Category Archives: Personal

Where Walt Disney Ate

Hadley Meares has posted a new article at KCET.org about one of my personal heroes, Walt Disney.  I’m always fascinated by the intricacies of Disney, and finding out that he ate at the same places I like – like the Tam O’Shanter that was right up the street from one of my parent’s apartment buildings on Los Feliz – builds a stronger bond within me, linking me to those great people who shared the same likes, dislikes, and views as I do.

From the article:

“Walt didn’t like fancy stuff. . . . He was a very complex man, but his tastes were very simple.” — Songwriter Richard Sherman, 2009

The original Imagineer found inspiration everywhere he ate.

For all his fantastic dreams, Walt Disney was a mid-century man, with a middle-class, middle of the road taste in food. “Before he married mother, father had eaten in hash houses and lunch wagons for so many years in order to save money that he’d developed a hash house-lunch wagon appetite,” his daughter Diane wrote. “He liked fried potatoes, hamburgers, western sandwiches, hotcakes, canned peas, hash, stew, roast beef sandwiches.”

His favorite meal was a can of Gebhardt’s chili mixed with a can of Dennison’s chili, which he often ate at his desk. He was also a big fan of V-8 juice, which he would offer to visitors at the studio, who were often disappointed that there was nothing stronger available.

To read the whole article and find out more about where Walt Disney ate, go HERE.

Two very different ways of celebrating Yosemite’s 123rd Birthday

Today – October 1st, 2013 – Google is celebrating Yosemite National Park’s 123rd birthday with a Doodle.

Also today Yosemite (and other national parks) are closed due to the government shutdown.

The federal government partially shut down at midnight on Tuesday because of the continuing zany antics of the most hate-filled and divisive President and the Senate democrats (the Senate has the lowest approval rating of all time right now … go figure), who can’t pass a budget and who think that raising a debt ceiling is how you balance the books.  If you raise the debt ceiling you don’t run out of money, right?

As Jay Leno put it a few weeks ago: “The government will run out of money in just 3 weeks. I’m no financial whiz, but we’re 16 Trillion Dollars in debt. Doesn’t that mean we already ran out of money? Like 16 Trillion Dollars ago?”

Because of 536 inept elected officials, over 800,000 government employees can’t work and our national parks, monuments, and museums are closed.

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Trail Life USA – a Christian-based alternative to the Boy Scouts of America

traillifeusaAs the Boy Scouts – an organization that I have long admired – trundles down a path that I believe is going to end up tearing the organization apart, a new group – Trail Life USA – has emerged.  The faith-based group believes that they are set to become a premiere organization for boys and young men. Their stated goal is to “counter the ‘moral free-fall’ of the nation, and ‘raise a generation of faithful husbands, fathers, citizens and leaders.'”  As they become more and more public, the group has captured attention because of their open competition with the BSA.  Their mission is to “provide a robust alternative to the Boy Scouts of America (BSA).” The name of the group was chosen to avoid any political or controversial undertones. Continue reading

Congratulations to Peter Capaldi – the 12th Doctor!

Actor Peter Capaldi has been announced as the new star of BBC sci-fi series Doctor Who.

According to BBC News:

The 55-year-old Glasgow-born star will be the 12th actor to play the Doctor, replacing outgoing lead Matt Smith.

Capaldi is best known for his role as foul-mouthed spin-doctor Malcolm Tucker in the BBC series The Thick of It.

“It’s so wonderful not to keep this secret any longer, but it’s been so fantastic,” he said after the news was revealed on a live BBC One show.

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