Well, it has been a very action-packed month. To show exactly how action-packed it was, I will provide the longest posts this blog has ever seen here and now. Get ready for this photo-filled, awe-inspiring Super Awsome Post!

To start off this issue I have two photos of the outside of the building. Some of you who have visited the building in the past will notice some dramatic changes from whenever it was you might have seen it. For those of you who have never visited, shame on you, and have a look at this post from way back when I first came to California. Note, the photos in that post were taken on a cell phone with a really crappy camera, so the photos are appropriately crappy for it.

As a reference, in the lead photo the east wall is shown, and the south wall is shown in the next photo. So, key changes you should note on the east wall include the windows on the south end of the building, which are missing, and the 'eyebrows' on the high bays have been removed from three of four high bays. (Only two can be seen in the photo.) I know what you're thinking, now. You're thinking "Eyebrows? What the heck are you talking about?" That was my reaction when Doug C. told Zach W. and I to remove them. Well let me explain. First, the building is divided into nine 'bays', alternating high and low starting with low bays on either end. Each bay runs the width of the building east to west. Each high bay has a huge shelf that sticks out from the front of the building about four feet. This shelf is at about the ceiling level of the low bays, and is closed off from the outside, but accessible via a boom lift or scissor lift from the inside. These shelves are called eyebrows. One is remaining on the second high bay in this photo, and all four of them can be seen (sort of) in the terrible photo I took with my phone ages ago. (See the post I linked above.)

On the south wall, on top of being completely devoid of glass, more than half of the concrete wall has been removed. That was pretty exciting, since each wall section weighed about four tons. All we could do was cut them loose from the columns and push them over. The sound of the panels hitting the ground was probably the most impressive 'boom' I have heard in a long time. It wasn't particularly loud, but it you could feel the vibrations passing through your entire body every time it happened. We used the Skytrak telehandler to lift them once they were out, but 8,000 pounds is at the very limit of what the Skytrak can take. We had to put four-by-fours under the panels so the Skytrak could pick them up, and by the time the last panel fell, it had crushed the four-by-fours almost all the way down to two-by-fours.

Materials have started to arrive! The first to come in were these pipes. These are eight-inch insulated pipes. They will be installed in a trench running from the water cooling plant next to Building 6, and around the east and west sides of Building 8. The chilled water will be used to cool the air that will then cool the building. The cost of the pipes, the digging of the trench, installing the pipe, filling the trench, and any number of other small things involved with these pipes totals to something like $80,000. And it's going to take a heavy machinery specialist to dig the trench with a backhoe. Hopefully the machine operator will be Bill D. from Austin, TX. He's a real cowboy, and having him around would be a real hoot. Also, while another machine operator is around, my chances of learning to drive a backhoe increase slightly. We'll just have to see how that plays out.

These here are the fire sprinkler pipes that are being installed in the building. Since they have to be above anything that might catch on fire, they are going up first. Here they are shown shortly after their arrival being sorted by Matt S. of Atlanta, GA (left), and Craig P. (right). Right now more than half the sprinkler pipes have already been installed. Probably within the next few days the sprinkler installers will be pretty much done.

Also, I don't have a picture of this, but the first load of steel beams and the first two loads of HVAC ducts arrived within the last week two weeks. I spent most of last Wednesday through this Monday assembling the ducts. It's not hard work, but I did get some blisters from hammering all day. For some reason, hammering gives me blisters faster than anything else I do. Interesting. Anyway, that's done for now, so I helped install the first run of duct in the far south bay, and we're almost done with the second. It's not as hard as you would think, so the work went quickly. It only gets tricky when you have to maneuver a section of duct into a tight spot. Though the ducts are not very heavy, they are extremely awkward. I almost dropped a section at one point, but barely managed to hang on. I'll try to get a picture of our new ductwork up later.

In this post from way back in the day, I talked about Tom D. using the oxyacetaline torch to cut through some steel guard rails. Since then I have been taught to use the oxyacetaline torch to cut things, and I have gotten very good at it. (That's not just me being bigheaded, by the way. Doug C., who taught me, agrees, and him complimenting anyone is a huge deal.) Anyway, here is a photo of me trimming a few inches off of a steel channel with the torch.

Note the denim jacket. I wore it to protect me from the slag, the droplets of molten metal that go flying when I use the torch. Some droplets are barely more than sparks, but some bits can get quite large, as big as my fingernail. Anyway, I say 'wore' because I stopped wearing it after it caught on fire. A piece of slag, one of those big ones, must have landed in the large pocket on the right side of my jacket. As it sat there it heated up my pocket enough for it to catch on fire. Since I was busy at the time, and I was wearing those green goggles, which allow no peripheral vision, so I didn't notice the fire until it had burnt a sizable hole in my jacket. Remind me and I'll put up some pictures of it later. I don't really have room for them in this post. To replace the denim jacket, I now have a black leather jacket. It was obtained for three dollars at a garage sale, but still looks just fine.

The last item of note in this photo is my ponytail. Since my hair is really long, I usually wear my hair up in a ponytail to keep it out of my face while I work. I don't want it to catch of fire while I'm using the torch.

This picture is of some of the Building 8 crew at a goodbye party for two of our members, Zach W. and Shay M. of New Zealand. The people in this photo (from the left) are Aaron F., Zach, Stephen D., Shay and myself. We are all wearing the 3D glasses that are handed out before the showing of Honey I Shrunk the Audience at Disneyland. Oh, yeah. I went to Disneyland on Saturday, February 9. It was a blast.

Since Zach and Shay were leaving us, we decided to call up our buddy Mario D., the Disneyland pastry chef to get us into the park. He had to take a break from work to do it, but he was happy to help out. When we arrived that morning, he came out and met us at the gate and signed us all in. For five people to go to Disneyland with all the benefits we got costs about $450 plus tax. That was a sweet deal. All we had to pay for was food.

Before I go any further, I should mention that I have been to Disneyland before, but that was about 15 years ago.

So the whole day went something like this: Most of the group met at Building 8 at around 7:30. Once the group was assembled, they came to pick me up at the house I live in, since I didn't have a ride to Building 8. (I don't live inside Building 8 anymore, in case I forgot to mention that.) We got to Disneyland around 8:30, and got into the park without any trouble by 9:00.

Here we are arriving at our first stop, Adventure Land. Zach's favorite ride was Pirates of the Caribbean, so we hit that up first. We then went immediately to Indiana Jones, and stood in line there for a bit. The line was short since the ride was having a problem getting started that morning and we heard it would be something like 15 minutes before we could get in. We decided to wait, and after about 10 minutes they got the ride working and we waited for another five minutes before actually getting into the temple. The line itself was much longer than that, but really the whole 'temple excavation' thing we went through to get to the ride was so cool that we felt like the ride had already started.

Here we are waiting in line for Indiana Jones. There was a sign posted saying that you shouldn't step on the diamond shaped stones, so we looked around for the reason and noticed huge blocks in the ceiling ready to fall on the heads of anyone not watching their step. Fortunately, Dr. Jones had been kind enough to use wooden wedges to jam the overhead stones in place, making the diamond stones as safe to walk on as any other. With that knowledge, we made a display of our boldness with this photo. The shoes in this photo belong to (starting with the orange ones in the bottom-left corner and going clockwise) Zach, Aaron, Stephen, Shay and me. I am, as usual, wearing my favorite shoe the Adidas Samba Classic in black with white stripes. That's right: I am a man of taste.

After that we had lunch at a New Orleans-style cafe. We had soup in a bread bowl, either clam chowder or beef gumbo. I had the beef gumbo. It was really good. I also had some coffee, and was pleasantly surprised by the quality. It was good stuff. I guess it makes sense that someone who pays $90 at the door and another $2.50 for 12 ounces of coffee should be able to expect at least the coffee to be good. Unfortunately, despite the fact that the cafe was New Orleans-style, there were no true beignets (they had some sort of fritter instead) and there was no coffee with chicory.

The cafe we ate at was close enough to The Haunted Mansion, so we rode that next. For some reason, it seemed much scarier when I was a kid. This time it seemed actually pretty funny. Next was Splash Mountain, which was mildly wet. We told Shay that the driest seat is at the front, where the water comes up and just goes right over your head. Naturally she believed us, and naturally it was a lie. We bought the picture that was taken of us going down the main drop at the end because it was just hilarious. I don't have it here to show you, but Shay has the full size version (mine is a wallet-size) so she's going to scan it and email it to me to post up here next issue.

Here is a picture of Stephen following directions. Many of the trash cans around Disneyland bore commanding signs ordering passers by to "Waste, Please." In compliance with the order, Stephen is dumping nearly an entire wild cherry frozen drink into the trash.

This was outside the ride It's a Small World. We wanted to get on it, but for some reason it was out of commission that day. It's really too bad since that is one of the truly definitive Disneyland rides. Oh, well. We did Splash Mountain instead.

After that we went to get FastPasses for Space Mountain. FastPasses basically allow you to wait in line without physically being in line. You get the pass and it says to come back at a certain time. When you get back, you get to skip way forward in line and not have to wait nearly as long. That way, you can go do something else until your time comes.

Our FastPasses for Space Mountain were scheduled for almost 7:00. To kill time we went to Star Tours, a Star Wars-themed simulated ride that looked kind of fun. I remember being on it when I was a kid, but when I went this time, I was blown away by it. It surprised we with every turn. It was so awsome and at the same time it was just so ridiculous. The tour was supposed to go to Endor, but not only did we not go to Endor, we actually ended up flying through a comet, getting caught by a star destroyer and finally, I kid you not, attacking a Death Star. Why? I have no idea, but it was awsome. I don't remember the last time I laughed so hard for so long. I seriously could not stop laughing the entire ride. It just got more and more absurd, and I loved it.

After Star Tours, we crossed over into Disney's California Adventure, a California-themed park across from Disneyland. There we had lunch (by then it was just after 2:00) and planned out the afternoon. We got FastPasses for Soarin' Over California and ran to the far corner of the park to ride The Hollywood Hotel, also known as The Tower of Terror.

On the way there, we ran into none other than Zach's childhood heroine, Mary Poppins. Of course, he was really goofy and shy about talking to her, but we reminded him that since he was going to the navy in exactly five days, he wasn't going to get a chance at taking this photo again for a while. Yeah, I know it's a shock, but as you can see, Zach is wearing a navy t-shirt that he got from his recruiter. As it says, he is now property of the US Navy. He left on Valentine's Day, missing the opportunity to get a girlfriend and dump her for the navy on Valentine's Day. Anyway, now he has a great photo to hang in his navy locker.

The Tower of Terror was a great ride. It was one of those rides that goes up and drops you, but it does it with a huge twist. I can't remember the last time a ride has caught me off guard so badly. That was exciting. It's based loosely on The Twilight Zone, so the ride starts off taking you up, showing you some really cool light-bending mirror special effects and giving you some backstory for the ride. Then, with barely enough time to finish it's last sentence, the ride suddenly drops you. It's not so much the fact that you're falling that's scary. I've done that at Six Flags. It wasn't anything special. This was a free fall in the dark. You are in an enclosed space, dropping fast enough to be actually out of your seat in the pitch black surrounded by the sound of screaming people and machinery whooshing past. Not only that, but it stops abruptly and shoots back up, only to drop again! And again! And again! Man, that was great.

On the way back to Soaring Over California, just past where we saw Marry Poppins, we saw Stephen's heroine, Elastigirl. I had no idea he was such a big fan of her until he stopped our group and made us wait in line for him to get a picture. Right before he got to the front of the line, Elastigirl was joined by Mr. Incredible. (He had been in the restroom.) Stephen actually requested the action pose of them for the photo. I have to admit, it was worth asking for.

Soaring Over California was an interesting simulator ride where you hang in a chair in front of a huge, IMAX-style screen and 'fly' over locations filmed all over California. The effect of flying is generated by hanging you in front of the screen, showing video from the eyes of someone flying and matching the movements on screen by tilting your chair. If whoever is flying makes a sharp right turn, your chair will bank right along with them. It's actually a very nice feeling. Unfortunately, compared to some of the other rides I went on that day, it was only 'nice.'

The most interesting thing about the ride is the seating arrangement. When you walk into the room, there are rows and rows of seats to choose from. At this point, it appears that the view of everyone but the people in the front row is completely obstructed, but in the end it doesn't matter if you have a front or back seat. As the the ride begins, your seat is lifted up and forward so that everyone gets a front row seat. What was once the front row is now the top row, about 40-50 feet up, and the bottom row is at 10-20 feet. My guesses cover such wide ranges because it was dark and I wasn't really paying attention to the seating during the ride. It is possible that the actual distances are outside the ranges of my guesses entirely. In any case, it was pretty cool the way everyone got great seats for the ride. Also, the machinery working to make that happen looked pretty awesome. It vaguely reminded me of some of the machinery we have at Building 8.

By the time that ride was over, it was about 5:30 or so. We had some time to kill before riding Space Mountain at 7:00, so we found a pair of benches and hung out for a while. After a little relaxation, we stood around one of the water rides watching people get splashed for a bit.

Finally, we headed back over to Space Mountain. We were a bit early, so we went to see Honey, I Shrunk the Audience, a 3D presentation based on Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. It was pretty good. I really liked the fact that it included Eric Idle, but the show itself was pretty funny. I haven't seen a movie in 3D in quite a while (probably not since the last time I was in Disneyland), so it was a great experience for me. Before the movie, we were given yellow-framed 3D glasses. They were referred to as 'safety glasses' that must be worn since the presentation included a demonstration of scientific equipment that may cause debris to fly into the audience. Before the show, we had a random passerby take a photo of all five of us wearing our 'safety glasses,' which is shown way above.

After what must seem like an eternity for you, dear reader, we were finally able to ride Space Mountain. Ah, it's such a classic. I rode it years ago, and mostly just remember being afraid of something hitting my head in the dark, and staying low in the bottom of the cart because of it. This time, I tried to concentrate and see the turns in the dark. Of course, trying to stay calm while hurtling through almost complete darkness was quite a mental exercise, and actually fun in it's own way. For those of you who do not know, Space Mountain is an indoor roller coaster that travels through a space-like cavern decorated with stars and galaxies. These heavenly bodies are the only source of light in the ride, so the track you ride on is almost completely hidden. Though the actuall speed of the ride is probably relatively low, it compensates by taking extremely sharp turns, and being almost completely unpredictable, since you can only just barely see the track ahead of you. Shay screemed magnificently for the entire ride.

After Space Mountain, we wandered through the streets of Disneyland getting coffee, cookies and ice cream. We saw a barber shop quartet performing thier final number. One of thier parting lines was "If you enjoyed our performance, remember we are the (I forget the name) Quartet." And another member followed that up with "And if you didn't like it, we are the Mormon Tabernacle Choir." His fellow singers all took swings at him, but I approved.

After we bought our last ice cream, we left the park at around 9:00. I know at Disneyland they finish the day with fireworks at 9:30, and they don't close until 11:00, but to leave the park after the fireworks would have been a nightmare, so we skipped out early. Besides, we were wiped out.

So, yeah, Disneyland is great. There are a bunch of things I wish I could have done, but didn't have time for, so I'd love to go again sometime soon. Mario still works there, so we might have him get us in again sometime soon.

Also on my list of things to do relatively soon is see Zach and Shay again. They both left shortly after the trip to Disneyland. Zach is now in the navy, working his way through the first nine weeks of basic training. He might get a break after that to come home, so we will hopefully see him then. Shay had to return to New Zealand, and will not be back until about the same time. Zack wants to take the same group back to Disneyland the next time we are all together. I'm all for it.

And in parting, I give you this picture. See my lovely long brown locks and my very masculine grey motorcycle jacket. Also, see my long, manly finger about to go into Mr. Toad's throat. Unlike the others in my group that had pictures taken with a Disney mascot, I did not run into my hero that day. This photo with Mr. Toad was simply an opportune moment. (Not a Kodak moment, mind you. My camera is a Panasonic. Also, in case you were wondering, probably the only Disney character I would take a picture with would be Kronk, from The Emperor's New Groove.)

For the record, this post is 3875 words long. Now when anyone asks "Have you read any good nonfiction books recently?" you can respond "Yes, I just read Tom Brokaw's The Greatest Generation and Mark's latest post."