few moments later one of them picking it up like it was as light as a feather. I was also impressed by how easily they brought up my 31” TV from downstairs. I remember bringing it down the stairs… believe me.. it was NOT easy.

Three minutes shy of two hours later the truck was completely loaded. All that was left was a few small things and the BBQ. I told the movers that they could go and get lunch or something because I was going to take my sweet time driving the behemoth truck.

I climbed (literally) into the driver’s seat, turned the engine on and headed to our new home. Driving that massive beast was an odd sensation. It was very slow to pick up speed when compared to everything else on the road and vibrated on every bump & the handling was quite a bit sloppier than I’m used to. I soon learned that right hand turns REALLY suck with this thing. The first right turn resulted in the first curb clipping. There were only five right handed turns on the drive there and so far I was 0 for 1. That score remained for turn 2. I was getting passed by little old ladies on the road. A few of them gave me the finger too! (kidding) By turn three, I pulled out further into the intersection to avoid the curb. Yeah! I’m 1 for 3. I also managed turns 4 & 5 pretty well. So I ended up clipping 40% of the right hand turns on the way in.

Once we arrived at the new house, I backed 'er in with Valerie's help. (a quite scary experience in itself!) and to my surprise, the movers had followed us there and were ready to unload. We slowly opened the back of the truck in case anything shifted during the ride. Luckily everything looked okay.

Valerie immediately headed inside to put Bailey in his crate so he wouldn't be in the way. Then the fun of unloading began. Once again I was super happy that I hired movers to do this. I had them for a full 2 hours and wondered if they would go over the time. After all... they were going to unload MORE than they loaded because of the stuff Valerie and I loaded earlier.

I was busy unloading the blazer but again it was cool to watch them work as they lifted heavy items with ease and brought them inside.

They put everything where I wanted it. They even put my 31" TV into the entertainment center for me! They also laid out and connected our bed frame since I didn’t know how to set that one up.

It was only after 90 minutes of unloading that they informed us that they were done. On their way out we tipped them and they asked me to go back to the emove.com website to rate them and provide feedback. I told them I would.

After they left we locked up everything and Valerie followed me as I drove back to Palatine to return the U-Haul. I took a different, easier way to limit my right turns to only four. Again I clipped the first one (hard too) and was able to safely navigate the final three. The ride out was MUCH louder than the ride in. Every bump I drove over sounded like the whole truck would shake itself apart. I pulled into U-Haul, dropped off the truck, paid the bill and hopped back into the Blazer where Valerie and I went to pick up the kids. After getting the kids we headed home for our first night in the new house.

Once there, the large task of unpacking began. Standing there, looking at my desk in pieces, the new boxes containing the kids' dressers, 2 nightstands, my audio stand, TV stand, and all of the other work ahead, it looked like we’d never finish.


Back to Part XIII --- On to Part XV

Finding the Right House - Part XV: That's all Folks...

As I type this final segment we've been in the new house about 6 months. It's starting to feel like home which is much better than feeling like a hotel like it did in the first week or two. We're about 98% unpacked. We've bought a living room set, a dining room set and seating for the family room. We still need to buy a master bedroom set and we've got a long list of odds & ends we still need to buy and that'll just take time.

In our first week here, our garage door opener broke and had to be replaced. A couple of month later our septic system began to act oddly and we had to have it pumped. Then we had to fix the air conditioner and after that have a plumber out due to a water pressure problem.
Ahhh.... yes.... the joys of homeownership!

My advice… FORCE your sellers to provide a home warranty!

Finding the Right House was pretty simple though very stressful.

And as I must be famous for saying now… It's a series of compromises.

END OF LINE

Back to Part XIV

Cool Software Alert: UPDATE

So I recently posted that you should check out Keyhole.

When Google bought Keyhole they lowered their from $70 a year price to $30 a year. Then recently, Google changed the name and updated the software/database. It's now called Google Earth. They also changed the price again. FREE!!

http://earth.google.com/

I strongly urge you to download this software... since it's free now, you have NO excuse not to.