1033 – Inside Outside | North Pole Park Train Tour 3

Episode 1034 – Inside Outside | North Pole Park Train Tour 3

 

[START OF RECORDING]

 

SCOOTER:    Friends beyond the binary, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, and my patron peeps, thank you so much for your support, patron peeps.  As a reminder, sleepwithmepodcast.com/patronfeed if you ever need your patron feed in the future; I just want you to know that.  Sleepwithmepodcast.com/patronhelp for all of our help pages, and sleepwithmepodcast.com/patronsupport if you need to contact Patreon support.  Thanks, patrons.  What do you say we slow it down and get on with the show?

 

INTRO:    [INTRO MUSIC] Hey, are you up all night tossing, turning, mind racing?  Trouble getting to sleep?  Trouble staying asleep?  Well, welcome.  This is Sleep With Me, the podcast that puts you to sleep.  We do it with a bedtime story.  Alls you need to do or alls you can do if you like, or you could try out doing is get in bed, turn out the lights, and press play.  Even that you could do in any order.  I’m gonna try to do the rest.  What I’m going to attempt to do is create a safe place where you could set aside whatever is keeping you awake, and that can be things you’re thinking about, thoughts, as I call them, on your mind, past, present, future, all of the above going through your head.  It could be feelings, anything emotionally coming up for you related to thoughts or something else or that are just there.

 

It could be physical sensations, it could also be changes in time, temperature, routine, situations.  Here’s a situation; life is not a vacation whether your parents…whatever Will Smith once…oh, that was the Fresh Prince.  Sorry, Fresh Prince.  But so, whatever’s keeping you awake, I’d like to take your mind off of that.  What I propose to do…I got this safe place, like I said, set aside.  I can send it to you, you could approach it, you could come on in, whatever you’re comfortable with.  You could look at it from afar.  But I’m gonna send it across…oh no, the way I’m gonna do it.  Like, the way I’m gonna start it out is sending my voice across the deep, dark night.  I’m gonna use lulling, soothing, somewhat soothing, you could say…soothing to some, creaky, dulcet tones, pointless meanders, superfluous tangents.

 

So, that means I’m gonna go off-topic, I’m gonna get mixed up.  My voice is a little bit different; not soothing initially.  Believe it or not, this is the one podcast that most people don’t like when they listen to it the first time.  Well, maybe not the only podcast that…one, Nails on a Chalkboard.  I cannot listen to that show.  Even…I gave it a second and third try.  Or that other one, this…the…there was this other pod…oh, that was the podcast I launched in my imagination, along with this one, Sounds That Make Your Teeth Feel That Way.  You know those sounds?  Sounds you could feel in your teeth, and not in a good way.  I stopped listening to that podcast…stopped making it and list…it hasn’t been released.  It gets released on…whenever it’s unpredictable.

 

Sounds Your Teeth…People’s Teeth Make That Make Your Teeth Feel Weird.  I guess there’s probably been studies about that.  Sounds you can feel in your teeth really is a thing, or is it?  Or maybe I’m just thinking of sounds my…that I’ve heard teeth make that make me not…similar to a chalkboard.  Similar feeling, not similar sound.  Anyway, where was I?  Oh, I was trying to introduce the podcast to you by saying yeah, no, most people don’t like it.  It takes a few tries ‘cause why wouldn’t you be skeptical, right?  You’re tuned into this show to listen to somebody ramble about nothing to put you to sleep.  That could…if you’re skeptical or doubtful or even put off, that makes total sense to me.  The only advice I could tell you is that to give it a few tries and see how it goes.  That’s just what most listeners say.

 

Because I make the show — before I explain all the other stuff — because you deserve a good night’s sleep.  You’re important and your sleep is important.  So, if I can help you by taking your mind off of stuff and keeping you company so you could fall asleep, it would be my honor, because I know how it feels.  Did not sleep great last night, and…yeah, so I know how it feels there in the deep, dark night.  I don’t know, your life…if your life’s a little bit better tomorrow because you got sleep or you start using this show and it slowly improves, things become more manageable because you’re more rested.  Or even if we don’t get that far, if you just dread bedtime a little bit less, that really means a lot to me, and I know those of you that are regular listeners or that experience that bedtime dread, you know what I mean.

 

If we can turn the volume down, even if it’s one half-click at a time back when things had a knob, that’s important.  It really is…if it can help.  So, oh, and if the show doesn’t help, if you already say no chance this show’s ever gonna help me…I mean, people have said that before and now they’re regular listeners, but even…at any point if you’re looking for something else to put you to sleep, sleepwithmepodcast.com/nothanks or /nothankyou, there’s other sleep podcasts and stuff there.  So, what else do you need to know about the show if you’re new, or what else do you need to be reminded of if you’re a regular listener?  You’re important.  That’s the most important thing.  But this is also a podcast you don’t really listen to.

 

You can listen, and if you can’t sleep or you need a break during the day or in the middle of the night you just need some company, I’m here to the very end.  That’s kinda what works about the show, is I’m here the whole time so you don’t have to listen to me.  You could listen, but you don’t need to.  There’s people that barely listen, there’s people that do listen, there’s people that just kinda listen.  So, this isn’t a show you so much pay attention to and wait for it to get started and…it’s already…it’s not working at all and it’s already working.  Sleep With Me; the only podcast that never works all the time.  Somebody remind me of that one, too.  Sleep With Me; the podcast that never works…all the time, it’s never working.  Sleep With Me; working hard, never working all the time.

 

All the time…so, that’s kinda the summary of the show.  But what else do you need to…?  Okay, so yeah, it’s a podcast you don’t really pay attention to.  It also doesn’t put you to sleep.  Like I said, I’m here to keep you company while you drift off.  So, those are two things.  A few other things you need to know if you’re new is the structure of the show and why the show is structured that way.  Show starts off with a greeting; ladies and gentlemen, friends beyond the binary, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, so you feel seen and welcomed in.  Then there’s support for the podcast, because I would….my goal is to have the podcast come out twice a week for free so that supporting the podcast is 100% optional, and then…so there’s support, then there’s support for listeners if you need extra support, and then there’s the intro.

 

So, the support can throw people off, and then the intro can also throw people off.  So, the intro is about twelve to ten to eight to twenty minutes long of me rambling and going on and on and on explaining what the podcast is, but that kinda fits in with the ‘never working all the time’.  Always never working; Sleep With Me podcast.  The reason for that is that the intro eases you into bedtime.  So, there’s no wrong way to use this show.  But initially just kinda see the regular structure of it and then adjust.  Now, the intro, for a lot of people that listen to the show, eases them into bedtime.  It’s part of their wind-down routine.  Because at least for me, I can’t just get to sleep.  It’s just never…that’s not something that’s ever happened for me.  So, I need a transition period.  I guess I never called it that, but that’s really what the intro is.

 

It’s a transitory period between your day life and your sleeping life.  So, it’s…gives you some time to unwind.  Now, you could do a relaxing activity, you could be getting ready for bed, or you could just be listening.  But there are people that fall asleep.  There’s 2% of people that skip the intro.  There’s about two thousand people that listen to story-only episodes, so there are other ways to use the show.  But it’s just designed this way to ease you into bedtime, to slowly wind down and turn that knob down.  Now, believe me, if there was a instant way to put you to sleep, I would do that.  So, that’s the intro.  Then there’s, again, business between the intro and the show that just keeps the show coming out twice a week for free.  Then there’s the story, and most people fall asleep at some point during the story.

 

You can also set a sleep timer in your podcast app, and most people set it for either forty-five or sixty minutes.  There’s a few people that set it for thirty, or people just listen.  Then there’s a lot of people that listen all night.  I wouldn’t say most people that set a sleep timer, but the majority of people don’t set a sleep timer.  But that’s another option.  That’s the great thing about podcast apps.  But so, the…what was I saying?  Oh, the intro just goes on and on and on.  Oh, then there’s sponsors, then there’s a story.  Tonight I’m…I’ll be honest; I don’t know if it’s gonna be…you’ll know from the title.  It’ll either be a North Pole Train Tour or a Great British Bake Off episode.

 

I think it’s a Great British Bake Off episode, but it could be a North Pole Train Tour ‘cause those are the episodes I recorded this week, and I recorded one intro all…this is a Friday; I recorded all the way back on a Monday, so I don’t remember.  Yeah, you’re in for a treat.  Could be a Biscuits Week on Great British Bake Off or a train ride in a train tour around the North Pole.  That’ll be about forty-five, fifty-five minutes and go on and on and on, too.  Then there’s thank-yous.  So, that’s the structure of the show, that’s why I make the show.  I’m really glad you’re here.  I really work hard, I really yearn and I strive, and I really hope this podcast can help you fall asleep.  Thanks again for coming by, and here’s a few of the ways I’m able to be here for you twice a week.

 

Oh, hello, hello.  Welcome back to the train…welcome.  You’re asleep in your bunk.  I guess I didn’t realize I fell asleep, too.  So, that was nice.  Now, as…we’re really in a really spectacular position here because if you look out your window…and we’re having breakfast, some holiday-themed breakfast right at this table here.  Yeah, come on and hop up.  Yeah, you can pick from the menu and just point to whatever you wish, and we’ll have it brought right over.  The train did keep moving all night.  We’ve just stopped it…or it’s barely moving now because the sun is rising.  The sun is rising, again, on another area of the park that is…we’re really excited about.  You could see that’s our wooden roller coaster outside the window.

 

It’s a real…now, it’s…well, it isn’t…well, it…so, there’s good news, great news, and amazing news about this wooden roller coaster.  But particularly, looking through the stanchions and watching the sun rise behind it and kinda change the colors of it…and it is painted in that kind of…I’d call it a Tom Sawyer painting a fence, but I don’t know that story that well…kinda color on the stanchions there.  But the great news is that this roller coaster is actually built and refurbished from three roller coasters around the globe that unfortunately had…they were resting and their parks were not to be ever returned to operations.  So, we…and Santa said huh, these people don’t deserve coal.  Maybe…what can we rehab?

 

So, we’ve been refurbishing what we could, entertaining what we can, and the power…but some of this lumber is really well-handled.  So, this is…coaster was designed…now, it is influenced by some of the better wooden roller coasters.  Now, this is where it takes its inspiration from the past and the future.  It is not a traditional wooden roller coaster; if you’ve been on a more modern one, it…the track itself is not…is…so, we’re using the stanchions, wooden stanchions, but it is a metal track and it is one of these ones…so the roller coaster can roll and loop-de-loop and all sorts of things, which is a lap bar, and a wooden coaster-type train.  It does have the dueling track effects, too.  Yeah, we visited a lot of parks.  Oh, you say how do…?

 

Well, we have…we can go…we have our ways, particularly Santa just calling and renting the park out for the day is normally how we do it, and then signing NDAs.  Also being on the Naughty List helps, or staying off it.  You say, if any report…if anyone finds out your park was filled with North Pole elves…so, that is exciting and it’s just one of their favorite things to do here, is just watch the sun rise over that…isn’t that nice and calming?  This section is the carnival section of the park.  It is celebrating a winter-style carnival.  I don’t know if we went here last time, but it is a real part of…a really exciting part of the park, in my opinion.  We also have…if you move to the left a little bit, a giant pep…we call it the Peppermint Wheel.

 

It is a Ferris wheel, but you’ll notice…and we don’t think anyone has done this before, and we know that the…even the big parks, we think this is a first, and it is based on North Pole technology.  But you notice you can only see the top three-quarters of the Ferris wheel, correct?  That is not due to perspective of where we are.  The lower third of the thing is part of a dark ride.  So, the dark ride actually goes through…so, the cart comes off and then goes onto the Ferris wheel.  So, it’s a bit of a interesting thing ‘cause you’re not just circling around; you…and it is one of the largest…if it was a free… if it was freestanding, it would be the largest Ferris wheel in the world.  When you’re at the top, you could see beyond the park.  You could see many, many mountains, and of course it’s not complete.

 

I realize that, but I’m using my imagination to project what it’ll be like one day.  But so, there’s gonna be a dark ride that talks about…again, we’re going into the kind of layout, and some of the actual functioning of the…where…now, it doesn’t reveal everything about the North Pole, but I know you went on that tour a year or two ago where you got to see some of the living areas and some of the working areas of the North Pole.  So, this’ll kinda go through that, but in a…kind of a theme of a day-in-the-life-type theme.  So, there is a story.  I can’t give too much of it away, but it’ll be exciting and it’ll be very…I’m sure it’ll leak out, but we even…we’ll be working, and so, some people may arrive at the park and they say oh, didn’t realize it was a ride and a Ferris wheel.

 

The reason we made the Ferris wheel so long is so that you still get the Ferris…full Ferris wheel experience.  We’ve actually timed other Ferris wheels at parks…at large parks, to say okay, that is the time that people really start to enjoy that.  It is also a part of the story that…they may still be working on the story.  They say well, we can’t tell you everything.  But they said they could tell me that you’ll be…your expectations will also be subverted in a positive way, so you may think you’re gonna get on the…there maybe other effects that make you think you’re starting on the…I don’t know if it’s a fakeout, but so that you’re still feeling some sense of surprise and I would assume some elation when you actually are rising up.

 

I think they would probably do it with a smoothness…I hear this is a very smooth ride so that you probably wouldn’t even…the part where you rise up, you probably won’t even realize it ‘til you’re already rising up, so I guess I did spoil that part, but you won’t know, so you won’t know.  That’s the best part.  I could spoil it because you won’t know when you’re rising up; that’s part of the effect built in, is by them doing something to make you think you’re rising up, then you associate those motions with actual rising up of a Ferris wheel, ‘cause it’s just a little mini…it’s a Ferris wheel within a Ferris wheel.  Okay, I really spoiled it there.  But I couldn’t wait, so within the dark ride of a Ferris wheel is a miniature Ferris wheel to give you a little mini thrill, but actually to make you think you’re going out, that it’s the start.

 

So…oh, I…when I saw the model I said wait a second, is that a Ferris wheel within the Ferris wheel ride?  They said, it is.  I said, you’re gonna go on a Ferris wheel inside a…technically you’re not inside but you’re on…you’re technically on the Ferris wheel ride.  They said yes, that is true.  I said well, that is exciting.  That is something I’m very, very excited about, then.  So, you should still be excited.  Again, there’s…that’s not the only secret of the ride, or two secrets.  Those are just the most important ones, probably, that I wasn’t supposed…but they wouldn’t tell me these things if they didn’t want it out in the world.  Now, another unexpected ride, again, that kinda goes with this carnival theme is…oh, so there is super slides.  You can kinda see those.  Those are actually just traditional super slides.

 

It’s kinda painted to be like snow, and they’re humungous.  They’re working on capacity for those things.  It may be changed, but we said let’s…why not have super slides or fun slides?  So, they’re just…they’re still doing tests, but so, that one is actually a rented one or a bought one.  We will be building one or multiples of one, and it may be…so, the super slides, then you have your drop tower.  Again, a very standard thing that has been imagined and re-imagined, and we’re doing the outside inside which could become a…I guess it’s…you say well, then, is that repetitive?  Because we’re also doing it with the…well, we’re doing it a different way, so I guess that’s what I’ll say, is that…well, I can reveal all the…some of the tricks we’re doing for you, ‘cause you see four drop towers, right?  You say okay, that makes sense.

 

Maybe they’re…that’s for capacity that they have four separate drop towers.  Wow, their line’s gonna move really fast.  We say well, it will move fast because we have a huge capacity.  But oh, also the…so, the Ferris wheel goes from inside to outside, so this one is kind of opposite; it goes from outside to inside.  It is not a dark…it is a dark ride, but it’s a…it’s a thrill ride.  Of course it’s a drop tower, but it’s also so much more, which again, they use the term story coaster.  You’d say, is this a coaster or not?  We expect this will be in very high demand.  If you were to look closely, if you were some sort of engineer, you would say oh, that looks like a drop tower; it’s constructed like a drop tower, but I can see that it’s actually some sort of track with switches and stuff.  So, you start outside for a traditional dark ride.

 

Okay, so actually, I’m counting wrong, but anyway, it doesn’t matter.  The towers…so, you get to go up the tower two different times; once at the beginning of the ride.  You just go…what’s a simple tower ride, correct?  You go back…you go up, then you go back down, but you of course go through…you go down, down.  So, when you’re going down, that’s your actual lift hill for the beginning of the ride.  It actually goes through not this land, but the next land that we’ll be talking about in a few moments.  The next land is actually in what will be another park, our second gate, if you will, if all this comes to plan.  You go around, then you do some stuff inside, and then you go up the other tower again.  You get held up there, you know, for a little free-fall action.  Then you go back down.

 

Then there’s one…then I think it’s over again, then there’s one last thrill, of course, and then you exit.  So, that’s exciting.  We’re also gonna have…of course, snacking and eating will be a big part of this area.  There will be a carousel.  We don’t have a carousel modeled yet.  Again, that is an area of consternation a little bit, with deciding, again, do we purchase one?  Do we purchase pieces or parts, or do we try…?  ‘Cause even Mrs. Claus was here; she said…after she saw the models for those two different rides we just talked about, she said, how many times are you gonna reinvent the wheel?  Do you need to reinvent the wheel with the carousel?  We did say no, but we did say well, no, but…so, what I think is going to happen is that there will be some sort of carousel experience.

 

Or, this is again…okay, I guess this is…so, it’ll be a light-up carousel so that you could experience it during the day or at night, in two different ways, or you could just watch it.  So, it will be a themed music…so, I guess the carousel is decided.  It’s just, the construct…this isn’t finalized, but it’s gonna be.  How could you say no to these ideas?  So, the carousel will be its own light show that’ll go off at scheduled times.  Well, basically at night when people are riding it.  So, it’ll be themed to music that’ll also be piped down to the carousel.  That’s another thing that’s consternation, is well, why can’t we have mechanical music versus recorded music on speakers?  Then I guess it was the…Santa and some of the other…they said well, we could have both, but it has…you have to actually be able to experience the real being-played music.

 

Then I said what about a real orchestra?  Then someone said, every single night?  I said well, a mechanical orchestra and a real orchestra, live music, it could be a multitude of things.  They said okay, well, put that on the board.  ‘Cause they said, you could have a person playing electronic music or…and they…and then I said, then it could be recordings; the live…and they said wait a second, you might be on to something.  That was a dream I had, but I did submit that idea.  I think it’s a pretty good idea.  So when you’re on there though…this is where the engineering is gonna be powerful, especially at night, but also during the day…all of the other buildings surrounding it at a distance and close up, during the day there’s actual animations you’ll be able to see that will be moving as you’re going on the carousel, if you’re paying attention to that.

 

Otherwise, you could just enjoy the park and the people and the daytime music.  But at night it’ll be a fully-immersive light show with holiday lights.  Again, we’ll have snow, all the effects you would kind of expect.  So, all the other buildings will have dancing lights themed to the music, very layered and impressive and full of surprises within surprises, and hopefully that are scheduled to change so that if you come back a year or two later, you say wait a second, I didn’t know that was gonna happen.  Whoa, boy.  So, if you’re on the carousel, you could also be enjoying the light show.  You’re just enjoying it from a different seat, if you will.  So, that’s gonna be exciting.  I just hope it gets approved, because I said there is some debate about it, or building it from the ground up.  So, where was I?  Oh, I was so excited about that carousel.

 

So, we’re moving away from this area again.  Did you know that this train has lights like that on it?  This train will be a part of the show, so that’s exciting.  But you can’t see any of that.  So, we’re passing through a little tunnel.  We’re actually passing through what they call in the…we’re passing through two, as they call it in the parlance of parks, two berms, which is exciting, and then we’re gonna go over a…so, we…now we’re going over a bridge so that pedestrian traffic can cross below us.  Of course, again, the kinetic motion, so you’re seeing water flowing.  All the rules that I don’t…I’m not trained in this stuff.  I’m a fan, clearly.  I’m a guide.  But all the water flowing, you have some sculptures, and…what are those things called that…?  Those mobiles or mobiles.  A lot of those are powered by the sun or the wind.

 

They’re supposed to be symbol…a lot of it…some of it’s just art, which not always is symbolic, I’m told.  But so, I don’t know.  So, now we’re crossing through the other berm and we’re…you’re gonna feel us going around.  Now, this is a big reveal, so that’s why it’s just dark, but there should be some building music, normally.  But now you’re gonna see what…well, you would see; it’s not there yet because again, another consternation point.  But it’s gonna be…I think it’s gonna be…’cause Santa does not want to use the word ‘castle’.  They say well, the castles have already been used in those kind of things and other parks.  But it’s expected in some sense, ‘cause we said well, what is it at…?  ‘Cause then some people pitched an ice something.

 

But what it will be is a place for…now, it’ll be very large because sometimes they do these in a way that’s just not where…so, anyone could stay here that’s visiting.  It’ll be a hotel.  Believe it or not, all the hotels will be within the grounds of either of our two parks, once it’s full…we reach full build-out, as they say.  I’m told that that’s why…another reason for the three-dimensional buildings.  So, you might be even staying in fake…I think there’s even a hotel in those fake mountains, or hotel rooms.  But this will be the largest hotel.  It’s just not decided if it’ll be a castle or not, ‘cause we said well, what else would it be?  Just a fancy hotel?  No one wants to come to the North Pole…we will have a fancy hotel, so that will be a fancy hotel, but it’ll look like a chalet.

 

But no one wants to…something…and they say well, you can’t do modern.  But you will have a beautiful vista of it right now as we kind curve around.  Now we’re at a far distance, and a lot of the elements are gonna seem very familiar.  That’s why there’s…hasn’t been…well, at least in my mind, because I guess they don’t have a area of…this will be…the other tour was more patchwork, to have surprises, since this is…a park is much earlier on.  ‘Cause again, the castle…this one is not as…this is kind of a more unified theme, is what they’re thinking.  Again, the other park was designed first and then they came up with the idea…everyone was so happy.  They said let’s do an…we need two parks.  We said well, the first park’s not…but of course, everybody that’s involved said okay, sure.  They said well, what’s the idea here?

 

It’s total immersion.  So, this park, you’re supposedly…even though…it’s a fictional immersion into the world of being an elf, which again, the other park was already designed.  So, we were just kind of…there’s no…joy of the North Pole is the…was always the unifying theme, or what would you be joyful to come…what do you expect to do at a park at the North Pole?  So, we had more of a…our unifying theme might seem disjointed; it’s not.  Where this one, it is unified.  So, it again…there’s probably gonna be some overlap, but very early stages so that you can imagine yourself…however you decide, you could imagine yourself as an elf or as a guest of the elves and Santa Claus.

 

So, we have a street…now, our street’s a little bit different in the fact that it’ll go to the castle, as they say, but that it’s a two-way street, so you can come in through the other park, you could come in through this train eventually, you could come in through some gondolas, or you could just walk from park to park.  Again, we’re not masking our influence or anything.  We’re trying to build upon those.  But I do feel a little stuck with this one, because it is more…but you say okay, well, you go to the other parks and it’s just kind of expected.  You say there’s usually a long street.  This one…now, one of the differences is we will be working, and again, we have a little bit of a luxury, right?

 

We’re a different type of niche and our fun…obviously our funding…we’re less accountable to investors, so our funding is much…structured much differently.  It still has to be sustainable, but that the…we can do a lot of reinvestment where…so, this isn’t meant as a criticism or an indictment or anything of other park creations.  But so, this park will be…okay, so this street will be very…not just themed like you’re a guest of an elf or an elf in what will be an idealized central hub of an elven village.  It’ll be themed around different…now, every day…it could be repetitive, but things like…we say something similar to the Czech phrase ‘dobry den’ which I don’t know if you know what that means, but it means good day to you, more or less.

 

So, a lot of greeting and worker performers instead of just workers, and people…almost everybody working in this area and the whole…all of the parks will be trained in improvisation and guest satisfaction and boundary-setting and assertiveness.  I gotta tell you to just back up to this creation of these parks and that it is a consternation is that the excitement of the people that want to be involved in these projects or work at them is the most…one of the more important things for me, because what I’ve seen is that some of the…as our mission at the North Pole has changed over the past two hundred years or so and the balance of reality and myth and actual…you’ve probably heard some of the history reports, like I said, on that night podcast or whatever, or those famous soap opera…As the North Pole Turns covered some of it.

 

Fictionalized, but not that…based in the truth of different…how we’ve tried to adjust.  But so, that’s also left certain generations, younger generations, to say well, I don’t know…this is for me.  Maybe I’ll…and this has gotten a lot of people engaged ‘cause they say oh, this is a path…a working path for me.  This would be something I’d really be excited to do.  So, we really think that’s important.  Again, that’d be a lot of…oh, to get back to this street…and again, it will be familiar.  We are heavily influenced, but it’ll be from a elven perspective.  So, there will be a lot more things you might not expect, so I don’t want to talk too much about it, but there’s gonna be shops, more eateries than shops, and sitter…places to sit so that people feel like there’s this atmosphere of rest combined with motion so that you could step away from the motion and sit down, and that it’s almost encouraged.

 

So, you’ll see that our second stories…this is one thing I can point out…all have balconies.  They’re all accessible by guests.  Now, they usually also include…even if it’s a casual drink or something, and also some common courtesy, we have a way to remind people how long they’ve been at each table.  We call them talking tables so that the tables themselves are reminding people.  It’ll be funny and it’d be interesting.  It may get on people’s nerves, and again, they’ll have to be properly maintained.  But the table will vibrate every once in a while after you’ve been at a table for fifteen minutes, and then after thirty minutes it’ll say oh, well, I wonder if anybody else wants to look at the view.  It should have some intelligence built in for the time of day and things, and also it’ll know who you are and stuff.

 

That’s all part of the park, and you’re agreeing to visit.  So we’ll say hey, Smith, don’t be an agent, Smith.  Let somebody else sit down if you’re done with your hot cocoa.  Here’s the other thing; we’ll actually know how many tables are open in the area, so it won’t bother you if there’s plenty of open tables.  So, that’s the other thing; it’s not just meant to be…it’s meant to assert things and also to take a little pressure off of the performers.  You could tell the table if you want something; you say hey, what do you got to…we can use a refill on these hot cocoas.  The table will say, let me send it down.  Of course, there will be a lot of show kitchens and those kind of things, again heavily influenced by things.

 

So, okay, so then we’ll get to…again, this…I’m not…this is a very hub-and-spoke park, so it’s very, again, influenced in the…you’ll come to the hotel at the center and you’ll start to notice that the hotel even acts as a…well, I guess you can’t see it ‘cause it’s not built, but it’ll also offer…there will be spokes of the hotel, in some sense, so that’ll gradually go into the theming of each separate land.  Again, we’re using this very standard type model now.  Two of the lands I want to cover that we’re gonna go by in the train…and that we’re headed off to the first land to the left.  We don’t have a name for this land yet, but it’s gonna be the Land of Elven Fiction.  So, this will celebrate not…I guess ‘cause we did…you say well, it’s an…land of adventuring, but of elven adventures.

 

So, we will have some of the…nothing has been outlined here yet, but that it…this…that’s the goal of this land, is to say okay, what are our favorite things that are non…that aren’t from the southern world that we’ve consumed over generation after generation after generation?  Not just based on our service to the North Pole and the people of the world, like the elf and the bear will probably be one thing.  They were friends and they had adventures together in the Great North.  Maybe there will be one about the lonely…the elf that…one…maybe one of the great elves that needed a break, like the Loneliest Elf or the Elf That Took A Walk.  Those are myths that have worked their way down to you, but…about…then they say, that was one that kinda…the idea said well, does anybody really want to hear about that?

 

We say well, if we tell…a tale well-told or whatever, then yeah, people want to hear about it if it makes them feel good.  They said well, what kind of adventure’s just walking around thinking about stuff?  We said okay, well, maybe not that particular tale, then.  We do plan…now, this is, again, a little bit harder because of the popularity of a new snow-person, but we do…would like to have some sort of snow-person show or snow-person show and shop restaurant together is kind of the model we’re looking at, where paying would be optional or seating…there’d be seating…restaurant seating and viewing seating.  ‘Cause then they said well, how many jokes could we write if we serve snow cones, you know, and baked…they said, what about baked…?  I said, what’s…?

 

Isn’t that mashed…dessert mashed potatoes or something, baked Alaska?  I’ve never had it.  Everyone said, I don’t know either.  But that’s another thing, so, that could…that’s a little bit closer to that.  Again, ‘cause some of our myths have been used already, you say oh, do we need something about some sort of mysterious being?  We have those too from your myths, but we call them humans, where you people call them Sasquatches or yetis or whatever.  So, we think there could be…that it could be really exciting, like having a couple…maybe youth elves that adventure out into the human world and get caught up in the big city.  They say well, it’s a big city; we don’t like that.  We say well, what about the big cities?  So, that is a turning point right now where there’s some discussions going on.

 

Maybe that’s two separate attractions, then, ‘cause then maybe we could have these youthful…that could be in a ride, like a…they say okay, so we have a story; two youth or three youth…elf youth.  They say, maybe…and again, some of this I’m recording so I could pitch it later, but I say, what…I think this is an idea.  So, if we take the Lonely Elf That Took A Walk but we make it more palatable, kind of cloak the subtext in a couple of kids out there that go to…and maybe they don’t just go to the city; they have adventures in the human world, they learn lessons, but it’s a thrill, with rising stakes and all that.  Then we do one where we do visit some of the human cities, but I don’t know what that would be, either.  But those could be adventures.

 

But of course, we want to have some very elf…no human…stuff without you humans in there.  So yeah, that’s something we’re having trouble figuring out, and then having to figure it out without it being where people would come and say well, this is a total copy of other parks.  ‘Cause we want to have…again, you say well, this is limiting ‘cause we want to have boat rides, too.  Our other park, we say okay, even though that’s not as unified, we think we’ve got something that’s different and has plussed most things.  No offense, you know.  But that one, we were kind of jumping without looking, and more from of…so this has been tough.  This is a tough design.  But that’s one land we’re working on, is the land of elven fiction or elven myth.

 

Again, we could take it in another direction and just go straight into the mythological stuff.  So, that’s one land.  Then the other land that we’re…now, we’ve been driving through where you couldn’t see anything because…they actually haven’t even finalized some of the other parts of the park, the other lands, ‘cause again, we said well, let’s just focus.  This is our blue sky area, but let’s make the best first park we can.  I don’t know.  Elves, we have big ideas, but that’s how the presents get delivered.  Big ideas, small…important, small work is something somebody once said.  But this, as you’re gonna see, is very familiar.  It’s also a familiar spot.  Again, Santa says well, maybe they’ll see it as a tribute.  I say Santa, mega corporations don’t see things as anything.  You can’t put them on the Naughty List, either.

 

But this…I think Santa was just profoundly impact…he is a human being like the rest of you, which is a good thing, a good thing.  I’m not judging.  But this will be the future of…Christmas’ future.  Then they say well, is that too Dickensian?  But then I said, do you want to do a Dicken…?  Then we say no, no; this is an elven park.  But this will be the future of elves.  Now, one of the things that…again, we said, what is…what…now, we don’t have…we’re still very early on the planning block here, but we also talk about the emotions just like I kinda hinted at in the other park, is…okay, when you…when elves think about the future or people think about the future, it stirs strong feelings.  So, can that…those strong feelings be some of the building blocks, the foundation, if you will, of this elven land of tomorrow or the Christmas tomorrow?

 

What if those strong feelings influence what is built upon it?  So, that would be like, what is our theme?  What are we building here?  This is not…unknown at this time.  We say oh boy, well, that’s a thing.  It’s unknown at this time.  Then you say okay, well, what does it mean to build something when you’re from a place of not knowing when you know you gotta build something?  We all had a hardy-har-har at that at the old thing…and Santa’s bowl full of jelly laughed with it.  Said well, this is interesting.  So, what is the future of Christmas?  Everyone looks around and they say well, the future’s…today, the work we have to do today, and then the work we’re planning on doing tomorrow.  Then after that…but we do plan for the long term around here as well as focusing on the present.

 

But of course, the future’s always changing, and we’ve just seen…is…this is a tough subject to tackle unless you’re constantly updating stuff or, again, you have this vision or you’re agreed upon…what do we want to…why…well, why are we doing it?  ‘Cause we want it to be fun.  Okay, fun springing out of these feelings of not knowing and uncertainty though, so how do you have joy in that?  Then what would be the unifying theme for that?  They said well, what about going into the future together?  We went down that one for a while, more…instead of in a planning, just of idea-sharing.  So, okay, well, if it was going into the future together, together elves and humans?  Together North Polians or North Poles and humans that are invested in that?  Going into the future together as an entire planet and interrelated species?

 

Then this is…okay, but how do we do that without being…whatever that is?  Is that didactic or…what’s the other word where you’re teaching something?  Pedagogic?  I don’t know.  Is there a way to do that other than…?  It’s like okay, let’s sketch out ideas, but it was like, holding hands just…we said okay, holding hands.  So, it was really a strange alley to go on.  We said, going into the future together.  Then we talked about that, and then everyone said well, that brings up love, and then love friendship, love of lovers, love of family, love of your work.  So, I don’t know.  We’re really digging deep to try to figure out okay, well, what…how do we…?  Of course there’s excitement about…around the bolts and the nuts of things.

 

We want to have some sort of exciting ride, want to have some sort of ride that kinda shook…another dark ride with surprises like a unexpected one, want to have one or two rides that everyone could go on together, and then some sort of atmosphere that supports that, ‘cause…shops and snacks and those kinda things.  But we’re like okay, well, what is the future…?  We don’t know.  So, I say okay, well, the future is remaining relevant.  Then what does that mean?  Say, I don’t…well, it means I want to hold somebody’s hand.  I gotta stay relevant?  Well, that means hard work and planning.  I say okay, well, that isn’t exciting, either.  Then we say, is there anything cool about any of this stuff that says ooh, lasers and shiny stuff?  All of us just sat there and scratched our heads.

 

Then, again, we went to the thing of…what would you say is…at the other parks, their vision of the future?  We say, well, at the one park it’s like, the future’s fun.  Is there another way to describe it?  It’s not sleek any…a little bit sleek and fun and goofy.  Okay.  What about some of the other places?  Well, the future’s…this is fiction of the future, or is this…?  Oh, you’re being immersed in this world.  You say, the future’s modern.  Okay, well, that’s kind of true and kind of untrue, or visions of the future.  None of those kinda work for us.  So, I guess as I’m saying this, I’m saying well…and I guess it just brings up feelings of the future of the North Pole tours, ‘cause I’m just still working on giving these but also trying to stay involved in the parks.

 

But they say okay, well…so, I think that’s all we’ve agreed on for this future part of the park, is that the foundation is the feelings, then coming from the feelings is the idea…this is the only things that remained on the board; holding hands and together.  So, they’re like well, how do we build a modern version or a modern thing of the North Pole?  Then one…I mean, I will tell you just the one idea, but again, we’ve already got attractions like this in the construction phase, but one thing would be that we think would be cool would be…like, for the…’cause I…we’re…our train can only go so slow, you know.  We gotta park at the station soon.

 

But one of the things I think would be cool that we did talk about…’cause everybody said well, we gotta have some sort of exciting attraction, and maybe this is where…and may…’cause we said well, we already have a sleigh attraction at the other park, so we can’t have one at this park.  Then we said, why?  It’s two separate parks.  Then I said okay, well, what is your idea for the sleigh attraction?  We said well, what if there’s this idea of the future together, but with the past, is some sort of thing we go on where it’s a generational thing, whether it’s co-workers or family members.  The kinda queue introduces the story of…that they were North Poles that…elves that are…one had worked on two or three type sleighs ago, or maybe they’re communicating from the past somehow, or maybe they’re imbued in the attraction.

 

I don’t know.  They’re like, this was the last great model of the Santa sleigh, and it enabled us to go…because there was…there is differences in the designs of the sleigh, and there was a time just like in the southern world where it was like, muscle…Santa wanted a muscle sleigh with power and speed and then some agility to get everything done.  So, they say well, this was the good old days when we had this powerful sleigh.  Then the other more modern…but they’re going together, right?  It’s playful.  They’re saying well, we have this sleigh that’s…we’re working on for the future.  Or maybe there’s three.  There’s the current version of the sleigh, and then you could kinda explain the technology…again, that could be explained.  Then they can’t…maybe they say…yeah, maybe that’s it; the third element is together.

 

So, or maybe it’s like, so…okay, so I think we have it.  So then, there’s a trickster…maybe there’s a trickster.  We do have a trickster god here in…that’s not Santa Claus.  But so, there’s a…maybe there’s a trickster-type god or type-figure that has…that is the future person.  I don’t know if that’s too much.  But so, the two inter-generational people are kinda having a back-and-forth.  They say well, our sleigh’s more modern, uses less energy, more sustainable, better for the world, but yes, it’s less powerful, but it’s more efficient and actually, the efficiency makes up for the power over time.  Then you get to ride each one or somehow you ride each one or you go…they say…but they couldn’t win a race, so it might be that this person’s…they’re both fixated on which one’s the best.

 

Then there’s this hybrid future model they’re working on.  I don’t know, it would be interesting if there was a race.  I don’t know if that would work though if you got to choose, ‘cause you would probably go…the guests would probably go on a third model.  So, that would be interesting.  But then…that it becomes some sort of pickle that we get in that we all have to solve together by hook…yeah, I guess that would work.  We hook all three sleighs together.  So, we’re almost there.  Thank you for your help with that.  I think that gets us partway to our…at least our attraction.  Our big headliner in this part of the park would be…yeah, solving the problems of the past and the present.  Sure, we’re individuals; our egos get in the way.  What is the technology of the future?  How do we get there together?  I don’t know.

 

So, we’re almost there.  Thank you for…I see you fell asleep again.  That’s nice.  You might be resting.  We have a long journey home, so get comfortable.  Feel the rocking of the train as it gently rocks you off to dreamland.  It’s been so pleasant to have you join us tonight on this tour.  I hope you have a wonderful season and enjoy your holidays however you celebrate them.  You could always come back and come on this train any time of the year, but even this time of the year, and rest well.  From all of us at the North Pole and from that southern sleep podcast, goodnight.

 

[END OF RECORDING]

(www.leahtranscribes.com)

Notable Language:

• Working hard, never working all the time
• Winter-Style Carnival (WSC)
• Pedagogic

Notable Culture:

• The Fresh Prince of Bel Air
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
• The Matrix

Notable Talking Points:

• Back when things had a knob
• Do you need to reinvent the wheel with the Carousel?
• Maybe there’s a trickster god