Epic Mikey

  • Day 3 in Rio

    We got an early start this morning, riding a city bus to the oldest part of town where CIEE has their study center. We had a lesson in basic Portuguese – it is really hard! I learned I’ve been pronouncing all my words wrong. For example, the currency here is the Real, which throughout my…

  • Day 2 in Rio

    [Editor’s note:  Second in a series of posts from my brother Marcus as he visits Rio de Janeiro — Mike] Greetings from Marcus in Rio! Tonight is the last major soccer match before the World Cup begins in 3 weeks. We had an opportunity to go to the game at the huge modern soccer stadium…

  • Tuesday, Rio de Janeiro

    NOTE: I am on a 10-day, university faculty seminar conducted by the Council on International Exchange Education (ciee.org). I will be joined by about a dozen US-based faculty tomorrow. Ola! I arrived Rio airport (GIG) about 0845 today (Tuesday); immigration, customs very quick, taxi queue very long and slow traffic. I had to find my…

  • Dumbo Double Dare 2013: The Half-Marathon

    Back-to-back runs is something new for me, so I wasn’t sure how Saturday’s 10K run was going to affect my run in the half on Sunday.    Even during training, there were no back-to-back runs.   I was following Jeff Galloway’s training plan for the Dumbo, and in that training plan he has you do long walks,…

  • Dumbo Double Dare 2013: The 10K

    This morning I was up before 4 a.m. to get ready for the first leg of the Dumbo Double Dare, the inaugural Disneyland 10K.    I tend to be a morning person anyway so this didn’t throw me off much — I think I prefer this to night races, at least that’s been my experience so…

  • Dumbo Double Dare 2013: Race Expo

    I started off 2013 by running in the WDW Half-Marathon in January.    I knew that if I completed that (it was my first run of that length), that I would than want to do the Disneyland Half over Labor Day weekend, as completing both of these in the same calendar year earns the Coast to…

  • D23 Expo 2013: Disney Interactive, Part II (everything that’s not Disney Infinity)

    During the Disney Interactive presentation, Disney Infinity (see this post) was the main feature, and was honestly the only reason I was interested in attending the session.   But there was quite a bit more content, and Disney Interactive was successful in getting me interested in more than just the Infinity system. The non-Infinity content included:…

  • D23 Expo 2013: The Imagineering Pavilion

    At this year’s D23 Expo, there were no big presentations from the Parks & Resorts division as there had been at previous expos.   The stated reason was that Parks and Resorts was coming off of some major expansions – Cars Land and Buena Vista Street at the Disneyland Resort, and New Fantasyland at Walt Disney…

  • Richard Sherman and Alan Menken: The Disney Songbook

    This first-ever joint performance by Disney Legends Richard Sherman and Alan Menken was probably the single thing I was most looking forward to at the D23 Expo. Between the two of them (and their writing partners), they are responsible for so much of the music that is associated with Disney films and theme park attractions.  …

  • D23 Expo 2013: Highlights from the Imagineering Panels

    Sunday at the D23 Expo was Imagineering day.    Early on, when schedule details were first being announced, it was revealed that there would be five Imagineering sessions on Sunday, but it wasn’t until the last week or so before the Expo kicked off that attendees were given any information about the sessions. The sessions were…