ALiFe

It's been awhile since I last blogged.
Been working hard to the soft launch of my website on this leap year of ours. (I'm planning a full launch on 08.08.08) :O) Also been learning lots about something I don't really know a lot about - creating websites! So in the mean time, here's some in-flight entertainment for you.

http://video.stumbleupon.com/#p=ithct48cqw

For those interested in a sneak peek... here you go.
But it's really just a sneak peek... :O)
http://www.imaginative.com.sg/

It's not about the company being great, and I'm definitely not the best person to comment on that. Where I am coming from is that after 11 years of informal study on the company and what it does (through theme parks visits around the world and through books published by Imagineers themselves), I just feel that this is something I was born to do.

In short, creating an interactive environment that takes people to a different place, and for that one brief moment, allow them to let themselves go, imagine and have fun!

Besides the 700-odd Imagineers behind the scenes, how many others in the world are into this sort of thing? Not many if one is doing this as a profession I'm guessing. Not sure whether it was the best move, but when I was seven, my parents first took me to Anaheim's Disneyland. That was almost life changing for me. At seven you ask? (Ha ha...) At seven, it made such an impact on me that I was doodling ideas of what my theme park would look like when I got home. At seven, I cringed each time I saw an amusement park that is poorly designed or had rides from the late 19th century.

Travelling amusement parks have their own place. I also have to mention here that I love classic rides, and if an amusement park is maintained with that in mind, like the one on Tibidabo in Barcelona, then I am totally fine with it, because that gives the park its own character. But when individual rides are purchased and plonked in a theme park without much consideration for its integration in the whole scheme of things except that its going to generate some form of revenue, then that doesn't make sense. A lot of things already don't make sense in the world. Why have this in a theme park environment?

I feel that Walt Disney Imagineering (WDI) has the platform to build world-class rides and environments. I am so sure that I will definitely be able to maximise my talents there. Maybe there are other companies out there that I'm not aware of? But for now, since I am here in LA, I will, in the words of Walt, keep moving forward...