Showing posts with label MGM. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MGM. Show all posts

Sunday, February 25, 2007

So I'm not Houdini...

But I still make magic! At Disney-MGM Studios we showkeepers get to do random "Magical Moments" with the guests. A MM consists of playing a random type game, usually with a child you see sitting down with his/her parents that looks bored. For our MM's we usually tote with us a basket of fruit and two garbage pickers... The game I usually choose to play with the munchkins is were I "spill" the fruit on the ground and then challenge the children to a race to see who can get the most fruit in the basket. For their participation the child recieves a certificate, with their name on it, that makes them an "MGM Junior Showkeeper"!
Today I was assigned to do a MM at around 5pm. I first found a little girl named Kassandra who reminded me A LOT of my niece Jordan. She had so much fun picking up the fruit that it was hard to get away! She was so sweet though that I let her race me about 3 times before I had to call it quits. Normally I try to do more than one magic moment while I'm out, so I set off to find another munchkin. Five o'clock is a hard time to do a MM because there aren't that many kids just sitting around. A main reason being that their parents are either ready to leave or are looking for a place to eat supper. After searching a bit though I am joined in my Magic Moment quest by a friend who is also a showkeeper. My fellow co-worker and I wander a bit more before we come across another unsuspecting victim...uh, I mean guest. This young man's name was Joshua and he was very shy, but with a little coaxing from us and his mom he decides to play. For being such a quiet lad he was very focused on beating the poor custodian...by 2 fruit at that! I was so close! It was rigged I tell ya' and my co-worker was in on it too! *mumbles under breath*
All in all it was a pretty good day. Here's a couple pics from events I didn't cover in the past week...

Went to this place Tuesday...
With these people...
and rode this.

It was very tempting...

And this poor confused custodian came to ask us what time the 3 o'clock parade ran.

I've been seeing them everywhere since I got here and finally I could take it no longer. For $3.75 you are MINE, Tropical Fruit Smoothie!

Wednsday I got to play at Animal Kingdom with my Aunt Vanetta, Uncle Andrew and cousins Jeremy and Shana who were here for a convention! And no, it was not raining. I took this picture after we got off of the "Kali River Rapids" It took most of the day for us to dry off.

This is what I look like trying to get the camera back from Jeremy after "Kali".
...and these are our butt prints on a bench.
We also visited the natives of the park.


...and shockingly enough got Mr. Andrew on this:

...but not this:




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Well, I'll be signing off for now. "Have Magical Day!"

-Jenn

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Disney Monkey 5

The five of us were actually in a park at the SAME TIME! We all went and saw "Fantasmic!" at my home-park of Disney-MGM Studios last Tuesday. Here's the proof:


Tuesday, February 6, 2007

Late Night Blog

Ah! I just finished writing my essay for philosophy. YAY!!! And what's even better? My two days off are back again! How'd my last week go? Pretty well. Friday I voluntered to stay late to work during a convention (Why, i don't know), but it worked out in the end because around 8:30 the convention was last-minute canceled and we were turned loose early!! But the best part was that we still got paid for the whole convention time we would have been there (till 11:30). It was awsome to get back home and randomly look at my watch and think "Hey, I'm not at work, but I'm still getting paid!" (The moral of this story kids: It pays to volunteer)

I have made friends with a squirrel. He lives on Commisary Lane at MGM and frequents the tables outside ABC to cleanup crumbs after people leave. We are such a good team. I sweep, he picks up what I miss. We had a rocky start to our relationship though. I think I accidentally cleaned up his supper one day and he threw a peanut shell out of a tree at me. (He missed, heehee) Today I saw him playing chicken with a stroller, but when he saw me he hopped over to a tree to watch what I was going to do with my dustpan half full of popcorn. I was curious as to how brave this little fella was so I kneeled down, put my hand out, and clicked my tongue at him. He came up slowly, until he was a few inches from my hand! I heard a dad tell his kids, "They must be friends." It was then that I realized we were being watched by the random people who were going down the lane too. I didn't want any of the kids to think I was trying to feed him so I stood back up and continued my walk as he went back to his tree hopping. It was then that I also saw one of the manager peoples walking down the lane who had seen the whole thing. He smiled, laughed and said something I didn't quite catch, so I guess he thought it was funny. *whew!*


Last night I worked another convention (this one was NOT canceled). Basically a group of 3000 cheerleaders/dancers and their chaperones rented out part of MGM from 8pm till 1am (yes that's not a typo, we had to deal with them for 5 solid hours) They mainly stayed at Sunset and rode "Tower of Terror" and "Aerosmith's Rockin' Roller Coaster" for a while and THEN they discovered us...A DJ was set up at the "Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Show" with lotsa "hip" dance music (Brought flashbacks of some of the dances at HCC). Me and another guy were in charge of keeping the nearby restroom clean as well as cleanin out cans and any other random trash that might collect up in there. It was kinda fun watchin' the "dancers" try to dance. (Sometimes even scary...scratch that, MOST times even scary) Some of our icon showkeeper peeps had been sent over to sunset to help while the crowds where over there, but they eventually migrated with them back over to epic as the night wore on. I think the late hours was beginning to tell on us too. It started with the manager jokingly telling a couple of us that we could go down and try to "busta-move" if we wanted. I'm pretty sure he was kidding but...all of us that were working were under thirty and...like I said, the late hours were telling on us. I go on my break with a friend and when we get back, here comes two of my cohorts laughing out of epic. They busted somethin' but I doubt it was a move. Yep, they had been on the edge of the dance floor and had created a new dance move that they called the "custodial sweep". I wish we'd been allowed to bring cameras to work cause this would have been the no.1 reason why. lol! The night ended peaceful enough. I got back to the apartment by 2 and had to wake up at 8 to go back to work today. But, like I said, I have two days off!

Well, it's almost 2:30 now so I should probably go on to bed. Shalom to y'all in MS! Love you, and I'll talk to some of you on the phone soon.
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--To Justin: take it slow!! don't make me have to come back early.
--To Jed: I'm still going to read your book. I promise!
--Jeremy and Rebekah: put a brick on that boys head! He's not allowed to get bigger until i get back!
--Ethan: Obey your mom. (but give your daddy heck!)

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--EDIT--
Here's my costume. Don't I look adorable!




I forgot to mention in my earlier ramblings... One of our custodial things to do is to offer to take pictures of families/groups if they want us to. I had a little dude come up to me a couple of days ago, and I thought he wanted me to take a picture of him and his friends. When I reached for the camera though he said "No! You take a picture with me!" and he handed his camera to his friend. So, yep, somewhere out there, there is a picture of me and some random guy in front of "Star Tours". I felt like such a celebrity.

---Jenn

Saturday, January 27, 2007

"Excuse me, when is the 3 o'clock parade?"

You do not realize how often I am asked that. It's not even funny anymore. Well, I have been meaning to write for a while but...I keep getting sidetracked, sorry!






Lemme think now...I am still at MGM... I have been back as a "guest" a couple of times so I could learn the park better and it's helped...A LOT. Sometimes it's been a bit hectic but after I learn what I'm supposed to do it goes a lot better. There are still a lot of CP's arriving (college program people) so I'm meeting new people almost every day. I've even had to say goodbye to some of my friends already. The students from Brazil left yesterday, and three of them I had worked with since I got here. They helped show me around, gave me advice, and made work just a bit more fun.
Sweep streets, trash runs, cleaning restrooms and "protein spills". All in the life of a "showkeeper". We've had a few rainy days, a few cold mornings, but mainly it's been very nice.
Today was my first day as an "opener". I worked 6:30-12:30.
Some more tidbits:
--I've become a pin collector. (I'm only collecting pins from rides that I've been on that I liked. Kind of a momento type thing)
--Went with Nikki and Kyle on my first trip to the Magic Kingdom... last week? i think...
--Wandered Downtown Disney a couple of times, haven't been to Pleasure Island yet, although I was asked if I wanted to go to the House of Blues...Kinda scared to go though, cause that's mainly a partyin'/drinkin' part of Disney.
--Went to MGM with Nikki (girls day out, woohoo!), then with Becca and Thomas
--All 5 of us got to go to "Arabian Nights"(See the post below for pictures). It was my first dinner show, and it was AWESOME!
--I have tuesday/wednesday off again! I'm hoping that I can go with someone to see "Fantasmic!", I hear its wonderful!

Here's a couple more pics I "borrowed" from Thomas and Nikki's cameras. (My camera is on the fritz)




In front of "Tower of Terror"





Scene from "Arabian Nights"




"Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular"





"Beauty and the Beast" the 30min. condensed musical

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Movies and cars and horses, oh my!

The four, erm, ahem, "five" of us had the day off today. Jennifer, Becca, and Thomas went to Disney-MGM Studios for some off-day action!

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Among other rides (Aerosmith's coaster is open again!!!), we went on Star Tours with C3P0 and R2-D2.

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And The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (it's always worse in memory. It's lotsa fun).
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And, with Thomas acting like a paparazzi (Sport mode), our Rebel XT's three frames per second does some excellent work at the Lights, Motors, Action stunt show.
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Then, this evening, all five of us (which is rare in and of itself), went to Arabian Nights dinner show. 'Twas a quite good and varied show.
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The country girls were really missing their open pastures and equine friends tonight.....

That's about it for tonight. This is Thomas at Disney Monkey headquarters, signing off.