Category Archives: Travel

July 28, 2021 · 23:47

Staying Ahead

Staying ahead of the aircraft – it’s a mantra when learning to fly. Flying with just one pilot, no copilot, something’s always happening or about to happen and to be safe you always want to be anticipating what’s next and being ready for it. Don’t react to what the plane’s doing, or the weather, or upcoming radio calls or course changes. Stay ahead of the aircraft.

Same thing in daily living is a good plan of attack. Whether it’s at the office, going hiking, going on a trip, or anything else. Stay ahead of the…whatever. Be proactive, not reactive.

That transition from “vacation” back to “normal” has had its challenges these last three days. My main feeling, particularly at work, is that I’m reactive, discombobulated. I need to get back to being proactive and recombobulated.

So, tomorrow. Work smarter, not harder.

Kick ass, take names.

Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.

Use your clichés, they’re your friends.

And don’t jump unless you’ve got a parachute or a honkin’ big cable attached to your back. It’s not the fall that kills you, it’s the sudden stop at the end.

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Paul, Photography, Travel

July 27, 2021 · 23:29

Long Valley Flowers

Last Saturday we were in Palm Springs. One of the things that I love to do but don’t do nearly often enough is hiking out in the woods and getting out into the wild a bit.

Outside of Palm Springs is the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, which goes from the desert floor (at about 2,600′ elevation and 110ºF+) to the top of San Jacinto Peak (at about 8,500′ elevation and 65ºF). At the station on the top there’s a fairly steep ramp that goes down about 100′ to the floor of Long Valley where there are a couple of short (0.75 miles and 1.50 miles) day hike trails. I took the longer, “Desert View Loop” trail.

Along the way I saw these flowers.

They really stand out!

No clue what they are. A Google image search found a lot of African flowers that are bright red and growing out of pine needle ground cover, but the closest I found for a southwest US setting was captioned “scarlet gilia, also called skyrocket.” That ‘s probably not quite correct, but it might be close.

Anyway, when I eventually go out on what I thought was going to be a 30 minute day hike over flat ground and instead spend two hours going 2.5 miles at 8,415 feet including two fairly steep trails going up a couple hundred feet and thin air with (STUPIDLY!! 🤨 Yes, I do know better 😫 ) no water at my age thinking in my poor, pathetic brain that I’m still 25 instead of 65, when that day comes and it finally kills me (I hope that day will be far in the future, but…), plant some of these on my grave. 😁

 

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Filed under Death Of Common Sense, Flowers, Freakin' Idiots!, Health, Paul, Photography, Travel

July 25, 2021 · 23:35

Home Again, Home Again

It was an interesting foray back out into the “real world” and travel for six days in a time of COVID.

We were masked whenever we were indoors, and a lot of the time when we were outdoors. Other people? Not so much. In Las Vegas it might have been 25% to 33% or so masked in the casinos, about 2% or so outside, even in crowds. About the same in Palm Springs for the general public. In Las Vegas there’s a new mask order for employees, and about 99% of them were masked. I don’t know if there’s a new masking order for the Palm Springs area or San Bernardino County (Los Angeles County does have one) but it seemed that most employees were masked up.

My biggest concern is that the times when we were indoors and had to get unmasked were when we were eating. Of necessity, most everyone else (except the employees) were eating and thus unmasked as well. We’ll see if that bites us in the ass over the next week or two.

Finally, a potential sign of impending doom comes from my fondness for this, which was in the window of a very hoity-toity, upscale boutique in Caesar’s Palace, where I would walk by it a couple times of day:

They probably had someone putting in overtime to get my nose prints, finger prints, and drool marks off the glass.

It should be noted CLEARLY for the record that I do not know how to ride a motorcycle, I have not (to the best of my memory) EVER even been ON a motorcycle, and that even if I were to start to learn how to ride a motorcycle (which could happen, I guess) it would be extremely wise to start with a much, MUCH smaller motorcycle and work my way up with experience. A good analogy would be my flying – I have been trained to fly a small, single engine aircraft such as a Cessna 150 or 172 and no matter how much I might want to fly a P-51 Mustang or an F-14 Tomcat, there’s a serious experience and learning curve between here and there.

And yet… Drool marks.

No doubt signs of a long delayed and well earned midlife crisis, perhaps. Or serious, major league dementia.

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Filed under CoronaVirus, Paul, Photography, Travel

July 24, 2021 · 21:36

Highs & Lows

Big highs today – finally got to go up the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway to the top of Mount San Jacinto, then went for a hike.

The low was going to get a lemon-lime Gatorade out of the vending machine afterward and instead of the routine, standard, expected lemon-lime, getting this abomination from Hell:

There are some sick and demented product managers out there in Pepsiland. Just sayin’,,,

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July 22, 2021 · 23:27

Always An Interesting Place

It cooled down a bit (low 90’s) after sunset and we were out of other set plans, so I went out walking the Strip for a couple of hours.

(Embiggenate by clickenating, as always)

“Interesting” is a great descriptor of this place – in all of the many and varied interpretations of that term!

 

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Filed under Panorama, Photography, Travel

July 20, 2021 · 23:09

No Survivors

Long day, but some fun stuff and new sights. At the end of it all was a large ice cream treat with novel toppings.

It was called “The King Shake.” Not sure how the banana and bacon tie in with that name…

The end result had a look that reminded me of Chihuly Garden & Glass in Seattle.

On the inside, there were no survivors. But my cardiologist will be a winner!

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Filed under Photography, Travel

May 28, 2021 · 22:55

Random Old Photos – May 28th

Going way back, near the start of my digital photography era. September, 2000, in Chicago for Worldcon.

I had a tiny Epson point-and-shoot digital camera, 640×640 (0.4 megapixel) resolution. (For reference, my 2005 Canon DSLR is 8 megapixels, my 2007 Canon is 10 megapixels, current Canons are 24 megapixels and up – and iPhones from model 7 through model 12 are 12 megapixels.) So the image size and quality is “marginal” even compared to early smartphones.

This image is from the morning that I was up early to start packing for the return flight to LA. Navy Pier’s in the center along with Chicago River.

It occurs to me that while I grew up for a while (junior high school years) in the Chicago suburbs, and I’ve been back at least two or three times for conventions, I haven’t ever been back there as an adult to be a tourist and just hang around and see the sights. I’ve seen the Picasso sculpture and the Adler Planetarium and the Shedd Aquarium and Grant Park and the Museum of Science and Industry – but all just once each, on school field trips. I’ve never been back to see them and spend as much time as I want and on my own schedule without worrying about a teacher yelling at me to get back on the bus or be left behind.

It would be really nice to do that some day.

 

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May 3, 2021 · 23:32

Random Old Photos – May 03rd

July, 2007, a flight from Burbank to Oakland. (Pro tip – if you can avoid LAX and go out of Burbank or Long Beach or Ontario, DO SO! It might cost $20 more, but the lack of additional wear and tear on your nerves makes it worth every penny.)

On final approach to Oakland, off to your left there is San Francisco Bay and the massive salt ponds, side by side with housing tracts packing folks in like sardines.

Which got me to thinking about how long it’s been since I went anywhere or was in a plane. June, 2019, coming up quick on two years. Soon, again…

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April 5, 2021 · 23:28

Random Old Photos – April 05th

2006, fifteen years ago.

One of the most glamorous cities in the world! Well, they want you to think that. 24/7 glitz, glamour, bright lights, action, activity, shows, and gambling, gambling, gambling!

Of course, Las Vegas.

We were there on our 5th anniversary, staying at the Bellagio. Plenty of pictures of the fountains out in front, the extravagant displays along The Strip, the wonderful facades around every corner in every hotel. (I take a lot of pictures!) Gorgeous, all of them!

But the glitz and glamour of Las Vegas are only skin deep, a veneer. That’s not necessarily bad and it doesn’t necessarily make it a place where you can’t have fun. But don’t forget, and remember why that entire fake place exists – to separate you from your cash.

And in back of the veneer… Even if you’re there for your anniversary and want it to be special… When you’re staying at one of the really nice, new hotels… But maybe got the discount room…

You might find that it’s a twenty minute hike from the front desk to your hotel room, and you can only just see the fountains by going waaaaaaay over into the corner window and peeking around the two other towers between you and the show, and about 90% of what you see looking out your window is not neon or fountains or pirate ships or roller coasters, but instead is really, REALLY LOUD construction equipment about 18 hours a day.

Maybe that’s why I liked this picture so much more than all of the expected ones.

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March 9, 2021 · 22:13

The Great Cicada Fiasco

The cicadas are coming again this year (And Dr. Okorafor is a most wonderful writer, in case you’ve somehow missed her work):

I have memories of seeing cicadas when I was a kid, probably when we visited relatives on the East Coast when I was a pre-teen. I was freaked out a bit by their appearance, but mesmerized and enraptured by their singing.

Eight years ago we were in Virginia Beach during one of the cicada brood’s hatching and I wrote about going cicada hunting, unsuccessfully. And while that afternoon was pleasant (family, food, wine, chocolate) the somewhat hilarious memory that always comes back to me is how the Long Suffering Niece In Training #2, sitting in the back seat, kept asking every half hour or so, “Where are we going?” She hadn’t been in on the planning but had been invited along and figured we had some sane, rational, entertaining destination in mind.

I kept replying, “We’re going hunting for cicadas,” which while 100% truthful, when combined with my (well earned) reputation as “Funcle Paul,” someone who you usually took seriously at your own risk, combined to make the question on repeated iterations, “No, REALLY, where are we going?” The fact that everyone else in the car kept giving her the same answer probably had her ready to jump out and hitchhike home.

I guess it’s sort of a bizarre, humorous take on the Cassandra story combined with the little boy who cried wolf.

So, when we eventually bailed on my quest, found a place for a nice lunch at a winery, found a specialty chocolate store, and had a wonderful time, but all without ever seeing or hearing a single cicada, The Long Suffering Niece In Training #2 still to this day probably believes that my “cicada story” was all 100% bullshit from the beginning. Even though I would, in fact, still like to see and hear the cicadas.

Probably not this year either. I guess it will just have to be more chocolate and wine (socially distanced, of course).

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Filed under Critters, Travel