Category Archives: Travel

March 26, 2017 · 23:35

Green California

We drove back from Milpitas/San Jose to Los Angeles today. We took the 101 down since it’s a much more pleasant and scenic drive than the straight, flat, and boring rampage down on I-5.

What was overwhelmingly obvious no matter where you looked is that the record rains this winter have turned California GREEN. Not “green” as in “spring’s here,” GREEN as in “did we take a wrong turn and end up in Ireland?”

The bad news, of course, is that sooner or later (it will be sooner) all of this verdant new growth will bake and turn brown and be tinder for a record brush fire season. Record brush fire seasons always follow record rainfall seasons, just as the spring follows the winter.

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March 25, 2017 · 23:35

At Consonance 2017

Too busy listening to concerts & chatting with friends I see far too rarely to write much. But (of course) there are pictures!

For Interfilk Guest Leslie Hudson’s concert there was plenty of help.

The Guest of Honor concert was the main event tonight. From left to right are Leslie Hudson, Mary Crowell, Betsy Tinney (amazing cello!), and GOHs Bill & Brenda Sutton.
For those I haven’t indoctrinated into SF true fandom, when I’m done having fun I’ll explain those terms.

For now, it’s the open filk:

With luck, we’ll be up way, way too late doing this!

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March 24, 2017 · 23:34

Off At A Con

I’ll have to tell you more about it tomorrow or Sunday. I flew up to San Jose this evening and saw the most AMAZING sunset between two layers of clouds.

 

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March 20, 2017 · 22:55

New York, New York (Pictures Day 13)

In summary: New York City had a life of it’s own in my head. In early August 2016, I visited there for the first time. On the first afternoon we visited Central Park and were there for hours, despite the jet lag. Day One started with a tour of the Intrepid and the Space Shuttle Enterprise, followed by the full two and a half hour cruise around Manhattan – south down the Hudson River into the Upper Harbor, up the East River under the “BMW” bridges, past Midtown and the UN, into the Harlem River, back south into the Hudson River, underneath the George Washington Bridge, past Grant’s Tomb, and finally back into port. To finish Day Two we had a death march to find a cab, went to the Mets game, left early only to miss the best part, and inadvertently stiffed a nice cab driver.

Despite the adventures and late night of the previous day, Day Three of our New York adventure started early. We had to get down to the water again, this time to Battery Park. We had a date with a very important lady.

It was already hot, muggy, and hazy. Hey, New York City in August. What did you expect?

We had seen her for a bit on our tour around Manhattan the previous day, and even from a distance across the water she’s magnificent.

Once you get closer to Liberty Island, seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time was literally breathtaking for me.

Manhattan makes a great backdrop, don’t you think?

The new One World Trade Center tower peeking around from behind her.

Honestly, how do you take a bad photo with this material? But, and this is important and something you should never forget, even if you take a LOT of pictures, take a moment to put down the camera for a minute here and there and look.

You come into port on Liberty Island after moving around to the back of Miss Liberty.

There’s actually a pretty decent cafeteria run by the Park Service just off of the dock. If you haven’t had breakfast yet and want to let the crowd off the boat thin out a bit, take a rest and eat. Then walk around and see what’s peeking up over the trees.

Directly in back is the entrance to the base of the statue and the steps up to the top.

Here’s your #1 tip if you’re going to New York City and want to go up into the Statue of Liberty instead of just walking around the island – make your reservations EARLY. During the summer, just going up into the base to get a better view requires about two weeks advance notice. To get a ticket to climb up to the crown, you need to get one at least three months in advance.

We didn’t.

But as we’ll see, that didn’t matter much. Lady Liberty is still spectacular from the ground.

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March 9, 2017 · 21:52

New York, New York (Story #3 To Accompany “Pictures Day 12”)

On Monday I posted Day Twelve of my “New York, New York” picture travelogue and hinted that there might be a couple of stories that went along with that part of the day. Tuesday I posted the first of those stories, with the second one yesterday. Let’s finish.

Story The Third

To recap, it was the first full day in New York City on my first trip there. A long, long day with a tour of the Intrepid and the Space Shuttle Enterprise, the full Circle Line tour around Manhattan, the search in the heat and humidity to find a cab to CitiField, the late start to the game, leaving the game early because we were exhausted, missing the theatrics of a bottom-of-the-ninth comeback by the Mets, then a long cab ride home in heavy traffic.

It’s just before midnight following all of that. We were staying at a place right next to Central Park (thanks again, Aunt Eleanore!) and as we get there the cab is pulling up on the opposite side of the street, next to the park.

There’s a fair amount of traffic, and while they might not think anything of a cab stopping to block a lane of traffic for a few minutes, it was a new experience for me, and I was trying to hurry to minimize the delay. (I’m not from around there, as we’ll see demonstrated even more vividly in a short time.)

The Long-Suffering Wife had been sleeping while we were stuck in traffic, so I’m trying to get her awake and out of the cab.

Not enough going on all at once? Okay, since you’re bored and just picking lint out of your navel, how about you pay for the cab ride?

Before I went on this trip I had used a cab only rarely at best. (I live in LA – we drive everywhere or don’t go.) The NYC cabs made it easy to pay with a credit card, but every single cab was an adventure with different protocols and displays. Chip or swipe? It says chip – no, don’t do that, swipe! I have to swipe because there’s no chip slot right? No, it’s underneath there, you can’t see it in the dark? Am I supposed to press the screen? These buttons on the side? Which button? The screen’s really dim, it’s really dark, and I have I mentioned that in all of the hubbub I can’t find my glasses and I’m blind as a freakin’ bat up close these days?

Yeah.

Well, at least they make it easy to add the tip. I actually appreciated that. Somewhere in the process you get a screen that gives you the 10%, 15%, and 20% figures. You just pick one, or you can override. One less thing to think about.

We finally get done, get out of the cab, our friendly Mets fan driver heads off looking for his next fare, we manage to get across West 59th Street without being killed, we drag our sorry butts upstairs, and we’re ready to collapse. TLSW heads off to strip off her soggy clothes (did I mention that it was in the 90’s with 90%+ humidity all day, rain showers off and on) and I start to empty my pockets, empty out the backpack, recharge batteries for all of the cameras, and so on. I pull out the receipts I had from the various purchases all day and stick them into the envelope where I was keeping them – and on top I notice the receipt from the cab ride back from Citifield.

Tip amount = $0.00.

Wait, I didn’t do that did I? What kind of an asshole stiffs the driver on a cross-town cab ride in the middle of the night?

The kind that’s hurried, confused, exhausted, in unfamiliar territory, and blind as a bat, I guess.

But, there’s got to be a way to fix this, right?

This, this right HERE, this is where I might as well be wearing a neon sign that says, “You’re not from around here, are you?”

I know the cab company even if I don’t have the cab driver’s name or the cab number – but I’m sure they’ll have that information. Why not? I’ll give them a call at 0:15 AM to ask.

No joy.

It’s bugging me, but it’s late. But tomorrow…

Tomorrow (pictures coming) between our other adventures, I make three more calls to different numbers and agencies, trying to figure out if anyone can help me identify the driver and put me in touch with him. I want to let him know that I screwed up, that I’m an idiot, not an asshole, and give him the tip he had earned.

On each call I patiently explained what had happened and how I wanted to get some help to fix it – on each call the guy was flabbergasted, at best. I was obviously the first person in the history of civilization to have this problem, to consider it a problem to begin with, and to decide to try and rectify the situation. (It’s good to know I’m Number One in something!)

I’ll bet good money that there are four dispatchers in New York City that to this day tell stories about this clueless yahoo from out of town who tried to track down the one cab driver who he had mistakenly stiffed for a tip. I’m sure the stories get better with each telling. I doubt they’re much wrong.

The final guy, at some City agency that oversees cabs, listened to the story, asked if I was kidding, asked me to clear up a couple of things in the timeline for him, asked again if I was kidding, and finally took pity on me. It was time for the stereotypical New York wisdom to be passed down from native to clueless yahoo.

“Buddy, shit happens! He’s a New York City cab driver, he knows that far better than you do. Let it go.” And he hung up on me.

As he should have.

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March 8, 2017 · 20:59

New York, New York (Story #2 To Accompany “Pictures Day 12”)

On Monday I posted Day Twelve of my “New York, New York” picture travelogue and hinted that there might be a couple of stories that went along with that part of the day. Yesterday I posted the first of those stories, so why not give you the second one today?

Story The Second

As I mentioned at the end of the post on Monday, we did something we almost never, ever do. We are huge baseball fans and just as a matter of principle and habit we almost never leave a game before the last out. But on that particular day, it had been a long day touring the Intrepid, seeing the Space Shuttle Enterprise, going on that two and a half hour (and then some) tour around Manhattan (I think that they just don’t want to call it a “three-hour tour” for some odd reason), and then enduring the search in the heat and humidity to find a cab. To boot, we were still jet lagged and the game had started about thirty minutes late. When the Diamondbacks scored a run in the top of the eighth to go up 2-0 and the Mets did nothing in the bottom of the eighth, we ditched the ninth inning.

There was another factor, that being our need to find a cab to get back home. Strangers in a strange land, such as we were, and pretty tired and worn out strangers at that.

I had checked with a couple of the ushers at CitiField, who were very helpful about telling us where to find the waiting area for the cabs after the game. I wanted to make sure that we found it without any issues. Given the circumstances, I needed a bit of “easy”, and that vision didn’t involve any long lines and delays.

Out we went, took that last neat picture of the CitiField sign all lit up in the night, and found the line of cabs right where it was supposed to be. No line, no wait, no muss, no fuss. Off we went, back toward Manhattan.

Our driver was chatty and friendly. We learned that he had become a huge Mets fan since moving to the United States and New York City. He had a great grasp of the game and knew his Mets inside and out. Of course, we were listening to the end of the game on the radio as we drove.

Since we hadn’t taken very long at all to get to the cab stand, the game was just getting to the bottom of the ninth inning as we pulled onto the freeway. The Mets were still down 2-0, facing their last chance.

(If you see what’s coming, don’t spoil it for anyone else, okay?)

The Mets got scrappy, getting one guy on with one out when Kelly Johnson hit a home run to tie the game.

See, THIS is why we never leave a game early!

Yeah, yeah, yeah, extenuating circumstances. Tired, long day, jet lagged, blah, blah, blah. Excuse it any way you want, we were still missing all of the excitement.

Remember how I had the picture of “the Big Apple” in the outfield stands and described how it pops up out of its lair when the Mets hit a home run? Remember how I mentioned that we hadn’t seen it pop up? Notice how I didn’t say that it didn’t pop up during our game?

Okay, the game is tied, going to extra innings – and we’ve become totally bogged down in traffic. I don’t know the area so I don’t know the ins and outs and best routes, trusting the cab driver completely, but at some point just past LaGuardia there was a huge backup due to construction on the freeway. We took the first exit to start winding our way through the fine, fine surface streets of Queens. Where there is, of course, even more construction and the midnight traffic jams from hell.

But the ballgame is on, so we’re chatting about it. They go through the tenth. No score. The eleventh. No score.

We finally find our way out of the traffic and onto the entrance to the Queensboro Bridge. (This is now my third trip over the bridge, along with one trip under it earlier in the day, so I’m an old pro and know where I am now.) Listening to the game, we hear Oscar Hernandez lead off the top of the twelfth with a home run to put the Diamondbacks up 3-2. As we get into Manhattan, the Mets fall in the bottom of the twelfth and the game is over.

It’s now pushing midnight, about 23:45, after a long, long day and we’re being dropped off in fairly heavy traffic, across the street from the apartment where we were staying. Which is when I messed up and caused the third story of the day…

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March 7, 2017 · 23:54

New York, New York (Story #1 To Accompany “Pictures Day 12”)

Yesterday I posted Day Twelve of my “New York, New York” picture travelogue and hinted at a couple of stories that went along with that part of the day.

Story The First

The two and a half hour long cruise around Manhattan had taken a bit longer than that, and by the time the ship docked and we all were able to disembark and fight our way through the souvenir stands to the street, it was just after 5:00 PM.

Rush hour.

We’re at the Circle Line Sightseeing Tour docks on the Hudson River. Along the Hudson runs 12th Avenue. 12th Avenue is packed with cabs – all full of people and flying by. None of them are available, and it’s soon very obvious that none of them will be. All of the cabs in New York will be picking up people in front of all of the office buildings, which are not down on 12th Avenue next to the docks.

We decide to head inland into Manhattan on 42nd Street. How far can it be before we get to where the cabs are plentiful? (And the waters are cool and the fields green, and all of the children play with the butterflies all the live-long day…)

Before we can cross 12th Avenue, we’re approached by someone who has a limo service. Do we need a ride? Are we looking to go somewhere? Maybe they can offer us their services?

It’s tempting. We tell them we have to get to CitiField for the Mets game, which is scheduled to start in less than two hours.

Of course he can do that! It will be a tight fit on time, but if we leave now he can get us there for about $80, which he says is less than a cab will cost.

Red flag #1 – $80? Wait, isn’t CitiField over next to LaGuardia Airport, which is only something like half as far away as JFK International? We came in from JFK yesterday and it wasn’t even close to $80, so how can a trip of maybe half that amount cost more?

Well, we’re really tired, and it’s hotter than hell, and about as muggy as we’ve ever seen (LA doesn’t have this water-filled air thing going on) and we are getting a bit short on time, so…maybe?

We’re wavering. He’ll do us a favor. $60 cash in advance and we’ll be on our way.

Red flag #2 – we’re dickering on the price now? This isn’t Marrakesh and we’re not buying souvenirs in the market.

There’s a problem. I don’t think that I’ve got $60 cash left. They’ll take credit cards, just like the cabs do, right?

Oh, no, it’s cash only. But, to help us out, he’ll take us to an ATM first so that we can get the cash we need!

Red flag #3 and we’re outta here!

Have I mentioned that I had this weird love/hate fascination/terror of New York City in my head before going there? Baseless, illogical, but there nonetheless. So how do I overcome shit like this in my head when faced with it? I do some research. I read. I plan ahead. I look for advice and try to get my head smart enough to overrule anything my gut might be freaking out over.

In that research process, one thing that had stood out was the whole New York City taxi thing. I had read several articles on the do’s and don’ts of getting around New York by various means, including taxi, subway, car, on foot, etc. One thing every single article had mentioned was the bandit cab issue. One thing every single article had mentioned was to use caution with the bandit cabs. And one thing every single article had mentioned as a really glaring sign that you were treading on thin ice was the line about how they would take you to an ATM to get the cash you needed to use them.

We bailed and crossed 12th Avenue, heading east away from the Hudson River.

And slightly uphill. In +90°F temps with humidity in the 90’s to match. With the clock ticking.

It turned into the Bataan Death March of the trip.

Mind you, I don’t think we ended up walking more than three-quarters of a mile, and I don’t think we “climbed” more than thirty feet or so in elevation. This was neither the Alps nor the Australian Outback. But it was a trial.

I was trying to scan for a cab and we saw almost none along 42nd Street while walking to 11th Avenue. I saw maybe two of them between 11th and 10th, but they were all occupied.

Probably close to twenty minutes after leaving 12th Avenue we got to 10th Avenue. There I saw a cab that was waiting at the light and yelled for him. He saw me, I started to open the door, and I broke the first rule I had learned about New York City cabs. I told him where we needed to go as I was opening the door to get in.

He was not interested in a fare that took him all the way to CitiField. I’m lucky I didn’t lose a hand or get pulled into traffic as he took off to get away from us.

Another ten minutes or so brought us to 9th Avenue. This was a also a one-way street, heading from our left to right. The Long-Suffering Wife was about at the end of her rope with the trek. We were crossing the street when I saw an empty cab. I yelled, waved him down, and left her in the crosswalk to follow as best she could to catch up.

Wiser now, I grabbed the cab door and opened it up, urging TLSW onward to get across and into the cab. The air-conditioned interior was a beacon to her and I got her inside, slid in behind her, and then told the driver where we needed to go.

After that it was a piece of cake. Our driver was pleasant, not too chatty since it seemed we were dying of heat stroke in the back seat. But the AC was nice, the ride wasn’t too long, and we got to CitiField with about twenty minutes to spare…

…just as he let us out at the edge of the parking lot to walk up to the stadium on our own and the rain was starting.

In the end it was a good thing that the game was delayed by thirty minutes due to the showers. But we had a good time, saw a nice game, and then left in the top of the night after our long day and cab seeking ordeal.

Which led us to the cab ride back home…

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March 6, 2017 · 22:38

New York, New York (Pictures Day 12)

Yeah, it’s been a while, almost two months. My bad. Let’s dive back in, shall we?

In summary: New York City had a life of it’s own in my head. In early August 2016, I visited there for the first time. On the first afternoon we visited Central Park and were there for hours, despite the jet lag. Day One started with a tour of the Intrepid and the Space Shuttle Enterprise, followed by the full two and a half hour cruise around Manhattan – south down the Hudson River into the Upper Harbor, up the East River under the “BMW” bridges, past Midtown and the UN, into the Harlem River, back south into the Hudson River, underneath the George Washington Bridge, past Grant’s Tomb., and finally back into port.

Once we got ashore we needed to boogie and get across the city. One thing we always try to do when we travel is to visit the various major league baseball parks. On this night, we had tickets to see the Mets. There’s a story there, but I’ll save it lest this post get so long that it never, ever gets done.

Having never been to New York before, I never got to visit the old Shea Stadium. But CitiField is lovely.

From where we got dropped off by the cab we entered the stadium in a fairly hum-drum entrance (not this one!) down one of the foul lines. Once we found our seats, I wandered off, as is my wont, to see as much of the stadium as I could, bag o’ cameras in hand. That’s when I found the grand, main entrance right behind home plate.

The on-again, off-again rain that had followed us all day (see the pictures from the Intrepid and the cruise around Manhattan) was decidedly on again. We found the tarp to be on the field when we got there, an hour or so before game time.

But it wasn’t too long before the grounds crew came out and started getting the field ready for play. The start of the game was delayed by about thirty minutes, but we did get it in.

Wandering about like this in new and unfamiliar ballparks, I find that the security people and ushers are generally cooperative and polite if you are. Say howdy, let them know it’s your first time here, you’re a tourist from out of town, ask for permission to go down into this section where you don’t have a ticket because you just want to take a couple of pictures, and you’ll be fine.

The big apple (see what they did there?) is a leftover from the Mets’ earlier life at Shea Stadium. It was iconic and got moved to the new stadium, of course. During the game it’s down inside that huge well, but when a Mets batter hits a home run, up pops the Big Apple!

I don’t remember seeing that happen while we were there. Next trip, maybe.

The did eventually get the game in, with the Mets…

…facing the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Given the late start, the full and busy day we had behind us, and the fact that we were both jet lagged still, we did something we almost never do at a baseball game – we left before the end of the game. The Diamondbacks had scored a run in the top of the eighth to go up 2-0, and the Mets had done nothing in the bottom of the eighth. Given that we were going to need to find a cab to get back home on top of everything else, we decided to beat the crowd a little bit and bail.

Which leads us to the second story of the night, which I will share with you…soon.

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January 29, 2017 · 23:25

Memories Of The Hilton Ballroom – Part Three

Okay, so this actually doesn’t come from the ballroom, but rather the bathroom in my room at the Hilton. Close enough!

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One word caught my eye. “Deluxe.”

Dictionary.com defines “deluxe” as “of special elegance, sumptuousness, or fineness; high or highest in quality, luxury, etc.”

It’s a freakin’ shower cap, worth maybe $0.02. Literally. What could possibly be “deluxe” about it?

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“Take cover and protect your style.” “Designed and developed by…” With my hair being kept short (and getting thin) and my hair styling consisting of drying it with a towel, I don’t need a shower cap to “protect my style.”

Again, it’s a freakin’ shower cap, worth maybe $0.02. I’m guessing the instructions were originally written in a very non-English language and then run thorough something like Google Translate. And just how much “design” and “development” could be involved?

Let’s open it up! Oooh, this is going to be special!

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It’s like a little snakeskin left after a snake sheds. Maybe that’s it! Maybe they designed a special DNA insert and put it into snakes to develop snakes that will shed their skin into perfect little shower caps!

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Still looking snakeskin-like. My theory is still sounding good!

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Wait, there’s no snakeskin here! It’s just plastic, and thin plastic at that, like, thinner than Saran Wrap. So what’s “deluxe”? The fact that it fits into the tiny box and then unfolds?

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Aaaah, there it is! There’s a band of elastic around the edge! That’s why it’s “deluxe!” Obviously not worth $0.02, it might be worth at least $0.021 or even $0.025!

Now we know!

 

 

 

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January 28, 2017 · 22:32

Memories Of The Hilton Ballroom – Part Two

Spending hour after hour in the Hilton ballrooms, which truly were quite nice, I found the huge light fixtures on the ceiling to be intriguing. They looked quite striking.

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Somewhere along the line, my mind might have drifted just a touch (this was pre-pigeon) and I noticed that one or two of the giant… What are they? Flowers? Japanese lanterns? Alien spore ships descending to drop their loads of human-exterminating pathogens over our city?

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Whatever. I noticed that one or tow of the giant things had shadows on them, showing that something was up on top of them.

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Aside from the observation that it must really be a bitch to get up there and clean them if something gets up there, or to change the light bulbs, I realized that the Hilton had in fact given us the perfect plaything for the really, really boring conferences. It would be great if a group of conference organizers would give us the tools to play during the über boring seminars. It would be even better if a group of conference attendees knew about these and brought the goods.

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Let’s say you brought a big bag of ping-pong balls. Everyone marks their set of ping-pong balls with their personal sigil. You assign points to the various shades, based on their degree of difficulty. Are they higher or lower? Are they blocked by other shades? Are they at a really steep angle? Are they near an HVAC vent, which would lead to some tricky air currents?

Then, well…

I wonder how many ping pong balls you could get up there before they booted your ass out of the conference?

I wonder if the next year you could bring in one of these ping-pong ball guns?

I wonder if you could bring in wiffle balls, with extra points for being able to curve them into previously unhittable spots?

I wonder at what point they just arrest you instead of banning you from future conferences?

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