Time You Enjoy Wasting Is Not Wasted Time

After we unpacked and got settled we decided to hold off on eating and get some time in at the Magic Kingdom. We stopped down at the gift store and bought some hats and then caught the bus to the park. After getting in we grabbed a snack and headed to Tomorrow Land at Bella’s request.

While in Tomorrow Land we went to:

• Monsters Inc. Laugh Floor – This was a pretty funny comedy show. The girls really enjoyed this.
• Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin – This was an interactive ride where you had to shoot at targets as the ride went along. Very fun.
• Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress – I was surprised that Bella was as interested as she was in this. Erin did not enjoy it as much though.
• Tomorrowland Transit Authority – All three girls loved riding through the different parts of Tomorrow Land. I wish I could have gotten a picture of the looks of pure joy on their faces.
• Tomorrowland Speedway – We had to take turns on this one since Erin was too little to ride. Karen took Bella and I took Gilli.

While I was riding the Speedway with Gilli, Bella went with Karen and Erin to ride the teacups at the Mad Tea Party. Unfortunately she could not ride alone and by the time Gilli and I were done at the Speedway the park was closing. However, we met up at the Fantasyland Play Area and watched the fireworks show. It was funny because Karen left me a message that they were near the Winnie the Pooh play area instead of by the teacups. But when I asked an attendent where that was he would only tell me that since the park was closing Winnie the Pooh had gone to bed. I finally got directions once I told him I was only trying to find the rest of my family and not meet a character.

The only problem with watching the fireworks at the back of the park was that it took quite a while to get out of the park with everyone else at the end of the night. The girls were remarkable considering we didn’t get a chance to eat until around 10:00 that night once we got back into the hotel. The cafeteria at the hotel was great and we actually ate all of our meals there. (I’ll talk about logistical/advice stuff in another post)

We ended our first day at Disney with some well deserved sleep.

We decided to take the drive down in 3 days istead of 2, so we broke it up into 4.5 hours on Saturday, 9.5 hours on Sunday, and 4.5 hours on Monday without stops. We left Saturday afternoon and drove to Fairport, West Virginia. It was a fairly uneventful trip and we had a yummy dinner at the Cracker Barrel before crashing at the hotel.

On Sunday we had our long day, around 12 hours with stops. The girls liked the tunnels in West Virginia and we stopped at a scenic overlook to take some pictures.

Once we got to our hotel in Georgia we were exhausted so we got drive thru Burger King and called it a night. Luckily we didn’t have as far to drive on Monday so we took it easy and arrived at Disney just at the check in time of 3:00. It was nice to get the car unloaded and change into some shorts for some fun in the sun.

We just got back today after a 12 day trip down to Florida. I will post more extensive entries about the vacation soon, but first some random musings:

We drove rather than fly because it was cheaper than plane tickets and renting a car, even with taking the drive in 3 days each way.

We drove through parts of the following states: New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida.

We stayed overnight in West Virginia and Georgia on our way down to and back from Florida.

From West Virginia on South the speed limit is 70 MPH. This seems to make a whole lot more sense than the archaic 55 or even 65. Actually, in one state (I can’t remember which) the minimum was 50 MPH! I hope that PA and NY increase their speed limits soon!

In one state, again I forget which one, I think that signs reading “American Owned and Operated” is code for “White Owned Business”. But perhaps I am being unfair.

I uploaded 235 photos and 3 videos so far to a Flickr set.

There were more rest areas on 77, 79, and 95 than on the 90, 87, and 86 in NY.

The lowest gas price I saw was $1.65/gallon.

It was not pleasant returning to a cold, rainy WNY after having a week of sunny days.

Disney was a lot of fun!!

We got to see the space shuttle after launch. I didn’t get a picture, but it was pretty amazing to see it go up!

More soon….

The AFL-CIO blog has a good post entitled Contracts Can’t Be Broken-Unless They Involve Union Workers. Seriously, contracts among business/financial private sector types are sacred, but public workers contracts can be changed at whim? This is exactly what is happening, nationally the UAW has been forced to take concessions in order to qualify for bailout funds and here in New York the Governor wants to eliminate a contractually guaranteed raise. Enough!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!!

more animals

Cheap Trick, Poison, and Def Leppard will be playing together at Darien Lake this summer.

more animals

I thought that for this Worker Wednesday I would talk about the progressive tax movement some more. I was pleased to read about the Responsible Wealth initiative which is a National trend, but also has State implications with the New Yorkers Sharing inthe Solution.

The argument that people with higher incomes already pay more than enough taxes and that a flat tax is equitable is a straw man argument. Let us take a look at the Living Wage Calculator. According to this estimator, in Fredonia village an estimated living wage for a family of two adults and two children is $60,676. (I guess those of us with more than two children just have to guess at what a living wage would be…) If this hypothetical family earning exactly the living wage pays the current maximum New York State tax of 6.85% they will be paying NY $4,156.31 in taxes. However, they are at exactly the living wage. Let’s say that family was making $100,000, they would be paying $6,850 in taxes to NY, but would still have over $30,000 more than the living wage family. Now let’s look at the first threshold posed for being ‘wealthy’, $250,000. They would pay NY $17,125 in taxes, but would still have more than $150,000 more than the living wage family. A family earning $1,000,000 would pay NY $68,500 in taxes but still have more than $800,000 more than the living wage family. So to say that these ‘wealthy’ families cannot afford to share the burden is patently false.

Let us suppose that NY raised the tax on those earning a million dollars or more to 50% (which is extreme and is not what I think it should be, but I am trying to make a point) the $1,000,000 family would pay $500,000 in tax to NY but still have more than $400,000 more than a living wage family.

A flat tax negatively affects the working class while futher increaseing the gap between them and the rich. A progressive tax still leaves the wealthy with a lot of wealth, but helps take the burden off of the working class.

This episode of Tuesday Tunes features the Talking Heads. This is another band that I really enjoy listening to, but I had forgotten these videos. Some good stuff from back in the day!

• Wild Wild Life
• Once in a Lifetime
• And She Was