And so here I sit at SeaTac International Airport waiting for my redeye flight eastward.
Half the people here are coughing their heads off... and many of those are kids who, not surprisingly, don't cover their mouths when they cough because parents don't seem to teach them to. Apparently they don't give a flying fuck if their kids infect the world because that's somebody else's problem. Typical.
The half that's not hacking away is either loudly slurping on coffee cups and looking like idiots... or falling asleep. Or dead to the world and snoring.
On the plus side, I spotted a lonely hat in one of SeaTac's privacy-free bathrooms...
And away I go...
Today I had to run some errands to the "Barbarian Village" of Leavenworth, Washington.
Well, actually it's billed as the "Bavarian Village" because it's a themed town meant to look like something out of the German Alps, but when the crowds of tourists arrive, it rapidly degenerates into something much more savage.
Anyway, I couldn't very well leave without some German food, so off I went for a bratwurst. Well, a veggie brat, but still... the best part is figuring out which mustard you want, because there's always at least a dozen on-hand...
I went with a more traditional "sweet & sour" because half the stuff is difficult to decipher (what the hell is "Backyard Brat" about?)...
Of course no faux-German sausage garden would be complete without freaky murals to keep you company while you eat...
And since one good thing leads to another, I could not resist stopping by the Danish Bakery for one of their glorious almond custard pastries...
After than I stopped at a chocolate shop because, ya know, it was there. Then I decided to head home while I still had insulin levels that were somewhat respectable.
All I'm missing now to make my day complete is some lederhosen.
Pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States of America... because a Very Special Washington, D.C. Edition of Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Pret! I headed into the city early for work because I knew that Union Station DC had a Pret shop inside. As I have said many times, my all-time favorite breakfast is a Pret Egg and Fire-Roasted Tomato Sandwich, so missing out was not an option...
As expected, it was frickin' amazing... and a fantastic start to my day.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum! One of the best museums I've ever had the pleasure of visiting is the World War I Museum in Kansas City. The design of the exhibit space is just exceptional, and a commenter told me the same guy (Ralph Applebaum) also designed The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. So, naturally I was curious. Add to that the fact that my very good blog friend, Mr. Shiny, is married to one of the curators, and I was compelled to pay a visit...
Not surprisingly, the museum is stunning. As expected, the exhibit spaces are wonderfully orchestrated to tell the story of one of this planets' greatest atrocities... and it's done so well that you feel it. I had planned on spending a half-hour wandering around, but was here nearly two hours. Deeply moving and extremely popular (get there early!), the museum gets my highest possible recommendation.
• National Air and Space Museum! This trip to DC, I decided to put aside my usual stops and visit some of the places I haven't been to in a while. Like the Smithsonian's Air and Spaaaaaaace Museum...
I swear... everything looks the exact same as when I was first there in 1996! They aren't too big on updating the main exhibits, I guess... which is a shame. But, still, some cool stuff...
And I could never get tired of looking at the original USS Enterprise model...
• Crapital! Why oh why do they have to put up garbage in front of beautiful buildings like the US Capital? There's a tent, some kind of screens, and other crap junking up the place, which is just wrong. When visitors walk by, they shouldn't have all the obstructions and distractions...
Because, seriously, if you came all the way to the US Capital, would you want THIS to be the photo you show all your friends when you get back?
• National Gallery of Art! I've been here most every single time I've come to DC... which is why I was going to avoid it this time. But I just couldn't do it. The place is packed with treasures and FREE! So I took a half-hour to wander a bit, which is when I found this beautiful table that I don't remember seeing before...
It's just like the chess table on the Millenium Falcon!
• National Archives The line was really short as I walked by, so I decided to drop in to the National Archives and see if we still had a Constitution. Between the Tea Party Right wanting to strip everybody of all individual rights except guns... and the Extreme Left wanting to eliminate individuality entirely, sometimes I have a hard time remembering. Turns out we DO! Though it's badly faded and hard to see. Just like real life... and just like this scan of the Declaration of Independence...
• Vietnam Memorial! By the time I got to The Wall, it was pouring down rain. This made the sculptures for the Vietnam Soldier's Memorial and the Vietnam Women's Memorial look even more beautiful than they usually do...
Ever since my first visit to The Wall, I've returned every time I'm in Washington, D.C. to pay my respects to Roderick L. Mayer, a MIA/POW whose memorial bracelet I've been wearing for the past 17 years...
And since every time I post about my dedication to MIA/POW issues I get hate-comments from people telling me that this is all a big myth, I'm just going to post a clickable copy of a letter to Roderick Mayer's parents, then tell any detractors they can go fuck themselves (John McCain and John Kerry included)...
• Korean War Memorial! A hauntingly beautiful memorial, and one of my world favorites. I found this documentary video which explains the thought that went into it...
It really has to be seen in person to get the full experience... and, if you're ever in DC, I highly recommend it.
• Lincoln! Another memorial monument that I absolutely love is Abraham Lincoln's. Visiting is akin to a spiritual experience...
And, of course, the view from the top of the steps is pretty special...
Even if the 2011 earthquake has busted the Washington Monument to shit and it's all covered in scaffolding now...
At some point, you have to ask yourself if it isn't worth knocking the thing down and building a new one from scratch. Yeah... yeah... yell at me all you want, but I'm sick of having busted shit in my photos. Historical conservation aside, it's kind of bullshit to visit a place and have nothing but photos of scaffolding or construction crews (like last time) to show for it. Apparently they're going to finish with the restoration sometime next year. Hopefully the wait will be worth it, and the monument won't fall to pieces again two years later.
• National World War II Memorial! I'm just going to come right out and say it... I have never liked this installation, and wish that they had come up with something more meaningful and thoughtful than this lame excuse for a memorial...
It's just so boring, repetitive and tacky. And I don't "get" how it honors World War II vets... if anything, it looks more like it's some kind of monument to US states and territories...
Compare it to the Korean and Vietnam memorials, and it's just so forgettable and unimpressive... even though it's so big. Probably because it's so big? I dunno. All I do know is that those who fought and died in World War II deserve something better than this.
• Shiny! Tired and soaking wet, I was pretty much done with Washington, D.C. when 5:00 rolled around. Fortunately, Mr. Shiny (who you should know from his most excellent co-hosting duties on the Hey! That's My Hummus! podcast) rescued me from my day and whisked me off to dinner with his family. But before we got there, he took me to see the Peeps & Co. Store in National Harbor and a really cool statue called "The Awakening" that's across the street...
Poor guy looks to me like he's drowning in sand.
Dinner with the Shinies was a lot of fun... until they brought the hummus...
Just because he has a podcast called "Hey! That's My Hummus!" doesn't mean he gets to eat it all. I love hummus! I guess I should be thankful that Faiqa wasn't there, or else I would have had to fight off two people! Fortunately, my delicious black bean burger had hummus on it, so I was totally taken care of in the chickpea department.
And, just like that, my one funtabulous day in Washington, D.C. was over. Hopefully next time I'll get to stay a while.
• WTF?! And jut because I can't end Bullet Sunday on such a happy note... Holy. Fucking. Shit. Not only is Newt Gingrich confounded as to what to call a "smartphone"... he seems genuinely perplexed by multi-functional modern technology. And this is a guy who could have been elected President of the United States of America!
"This pencil also erases. It has an eraser right on the top of it. So it's not a pencil. It's not an eraser. It's something new. A new technology that's only beginning. And we here at Gingrich Productions have spent weeks trying to figure out what to call it..."
I'm horrified that this kind of absurd cluelessness completely defines our country's government. Legislators are making laws about things they don't understand and are too lazy to actually take the time to educate themselves about. This is exactly how idiotic shit like ACTA happens, and we all pay the price for our political leaders being intentionally uninformed morons.
And... it's late. Happy Mother's Day, everybody!
And so tragedy strikes... my MagSafe ver. 1 to MagSafe ver. 2 adapter has gone missing somewhere between Seattle and here.
Which means I don't have a way of charging my Mac Book.
Which means a recap of my way-too-short adventures in Washington, D.C. will have to wait until tomorrow given that my battery is at 4% and falling.
Not to mention that I have to get up in five hours so I can fly back home.
Assuming the assholes making noise outside my hotel room shut the hell up real soon now, I may actually get a couple hours sleep.
I always love watching lightning crash outside an airplane window.
But not as much as I love thunderstorms causing a landing delay.
Okay... I'm totally lying. I don't love either of those things. But that's just part of the travel game, and it does happen from time to time. All you can do is hope that you've drank enough alcohol that you don't mind so much. Otherwise? Not fun. Well, it is fun to track your flight path after you've landed and see what crazy loop-de-do holding pattern your flight took...
Flight tracking map courtesy of FlightAware!
And so now it's 12:40am after one long-ass day of travel and all I want to do is go to bed.
But my internal clock is still on West Coast time and there are people screaming outside my hotel room, so I guess you really don't always get what you want.
And speaking of that...
Guess it's a good thing I brought a raincoat.
Tomorrow I'm heading to the East Coast for one day.
Well, technically, it's three days... one to get there... one to work... then one to get back.
Or I suppose I am actually flying to the East Coast for two hours, which is about how long my work will take me. After that, I'm just goofing off to kill time.
In any event, there are some things that emails, video chats, and overnight delivery can't fix, so off I go...
And there goes my weekend.
Trying not to let a truly crappy week of bad news keep me down... because Bullet Sunday starts now...
• Czech! I know I shouldn't have been shocked when Twitter exploded with morons wanting to bomb "Czechoslovakia" as retaliation for the Boston bombings... but I admit that I honestly was. Partly because "Czechoslovakia" ceased to exist in 1992 after splitting into two countries (Czech Republic and Slovakia). But mostly because the Czech ambassador had to make a public statement explaining that the Czech Republic and Chechnya (where the bombers originated) ARE TWO SEPARATE COUNTRIES. The level of idiocy at work here just boggles my mind. I mean, if you're going to stupidly advocate bombing an entire country, shouldn't you at least make sure you have the right one? I'd hate to lose Prague, one of my favorite cities on earth, because "Czech" sounds suspiciously like "Chechnya" (as if blaming all Chechens for the act of two men with only remote ties to the country wasn't idiotic enough to begin with). If only ignorance was fatal, this country might actually stand a chance.
• OMNI! In what I can only describe as "wonderful," The Internet Archive has now put every episode of OMNI Magazine online, and they're free to access for everyone!
This groundbreaking magazine was something I treasured, and the copious number of talented writers who contributed to it are like a laundry list of genius. Absolutely worth your time to check out.
• CISPA! Why politicians keep dragging the CISPA "cyber security bill" back from the dead is a complete mystery to me. No American citizen in their right mind would want corporations and the government to have this kind of invasive power over their privacy, and yet here we go again. And what's even more horrific than the bill itself, is how many dumbfuck politicians voted for it to pass The House. TWO HUNDRED EIGHTY-EIGHT to ONE HUNDRED TWENTY-SEVEN? SERIOUSLY?!? President Obama has promised to veto this shit if it somehow passes The Senate, but I'm disgusted beyond reason that it's gotten this far. How. Much. Longer? How much longer are American citizens going to put up with this?
• Sequestration! And so it begins. I would once again like to take this opportunity to offer a big FUCK YOU to our government for being so astoundingly incompetent. Again. I'm sure that crippling the airline industry will get our economy right back on track. Seriously, how much longer are American citizens going to put up with this?
• Gaudi! Having been to Antoni Gaudi's masterpiece, The Sagrada Familia BasÃlica three times now, I can say without hesitation that it is one of the most remarkable architectural achievements I have ever seen. Even if it still isn't completed. I could wander around for hours and never get bored just looking at it...
An absolutely magnificent photo of the ceiling taken by SBA73
Which is why I was happy to see an article at The Verge concerning completion of the structure pop up in my feed reader. Apparently 2026 is the date... I hope I'm around to visit one last time so I can see it completed.
Annnnnd... midnight is approaching. I suppose I should at least pretend to get some sleep.
The best piece of advice I give when people ask about visiting Disney World in Orlando is to stay on-site in a Disney hotel. It's part of the experience, it has all kinds of benefits, and even the cheapest Disney property assures you of a clean, comfortable, convenient place to stay. If I had the option of going to Disney World today and staying off-site... or saving my money for an additional six months so I could stay on-site... I'd wait the six months.
Disneyland is a little different, because the off-site hotels are often just as close and convenient as The Disneyland Hotel and Disney's Paradise Pier Hotel... even though you don't get the "Magic Mornings" early-entry and other benefits. The exception would be Disney's Grand Californian Hotel and Spa, which sits inside California Adventure...
The hotel has its own private entrance to both California Adventure and Downtown Disney, which is pretty special.
But the biggest draw for me is that it's yet another architectural triumph from Peter Dominick, who designed Disney World's awesome Animal Kingdom Lodge and Wilderness Lodge. Sadly, he died back in 2009, so I guess this is the last Disney hotel we'll be seeing from him. Staying at his hotels is an experience every bit as awesome as visiting Disney World or Disneyland...
The "Downtown Disney" private entrance to The Grand Californian.
Even the frickin' front doors are magnificent...
No joke... just walking up to those big main doors with the sun shining through is an amazing experience.
The rooms are quite nice, and everything reminds me very much of staying at Disney's Wilderness Lodge...
And now... a word about the view.
Since I was already paying the huge expense of staying at The Grand Californian, I felt I might as well go all the way and get a "Premium View" room... which either faces Downtown Disney, the parks, or the pool courtyard. Downtown Disney is noisy, and I've seen many noisy pools, so I picked the "Premium Parks View."
Only to find that my third floor room had no view of the parks. All I could see was trees. And the snout of Grizzly Mountain... if I went to the extreme edge of my balcony and leaned out.
So I went back down to the lobby and complained. There it was explained to me that the trees have grown over the 13 years the hotel has been open, so the lower floors don't have the view they used to. This was kind of upsetting, because they still sell them as Premium Park View Rooms! If they KNOW that there's no view, why do they still sell them as such? Well, money. And "technically" it still is a "parks view" since the parks are in that direction... you just can't see them.
In any event, I got moved up to the fifth floor, which was better... but still not the sweeping view of the parks I had imagined. Mostly just trees...
You can see a little Space Mountain and Soarin' Over California easy enough to the left. And if you squint you can see Tower of Terror and Cars Land. And there's Grizzly Peak hiding behind a tree there. So, yeah... it's a parks view. Just not much of one.
So, if you stay at The Grand Californian, skip paying extra for a "Premium View" that's not very premium. If you must have a "Premium View" room, I'd probably go with the "pool courtyard" view. Sure you've got kids screaming at the pool all day long... but at least there's something interesting to look at.
Anyway...
I didn't have any camera except the one in my iPhone, so I don't have any photos of this amazing hotel.
Well, okay, I have two I took one night...
Overall, I give Disney's Grand Californian Hotel and Spa my highest recommendation if you're visiting Disneyland. Yes, it's expensive. Very expensive. But it will enhance your Disney experience, and is likely worth the money (though I'd probably skip the "premium view" expense). I had a terrific stay, and would absolutely stay here again.
No work today and a late flight home.
It was a golden opportunity to goof around Disneyland and California Adventure so I could do all the little things I never got around to for the past two days. Which, given the massive number of attraction closures, wasn't a lot. California Screamin'? CLOSED. Soarin' Over California? CLOSED. Radiator Springs Racers? CLOSED. Space Mountain? CLOSED. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad? CLOSED. I mean, come on... even the frickin' "Golden Zephyr" was CLOSED...
And The Jungle Cruise is scheduled to close for refurbishment next week too.
Though it's not like Disney has to give a fuck. People don't pay to ride the rides... they pay to enter the park. So long as they open their doors, they're making money, regardless of how many attractions they're actually bothering to open. The problem is that with so many of the most popular rides being closed on a busy day like today, all the rides that are open are overwhelmed with massively long line. It makes for a pretty shitty day at Disneyland.
Well, not so much for me. I've ridden all the rides here dozens of times. But can you imagine the family who saved for three years to take that magical trip to Disneyland only to arrive and find tons of shit closed? Pretty harsh.
Oh well. Even with half the good shit not being open, Disneyland is still a fun place to be, I suppose. And I did get to ride Mickey's Fun Wheel, which I've never done before...
There's quite a view from the top...
I also stood in line for an hour-and-a-half to ride "Toy Story Midway Mania" because it's Just. That. Fun.
Time to fly...
Today I actually got to spend a little time in the parks, which was fun. The weather consisted of flawless blue skies with a nice breeze to take the edge off the heat.
And now some quick comments on the rides I got to see as I rushed around The House of the Mouse...
DISNEYLAND!
CALIFORNIA ADVENTURE!
If you're thinking "Holy crap that's a lot of closed rides! you'd be right. And the horrible thing is that they're mostly the big "E-Ticket" rides that people most want to see... Splash Mountain, Space Mountan, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Soarin', Dinseyland Railroad... so it's a major bummer. Especially Space Mountain and Soarin', which are only closed because (apparently) Disney stupidly ignored OSHA warnings that were given last year. Oh well. I've riden them all before... many times... but it makes me sad for all the people who came all the way to Disneyland to experience them, only to be told "no."
Anyway...
After dinner I stopped by to see Abigail for a few minutes and get a new wallet, so that was a nice end to my day.
Now it's off to sleep before another busy day tomorrow...
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