Archive | March, 2012

It’s a Small World After All: Visiting Disney World in Orlando

28 Mar

Disney is one of my most favorite places on earth, and I’m in my thirties. Disney is completely tied to my childhood unlike any other brand has ever been. My grandparents lived in Florida when I was growing up in Indiana, and my parents would load me into the car and make the 20+ hour drive to Florida for me to visit them. One tradition was always visiting Disney World at some point during the trip.

Disney World Entrance

As soon as I would see those wire Mickey ears off I-4, my face would light up with excitement of the day ahead. I have one very strong memory of visiting Mickey and Minnie’s house within the park and really believing that they lived there. It was my first brush with a celebrity encounter, and it left quite an imprint.

Wire Ears

Their house is no longer there, thanks to the construction of Fantasyland. In this hard economic time, Minnie and Mickey have downsized to a condo on Main Street, which is still in construction. And I’ll be one of the first in line for that as well.

This year, PoppaNut and I visited Disney in honor of Valentine’s Day. It was amazing as always, but we tried to do a few new things. Like this year, we saw the Country Bear Jamboree. Holy cow … it has been a long time since I watched that and there were several adult jokes in the show. Wow, those bears sure have a frisky side! I also loved seeing Main Street lit up with those beautiful lights. Completely magical!

Cinderellas Castle

Country Bear Jam

It's a Small World After All

Disney World at Night

And that’s life in a nutshell … relive a childhood memory now and you’ll find the child still inside of you!

MommaNut

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Making a New Friend: Siri from the iPhone 4S

2 Mar

Unless you are living under a rock somewhere (and if you are, you wouldn’t be reading this blog anyway), you must have heard about Apple’s new iPhone 4S featuring Siri. Just in case you never turn on the TV or browse the internet, I’ll give you a brief overview.

Siri is basically a personal assistant that lives in your iPhone. You think I’m joking, but essentially, that is how she works. You ask her a series of questions, and she talks back like she is a living, breathing person. WEIRD, I know.

Some things you can ask her are “What is my name?” or “Where is the closest Walmart?” and she will find the answer for you. She can write text messages for you, start the right playlist, sent a reminder for a task you have coming up and so much more. Really, the possibilities are endless!

Siri not only understands what you say, it’s smart enough to know what you mean. So when you ask “Any good burger joints around here?” Siri will reply “I found a number of burger restaurants near you.” Then you can say “Hmm. How about tacos?” Siri remembers that you just asked about restaurants, so it will look for Mexican restaurants in the neighborhood. And Siri is proactive, so it will question you until it finds what you’re looking for.

But what I think is most funny about it is watching other people talk to Siri. For instance, I was watching PoppaNut play with his new phone, and it was simply hysterical. He had Siri running around like a busy bee, answering all his requests. Plus, he makes his Siri call him “Italian Stallion” at all times.

I find myself actually saying “thank you” to her when she solves one of my problems. Last time I thanked her politely for helping me, she said, “Your satisfaction is thanks enough.” She was having a hard time understanding me yesterday, so I asked her if I had an accent. Siri said, “It doesn’t really matter what I think.”

So, Siri can pick up my midwestern tone, I guess. She is also a bit sassy herself, a trait I love in my new personal assistant. PoppaNut asked Siri what she was wearing and she responded back, “I think you have the wrong kind of personal assistant.”

And that’s life in a nutshell … that silly Siri is quiet clever. I think it might be love!

MommaNut

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