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and nobody got hurt. What more could you ask for?

I just finished reading IWoz, Steve Wozniak‘s biography, and it was pretty interesting. Woz is pretty much credited with creating the first affordable personal computer, the Apple ][. I didn’t know he also created the first ‘learning remote’ for audio/video stuff either. It was a good read.

We made our annual visit to the Arizona State Fair on Sunday. It’s very interesting to see the contrast of people between, say, Disneyland, and the State Fair.

We mostly go for the food and the exhibits. The food was okay. I had a few bad things. Like I had to try keep fried Coke. No. It wasn’t very good. But the Texas doughnut was excellent.

I’ve posted the pictures from our recent trip to Disneyland.

The big thing going on at the park right now is Halloween.  They’ve added a lot of theming to the park, including quite a lot on Main Street:

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That includes adding some pumpkins throughout Main Street:

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Not only that, but Frontierland had quite a lot of theming, as well:

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Now, I’m sure you probably don’t know my Grandmother.  But, she’s quite amazing.  She’s loved roller coasters for a long time, including taking us to Great America in Santa Clara, CA when we were kids.  She would ride rides that we were scared to ride as kids.

Unfortunately, she lost her leg above her knee a few years ago, slowing her down just a little bit.  But she does get around pretty well with her prosthetic leg.

That includes still riding roller coasters.  In the past, she’s rode California Screamin’, but we didn’t have time this time.  Just got in some rides of Big Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain. Good times with an 82 year old Grandma.

But her ‘true love’ is the carrousel:

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It brings a true smile to her face, and that’s great.  And that’s the reason we go to Disneyland.

You can check out the rest of the Disneyland pictures here.

Yup, yup.

Disneyland was good. A little crowded, but we still got to see a lot of stuff we wanted to see.

And yep, we even renewed our annual passes, so that’s cool.

Got a lot of good pictures.. Including playing poker against a couple of pumkins:

I’ll have more pictures in the Gallery soon.

It’s Jedi Mickey!

In line for the Haunted Mansion.

Spatula City!

You have new Picture Mail!, originally uploaded by Thomas Bates.

Needing the caffeine today. Long night of work and an early morning conference call.

So, I woke up early this morning, after working until 2am, to head to Gamestop to pre-oder my Nintendo Wii.

I thought a few people might be there.

When I got there, there were over 20 people in line already, and that was an hour before Gamestop even opened!

So I did what any smart person did.

Went to Starbucks and then went home.

It seems like Nintendo is going to have quite a few of the consoles out, so I’m not too worried. I would rather get it from a place like Target or Costco rather than Gamestop anyway.

Ahhh well.

This is actually from our recent Cali trip.  We were driving through Beverly Hills, and happened to see the Batmobile and a few other cars from the same designer. (I remember the Munster’s car, as well.)  They were having a benefit for him at a restaurant.

Gotta love LA.

My generation grew up with the NES.  I remember playing a lot of Super Mario Brothers back in the day, until we got other games.

For those of us that do remember it, this quiz will test your knowledge of the games and boxes.

You’ll probably do better than I do… I had to use a few hints for some of them.  I was ranked noob.. Nice.