Grand Tour 2014: Some Post-Mortem Navel-Gazing

It's a nice callback to the beginning of this trip that once again, it's on a plane where I'm doing some of my writing. Unlike the common perception of an airplane (a fast, straight line), I'm sure this blog entry is going to meander all over the place. My hope is that I might somehow manage to keep it roughly inside the lines, and the final result might look a little like our plane's course on the map, a long, curved arc that still ends up where it intends to go. Fair warning though: this is all stream-of-consciousness, and there is no auto-pilot, so be prepared for a bumpy ride.

On the road!

Bikes are going great. We got a late start from Manchester but are getting settled in to the unfamiliar bikes + backwards lanes + unfamiliar traffic markings + unfamiliar surroundings! Might even pick up speed and go the car speed limit rather than the trucks'! Mike, it's good you don't have your CBR250r any more, I might steal it from you, it's a sweet little bike! Nearly knocked it over getting on, it's so light compared to my Bonnie. ;)

Grand Tour 2014: Day 11 (London): the Science Museum

Today's location was the Science Museum, which I assumed was basically like PacSci or OMSI with a couple relics thrown in. While there is a wing that's like that, the other 2/3 is a museum of science and technology.

They have an overwhelming collection of artifacts on display, and they're all old and significant and the actual thing not just a model or recreation the actual holy fuck real thing:

We saw Babbage's Difference Engine, lancets used to create the first smallpox vaccine from cowpox boils, the first physical model of DNA, the AC motor built by Tesla and submitted with his patent request, a huge, functional steam engine, the actual mold culture from which penicillin was first developed, a piece of the Moon, James Watt's entire workshop, pieces of the transatlantic telegraph cables.

I was way past drooling to completely locked up. There's SO MUCH. Just whole cases of a thousand artifacts, and some of it's just slice of life, here's what sheep shears looked like, and right next to it is oh yeah here's the patent office's model that Tesla submitted with his patent application. And by the way we have two guys in white lab coats and oil cans operating a steam engine in the middle of the room, with a take-off wheel 20' in diameter just flying along. As you do.

I'm really glad that Rory knew we'd love it and insisted on taking us. It was SO DAMNED COOL.

Grand Tour 2014: "Seeing enough stuff"

The blessing and the curse of traveling someplace really interesting is that there is going to be more than you can reasonably see in the time you have, no matter how much time you have. We've experienced that in spades during this trip, and creates a strange sort of tension that can ruin a good vacation.

The Grand Tour 2014, Day 3 (NYC): March!

Got bagels and coffee. Headed down to the south docklands area to the "secret" half-price ticket office, which has a shorter (only 2 hours) line, a bathroom, and a playground, bought still-OMG-expensive tickets to a Broadway show. Then climbed uphill to the City Hall plaza, where we ate a kebab and watched street performers till the cops shut them down, turning it back into a lame boring empty plaza.

Next we walked all the way across the Brooklyn Bridge. All the way across! The pedestrian path is a wood platform above the vehicle lanes, between the suspension cables. Which are gorgeous (the cables, not the vehicle lanes. Those are crap.). It didn't seem all that far, though our feet disagreed.

As soon as we got across, we headed to the nearest subway station and rode back to Little Italy for a late lunch. (We're incapable of eating lunch before 3 on vacations, even when we get up early. We just don't get around to it or something.) Wandered through Chinatown (which is commingled with little Italy). New York's Chinatown is somehow more Chinese than most of Shanghai that I saw.

We hurried back to the hotel to change, then headed to Broadway! We saw "A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Romance", which is set in/based on a novel from 1907 England. It's about a newly-orphaned young man who discovers he's 9th in line to an Earldom, and the ungentlemanly tactics he uses to eliminate those eight people ahead of him in line. One actor plays all eight of his relatives, and he's HILARIOUS. Strongly recommended. They were doing a fundraiser for charity, so we got a photo with the two lead actors, and a signed poster.

When we stepped out into the street after, there were crowds lining both sides and cops keeping people behind barriers. Seems Chris O'Dowd and James Franco are doing the stage production of Mice and Men in the theater across the street, and everyone was waiting for them to leave from the stage door. Somewhere there's a photo of the top of my head and the back of James Franco's ;)

The evening topped off with "dinner" of dessert at Junior's Restaurant, where the dessert sizes may rival Claim Jumper (never been, but I've heard tales...). But despite being huge portions and in a major tourist area, the desserts were actually really good. I finished off an entire plate of strawberry shortcake because it was too good to leave behind.

When we got back to the hotel we learned there's a hot nightclub in the ballroom, and fought our way past a flock of 20somethings to give the high sign to the bouncer and be let in past the indignant kids (that's right, get off my lawn!). Somehow I'd managed to protect our signed poster through Broadway, Times Square, the subway, and the final "boss fight" of throngs of drunk girls in high heels on cobblestones holding cigarettes. Win!

Grand Tour 2014, Day 2 (NYC)

17 April: Uptown, Shopping, Pastrami

Today sort of accidentally became a shopping day. We were going to try to hit the Empire State Building, but since a) apparently New Jersey takes spring break later than everyone else and b) Ford celebrated the Mustang's birthday by chopping one up and reassembling it on the ESB observation deck, the lines were round the block. Instead we had a bagel then went to Rockefeller Plaza for the Lego and NBC stores, the giant flower bunny juxtaposed vs the ice rink, and some actually-kinda-nice artsy easter eggs (the night sky geode was my favorite). After regaining feeling in our fingers (chilly day), we ventured into the Uniqlo showroom for some clothes shopping. Then in what's becoming tradition, we went downtown to the only restaurant we've ever repeated in NYC: Katz's. Had to have pastrami sandwiches, egg cremes, and a laugh at the people who hadn't learned The System.

And then we napped.

Travel: Why We Leave

Here we go, off on another trip! This time we're headed to New York, New York for five days, and then flying to England for two weeks of exploring London and venturing up to Scotland for a day or two. This isn't the first trip we've taken since getting back from our big "Border-to-Border" motorcycle marathon a couple years ago, and I'm sure we'll continue to travel where we can, when we can, for as long as we can.

Why though? We love where we live, so why do we insist on spending considerable time and (at least for us) considerable money to leave the place we love?

Grand Tour 2014: Day 1 (NYC)

Vacation Day 1: Planes, trains, automobiles, ferries, subways, taxis, and shanks' mare. Wandered around Manhattan and took the ferry to Staten Island. Panini shop, comic shop, greasy spoon, chocolate shop, bodega. Lots of parks. New Yorkers; bonus Australian. Sunshine. Maybe sunburn?

Saw the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island from the ferry, it's cool to think we're kinda reverse-tracing some of our ancestors' steps from England and Scotland to the US.

The hotel we stay at in Manhattan was built in 1901 to house sailors between gigs. The rooms are TINY: 50SF, with bunk single beds; it's much like a train or steamship . But it's $100\night in the Village! It housed the Titanic survivors. This week is the 102nd anniversary. Hopefully the ghosts won't mind the company.

Totally spent, may go to bed soon, despite it being only 10:30. Feel like a wimp, and want to wring every moment out of the trip, but got very little sleep on the red eye flight thanks to the kid behind me. Oh well, just means the bagels will be nice and fresh in the morning!

La Mujer Maravilla: The Wonder Woman Movie DC Comics Will Never Make

This entry was prompted by something my friend Sean Young posted about the need for a Wonder Woman movie and how difficult it's been to get it right. In the spirit of Patton Oswald's insane Parks & Recreation filibuster, here's my radical suggestion:

Change EVERYTHING. Instead of Greek mythology and "magical white lady in a swimsuit saving the world", change the origin radically while still preserving the core identity of the character. Less of the cheesy spandex style, and more of the Christopher Nolan-style "realistic" super hero films.

Major U.S. Bridge Disasters in 2012

2/22/12: Five people killed in a bridge collapse in Norcross, Georgia

2/26/12: One person killed, 20 injured in a bridge collapse in Jackson, Tennessee

2/27/12: The very next day, three students died near Chardon High School in Georgia when their bus fell through a bridge deck

3/8/12: Two people killed, seven injured in a bridge collapse in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

3/31/12: Two dead, 12 injured in Miami, Florida

4/2/12: Seven dead, two wounded near Oikos University in Oakland, California

4/6/12: Two days later in Tulsa, Oklahoma, three men died and two were wounded in a bridge collapse.

5/29/12: After almost two months without a major bridge span-related fatality, five people died in Seattle, Washington

7/9/12: Three fatalities in a bridge collapse in Wilmington, Delaware

7/20/12: A major bridge collapse in Aurora, Colorado claims the lives of twelve people and injures fifty-eight more

8/5/12: In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, six people die in a suburban bridge failure

8/14/12: Three people die in a bridge collapse near Texas A&M University

9/27/12: Five people die and three are injured in Minneapolis, Minnesota

10/21/12: Three dead and four injured in Brookfield, Wisconsin

12/11/12: Two dead in Portland, Oregon

12/14/12: A school bus in Newtown, Conneticut is crushed by a bridge collapse, killing twenty-six people, including twenty children

We've been assured by structural engineers that with the huge number of bridges in the U.S., surprisingly few collapse every year. We've been told that any debate over how to make bridges safer is disrespectful to the people who died.

No one wants to completely get rid of bridges and overpasses, but isn't there some way we could prevent all these bridges from collapsing and killing people? Shouldn't the President or lawmakers look into this, even a little? It seems like this is happening way too often to just blindly accept as the status quo.


[Source: "Sixteen US Mass Shootings Happened in 2012, Leaving at Least 88 Dead", 12/14/12, The Nation, http://www.thenation.com/blog/171774/fifteen-us-mass-shootings-happened-2012-84-dead#]