Dancing without gravity. Check.
It took a second try and a new videocamera with solid state memory storage, but I got it. Thanks to Phil and everyone at ZeroG for helping me get the shot right.
By the way, floating weightless is flattering to no one, so I’m not ashamed of looking like I belong in the Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade.
There was an interesting batch of people on this flight. I met a painter, a physicist, a guy who built vehicles for the Halo games, a professional jetpack pilot, two guys working on inflatable space hotels, and the founder of Earthlink.
Again I’m reminded that one of my favorite things about doing this sort of thing is the folks you get to meet. It isn’t the boring rich people with nothing better to do — they’re off hiding in their mansions. It tends to be people with a spark of curiosity and excitement about the world. Some are wealthy, some aren’t, but they’re all smart and passionate about life and I get a kick out of talking to them.
When it was over, I went straight back to the same airport and flew over to the coast, where I met my family for a few days at Disneyland. My nieces are 3 and 5 and they’ve never been, so…
It’s been a long time since I did the Disney thing. It was our default vacation when I was a kid. My horizons have broadened, but something still grabs me about Walt’s way of doing things.
Space Mountain is still awesome. Autopia is still pointless.
The Pirates of the Caribbean has weathered its resurgence admirably — there are Sparrow-related updates, but the classic weirdness remains.
On consideration, I approve of swapping the 20,000 Leagues ride with Finding Nemo. The park will forever have to balance nostalgia with relevance, and I think it’s fair to say Captain Nemo’s exploits have lost ground in the current pop culture landscape. Great film, though.
"It’s a Small World" is closed for modernization. I’m told the new version is being renamed "It’s an Ethnically Diverse Global Economy."
The park’s 90s additions look particularly dated these days. Cartoons and animatronics are eternal, but the rough, blocky shapes of the early computer graphics age are kind of embarassing to behold. Aside from Tron, pretty much everything made before Toy Story should be stricken from public record.
Having just returned from Israel, I’m sensitive to the many similarities between Disneyland and Old Jerusalem. They’re both populated by people in silly costumes, they’re both divided into quarters, and they’re both based largely on make-believe. It’s a lot easier to find a garbage can at Disney, though.
I am mystified by the adjacent California Adventure park and its resolute blandness of conception. The place is literally themed around California. They have a recreation of the Santa Monica Pier, despite it being 40 miles away and not at all unwelcoming to visitors. The Hollywood backlot is a faithful replica of a real movie studio backlot, which is itself a faithful replica of whatever it happens to be replicating, not to mention open to the public and less than an hour away. No one else seems bothered by these layers of abstraction.
There’s a roller coaster called Mulholland Madness; based of course on the circuitous scenic drive. There is a ride themed around orange groves. I’m not kidding.
Such unambitious tributes forced me to consider park additions celebrating other aspects of the California experience. My humble submissions:
– Free-fall into the Porn Industry
– Suicide Cult Epic Stunt Spectacular
– Steinbeck’s Sharecropper Experience (with adjoining Crepes of Wrath concession booth)
– Tijuana Border Crossing Sewer Toboggan
– Crack House Merry-Go-Drive-By
I think I was a hacky talk show writer in a past life.
I never got my Aurora Borealis shot in Alaska. It came out in force on my last night there. I saw it sweeping across the sky, but the clouds appeared just as the sun set and there was no shot to be had. To minimize city glare, I rented a car and drove out alone into the wilderness, but I just wound up sitting on the hood hoping Jason Voorhees didn’t emerge from the pitch black forest with a machete while I waited.
He didn’t. It was probably way too cold for him.
It’s hard work dancing in front of things you can’t control. The Taj Mahal isn’t going anywhere, but stuff like humpback whales and weightless environments and geomagnetic weather phenomena are a whole lot trickier to nail down.
I can’t really complain, though.