ljplicease | rt: california

Made two trips to California this year. The first was on a business trip to the NetCon all-hands meeting in San Jose. It was on a Monday, so I flew out the Friday before to hang out Tyler. I had been wanting to go to La Brea Tar Pits to see the dusty old bones. They had lots of wolves and a whole team of folks processing the remains on display.

They also had some mammoths and mastodons.

Here is one of the pits that they are taking remains from. It was stinky but interesting. I like old stuff.

There are lots of gum trees (eucalyptus) in southern California. I am a little torn, as I love gum trees and they remind me of home, but they are not native and in California they are a bit of a pest. There are so many invasive species in Australia that have wrecked havoc on the native critters that I am not crazy when I see Australian species being a pest outside of down under.

The second day we went to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) for a Tim Burton exhibit. It was a lot of fun. I kept seeing pieces and thinking to myself “I had forgotten that he had done that”. I had also just seen Ed Wood the week before. They were quite militant about ensuring no photographs were taken. Coincidentally, LACMA is right next to the tar pits we had been just the day before.

We meandered through some other parts of the museum. Outside they had this great interactive sculpture that was a hit with the little ones.

My second trip to California also piggy backed, in this case, Lena had a conference at the Disneyland Hotel. I flew in on the Friday, rented a car and we went to Disneyland on the Saturday. I am a bit conflicted about Disneyland. I don't view Disney very positively as a company, but Lena and my mum are both very fond of the place, and there is something friendly about the place. When I was growing up, we went several times.

My favourite is Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, I think because I identify somewhat with Mr. Toad? Is that weird?

The submarines have been mostly supplanted with Finding Nemo's Wild Submarine Ride.

The Jungle Cruise is about 95% bad puns and 5% animatronic ducks.

Me and the pirate ship. I don't think it is a pirate ship, but everyone seems to call it that anyway.

It was nearly Halloween so there were lots of Halloween decorations. Speaking of Halloween they have also updated the Haunted House.

On our second day in the area we went to the Richard Nixon Presidential Library. Richard Nixon has a bad rap because of the way he left office. He was an outspoken anti-communist, but in his library he honours a number of communist leaders, like Brezhnev and Khrushchev here. He was complicated. He also created the Environmental Protection Agency and ended the offensive biological weapons program by executive order.

The grounds are really pretty. Nixon was born in the little house the other end of the reflecting pond that was built by his father, and he is buried near that. It is not a bad final resting place.

They also have the helicopter that Nixon road away on after he resigned. It is a famous image I am sure you remember it. Lena took this cool photo of it.

We went to Jack in the Box after the library, and I was almost ready to call it a day, but Lena found these cool ruins on the Internet so we drove down the 405. It's the Mission San Juan Capistrano. I like old stuff.