Disneyland in February

When a person is young and lucky enough to get the chance to go to Disneyland, the experience is as magical as it is exhausting for the adults.

When a person is lucky enough to live in Southern California and get an expenses-paid trip to the dual parks in Anaheim named for the most famous animator in America (even if he wasn't a particularly good animator), that person goes. And wears a T-shirt in February while the Worst Winter in Ages pummels half the nation.

My Auntie Peg: (Eyebrows raised as I saunter in in my tie-dye t-shirt)
Me: "Well, I figured right now is the coldest part of the day..."
Auntie Peg: (Nods with a smile)

I've written before about the Ladies' Trip to Disneyland and our various tagging-alongs. Back in 2011 it was in October and a big to-do. We all wore neon-green shirts. Not getting lost that day, I tell you. Man, that day was hot and crowded, and the half-bottle of gin I drank the night before made all that waiting around easy and palatable. We surprised the guest of honor the evening before at the hotel.

In 2013, it was again in October, but this time we all wore baseball jerseys and had a the surprise near the entrances. No gin, not as crowded, nice surprise.

This year the party was moved back to February for reasons to which I was not privy. Both the Lady of Honor, the elder of the trio of "Ladies" mentioned before, and Corrie (who's birthday was earlier in the week) got to wear the official birthday buttons. This was amusing more for the Lady than it was for Corrie, because the Lady's actual birthday is in September, and she was discombobulated with occasion upon being wished Happy Birthday.

Those folks are very serious about acknowledging those buttons.

This time the surprise was at the hotel where my brother and his wife and her sister, and eventually everyone else besides me and Corrie, were staying. This time we wore tie-dye shirts, created by Lupita, Holly, and Dan. And maybe Carol. And Norman...the details were lost on me.

The shirts are badass.

It was crowded, but not too bad. The weather was nice, but not glorious. But hey, t-shirts in February...who's complaining?

We got to ride a few rides we hadn't done before, two namely in California Adventure, the park that takes up the old parking lot. ("Remember: we're in the Itchy lot.") Here's a picture from being on line for the Cars ride, which represented our--Corrie's and mine--first experience with it:

Earlier in the day we got to ride, for the first time in many years (it always seems broken down), the Indiana Jones ride. Here's my mom and Auntie Bobbi, with Corrie mildly photo-bombing:

Eventually we ate at the fancy Carthay Circle restaurant in California Adventure, and Corrie and 'Pita made sure to pay for some of the meal.

I was talking with my wards about how sometimes "days off" aren't truly "off days" and showed them this picture. I was pretty sure they wouldn't be able to see my Jameson-neat. "Is that your brother!?!" "You guys look the same!" were quickly followed by, "Ooh, who's that?"

That's my cousin. He's thirty.

After dinner Corrie and I finally rode the Tower of Terror. I'm not sure why I had avoided it in recent trips. I remember it was closed on multiple occasions...maybe someone wanted to skip it... Now though, it is absolutely on my list of will-ride-if-open.

Tie dye: fantastic. Seeing the fam: fantastic. Skipping the torbutrol wasn't the worst idea after all.

Damn those measles...they kept Norm and Holly and the boys away. Missed you guys. The shirts and bags were fantastic.

"Pale Blue Dot" Anniversary

We like to celebrate Carl Sagan around these parts, and this past Saturday was the 25th anniversary of Voyager 1's last turn back to Earth to take one final picture before the camera systems were powered down.

Carl Sagan made the suggestion that Voyager 1, because of it's trajectory taking it above the orbital plane of the planets in our solar system, take one last photograph of Earth. There wouldn't be any real scientific purpose, since it would appear far too small to discern any detail. The philosophical implications, Sagan argued, would be significant.

Many other Voyager team members argued that it would be too dangerous for the photography instruments to take direct pictures of the sun. Eventually Sagan'c camp prevailed, and Voyager turned and snapped a series of pictures that have come to be known as the Family Portrait. Stitched together a viewer can get a sense of the relative positions of each of the planets. The Family Portrait itself is a maddening collection of black squares with solar flares disturbing a few exposures, but a sense of emptiness persists.

I say that Sagan's camp "eventually" won because he made the suggestion in 1980, and they decided to make it happen in 1989, and only by 1990 had the equipment ready to turn back and take the shot. Afterwards, all photographic equipment was powered down as the satellite would not be coming into close proximity with any other large object for the duration of it's icy power cells. It needed to save it's juice for other data collecting, seeing as how it is the furthest man-made object from Earth, the only thing we've ever sent beyond the solar system.

Here you go, the furthest photograph from earth, from over three-billion miles away...that's us, the pale blue dot in the orange band of refracted light caused by the camera lens:

Happy Friday the 13th

Turns out this is one of our year's three Friday the 13th's. Because of the nature of the 28-day month and mathematically modular systems, next month will also have a Friday the 13th.

November is the home month of the third Lucky Friday.

I switched to cold water for shaving, seriously contemplated taking feline medicine to Disneyland for recreational purposes, and find myself either too busy or too tired to get to this thing as often as I'd like.

There will be new content here soon-ish, though.