Geek Gestalt

At Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla., I joined a Segway tour of the park. But before we could head out, we had to undergo about 30 minutes of training to make sure no one endangered themselves or anyone else.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

EPCOT CENTER, Fla.--Ah, lawyers.

I was sitting inside a small dome, antsy to get going on the special Segway tour of this famous theme park that I had arranged. But before they would let me or any of the others on the tour head out and ride around on our gyroscopic human transporters, we had to sit through more than half an hour of tedious, but entirely practical, training.

As our instructors told us how to get on and how to get off, how to speed up and how to slow down and so many other crucial things, I could detect the work of people in suits at a firm somewhere that probably had an ampersand in its name.

After all, when you're Disney, you want to make sure you cover all your bases when it comes to liability.

Well, fair enough. Finally, we finished up, and led by a genial woman named Carole, we headed out into Epcot for a leisurely and decidedly untaxing tour around the World Showcase, the park's collection of small scale model representations of some of the famous buildings, stores, towers and so forth from countries like France, Japan, China, Italy, Morocco, and others.

Truthfully, the tour wasn't that informative. We got maybe 30 seconds of information about each of the countries we stopped in and then we moved quickly on. I think the real point was to give us enough fodder to make us want to return later when we were on our feet.

We were instructed, by the way, not to carry anything in our hands while we rode the Segways. But what is a reporter to do? So I tried to surreptitiously carry my Nokia smartphone in my hand so I could shoot Qik video (see below) of the ride. I only got caught once.

Riding the Segways was one of the suggestions I got from readers when I asked last week what I should do at Disney World when I visited as part of Road Trip 2008, my journey around the South. And I have to say, it was a great idea. I love Segways, first of all, and secondly, how great is it to glide around effortlessly on a hot day when everyone else is working up a sweat just strolling from point A to point B.

After we returned to our starting point--no Epcot patrons were harmed in this experiment--I was met by a member of Disney World's public relations team who kindly escorted me to a van stashed conveniently nearby in staff parking, and we set off for Disney's Hollywood Studios for a whirlwind tour of the not new ride there, "Toy Story Mania."

The ride, which opened last month at Disney World and is set to open later this month at Disneyland, is a super fast-paced cacophony of an adventure based on the story line from Pixar's Toy Story films.

The idea is that you find yourself plopped down into a huge model of the little boy's room from the films and are tasked with battling a whole series of different nemeses.

So you hop into a small car, which races off into a tunnel--very Disney-esque, of course--and one by one, you have to shoot at these villains, who appear on a screen on the wall in front of you.

Being a modern ride, this attraction is full of little tricks. For example, what you see on the screen is in 3D, so you have to wear 3D glasses to see the targets properly. Also, you are firing at them with a gun mounted on your car, and you are shooting digital bullets at them which splat satisfyingly on the screen. Well, at least they seem to. They're digital, after all.

For me, the trick was both to enjoy the ride and to try to take pictures and shoot video. At first, I couldn't figure out why the pictures were coming out fuzzy, but then I realized it was the fact that the camera had no idea what to do with the 3D images.

Until I put the glasses in front of the lens, that is. Both for my camera, and then for the Nokia phone (see video below).

As you fire away, you accumulate points as you hit targets. As I understand it, the ride offers up a lot of "easter eggs," or hidden surprises. But I was too wrapped up in trying to document it to shoot much. I ended up with a rather pathetic score, especially when measured against the impressive total racked up by my escort.

We had taken a back entrance into the ride so that we didn't have to wait in the extremely long line, but after finishing we went back into the main area so that we could see some of the cool details the designers had added.

They included a large set of dominoes and a huge View-Master reel hanging from the ceiling, as well as a giant Tinker-Toy structure that all the cars have to drive through.

There were also little details that only the careful eye would catch, such as some child's books painted on the wall, the author of one of which was named Lasseter. For the Pixar fans among us, that's an obvious reference to Toy Story director and current Disney Chief Creative Officer John Lasseter.

While riding the 'Toy Story Mania' ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios, I figured out that if I put my 3D glasses in front of my camera, I could take pictures of the target screens without them coming out blurry.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Afterward, we got back in my escort's van and zipped back over to Epcot. I still wanted a chance to go on two more of the popular rides there: "Test Track" and "Soarin'." And I figured why wait in hour-plus lines for them if I could take advantage of the secret entrances my escort could lead me to.

Sure enough, we wandered straight to the front of the "Test Track" line. This is a pretty cool ride that puts guests in the front seat of a car that is then rushed through Disney scale representations of 10 different tests that General Motors cars go through before they can hit the road.

These included going uphill fast, braking without and then with antilock brakes, accelerating (up to 65 miles an hour) on a straight-away, going over some rough road and going slowly through both a very hot and a very cold room.

Fun stuff, actually, and another attraction you, my beloved readers, had suggested I try.

Unfortunately, though, we couldn't work out a way to expedite entry to "Soarin'," so I decided to try my luck at getting one of Disney World's FastPasses--which allow you to get a ticket guaranteeing quick entry much later in the day--for the ride.

Sure enough, I was one of the very last people to get one of the tickets, but my time wasn't for about six hours. So I went back to my hotel, did some work, and then finally returned, right on time.

A look from above at the Cirque du Soleil's La Nouba theater at the Downtown Disney resort in Orlando, Fla. La Nouba was the Cirque's third permanent show and the first with its own freestanding building.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

ORLANDO, Fla.--If you've seen the Cirque du Soleil Las Vegas shows Ka, Love or O, you've probably been led to expect that every one of the company's performances is full of wonderful technical achievements.

The truth is that it doesn't take that much technology to make a great Cirque show, as the folks who put together La Nouba, the Cirque's show here, explained to me Tuesday.

When it launched in late 1998, La Nouba was just the third permanent Cirque show, after Mystere and O. But it was the first to get its own freestanding building. Today, 10 years later, the tall white structure stands out as a signal of world-class circus theater to anyone who passes by the Downtown Disney resort here.

On the second day of my Road Trip 2008 through the South, I spent most of the morning on a behind-the-scenes tour of the La Nouba theater. For a Cirque junkie like me, this was a treat, even though it was the fifth Cirque show I've gotten such a tour of.

"La Nouba is all about the artists," said technical director Ken Ramsey, by way of explaining that I wouldn't be seeing too much of the uber-tech behind some of the Vegas shows. "The technical side takes a very silent rest, as opposed to being the spectacle like in Ka and O.

But that doesn't mean La Nouba is a dud. It's one of the most energetic Cirque shows around, and there is, in fact, plenty of tech to go around.

We started our tour on the La Nouba stage, where I felt the presence of dozens of Olympic-caliber gymnasts all around me. The show's operations production manager, Robert Shuck, explained that the stage has five lifts built into it, each one of which can rise out of the floor up to 16 feet.

To prove the point, Shuck got on a walkie-talkie and asked someone to demonstrate. Seconds later, one of the lifts began to push up out of the floor, and before I knew it, it was towering over Shuck.

Not to focus too much on what the lifts look like when they're above the stage, we next went down into the theater's lower levels where the lifts live when they're not on display.

In the costume room, staff members work from early in the morning until late at night making, mending, and inspecting the performers' costumes. Here, red outfits hang on a rack.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

And these are no light platforms. According to Shuck, the one lift I got into requires a 14,000 pound counterweight to get its 30,000 pounds and up to 3,000 pounds of "live load," otherwise known as performers, to rise.

We started talking about the visit I took last summer to Ka and how I was told at the time that one of the biggest challenges facing the Vegas shows is the steady increase in the amount of interference that makes it hard for that show's crew to communicate by wireless headsets.

I had figured that was a Vegas problem, but Ramsey and Shuck explained that the same problem is creeping up in Orlando. That's because HDTV stations are coming online nearby and crowding out the available frequency for the kinds of wireless communications the Cirque needs.

"Everything went to hell," Shuck said. "We (now have to) run wired headsets until the manufacturers" figure out a solution.

At this point, we headed back up into the theater where the show's trapeze artists were about to begin their twice-weekly training exercises.

The best part about that, other than getting to watch these incredibly gifted athletes perform without hundreds and hundreds of other people in the room, was getting to see them setting up the safety net the artists perform above. (See related video below)

It takes the crew about 15 minutes to set up the net during the training sessions. But according to head rigger Dave Phillips, the same task takes just a couple of minutes during the actual show (he attributed that to the fact that it's not the main crew that does the setup during training). Also, it was pretty clear that there was a much more relaxed mood going on at that point than during the show.

Next up, we rode an elevator up to the theater's top floor, the 9th, otherwise known as the "grid."

Here is where most of the rigging is controlled, and this was Phillips' domain. All around us were various pulley and counterweight systems, and not a lot of automation. But that's not a problem for pulling off a great show, Phillips insisted.

"Sometimes low tech is the best stuff," he said, pointing out a chandelier hanging down from below the grid as an example. He said that a rigger takes the chandelier off its hook and drops it down into the theater. It is backed up by a bungie so it has a slow, smooth motion when it goes down.

"We just couldn't get the right look for it" by using technology, Phillips said. "Sometimes the best solutions are the easiest and cheapest."

Another fairly low-tech solution Phillips explained was the method he and his crew used to design one of the show's sets, a group of flapping doors that behave a bit like birds.

He said that Cirque management demanded the look, but it was no easy task coming up with a way to do it. Finally, though, he and his team settled on a motor system that wags the doors with what he called "rotisserie action" on the end.

In the 10 years since La Nouba opened, a lot has changed for Cirque du Soleil. It is now a much bigger organization; it has basically taken over Las Vegas--with five shows there already and at least two more in the works, as well as new resident shows planned for openings in Tokyo and Macao later this summer.

But to people who have worked in the company for years, like Ramsey, the low-key, small-crew nature of La Nouba is preferable to the highly structured huge and expensive shows the Cirque is creating these days.

While many of the La Nouba sets are lowered or raised from above the stage, some come from above the theater itself.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

La Nouba has just 32 crew members, while shows like Ka require more than 150.

"This allows everyone to work a lot closer together," Ramsey said.

And Phillips added, "It gives everyone an appreciation for what every department does."

Down below, on the theater's seventh floor, is where we finally encountered the show's high technology.

Of course, this is not the latest gear available to the theater industry, but pretty much the stuff La Nouba has been using since it opened. But according to Rob Pooley, head of operations for the show, that's no big deal.

From left to right, La Nouba technical director Ken Ramsey, operations production manager Robert Shuck, and head rigger Dave Phillips.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

He showed me Dynatrac, the software used to control the gear that runs the show's many cues, and said it's the same program he's been using since the beginning. And, while it once took one of his engineers three eight-hour shifts to figure out how to do something that newer software used by the Ka crew could do in 30 minutes, he said there's no need to change the system since La Nouba itself has barely changed in its ten years.

Our last stop was on the main floor of the theater, and it was a place I had not gotten to see in all my previous behind-the-scenes-at-the-Cirque visits: the costume room.

Here, Mary Amlund, the head of wardrobe, and her team of 12, put constant attention into making sure that the 67 performers in La Nouba always have perfect costumes.

Amlund explained that there are people in the costume room from 6:30 a.m. until about 12:30 in the morning on show days doing laundry, inspecting costumes for holes and rips, mending, and making new outfits. She said the average costume lasts about six weeks, while some last up to six months.

For a Cirque fan like me, this room was a special treat. Everywhere I looked were outfits exploding in reds and blues, gorgeous hats and much more.

Operations production manager Robert Shuck explains the show's power track trampoline act. He said that unlike a previous form of trampoline flooring used in another Cirque show, power track provides more bounce for performers.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

And while we talked, some of the costume crew were hard at work, inspecting every inch of some of the outfits for tears, moving slowly and methodically as they did so.

Finally, the tour was over, and we emerged into an office space full of cubicles. It was hard to believe that this was still Cirque du Soleil.

But then again, even the circus needs office workers.

A gorilla does his best to ignore everyone around as a Monday afternoon crowd at Animal Kingdom in Orlando, Fla., looks on.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

ANIMAL KINGDOM, Fla.--And so it begins.

For the third year in a row, I've set out for a lengthy journey through one of the United States' major geographic regions. It's time for Road Trip 2008, several thousand miles of traveling the American South.

Last year it was the Southwest, and in 2006 it was the Pacific Northwest.

And since I've started this trip in Orlando, there's only one way to really begin: total immersion in Disney World.

That's why at about 9 p.m. Sunday--after checking into my hotel and getting situated, I jumped on a shuttle and headed on over to Magic Kingdom, where I was able to stay--standing up most of the time, mind you--until nearly 2 a.m. Monday.

But more on that later.

A meerkat looks for danger at Animal Kingdom. Most likely, it is safe from the hordes of 9-year-olds who come to stare at it intently each day.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

Today, after taking care of a few Road Trip practicalities, such as buying a USB hub and getting all my camera gear taken care of, I hopped another shuttle and made it here, to this family-packed, animal-theme wonderland.

Fortunately, since I'm staying at one of Disney World's resort hotels, I'm able to stay late at some of the parks. That's why I was able to play around in Magic Kingdom so late last night and why I'll be able to patrol Animal Kingdom until 11 tonight.

Which is good, because I haven't gotten to see that much.

Mainly, I wanted to orient myself and take this first opportunity to share some of what I've been doing.

One of the first things I did was wander into the domain of a rather paranoid meerkat. But, despite its cuddly visage, it's actually quite the nervous animal, so it being hyper-aware of everything around it wasn't surprising.

Nearby was the gorilla enclosure, and sure enough, an adult male and adult female ape were happy to indulge the oh-so-eager masses wanting to see them. Whether they were willing to express their happiness at our presence is another matter. Their faces were more the picture of pensive solo thought.

I myself have spent much of my time here, and at Magic Kingdom last night, wondering about these places and what they mean in our society. And while this might not be the place for my philosophical ramblings on the matter, I will say one thing: if you have some choice of when to come to Disney World, I'd suggest maybe staying away when the world's kids aren't in school--it is a madhouse here.

But, there's still fun to be had if you're willing to wait, or to try the ride less traveled.

For instance, last night--I guess more accurately, early this morning--after walking around for hours and being rather exhausted and unable to deal with the still imposing after-midnight crowds--I alighted on Alladin's magic carpet ride in Magic Kingdom.

There were no lines, and it was possible to get on and stay on as long as you liked. So, needing a little peaceful solitude, that's just what I did, staying put for six full go-rounds, rising up as high as I could each time and enjoying the lovely breeze and sense of being alone that came from riding above everyone else.

Back here at Animal Kingdom, I was struck by the One Tree. This is a masterpiece of man-made detail, a phenomenal faux-tree with endless animal life carved into its synthetic trunk and roots.

The One Tree, the centerpiece of Animal Kingdom. Though from afar it looks real, its actually man-made on top of an old oil platform.

(Credit: Daniel Terdiman/CNET News.com)

From what I gather, the "tree" was actually built on top of the structure of an old oil platform, and looking at it from below, it's easy to see why they needed to use something that big: this is one mammoth plant.

Speaking of things man-made, that leads me to technology, one of the things that will feature prominently throughout Road Trip. I'm testing out a number of devices, and I had one of them on-hand with me today: a smartphone loaded with Qik's live streaming media service. This is a device that allows you to live-broadcast low-fi video to the Internet. I encourage you to stay tuned to my Qik channel throughout Road Trip, as I'll be incorporating this a lot.

For the time being, though, I am still in learning mode with this thing. So if you do peruse my channel, I beg a little bit of indulgence as I master this thing. Rocky video, poor timing, and even the wrong orientation are things that may frustrate you today but which I promise you will get better as I go.

Lastly, I had with me a Pal Mickey, a little toy Mickey Mouse that senses where it is in any one of four Disney World parks and blurts out little pieces of trivia or jokes about the parks' many features.

This is definitely for kids, as the information really doesn't lead to much actual understanding of what's going on, but it does serve to alert you to what you're walking around, as, for example, I neared the gorilla enclosure, Mickey vibrated and laughed and prompted me to squeeze his belly to tell me a bad joke about the gorillas.

And, well, I'm an adult, but if I was a kid, I'd probably really have enjoyed that.

But since Mickey is a little bit age-inappropriate for me, and since I've already gotten the idea of what this interactive toy does, I'm going to give my Pal Mickey away sometime in the next couple of days.

If you're in Disney World right now, and are reading this, and you're the first person to Twitter me (my ID is GreeterDan) the name of the animal that shares space with the meerkats, Pal Mickey is yours. But only until the end of business Wednesday. After that, I won't be here to make the hand-off.

And since you'll be heading on over to Twitter anyway, please consider following me there, as I'll be posting updates there about Road Trip constantly.

And that's because there's still a long way to go now that I'm on the road. Please stay tuned. I promise a fun ride.

A new partnership between Disney and Google has resulted in a 3D overlay in Google Earth of most of the rides, buildings, and other features of Disney World. This is how Big Thunder Mountain Railroad looks in Google Earth.

(Credit: Google Earth)

SAN FRANCISCO--It's hard for me to believe, but in only three days, I'll be hopping on a plane and heading east for the beginning of Road Trip 2008, my journey through the American South to write about and photograph many of the region's most interesting destinations.

One of the very first stops will be Disney World, in Orlando, Fla., and over the last few days, I've noticed that there are at least a couple of new applications that can help people like me get ready for the total immersion experience that is a visit to Florida's home of the Mouse.

The first is one that was unveiled Thursday. It's the result of a partnership between Disney and Google, and it's a 3D overlay of Disney World for Google Earth.

The idea, as written about by my colleague Josh Lowensohn, is to give Disney World fans, as well as those who are getting ready to visit the Manhattan-sized collection of theme parks, a way to peer deep down into them without having to put on sunscreen or pay the daily ticket price.

And it's quite useful, too, for seeing just how big Disney World really is, where things are in relation to each other, and to get a feel for the (digital) space.

The Tree of Life in the Animal Kingdom at Disney World, as seen in Google Earth.

(Credit: Google Earth)

It's certainly not anything like a real visit, but it's a good way to get a sense of what you're in for, or to realize that maybe two days isn't quite enough and that you'd better plan and budget for a whole week. Or something along those lines.

Another interesting tool for discovering what's going on at Disney World is Twisney, a user-generated site that allows park-goers to e-mail or Twitter from their mobile devices what they're doing at that moment.

This is useful, it seems to me, because the more people who use it, the better you can see what the real-life conditions at the park are, in real time.

So, for example, if a popular ride is suddenly closed, there's a chance someone will post that to Twisney.com. And if you're paying attention, you can know to avoid going in that direction.

On Twisney, visitors to Disney World can see what other park-goers are saying about what's going on in real time.

(Credit: Twisney.com)

Similarly, it can be useful if a Twisney poster has alerted readers to the fact that there are shorter than usual lines at a ride, or if something particularly interesting is going on somewhere.

For me, this is all a big learning process, as I've never been to Disney World, and I must admit I'm a bit intimidated by my visit there next week because I'm not just going to play. I'm going to report on some of the more interesting, tech-centric angles at the park, and so there's a whole lot of potential ground to cover and not that much time to do it in.

But with the above-mentioned tools, plus a slew of good tips I got from readers after pleading for help on this blog a few days ago, I think I'm better prepared than I'd expected to be at this point.

So starting Tuesday, stay tuned to this space to see what I'm doing on Road Trip 2008, and please also follow my tweets on Twitter and my videos on my Qik channel.

NASA and Disney are teaming up to put a figurine of 'Toy Story' space ranger Buzz Lightyear on the Space Shuttle Discovery when it launches on Saturday. The toy will be taken to the International Space Station, the destination for the shuttle.

(Credit: Disney)

Talk about cross-promotion.

One of the closest things to Disney World's Orlando, Fla., home, is NASA's Kennedy Space Center. This is relevant because on Friday, it was announced that among the objects expected to be blasted into the sky with the planned Saturday launch of the Space Shuttle Discovery is a figurine of Toy Story space ranger Buzz Lightyear.

Disney World, of course, is where the new Toy Story Mania ride has just opened.

The idea behind putting Buzz Lightyear aboard the Space Shuttle has to do with the "Toys in Space" initiative NASA and Disney are starting. This is an educational program designed to inspire children's interest in space and celestial discovery.

This is all also relevant to me because on June 10, I'll be hitting the highways for Road Trip 2008. I'll start in Orlando, and before I visit many of the South's most interesting destinations, I'll be stopping by both Disney World and the Kennedy Space Center.

At the theme park, I expect to visit and do a story on the Toy Story ride, and at the NASA facility I hope to be able to see the Space Shuttle land.

If the latter happens, however, I won't be seeing Buzz Lightyear, as the toy will have stayed behind on the space station.

Stay tuned to the Road Trip, and be sure to keep up, both now and during the trip, with what I'm doing on Twitter.