Len Testa started TouringPlans.com Part 2: He left his career to help others vacation better
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Len Testa started TouringPlans.com
Connect with Len!
Len turned his passion and love for Disney World into a career helping over 100,000 vacationers a year. With The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World, Touringplans.com and Lines mobile app he continues his crusade to make vacations more fun. We also talk about his other vacation books about Universal Studios Orlando, Las Vegas, Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris.
Buy: The Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World 2014
Episode 12
Transcription
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this is the dreamers podcast where
dreamers share their stories to inspire
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you
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now join host Joe Pardo as he interviews
a dreamer who’s living their dreams
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welcome to the dreamers podcast I’m your
host Joe Carter today I’m interviewing
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been tested for the second time he’s
living his dream by making a career out
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of visiting busy world welcome back to
the show and she in French hi Hayden I’m
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doing outstanding still still still it’s
amazing . so in the last episode we cut
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it off because you have so many awesome
stories to tell that we need to make it
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a two parter because you do
larger-than-life personality he the
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charitable way of saying I talk a lot to
thank you you’re very welcome but thank
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you for being on the show so what steps
did you take to get started so it’s a
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it’s kind of a funny story but once
bobbin I decided we wanted to the
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website we went to our publisher at the
time the book publisher the time we said
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hey we want to do this website do you
want to host it and it will write the
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content but do you want to put this on
on your infrastructure because you know
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you want to control it because you know
it’s your book and its most popular
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child book in the world like I can
understand how many people control that
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and and they said no they didn’t want to
go through the expense of managing the
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website you know this is back when
websites are expensive right so you end
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up doing it are ourselves so we built
the entire website from scratch and I’m
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a programmer in a computer programmer by
trade so it wasn’t particularly
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difficult but doesn’t use the scales
took me you know it took me awhile to
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figure it out but we built the first
version the website you know we ran it
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front four like around for a couple
years it was just a total labor of love
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for making any money on on it was just
there to support the book you know we
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would do book updates and we do touring
plans and answer emails and stuff and
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then over time the the success of the
website really sort of tract or the
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growth of the website really tracks for
the growth of the internet that every
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year from like 2,000 you know 2001-2002
java 2003 more and more people in
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writing in are using the site at one
point and around i guess like 2005 I was
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answering like like 10,000 emails a year
to think what that’s like 30 30 emails a
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day just look we’re getting way I’m
because it’s easier to write an email it
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is a capital letter in the mail right so
you know i’m answering all these emails
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at the time
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a policy that said it was a policy the
bob and i had started off with it we
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have to answer every email all those
people who worked in the book and female
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kind of the time was Bob and me and you
know i’m talking about them like to this
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is killing a full-time job and this at
the time this was this was a part-time
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thing like so we started adding content
to the website to answer the questions
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that we got so people have questions
like you know what do I do with this
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particular it with how do i dapped this
particular training plan to my situation
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and we give them some some tips or
what’s the best sort of tickets to buy
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and we would give them some tips or you
know what’s your favorite hotel would
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sort of rank hotels but it was all sort
of like a basic web pages back from when
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the internet first started and the thing
that we realized that was over time the
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the number of emails that we got not
only weren’t going down but they were
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getting more complicated so it in here’s
why right so first of all anybody have a
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question that had the book if they if
they couldn’t find an answer in the book
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and the book is like 700 pages that if
they could finance from the book they
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would they would come to the website in
we had started putting on the website
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all of the questions that we got most
frequently so the questions that we were
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left with or ones that were so you know
obscure or so difficult that they
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weren’t answered in a 700-page book and
they weren’t answered on the website
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because more people are using the
website and we were filtering out all of
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the easy questions on the book and on
the site
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all I was left with was is growing
volume of progressively harder questions
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to answer and their people are trying
super detailed letters like you know
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three pages long on a you know what they
plan to do a particular day and they
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would ask these questions like you know
should i do this or this or this or this
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or and it was he was really hard but we
were trying to answer all the but it was
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taking about half an hour to answer one
question at a time so so it’s getting a
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little crazy and one of the most
frequent questions that we’re getting
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was what’s the best day of the year to
visit the best time to his disney world
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so we came up with a crowd calendar and
put that on the site now is super
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popular i guess a lot of notice when we
started adding tools like you know
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different touring plan templates we
currently have a hundred fifty them on
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the site but we started off with like 24
and we slowly added you know things to
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the to the site where the attraction
reviews so you can we can update the
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attraction reviews and stuff like that
but but now think I the last year that i
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had last year that I
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insert emails was like 2010’s nine maybe
but I answered as 16,000 emails that one
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year justjust on the book and the
website which works out to be no means a
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means of déjà i forgot my cactus I’m
not a mathematician like you
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yeah always like a size sixteen thousand
six about 44 emails a day
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yeah holy crab so i was spending
virtually all of my time you answering
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emails so finally we hired Geralyn to do
to start answering the email for for us
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which freed me up to do more development
on the website after a while it got to
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the point where the site was really big
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you know relatively speaking and we’re
getting a few thousand today and you’re
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sort of at the point where even the
development work the things that people
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were asking for was taking up more time
than I could I could devote to it so
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even now with somebody answering all the
emails i still didn’t have enough time
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to add in all the features that people
were requesting from the site so i ended
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up taking some of the money from
subscriptions that we had in hiring our
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first employee which was which was Henry
Henry work you know you’ve been very
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I’ve never actually met him but I have
talked to him at least once or twice
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cool so uh so that was fantastic
excellent where he was one of the best
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first employees you could ever have a
company worked like a dog smart kid love
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Disney so he actually said about for a
while we can be maintained the first
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version of the website that i had had
written myself but then he did in his
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spare time did a complete rewrite of the
website to bring on more solid framework
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footing and once we had somebody working
on the site full-time it you know really
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took off it took a few months but from
like 2011 22 doesn’t strike 2010-2011
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2011-2012 and such as explored in terms
of growth
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yeah we started we heard more employees
eventually at the end of $MONTH 2012 we
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hired people don’t go into the parks
full time so I had one person in orlando
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one person in Anaheim we have Henry we
had our customer service person Geralyn
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you know it like a little mini business
and I was still doing it part time you
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at night after work the end of $MONTH
2011 and made the decision to take the
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dew tour plans full time and that was
sort of a big leap because i was living
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a pretty comfortable corporate job that
I loved loved my job so that was a
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little bit difficult decision but but
into being the right one
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it was a it was scary but it’s you know
it’s fun
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I I realize it’s only was Adam was at my
old job one day and somebody was
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actually going to to Disney and they
threw a series of common friends they
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found me so i’m on a conference call
talking about something completely and
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really talking about actual you know a
work thing in this guy’s like a you know
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i’m going to disney here you’re the
you’re the person and ask you a couple
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questions and I answer them as like you
know from the enthusiasm in your voice i
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can tell that you really love it
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we get through the conference call and
then five minutes after the conference
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call ended
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not my boss but my boss’s boss who was
on the call called me and said what are
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you doing here at least risk because
it’s really interesting like you don’t
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have to take that he was like no no
you’re an excellent employee we love you
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but but you know it could tell you like
doing this other thing this is anything
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better
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why are you here he’s like dude I’m
gonna miss you i would totally
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understand what you find so like I
thought about it like a month later I
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did give them i notice that he’s like
look I’m going to try and talk you out
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of it that’s it was really interesting
it is like you don’t take this the wrong
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way but what are you doing here
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did they know about your book in the
world yeah so it’s funny my so my so not
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only my boss’s boss but I’m not gonna
I’m not gonna mention any names but it’s
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nice work for American Express within
within the American Express leadership
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organization one of the top ten
executives came to me for help a couple
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of times with family trips so everyone
in my leadership team you know for my
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boss to my boss’s boss to my boss’s
boss’s boss I don’t think the CIO
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actually do what I did but certainly
within the if they they had a general
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idea of what i did and i will tell you
what these people to the website
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everything all the other thing is in
this was super cool i had one boss I was
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a decent enough employee
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he never no one ever actually kept track
of my vacation time and I don’t do that
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actually when I run to come no one no
Americans first ever kept track of my
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vacation time sick time anything like
that the idea was if you need the time
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you took it if you and obviously when
there were things that needed to be done
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urgently you would stay to get it done
and in the interval workout but it was
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great working for them but time to move
on to this stuff funny when you got
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started as a full-time job was it
difficult to ramp up into a full-time
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position with it
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yeah you know in terms of doing the work
no not yet
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I workaholic anywhere they like the job
the thing that was hardest was leading
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people so you in the role that I had
before I was sort of an individual
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contributor ahead i had a group of
people that I advised on technical
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matters but they weren’t my direct
reports right they weren’t my employees
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there something else employees and I was
sort of like the person that they came
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to protecting support in there were in
you know anytime between 1,500 of them
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my days were full but it’s different
when people report directly to you
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there’s much more personality stuff
there so learning how to be a good boss
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we’re going to be a good boss was was
took took more than a year and I didn’t
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think it would take that long ago that
grossly underestimated that but you know
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what i had the basic policies down like
again I treat everybody like an adult
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and gonna keep track on vacation to
protect everything like that you need
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time to time but if you know if I need
to call you at six a.m. on a sunday
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morning because the websites down
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I’m gonna call you when it’s all going
to work out but just dealing with giving
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people feedback in direction and
accepting feedback from them that took a
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lot longer to get to a point where I’m
comfortable with it now I think I’m
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decent at it now
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not great by any means but it certainly
that when Henry was our first employee
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apt cuz I didn’t know what the hell I
was doing it and you know it was his
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boss that was talking sharps hard on him
but uh you know I’ve got better over the
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years so well you know getting old–like
wine it gets better with time
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yeah you know it and iikind understand
this I I apparently talk to my people
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the people i work with american express
and including the people that were you
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know above me and I’m like this stuff
the policies that corporate America put
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in place might look idiotic
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you know when you join a company might
wonder why you know why does the company
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do this for not allow this but once you
once you sort of your leadership
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position you kind of understand where it
all comes from the other interesting
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thing that I that I realized this took
this took a long time to was you really
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can’t focus on more than two or three
things at a time
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ideally the numbers too so you know when
you when you start a company when you’re
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running your own business there might be
you know 60 things that need your
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attention
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I can focus on two of them and the you
have to keep the most important things
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the sort of this is like a management
book doesn’t have a little bit yeah but
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you know but like so for us you know the
I’ve always always measured the
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company’s success in terms of revenue
how much money we make
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and for start-up in money is important
so we are realizing that that means that
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the focus is on generating revenue so we
look at metrics on that every day and so
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I know what that mean thing there is
just that the couple of things that you
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need to focus on you need focus on that
other stuff to delegate and I think
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that’s where a lot of people fail at
things they don’t tell you where I’m
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perfectly comfortable delegating things
to people so i think part of it is
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pretty good right people that we should
be at CNBC yeah that’s the thing we have
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we have great people in the you know the
thing that I the thing that I really
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look for in people everything that I
appreciate is the people who are willing
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to take on tasks that are outside of
their comfort zone the beginning of last
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year I told one of our developers Sarah
developer the spoons and look look we
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have a certain kind of architecture
right now we’re on one computer with
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some redundancy built in but you know I
want to move to the Amazon Cloud and her
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obvious response and and i said i want
you to do it
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you’re gonna need it it’s there had
absolutely no idea she had no experience
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with amazon cloud it’s a whole different
architecture whole new ball of wax doing
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things that should never done before
look figured out it’s not that hard
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haha she did it right so so somebody who
is typically a coder a good one but you
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have to learn this whole other set of
architecture skills that you never had
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and she did it she pulled it off and now
were you don’t want too much better
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architecture but that’s sort of thing
that I did I appreciate his employer
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like tomorrow I could ask you Joe if
you’re my employee join need you to
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figure out a way where we can measure
how much the average meal costs or how
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much the average purchases at the
emporium on Main Street I
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have no idea how you’re gonna do it but
I have faith that you’re gonna do it
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come to me if you need help I could do
that for you yeah I mean you know it so
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and you know how would you do it if I
told you Joe yeah tell me tell me you
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know when / when people go to the
register at the Emporium how much they
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spend on average how do you figure that
this is actually a question that we got
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next I’ll tell you how we did it one of
two ways one I would have to just go
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chill in the Emporium for for a few
hours a day for not a bad idea and just
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take a look
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you know your eyes managers register
plates through the door I would get your
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surveys if they have any kind of
information like that then you aggravate
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the information and that’s when you
start playing with the numbers to figure
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out averages and maybe find out
information you didn’t even realize you
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could figure out with that kind of
information
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interesting we didn’t even take an
approach that so that’s pretty good
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we ended up picking up her seat off the
ground when people to the morning to be
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hundreds of them
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dude you have no idea how how inaccurate
people are when they’re throwing away
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receipts until you stand by the
important
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yes hundreds per day well you don’t need
ever see to return things there so you
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could just use your credit card so yes
really no reason to keep the receipt
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yeah so yeah so we just we average them
all out and out whether that’s a we
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think it’s a representative sample
because you know i don’t think people
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who spend more would have better aim if
anything you think that the smaller
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purchases would tend to be introduced to
throw away because you know they’re not
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gonna return it but anyways an
interesting idea i’m sure would have
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picked up on that it being at the
Emporium and noticing that people are
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just throwing the receipts out like as
soon as they walk out the door by
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mistake in mystic mountain biking we
were dumpster diver picking off the
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ground it’s like we’re reaching into the
the trash cans as sort of an interesting
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thing but that’s that’s what we look for
in an employee’s people are willing to
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you know do the things that are required
of them even if it’s not in their
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comfort zones so you sound like an
awesome boss and I’m getting there
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I’m better than I was perfectly so
moving along with there any roblox with
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all this I guess who wrote major robots
that you hit with switching over you
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kind of touched on some of them but was
there any real big roadblocks we going
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full-time know you know the idea i’m
perfectly happy to you know wait a bit
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five or six o’clock every morning and be
in the office by seven
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it’s the leaving work that’s difficult
for me so that respect and if you’re
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gonna be a workaholic you should work
for yourself
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the only really impact so far is that
sometimes the travel takes me away from
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my family you know more than more than I
think most people it’s almost like being
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on the road for a for a regular company
so there’s there are times when you know
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you for example universal is going to
open diagon alley right and they’re
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going to open it i’m just making this up
but they’re gonna open it on the
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thursday friday saturday sunday that’s
when the median is gonna be act have to
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be 230-430 friday saturday sunday right
regardless of whether that impacts my
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family or my family commitments or stuff
like that sometimes that’s that that’s
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the part let’s think the most but you
know during summers and stuff like that
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it works out then obviously everyone
everyone gets to come along and there’s
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been instances where we’ve done really
great research trips involving the
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entire family so that’s not bad so
hopefully in the end it all evens out
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and don’t think it has yet but it’s
getting closer
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well you seem to do a pretty good job of
balancing all these different things
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together between the podcast the full
time job and I another full-time job on
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top of that era before going on to just
one full-time job
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yes or electric vacation in exactly 10
job so has a laser beam any parts that
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of your dream that haven’t quite worked
out yet
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I thought by now we would have expanded
to other non Disney destinations so the
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the the pace at which things happen sort
of hasn’t lived up to my dreams but
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again that was you know I was one things
to be done tomorrow
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that’s you know I think eventually we’ll
we’ll start covering other destinations
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beyond disney especially with the travel
tools that we developed I thought we
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would have done you know last year and
this year we haven’t done it yet but
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hopefully 2015 that’s sort of the big
thing I’m I’m always anxious to take to
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get things done and move on
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that’s sort of the let’s put a curse on
a blessin yeah you seem to have really
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been able to do that since you know
going full time I mean very rapidly it
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seem like you’re going from just disney
world and disneyland now the universal
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or sold increase line definitely at
Universal Studios Hollywood this year
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because they’re going to do harry potter
next year and then beyond that we’re
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sort of trying to figure out whether we
stay in the theme park business
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do things like disneyland paris and
tokyo disneyland or whether we branch
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out and do things like washington DC New
York Paris London will you have a vegas
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book right we have a vegas book and
we’ve talked about doing a Vegas app
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that we’re trying to figure out is what
people would want out of the app that
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can’t be . from the book like what would
the travel tools be obviously you can do
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touring plans especially interesting we
we’ve done touring plans of the vegas
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casinos and if anybody wants them to
drop me a line through there were a
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couple years ago but one of the things
that we realized was that a lot of
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people go to Vegas really just to walk
around like forty percent this forever
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and some estimates forty percent of the
people who once they’re done gambling
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are you know besides gambling one of the
things that they go for is literally
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just to see the casinos in the
architecture in the casino so we did
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touring plans of all the casinos on the
strip including all of the you know the
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pool areas which some of them are very
very pretty and then things like where
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to find Elvis at the MGM and things like
that and that was a that was a lot of
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fun but it’s that you’ve been to Vegas
right you know i have it i think i’m
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supposed to go this summer though you
should totally go it’s when you go let
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me know it’s it’s huge it’s in it’s a
ton of walking way more walking it’s
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like disney world in terms of walking so
just give an example so the Caesars
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Palace is roughly across the street from
the venetian in the Palazzo their mean
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maybe like not quite catty-corner but
you know close if you park across the
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street on Las Vegas Boulevard from each
other if you park at the Caesars Palace
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parking lot
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it’s a mile-and-a-half walk across the
street to the venetian a mile-and-a-half
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it’s farther around then it is going
from one of the world showcase all the
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way around it again making a circle
that’s only one of the quarter miles so
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imagine walking all the world showcase
that wouldn’t even get you across the
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street in Las Vegas
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yeah it’s crazy so the Torre plays that
we have we broke up into four sections
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like sort of north east side of the
strip southeast Southwest Northwest so
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that’s a there’s a lot of fun and we’re
trying to figure out what other things
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we might do for Vegas because there’s
not really publicly there’s a monorail
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00:20:20,419 –> 00:20:23,840
but there’s not really a public
transportation in vegas and there’s this
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ton of stuff to see their shows and
things like that there is a
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rollercoaster there isn’t there are
couple the others and there’s one of the
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stratosphere this one a new york new
york there’s the new ferris wheel which
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is at its really a stop by there are a
couple weeks ago
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it’s sort of like the London Eye first
one but you’ve got I think up to 24
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people so your knees like sealed air
conditioned capsules that go around the
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first will it takes 30 minutes to go all
the way around and so you’re kind of
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stuck with those 24 people for 4 30
minutes so if you get a group of people
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you like or if you have a big enough
group and you can take up an entire
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00:21:01,520 –> 00:21:07,10
Castle that’s a lot of fun if you’re
stuck on there with a bunch of drunk you
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00:21:07,10 –> 00:21:08,658
know 18 year olds who news
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this is the first time to Vegas you know
and one of them starts throwing up then
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all of a sudden something pleasant so it
really comes down to who you ride with
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also its way better at night so situated
with the strip and so you can see a lot
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of the strip during the day there’s a
lot of sort of bleak bleak desert look
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although you could see the airplanes
land McCarran Airport is quite beyond
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00:21:29,59 –> 00:21:33,230
the strip but it’s way better at night
was another idea would be and I don’t
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know what the percentage of people that
are going to Las Vegas they have dinner
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reservations but what if you did like
wait times for dinner
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yeah look at the buffet yeah I know it
sounds like funny other there is
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actually a line to get in the buffet
that the more popular places so that’s
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00:21:45,980 –> 00:21:52,850
sort of an idea buffet lines that’s what
should be the buffet line that’s the
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00:21:52,850 –> 00:21:57,110
idea for the that’s not a bad idea how
you get that one for free line thanks i
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00:21:57,110 –> 00:22:02,479
appreciate you anytime so if you were
stranded on a deserted island with your
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family
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what three things couldn’t you live
without me and so I actually had this
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00:22:06,950 –> 00:22:11,750
conversation with Laurel the other day
one would be a computer like whistle or
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if I don’t know how we got a subject but
Lorelei we’re talking about solitary
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00:22:15,169 –> 00:22:21,80
confinement right in jail and everything
we are listening to NPR we’re going
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00:22:21,80 –> 00:22:25,520
through old photo album from the family
anyway with Lorelei it came to the
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00:22:25,520 –> 00:22:28,399
conclusion that software doesn’t sound
all that bad because we’re both
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00:22:28,399 –> 00:22:31,879
introverts right so if you’re an
introvert right if you like being by
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00:22:31,880 –> 00:22:35,840
yourself how bad really is solitary
confinement and I was like you know they
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would find a computer
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00:22:37,490 –> 00:22:40,460
and they put me in solitary confinement
obvious like this my family everything
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but but that wouldn’t be too bad right
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so being without a computer would be the
bad thing i would need coffee because i
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don’t think you want to see me without
coffee
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what’s the third thing that I would need
hmm if you like the professor on
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00:22:56,390 –> 00:22:59,780
gilligan’s island or i’d need some
mechanism the sunscreen come with my
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00:22:59,780 –> 00:23:04,40
Island you can make it out of coconuts
game that’s true victory could you
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cooking oil
350
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yeah i think that works is that the
opposite now I think it’s actually
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00:23:08,360 –> 00:23:11,570
suntanning you have to get the sunscreen
but let’s assume that some screens there
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00:23:11,570 –> 00:23:15,169
that have aloe vera or something on my
own to make mud that’s true yeah that’s
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00:23:15,170 –> 00:23:21,350
what rhinos do when I go with em a
pirate outfit that’s what I’d go with it
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00:23:21,350 –> 00:23:26,59
just just for when people came up came
to came to rescue me like get off my
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Island gonna go with that
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ok it’s a good thanks
357
00:23:32,840 –> 00:23:37,100
so what are your dreams for the future
look like my ultimate dream is I’d
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really like to update the unofficial
guide to Paris I had this had this idea
359
00:23:40,970 –> 00:23:45,920
for the guide where I would go live in
Paris for a year and stated different
360
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hotel every night so 365 hotels in 365
days think about the things you could do
361
00:23:51,559 –> 00:23:54,379
with that you can look at calendar add a
thing besides all the reviews of the
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hotels right and sort of sort of getting
to know all of the different
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neighborhoods in Paris really well you
could write a book about just the
364
00:24:02,120 –> 00:24:06,979
experience let alone writing a book
about the hotels but with we have a dog
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and cat so bring the pets along for 365
days let alone borel probably would not
366
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want it
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00:24:13,640 –> 00:24:20,179
lord I want to stay in a hotel for 365
days but still i think i’d like to go up
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00:24:20,179 –> 00:24:22,910
the unofficial guide to Paris something
we could do something interesting there
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that’s sort of my big dream I that is a
very big dream i hope you get them and I
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mean it takes a lot of money to make
these dreams come true
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you don’t appreciate it so any last
thoughts you’d like to share I
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appreciate the time if anybody has any
questions about anything makes from the
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00:24:36,920 –> 00:24:42,590
contact me I how about some Twitter
Facebook websites seattle and portland
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00:24:42,590 –> 00:24:48,470
test on twitch past 10,000 followers on
Twitter and happy with that talent esta
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on Twitter I email address lantern
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00:24:50,900 –> 00:24:56,270
lens.com website is of course xxx.com
and on iTunes
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00:24:56,810 –> 00:25:01,40
it’s the unofficial guide Disney douche
podcast with jim hill forgot to even
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00:25:01,40 –> 00:25:04,220
mention that i love that so home
kitchens awesome
379
00:25:04,220 –> 00:25:09,200
that’s a shame were recording with him
soon he’s one of things we do every year
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for the official guide is James a series
of stories for us and what that
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00:25:12,860 –> 00:25:17,60
typically we typically produce this I
get on the phone with Jim and and yeah
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you sort of walking through different
areas of the park and a sort of jog his
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memory about me with stories or what
he’s heard about what’s coming up and
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00:25:24,770 –> 00:25:28,879
it’s one of the best parts of running
the book every year so we decided to
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keep that format but recorded show and
do it as a podcast and we do we do the
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first one live in the magic kingdom will
actually walk through the what magic
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kingdom and did a series of stories and
hysterical so we’ve we’ve done about 60
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of them 65 that sort of irregular it
depends a lot of it depends on when when
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Jim schedule my schedule mesh especially
in the spring when we’re all traveling
390
00:25:50,210 –> 00:25:55,400
to produce new content that’s kind of
tough but it’s a lot of fun lot of fun
391
00:25:55,400 –> 00:25:58,580
yeah it’s a lot of fun to listen to and
i would recommend to anybody who wants
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00:25:58,580 –> 00:26:03,320
the either here good story or loves
Disney appreciate thank you so well
393
00:26:03,320 –> 00:26:06,260
thank you very much for coming on the
show line i really appreciate it
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appreciate deprecated takes thank you
for joining us for this episode of the
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dreamers podcast
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follow us on twitter and dreamers
podcast join us on facebook at
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facebook.com slash dreamers podcast if
you or someone you know would like to be
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a guest on the dreamers podcast please
send an email to j and j parr . comb
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this podcast is copyright 2014 by j parr
. comb
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my name is Elle and I’m Joyce and we’re
huge disneyland fans in fact we love the
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Disneyland Resort so much we host a
podcast dedicated to the happiest place
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on earth to share that passion with
others
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that’s right on our show tales from the
mouse house disneyland podcast we share
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current resort news some tips and tricks
we’ve learned over the years to help
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make your disneyland resort vacation the
most magical experience ever
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we uncover little-known and often
overlooked gems we like to call hidden
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treasures and even review the
attractions and places to eat and make
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the Disneyland Resort so much fun and if
that wasn’t enough we even share some
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video episodes to help keep you in that
disney magic state of mind if you’re a
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longtime fan of the disneyland resort or
you’ve just recently discovered the
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magic this podcast is for you you can
find tales from the mouse house
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disneyland podcast at
www.lnscaptioning.com and in itunes and
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remember make it a Mickey day
