Author: Greg

Let me tell y’all what it’s like, being male, middle class and white.

Ahhh, the opening line on the title track of Ben Folds debut solo (officially, Fear of Pop aside), and it was pretty much the vibe of the show at The Tabernacle last night…

Yes, it was a mightily excellent show, and it was nice to have a 20 minute MARTA ride to the show compared to a 5 hour drive to Nashville like last time, and it was also a packed Tabernacle, standing room only in the baconies. Ben and the band didn’t disappoint by playing old, new and even an improvised “radio friendly” rockier version of “Jesusland” but if you’ve been to a Ben Folds show you knew what to expect, like splitting the crowd into horns and trumpets for “Army” and the three part harmony for “Not The Same” and such likes…

I personally thought it was weird to listen to old Ben Folds Five song being played without Darren Jessee and Robert Sledge on drums and bass respectively, especially when they played “Where’s Summer B?” which was co-written by Jessee and includes the lines:

There goes Joe Caparo again
Hey, that’s Darren’s girlfriend!
Frank and Ross are holding hands
They been asking where ya been
Hey Summer, where ya been?

Alas I have no pictures thanks to my small venue/no camera policy, which I think I should alter to Nashville/no camera as with this and the Our Lady Peace concert last month proved that getting cameras into these small venues (and indeed with Coldplay at Philips Arena) is a piece of pie! I wouldn’t have gotten many decent shots anyways as we were sat in the 3rd row of the upper balcony and were promptly blinded by a light pointed directly at us that shone as bright as a thousand suns which they like to illuminate between each song… Seriously, I’m seeing spots today and I think I have eyeshock!

After the hectic wedding weekend we flew down to Orlando to spend 5 days at the Walt Disney World Resort, and despite a few hiccups along the way we had a great, but tiring, time…

We took MARTA down to the airport with the remains of my family after dropping off the rental car and after lunch in the airport, we flew down to Orlando (first class I should add) and there we got picked up by Disney representatives and were promptly whisked off to the Walt Disney World Resort to check in at our first hotel… We were originally supposed to be going on the Tuesday but Delta had no available flights so we moved it to Monday and had to add an extra night at a different hotel as the hotel we were booked in was full… So when we checked in at the Pop Century we were told that we couldn’t actually enter the parks until we checked in to the Boardwalk the following day, and to make things worse, the dining plan we were on wouldnt start til the following day also. So Robyn protested all this as she was the one who booked it and they said they would look into it as we went and bought dinner, an hour later we were told we could, infact, go to one of the parks that night… So off to Magic Kingdom we went, and managed to ride 6 rides in the space of 2 hours, those being Stitch’s Great Escape, Space Mountain, The Tea Cup Ride, Mickey’s PhilharMagic, Splash Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, I now really dislike Big Thunder Mountain Railroad as it has taken from me on two too many occassions… Firstly 11 years ago (my only other visit) it stole a hat from me and now it stole my cellphone, my new cell phone at that.

Kinda sucked…

Anyways, it would not spoil our fun as the following day we went to pretty much every park going, starting at Disney/MGM Studios where we rode the Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster (we would eventually go on it twice, which is something as I hate fast rollercoasters) and Robyn rode the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (I would not go on that for love nor money) before we left to check in to the Boardwalk, we then walked through Epcot to get the monorail to the Magic Kingdom so we could see if lost and found had my phone, which they didnt… THEN we went to Animal Kingdom for the afternoon to get it out of the way… There we rode Dinosaur, the Primeval Whirl and It’s Tough To Be A Bug, but we missed out on the Kali River Rapids as the line was over an hour long, we would go back on Thursday morning for these and we ended up going round the rapids 3 times in a row as there was no line, which was pretty sweet…

By the evening time we were pretty tired and went to Downtown Disney to eat and do some shopping before crashing in the hotel.

We hit up the main rides in Epcot on Wednesday, those being the new ride Soarin’ (which ran out of FastPasses by 10am on Friday and had a 2 hour line, that was insane), Mission:SPACE and Test Track before we had a nap in the afternoon.

Now comes the pinnacle of the honeymoon, we went to Disney/MGM Studios for the Fantasmic! show and after walking around Epcot all day my knee was playing up, so Robyn had the idea of getting a wheelchair, so we did and she (to her credit) pushed me around to Star Tours then the Fantasmic! We got on Star Tours via the disabled entrance (hehehe!) and at Fantasmic! there were two old ladies sitting in the disabled section and when a cast member saw us coming she promptly kicked them out (it was standing room only at this point) to make way for us, we did feel bad about it but hey, we got sweet seats… And we got all kinds of help on the way out, of course once I was out of the chair I had to really play up my knee pain.

After this we spent the last 2 days going back to rides we realy wanted to ride again, like the Rock ‘N’ Roller Coaster and Space Mountain, we would have went on Soarin’ again, but as I said, it was madness on Friday in Epcot, I guess thats when the new weekend people arrive…

Overall it was a great, but very tiring time, and it’s great to be back home, we pretty much slept all day yesterday as it all finally caught up with us.

And now we have the idea to go back next year to celebrate our anniversary…

In Front of the Castle

Originally uploaded by FLC.

Well, after all the months of preperation, the months of stress and last few weeks of panic, the big day arrived…

And it all went so smoothly it was almost surreal.

Anyways, We’d like to thank everyone who could make it to our special day, especially Robyn’s family who helped organise the event and helped the weekend run like clockwork and my family who flew 4,000 to be here on such short notice.

Now we depart for our honeymoon in DisneyWorld tomorrow afternoon so you’re probably best checking on the Moblog for updates on that side.

The Happily Married Couple

Originally uploaded by FLC.