Made it to Disneyworld and the conference after a couple of delays, the PM track is very full and a couple of excellent papers tomorrow that are dealing with decision making and EV metrics that I’m actually rather looking forward too.
As good as the PM stuff is, the restaurants at Disney are even better. Last night a few colleagues, old and new, and I ate at Todd English’s seafood restaurant in the hotel. Some of the best seared ahi I’ve ever had.
Conversation turned to memorable moments growing up, those times we look back on and know that was special.
My special moment growing up was easy, going to see Star Wars for the first time. I’d never seen anything quite like it, from the opening sequence where the Imperial Star Destroyer is chasing the Rebel ship with the Princess on it, to the moment the Death Star exploded, I’m not sure I blinked once.
I went with dad to see it in the first week it was released in England. The queue at the Odeon cinema at the top of Guildford High Street was all around the side of the building when we arrived. During that first release I ended up seeing it three times, twice with Dad and one final time with mum who complained it was too loud for her.
For an 8 year old it was something else, I think it’s safe to say that no cultural event has had a similar impact on me in my life. At the point my pocket money went on the bubble gum cards, plastic figures and at Christmas I got a lightsaber.
OK, it was really just a torch (flashlight) with some opaque tubing attached to it, and it only really worked if you stood in the dark. Still I did not care, I had a lightsaber and 8 year old me was a Jedi damn it!
I do remember trying the Jedi mind trick on mum, she of course did not get what was going on. I was asked to clean my room, a mundane chore that took me away from either Saturday Swapshop on the TV or killing Stormtroopers and rescuing princesses depending how interactive I was that day.
I replied to the request (reasonable request BTW) with sweeping my hand through the air and saying “You don’t need me to clean my room…”
Mum was clear “Yes you do.”
With another sweep of my hand “You don’t need me to clean my room”
“Yes I do, and why are you waving your arm around like that?”
I tried to explain that I was trying Jedi mind tricks I’d learned from Star Wars. I was probably at least a little disappointed that the Force was not as strong with me as I’d have liked to believe.
I was then told to put the Force to work picking up my crap off the floor of my bedroom…