ADVENTURE

ad·ven·ture
Pronunciation: &d-'ven-ch&r
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English aventure, from Old French, from (assumed) Vulgar Latin adventura, from Latin adventus, past participle of advenire to arrive, from ad- + venire to come -- more at COME
1 a : an undertaking usually involving danger and unknown risks b : the encountering of risks 2 : an exciting or remarkable experience
3 : an enterprise involving financial risk

Riding a bike has freed my inner spirit and created a longing for ADVENTURE. For the ignorant among us, the word ADVENTURE must be pronounced with a wide-eyed, breathy hush and must always be written in capital letters.

In accordance with the freeing of my inner spirit, and building of said longing, I hurredly subscribed to National Geographic ADVENTURE magazine and now, I want to go EVERYWHERE and do EVERYTHING. In that order.

This month's issue was a little more limited than usual, narrowing it's scope a pinch to bring its readers "The Best of ADVENTURE." It's a list of people who have done things so flipping amazing, it makes one giddy in anticipation. River surfing in Australia? Read about it. Want to get lost? Be sure to skim the how-to guide to survivng nine days in the backcountry first. And if you don't know who Ed Viesturs is, it's time you did. Free spirits, check it out. Boring desk jockeys, check it out. The rest of you, give it a glance.

Next stop: Summer 2006, PERU........

Back at it…

What a fabulous holiday week.

I'm older. (Turned 36 last Thursday. Shhh. I don't need to talk about it.)
I'm fatter. (Ate aforementioned six pounds of meat, combined with so much starch my insides are stuck together.)
I made it through Disneyland without ever once hearing the song, It's a Small World, after all. (Apologies to those who just got that stuck in their heads. Here-- let me help remove it: Merry Christmas, from Payless...)
Dinseyland was a superior holiday vacation, flat out. I'm an old-school Disneyland fan, which is to say, I still think Pirates of the Carribean and the Haunted Mansion rock the house. (I'm also incredibly susceptible to nausea, so that pretty much explains my favoritism.) The 50th anniversary of the park found the Haunted Mansion taken over by Jack Skellington of The Nightmare Before Christmas fame. Simply put: GREATEST THEME RIDE EVER. (And if you don't agree, I will fight you.)

And though we stayed mostly in Disneyland itself, we did pop over to California Adventures for a look-see. For those not familiar with it, think STATE OF CALIFORNIA sans the whole central part of the state. California's got vineyards, white water, that bridge up north, Santa Cruz, burritos and the film industry. Other than that, California is a whole buncha nothing.

Reflecting that whole buncha nothing, the park itself was surprisingly devoid of visitors. (Everybody was crammed over across the way, waiting two hours to hit Splash Mountain.) Taking advantage of this, we waited 20 minutes to thoroughly enjoy the park's biggest rollercoaster, California Screamin'. (Apparently there are no gerunds in California either).

Overall, the vacation was superb. The boys voted Space Mountain the clear "ride winner" in Disneyland, followed by The Matterhorn, Buzz Lightyear Space Adventure and The Haunted Mansion (which I think they voted for simply because I like it so much). California Adventures was fun, but had its own short list of best rides. There, the Twighlight Zone Tower of Terror topped totally. (Aliteration. Yay.)
But now the vacation has ended. No more chocolate-dipped, frozen bananas, no more $3 bottles of water. Back to the road.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today Trevor, Harry and I set off on a Thanksgiving pilgrimage known only to a few, dedicated souls and maybe 30 million others: we're going to Disneland, baby!

I've heard the entire park is decorated for Christmas; I'm especially excited about the re-opening of Space Mountain and seeing my personal favorite, the Haunted Mansion, all decked out in Nightmare Before Christmas gear.

I'm also excited about our Thanksgiving meal-- we're hitting Medieval Times for a "Knight to remember" (*chortle*).

And so I leave off early this week, a posting shy, as I head into a mousetackular weekend. For those who don't know, tomorrow is my birthday. For those wishing to surprise me, my wishlist includes:
*World peace
*The start of the Presidential impeachment proceedings
and, barring those two items,
* MAKING MY WINDBREAKER CHALLENGE!

Please visit my AIDS/LifeCycle site, and feel free to make a tax-deductible donation!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Meat.

"Traci, you've just eaten six pounds of beef-- now what are you going to do??"

"I'M GOING TO DISNEYLAND!!!!"

Yesterday the available IM staff went to a company lunch at a new restaurant in town, "Claim Jumpers," in appreciation for the incredibly constant, challenging work that we do. While, personally, my biggest daily challenge is simply not pummeling non-IM Bee employees, the rest of the staff faces larger, more difficult challenges: not pummeling the customers, for example. Or our vendors. Or, at times, each other. (Okay, just not pummeling Julian. JOKE!)

In my in-depth investigation of an appropriate restaurant to attend, I asked a coworker if Claim Jumpers sells steak. It was clearly a moment of acute stupidity on my part. There are more remnants of dead animals in the lobby of this place than Jack-in-the-Box sells in a year. (And they sell dead-animal remnants like no other. Remember the 80s kangaroo scare?)

Vast menu. As a woman who's usually tormented by decisions, I was surprisingly quick to choose the rib eye. It was easy. The menu called it, "The most flavorful of all steaks." After a ringing endorsement like that, how can you not order it? What I want to know is, who decided this? Was there a panel? Were they sitting there, dressed in starched, white, lab coats, adroitly ranking various cuts of meat? (Who can guess the word of the day?)

As promised, the rib eye was quite tasty, and as a bonus, VAST. It was an immensely, humongously VAST cut of meat, in point of fact, which I have plans to finish for breakfast. (WASTE NOT WANT NOT!) But disirregardless, as my friend Sara says, of the vastness of my selection... my coworker ordered (to the raised eyebrows of the lanky waiter) the Ore Cart (not the "Org Chart," as I had first presumed).

The Ore Cart includes: Beef ribs, baby back ribs, and half a chicken. That, my friends, is one VAST, HUGE pile-o-meat. I almost felt awkward sitting next to it, were it not for my extreme awe. (Coworker's name and image have been removed.)

Fully loaded Ore Cart.
My coworker ate it all.

Empty Ore Cart.

WHAT, you may be asking, does this have to do with training for the LifeCycle ride? Three short words: protein is good.

That's really all I have to say.

Oprah responded!!!

Oh, yeah-- I'm a badarse. The Queen of Daytime Talkshows responded:

"Dear Traci,

Thank you for your e-mail! Your message is important to us. Unfortunately, due to the volume of e-mail messages we receive every day, we cannot guarantee that you'll receive a personal response. Feel free to check out our Frequently Asked Questions for additional help. http://www.oprah.com/tows/program/tows_prog_main.jhtml

Thanks again for writing to us!

Sincerely,
The Oprah.com Staff
www.oprah.com"

Okay, technically it wasn't Oprah, but her staff... technically, it wasn't her staff, but a server-generated autoresponder. But I bet that's more than any of you ever got! (Unless you also wrote to the show, in which case you got this same exact response.) And some of you had the temerity to laugh at my fan mail... FOOLS!

Okay-- I'm making a bet: Oprah reads my note. I win, you make a contribution to my cause. I lose, you make a contribution to my cause. It's win-win for everybody!! Any takers??