yo-yo #'s 23 & 24 (and #1 again): the ones i'm taking to disney world

WALT DISNEY WORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

as steve martin said (in reference to anaheim, ca's disneyLAND), "disneyland was my versailles."

well, i'm not going to california. i'm going to orlando (i always go to orlando; maybe one day i'll try "the other one"). i've been a lot of times... i think this trip will make 17 (really), and i've never lived less than 700 miles from it. this will be the 6th disney vacation for my 6-year-old daughter (REALLY). and yet, my wife's worse. not only has she gone more than i have, she's a total disney world addict. she visits disney touring websites and forums daily. she's up on all the new openings, closings, remodelings, and menu-changes. 99 days before any given trip, we have to do the "double-digit dance". she puts WAY more time into planning the trip than the trip ever actually takes up. but she likes it that way, and i won't lie; she's a pro. we never wait in line. she has a positively superhuman ability to organize a trip based on crowd patterns and havy/light days at each park, and though we do it all, the longest we've waited in line in the past 7 years has been about 20 minutes.

among my most indelible memories are these:
• being cathartically soaked by a torrential downpour after the illuminations laser/fireworks show at epcot when i was 14.
• getting totally barftastically sick when i was 12, and staying in the hotel most of the week. ugh.
• the first time i took my daughter (then age 3) to the princess breakfast in the castle. (certainly among my most joyful days ever).
• breaking the peter pan ride with my wife when we were 18 and still in high school by pulling too hard on the exposed conveyor belt attached to the ride's drive mechanism.
• almost getting thrown out of epcot for faking a series of fistfights with my brother on the imagination ride at the moment it snaps and projects the picture of the car.
• taking the picture below during the pirates & princesses party fireworks in 06.


since i see so much of life through the lovel prism of yoyoing, i tend to remember trips based on what yo-yo i bring with me. on recent disney trips, i've brought a luke vader zero, a milk (more on that one someday soon), and a pair of fh2's. this is my first trip in 18 months (18 WHOLE MONTHS!!!), and i've been seriously deliberating on which yo-yo's should make the trip. i've decided on 3:

• my "number 1" no jive 3-in-1 yo-yo (see the blog for "yo-yo #1"): this was a no brainer. it goes virtually everywhere with me. obvious.



• a red schmooved/silicone-recessed freehand zero with cut-to-flush throw down weight rings (that was a mouthful): originally, when i intended to bring a bearing yo-yo in case i feel like playing with a bearing (unlikely, but possible), i assumed i'd bring one of my throw down ronin prototypes (more on those someday soon). however, much like its cousin the luchador, the ronin is bare aluminum and looks like it could (and would like to) kill someone. it's one of a very few yo-yo's i'm honestly not sure i could talk past airport security. the uninitiated would give it a glance and, if they previously did NOT believe the myth about yo-yo's originating as weapons (they did NOT), they would upon meeting the ronin.
since i didn't feel like mailing it home in one of those airport baggy-mailers they give you (which they did me on the time that i waltzed into security wearing a butterfly knife - dumbass), i picked another yo-yo. i settled on one of my eric wolff wooden yo-yo's (see the blog for yo-yo #'s 2 & 3). i was going to bring the small bearing one and have a lovely all-wooden time of it, but talking to my pal brandon, i was advised NOT to do so. although i have 2 (and another on the way), eric wolff yo-yo's are rare, valuable, and not to be blithely paraded down main street, u.s.a., as anything could happen to it, and i would be most sad. he suggested i take a zero instead (big surprise there).
so i am. the zero i'm taking i got from a guy i don't know well at all, but it plays like the absolute dickens, and i'm reasonably sure that it looks "yo-yo" enough to not be mistaken for any kind of obect of destruction (like, for example, gel insoles or a bottle of water). i know that, in the event that i choose to rock a bearing, i'm covered.

• a "clean machine" no jive 3-in-1 yo-yo that i received from 1997 world champion jason tracy: this is the yo-yo that i've been playing more than any other in recent weeks. although my #1 is still my "#1", this one has made it into my pocket more and more on account of its dazzling play. i received this yo-yo from jason (out of the goodness of his heart) in late 2007.
i had never played a clean machine (an uncoated no jive), and i was shocked at how well it performed. at that time i was even more of a purist and wouldn't have dreamed of flipping it butterfly, but nowadays, that's how i rock it. it was on this yo-yo that i discovered i was able to hit kamikaze and pure 143 a few weeks ago (2 tricks i thought i'd never land on a no jive), and it's occupied a more special place in my heart since. this is also the yo-yo that my young friend (and another world champion) tyler severence dinged the ever-loving crap out of when he snapped a string and sent it caroming off of his house's outer wall at last year's east coast classic.
although i have no idea what gives it such incredible qualities, it is a truly special player, and seems to take into consideration the desires of the person throwing it more than any yo-yo i've played.
the nice thing about playing uncoated wood, too, is the response. this clean machine can go from dead unresponsive, requiring a bind to finger-smashing, loop-happy tug-response solely by adjusting string tension. it's actually really annoying until you get the hang of it, but once you do, it's incredibly cool to have a yo-yo that can handle kamikaze (albeit barely) and then vertical punches on the next throw. this is the yo-yo that i plan on playing most on this trip, and the one that i imagine i'll come to associate with it when i reflect on it afterwards.

apologies for the awful photo booth pictures. my camera is packed away, and i'm out the door!!!