Today at lunch, the Things and I (Sweetie) started talking about wars in which the United States is currently involved. Hobbes was confused about which war was which... He knew the two countries involved were Afghanistan and Iraq, but not the rationale behind why we invaded each of these countries. I explained the different situations to him and reassured him that this was a common source of confusion in the minds of many people, not only nine-year old boys, but also those who should know better.
We talked about the attacks of September 11, 2001 and who was responsible and why we invaded Afghanistan in response to those attacks. I showed them the pages from my scrapbook that included newspaper clippings and my personal account of that day and the days that followed. Both Things were surprised by the ferocity of the terrorist attacks and wondered why anyone would do such a thing. This led to a discussion of repressive religions and how they prey on the poor, disenfranchised, and uneducated members of their society, creating an environment in which flying airplanes into buildings seems like a reasonable way to get one's point across. Both boys were amazed to learn that education was forbidden most people in the Taliban-led Afghanistan, including boys, but especially girls. I was so proud when Hobbes pronounced this "Stupid." The Things asked why the Taliban attacked us and I said that they thought that the Americans were bad people and that the United States was bad. Calvin piped up with a gem: "Dude! Don't they know? We've won, like, a thousand soccer games." [Eds note: That's my boy!]
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Friday, August 21, 2009
Ms. Frizzle is a girl!
So, this is the first post by me, Sweetie. Mr. Life in TH says that I can post anytime I want, but I've noticed that he hasn't given me the password to his blogspot account... I think he's planning to maintain editorial control of this blog.
Anyway, I wanted to share a funny story about one of the Things and his view on gender:
Calvin came home from kindergarten one day and we were sitting on the couch in the living room, watching something on TV. He turned to me and said, “Mom, can boys turn into girls?” I was a bit startled by his questions -- I really wasn’t sure about where this was going! But I have learned not to panic at off-the-wall questions, but first to find out what they really want to know… I answered, “Well, not really.” Transgendered folks out there might balk at my response, but, you know, he was five years old. I didn’t think he was ready for a conversation about how sometimes one’s gender and anatomy don’t match. He looked at me, satisfied, and said, “I thought so. So Ms. Frizzle is a girl.” (Ms. Frizzle was his kindergarten teacher.) I made some noise about how, yes, Ms. Frizzle is a girl. Calvin continued, “She just has short hair.”
Anyway, I wanted to share a funny story about one of the Things and his view on gender:
Calvin came home from kindergarten one day and we were sitting on the couch in the living room, watching something on TV. He turned to me and said, “Mom, can boys turn into girls?” I was a bit startled by his questions -- I really wasn’t sure about where this was going! But I have learned not to panic at off-the-wall questions, but first to find out what they really want to know… I answered, “Well, not really.” Transgendered folks out there might balk at my response, but, you know, he was five years old. I didn’t think he was ready for a conversation about how sometimes one’s gender and anatomy don’t match. He looked at me, satisfied, and said, “I thought so. So Ms. Frizzle is a girl.” (Ms. Frizzle was his kindergarten teacher.) I made some noise about how, yes, Ms. Frizzle is a girl. Calvin continued, “She just has short hair.”
Monday, August 10, 2009
Peculiarities of living in Two Harbors
I've got two little things to relate today. One is a hazard of living in Two Harbors, the other is just local color.
Last night, Hobbes and Calvin and I went down to the General Store for some ice cream for dessert (Sweetie is teaching right now, so she was still at the lab). As we sat at a picnic table and ate it, a pair of young boys started playing a game at the volleyball court - not volleyball, of course, but one in which the older boy was making up the rules to the younger boy's detriment. When my boys finished, I suggested that they go see if the other boys wanted to play a bit, since we don't have much chance to play with kids around here. This lead to me meeting the mothers of the children. Now this is a common occurrence around here. Having a lot of visitors, you meet a lot of people in passing, and many of them are very friendly and interested in the fact that you live on the island, etc. One of the women was very talkative. She was a middle school teacher from somewhere in the LA area. We talked about sharks - she's terrified of them having witnessed a shark attack when she was younger (a girl lost her leg), so she was trying to overcome her fear of the ocean by coming out to Catalina on her friends' sailboat with her kids. She also said she wanted to instill in her boys a sense of an adventurous life. Apparently, she used to do adventurous things with her dad when she was a kid, and now she was trying to pass that on. We talked for quite a while until it was nearly dark. The boys didn't mind; they were playing in the sand (oblivious to the other children about). I guess there's no real point to this anecdote (in my fraternity, they referred to these as "Cheese stories", since my nickname was Cheese), just that this happens all the time and is a nice benefit of living in a tourist destination. (Well, this tourist destination, anyway.)
On our way back to the house, we saw the local insane cat sleeping in the middle of the road. For some reason, this cat likes to curl up in a little ball on the dusty, hard-packed road surface. Usually, it's just off to the side, where it's only about 10% likely to be run over, but on this evening, with the light fading, it was dead smack in the middle of the road. The first time I saw it, I thought it was one of the feral cats that are all over town, but this one, despite its matted coat and odd behavior, has a collar with a tag. The owners have even gone so far as to put out a traffic cone with a sign that reads "Caution Lazy Cat". I've got to get a picture.
Life in the TH, baby.
Last night, Hobbes and Calvin and I went down to the General Store for some ice cream for dessert (Sweetie is teaching right now, so she was still at the lab). As we sat at a picnic table and ate it, a pair of young boys started playing a game at the volleyball court - not volleyball, of course, but one in which the older boy was making up the rules to the younger boy's detriment. When my boys finished, I suggested that they go see if the other boys wanted to play a bit, since we don't have much chance to play with kids around here. This lead to me meeting the mothers of the children. Now this is a common occurrence around here. Having a lot of visitors, you meet a lot of people in passing, and many of them are very friendly and interested in the fact that you live on the island, etc. One of the women was very talkative. She was a middle school teacher from somewhere in the LA area. We talked about sharks - she's terrified of them having witnessed a shark attack when she was younger (a girl lost her leg), so she was trying to overcome her fear of the ocean by coming out to Catalina on her friends' sailboat with her kids. She also said she wanted to instill in her boys a sense of an adventurous life. Apparently, she used to do adventurous things with her dad when she was a kid, and now she was trying to pass that on. We talked for quite a while until it was nearly dark. The boys didn't mind; they were playing in the sand (oblivious to the other children about). I guess there's no real point to this anecdote (in my fraternity, they referred to these as "Cheese stories", since my nickname was Cheese), just that this happens all the time and is a nice benefit of living in a tourist destination. (Well, this tourist destination, anyway.)
On our way back to the house, we saw the local insane cat sleeping in the middle of the road. For some reason, this cat likes to curl up in a little ball on the dusty, hard-packed road surface. Usually, it's just off to the side, where it's only about 10% likely to be run over, but on this evening, with the light fading, it was dead smack in the middle of the road. The first time I saw it, I thought it was one of the feral cats that are all over town, but this one, despite its matted coat and odd behavior, has a collar with a tag. The owners have even gone so far as to put out a traffic cone with a sign that reads "Caution Lazy Cat". I've got to get a picture.
Life in the TH, baby.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Exhausting weekends
I've recently decided that my weekends were too restful, and I needed to really start over-exerting myself. So I've had a variety of weekend activities over the past few weeks (since we got back from vacation). Last weekend was digging out the backyard slope for a retaining wall (we're slowly trying to get our backyard to not be a dust/mud bath), and hiking out to Ben Weston. This weekend it was dive class Saturday morning, more digging for the retaining wall Saturday afternoon, bike maintenance this morning, cleaning the house in the afternoon, and more bike maintenance.
The dive class was pretty fun. The waterfront officer at WMSC occasionally offers an open water (basic) dive class. This go 'round I decided to sign up. (Of course, then we went on vacation and I missed half the classes.) Having finally got my physical, I was allowed in the water this weekend, but I had to stay at the surface since my blood work isn't done yet. I'm not exactly sure what they might see in the blood work that would suggest imminent danger that wasn't apparent in the EKG or chest x-ray, but whatever. So we learned how to examine and handle an air tank, how to attach it to a BC (that's buoyancy controller), how to attach the regulator and test it and how to inflate and deflate the BC. Curiously, when you're diving and you have all that gear on, you still need weights to actually achieve negative buoyancy in the water, so we got weight belts and trundled down to the water. We learned how to gear up, how to enter the water, how to breathe through the regulator (all pretty basic stuff, yeah?). Then we got into some of the basic emergency stuff: what do you do if your regulator falls (or is pulled) out of your mouth, how do you clear your mask of water, what do you do if you lose your mask, and finally what to do if you run out of air. The other person in my group then got to practice all this at a depth of about 10 feet, but I had to stay at the surface. :( All that took about 4 hours, so it was lunchtime when I returned to the house.
Having "wasted" the morning, I thought I should work on one of my house jobs in the afternoon. I attempted to finish the kitty cage - this will go on top of the shed, with an entrance from the bathroom window so our indoor kitties can enjoy the outside. This was a no go because the shop at the lab was locked, and I couldn't find any scrap 2x4s. So I returned home thwarted. This meant I had to go back to work on the retaining wall. Sigh. Nothing like digging in the brick-hard clay to make you appreciate a desk job. I did manage to get the last of the digging done, though, and I moved all the stones we have (about 1/3 of what we need) into the yard and build part of the wall. Even unfinished, we can see how much better the yard will look with it.
The Sunday bike maintenance was prompted by my troubles with my front derailleur. I ended up breaking out my new bike tools (thank you Hobbes and Calvin), and pulling and cleaning the chains from my bike, Sweetie's bike and an old bike of Hobbes' that Calvin is inheriting. Calvin's bike has been sitting for a while, so it needed some work. I swapped the seat with Calvin's current bike because this one was cracked and didn't hold its angle. Then I had to try to loosen up one of the pedals - not sure we have a permanent solution there; we may need new pedals. And then I removed the cable to the front brake since one of the connectors was bent. This bike has the pedal-backwards friction braking, so the hand brakes are redundant. Now it was time to tackle the derailleur. I watched a few videos on YouTube before I started to increase the chance I was doing this correctly and then got to work. After fiddling around with it for about an hour and a half, I can now get the bike to go into low gear (which it wasn't doing before) and into middle gear, but it can't quite get into high gear. I'm not sure what the problem is. Could it be related to chain stretching? Maybe I need a new chain.
Tomorrow: work! A day to rest. (Actually I have a grant that's due, so I'll spend the day collecting paperwork and editing the proposal. Sigh.)
The dive class was pretty fun. The waterfront officer at WMSC occasionally offers an open water (basic) dive class. This go 'round I decided to sign up. (Of course, then we went on vacation and I missed half the classes.) Having finally got my physical, I was allowed in the water this weekend, but I had to stay at the surface since my blood work isn't done yet. I'm not exactly sure what they might see in the blood work that would suggest imminent danger that wasn't apparent in the EKG or chest x-ray, but whatever. So we learned how to examine and handle an air tank, how to attach it to a BC (that's buoyancy controller), how to attach the regulator and test it and how to inflate and deflate the BC. Curiously, when you're diving and you have all that gear on, you still need weights to actually achieve negative buoyancy in the water, so we got weight belts and trundled down to the water. We learned how to gear up, how to enter the water, how to breathe through the regulator (all pretty basic stuff, yeah?). Then we got into some of the basic emergency stuff: what do you do if your regulator falls (or is pulled) out of your mouth, how do you clear your mask of water, what do you do if you lose your mask, and finally what to do if you run out of air. The other person in my group then got to practice all this at a depth of about 10 feet, but I had to stay at the surface. :( All that took about 4 hours, so it was lunchtime when I returned to the house.
Having "wasted" the morning, I thought I should work on one of my house jobs in the afternoon. I attempted to finish the kitty cage - this will go on top of the shed, with an entrance from the bathroom window so our indoor kitties can enjoy the outside. This was a no go because the shop at the lab was locked, and I couldn't find any scrap 2x4s. So I returned home thwarted. This meant I had to go back to work on the retaining wall. Sigh. Nothing like digging in the brick-hard clay to make you appreciate a desk job. I did manage to get the last of the digging done, though, and I moved all the stones we have (about 1/3 of what we need) into the yard and build part of the wall. Even unfinished, we can see how much better the yard will look with it.
The Sunday bike maintenance was prompted by my troubles with my front derailleur. I ended up breaking out my new bike tools (thank you Hobbes and Calvin), and pulling and cleaning the chains from my bike, Sweetie's bike and an old bike of Hobbes' that Calvin is inheriting. Calvin's bike has been sitting for a while, so it needed some work. I swapped the seat with Calvin's current bike because this one was cracked and didn't hold its angle. Then I had to try to loosen up one of the pedals - not sure we have a permanent solution there; we may need new pedals. And then I removed the cable to the front brake since one of the connectors was bent. This bike has the pedal-backwards friction braking, so the hand brakes are redundant. Now it was time to tackle the derailleur. I watched a few videos on YouTube before I started to increase the chance I was doing this correctly and then got to work. After fiddling around with it for about an hour and a half, I can now get the bike to go into low gear (which it wasn't doing before) and into middle gear, but it can't quite get into high gear. I'm not sure what the problem is. Could it be related to chain stretching? Maybe I need a new chain.
Tomorrow: work! A day to rest. (Actually I have a grant that's due, so I'll spend the day collecting paperwork and editing the proposal. Sigh.)
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Calvin's Birthday
Yesterday was Thing 2's birthday. Being blond and trouble and six, I was thinking about changing his blog nickname to 'Calvin'. But then I'll need to come up with something new for Thing 1 as well. Hmm. For today, anyway, we'll call him 'Calvin'.
Calvin had a pretty good birthday. The night before, we let the Things stay up late because our neighbor had his nieces and nephews in town, and the kids were all playing after dinner. It sounded like good after-dinner, summertime play. They came in sweaty and exhausted and thirsty and hungry. While they were having a drink and a snack, they found the Chicken Little movie on TV ("Uh...what were we talking about?") and seeing as how they were having the perfect summer night, Sweetie and I decided they could stay up to watch it. So that was a nice lead-in to the big day. We decided to have a party, but with it being summer, many of the school kids were off at camp or vacation, or whatever, so we had rather a mish-mash guest list including many adults, and some visitors who Calvin didn't know from Adam (alas, the neighbors nieces and nephews had left earlier that day). Oh, and Bean the dog and his owner. Did this matter to Calvin? Not a bit. The party was the Standard Two Harbors Cook-out on the Beach. The kids got wet and sandy while I grilled up some organically-fed beef, nitrate-free hot dogs and chicken and veggie kabobs. Sweetie got out the sides and cupcakes. [Funny aside here. Sweetie had the nice idea of decorating the cupcakes with M&M's, but the day before she asked Calvin if he wanted some M&M's for a snack and he said, "I don't like M&M's." Back to the drawing board.] Everyone ate their fill. Some friends wandered up who hadn't necessarily been invited, but happened to be taking a walk on the beach, so they joined the festivities. Finally it was cupcake and presents time. Calvin got some baseball gear from Mom and Dad (bat, glove, balls), a Bakugan from Thing 1 (not important if you don't know what that is - really), and some other things. He was very happy a) getting presents, b) opening presents, c) being able to tell Thing 1 not to touch his presents, and d) generally being the center of attention.
What else goes on? Oh yes, I'm taking an open water SCUBA class. Or at least I'm sort of taking it. I've only just had most of the required physical done today (still need the blook work). I missed two of the four classes and all of the water work so far, although I think I'm going to catch up on that this weekend. So, like I said, I'm kinda taking it. Sweetie was certified years ago, so she'll take a refresher soon, and they maybe we can take in some of the kelp beds from below, rather than above. :)
Sweetie is gearing-up to teach a course in August. She also taught this class last year. It's for SEA, a study-abroad program run by (or through, or near) Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute's Marine Biological Laboratory. This class is all high school age kids, but it's taught at a college level. Sweetie really liked the professor running the class and the TA's last year (and they liked her) so she agreed to do it again this year.
It's been hot here. And humid. Now before you laugh too much, look here. You'll see that the average humidity was a respectable 83%, with a high over 90%. And while the air temperature wasn't that high, it's been very sunny without much wind, which makes it hot here. For a day, I almost wished we had air conditioning! Hrm. I'm not sure I'm garnering any sympathy here. Well, at least the water has warmed up to 70F, so we can cool off in the water without going into shock.
I'd tell you about our hike to Ben Weston, but you should really read about it here.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Vacation 2009 - Day 10
My Birthday
Today was all about my special day. I was the center of attention all day. Everyone showered me with good wishes and presents.
Okay, that's not really true. Today was about Parks, both the state and national.
After a quick breakfast of doughnuts (complete with a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday") we headed off to Cabrillo National Monument. Juan Roderiguez Cabrillo was the first European to reach this area. Only so much is known about him. He was likely Portugese, but made his fortune in Guatemala. He was given command of a couple ships and told to claim more land for Spain, look for gold, and look for a supposed channel between the Atlantic and Pacific. He did find land, which he named San Miguel. (A later explorer, Vizcaíno, renamed it San Diego, in spite of orders to maintain earlier namings.) He later died somewhere in the channel islands from an infection. A nice exhibit talked about his ship and route. There was real chainmail the Things could try on, and the ranger let them hold a replica sword.
This park is at the tip of Point Loma Peninsula, so it was and is the perfect location for a lighthouse. The exhibit at the lighthouse focused on the Israel family that lived there from - . The house was open, but the tower was closed, so we looked at the fresnel lenses in the assistant lighthouse keeper's house. The lenses are beautiful, lots of prism-like cuts designed to reflect all the light from the lamp out horizontally. The original lamp was 159 candlepower and could be seen up to 39 miles away.
The area was used by the military from the late 1800's to control the bay. Thing 1 liked the military history exhibit. It showed a shell from a 16-inch gun, and talked about how the range of the 16-in guns was 25 miles. It also said that the lighthouse was used as a signaling station; incoming ships had to send the correct signal or they would be shelled.
Cabrillo NM is also very well known for tidepools, so we also visited the rocky shoreline. We were there at highest tide, however, so there weren't really any tidepools to see. We did manage to see limpets, chitons, crabs, anemones, periwinkles, and gooseneck barnacles. We also looked at seaweeds: kelp, sea lettuce, sea grass and feather boa kelp. Sweetie really wants to come back in the winter when the tides are lower.
The Things got another Jr Ranger Badge:
After lunch, we drove across the Coronado Bay Bridge, which had great views of the shipyards where many Navy ships were being worked on, and into the traffic of Coronado. Being Saturday, it took us a while to work our way down 75 to Imperial Beach. Then we stopped at Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve. This was our birding stop. We took a short hike down to where the Tijuana river meets the ocean. There were many shorebirds there: brown pelicans, double-crested cormorants, a great egret, Caspian terns, black skimmers (very cool), willets, whimbrels, long-billed curlews (very cool), marbled godwits, and a bunch of smaller sandpipers. Sweetie saw a red knot. We think we saw an osprey sitting in the background. On the walk to the estuary, we saw meadowlarks, common yellowthroats, house finches, and a Northern Harrier. We had to double-time it back to the Visitors' Center because it was getting late and they locked the gates at 5pm (Thing 2 did not appreciate this hurrying at the end of a long and tiring vacation). Sweetie was pretty pleased with the birding, but lamented our lack of a spotting scope. She wants to return in the winter.
And then we all got haircuts and took dancing lessons.
And that was it. Vacation was over, save for the drive north (which was uneventful). We hit traffic on the 405 (shocking, I know), but still made it back to San Pedro by 7:30. Our whole vacation consumed less than two tanks of gas. Tomorrow we go back to the island. A successful vacation - there's lots of tears tonight.
Today was all about my special day. I was the center of attention all day. Everyone showered me with good wishes and presents.
Okay, that's not really true. Today was about Parks, both the state and national.
After a quick breakfast of doughnuts (complete with a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday") we headed off to Cabrillo National Monument. Juan Roderiguez Cabrillo was the first European to reach this area. Only so much is known about him. He was likely Portugese, but made his fortune in Guatemala. He was given command of a couple ships and told to claim more land for Spain, look for gold, and look for a supposed channel between the Atlantic and Pacific. He did find land, which he named San Miguel. (A later explorer, Vizcaíno, renamed it San Diego, in spite of orders to maintain earlier namings.) He later died somewhere in the channel islands from an infection. A nice exhibit talked about his ship and route. There was real chainmail the Things could try on, and the ranger let them hold a replica sword.
This park is at the tip of Point Loma Peninsula, so it was and is the perfect location for a lighthouse. The exhibit at the lighthouse focused on the Israel family that lived there from - . The house was open, but the tower was closed, so we looked at the fresnel lenses in the assistant lighthouse keeper's house. The lenses are beautiful, lots of prism-like cuts designed to reflect all the light from the lamp out horizontally. The original lamp was 159 candlepower and could be seen up to 39 miles away.
The area was used by the military from the late 1800's to control the bay. Thing 1 liked the military history exhibit. It showed a shell from a 16-inch gun, and talked about how the range of the 16-in guns was 25 miles. It also said that the lighthouse was used as a signaling station; incoming ships had to send the correct signal or they would be shelled.
Cabrillo NM is also very well known for tidepools, so we also visited the rocky shoreline. We were there at highest tide, however, so there weren't really any tidepools to see. We did manage to see limpets, chitons, crabs, anemones, periwinkles, and gooseneck barnacles. We also looked at seaweeds: kelp, sea lettuce, sea grass and feather boa kelp. Sweetie really wants to come back in the winter when the tides are lower.
The Things got another Jr Ranger Badge:
After lunch, we drove across the Coronado Bay Bridge, which had great views of the shipyards where many Navy ships were being worked on, and into the traffic of Coronado. Being Saturday, it took us a while to work our way down 75 to Imperial Beach. Then we stopped at Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve. This was our birding stop. We took a short hike down to where the Tijuana river meets the ocean. There were many shorebirds there: brown pelicans, double-crested cormorants, a great egret, Caspian terns, black skimmers (very cool), willets, whimbrels, long-billed curlews (very cool), marbled godwits, and a bunch of smaller sandpipers. Sweetie saw a red knot. We think we saw an osprey sitting in the background. On the walk to the estuary, we saw meadowlarks, common yellowthroats, house finches, and a Northern Harrier. We had to double-time it back to the Visitors' Center because it was getting late and they locked the gates at 5pm (Thing 2 did not appreciate this hurrying at the end of a long and tiring vacation). Sweetie was pretty pleased with the birding, but lamented our lack of a spotting scope. She wants to return in the winter.
And then we all got haircuts and took dancing lessons.
And that was it. Vacation was over, save for the drive north (which was uneventful). We hit traffic on the 405 (shocking, I know), but still made it back to San Pedro by 7:30. Our whole vacation consumed less than two tanks of gas. Tomorrow we go back to the island. A successful vacation - there's lots of tears tonight.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Vacation 2009 - Day 9
Maritime Museum
Today's theme was boats. We went down to the Maritime Museum first, which comprises 6 craft, three sailing ships, two submarines, and a ferry. First was the Star of India (originally the Euterpe). This is the oldest iron-hulled sailing ship still afloat. It circumnavigated the globe 21 times, doing things like carrying emigrants to New Zealand (who would voluntarily emigrate from England to New Zealand in the 1800's?) before 'retiring' to an Alaskan trade route. It was a cool ship. Lots of sails on this one, and a video of a similar ship sailing through an Alaskan storm. Terrifying. It didn't seem like fun to work on this ship.
Next we visited a Foxtrot class Soviet submarine. In order to go into it you had to crawl through one of the pressure hatches (I guess so the larger tourists don't get stuck inside?) It was built in 1974 and had wooden toilet seats. The Things really liked it, mostly because there was one room where you could push buttons and it would make submarine noises. I thought the political officer's room was amusing. It really was just like Red October - there was basically a loyalty officer on board. And a guard outside the warhead 'room' that took anything that could potentially be used to sabotage the missiles. Can you say trust issues? Didn't look like fun to work on this ship, either.
Next up was the Rose, which played the HMS Surprise in the Master and Commander movie. Here we learned about scurvy and how the British figuring out how to cure it changed the balance of naval warfare. We also learned about how warfare on a ship worked. The Things liked the cannons. Sweetie and I thought it was a beautiful ship.
The Berkeley was next. This was a huge steam-powered ferry boat that operated around San Diego Bay. Most of the main deck was given over to a museum showing scale models of all sorts of different boats, many of them US Navy. The upper deck was set up with seats the way it was when it was a working ferry. Very fancy woodwork and stained glass windows.
We toured the USS Dolphin, a small US submarine built around the same time as the Soviet one. It was much nicer and more modern. The Things preferred the Soviet one, because it made noises. The last ship we saw was the Medea, a wooden pleasure boat built by a Scotsman to take him to remote areas of Scotland for hunting trips. It ended up being bought by the French military and used in WWII for a variety of things. A peculiar little history. I liked that one because one could call the steward from just about anywhere on the boat via a buzzer system.
In the afternoon, we visited the USS Midway. It served from 1947 to 1991 and was home to 245,000 men and women in that time. 4500 seamen crewed it. It is a very big boat. Thing 2 didn't really have the stamina to see the whole boat, and we didn't really have the time to listen to all 62 stops on the audio tour, so we just sort of wandered around. We looked at the hangar and the crew's quarters and the ready rooms for both the helicopter and jet pilots and then headed up to the flight deck. There were lots of planes and helicopters up there. I relayed much of my airplane lore to Thing 1 while Sweetie and Thing 2 listened to the docents and learned true information. Thing 1 really wanted to try the flight simulator, so we went on it while Sweetie and Thing 2 got a snack. In the simulator we were some sort of plane from WWII fighting some Japanese Zeroes. I have to say it was pretty fun except for when we got shot down. You spin out of control while heading for the ground.
We were pretty toured out at this point, so it was off to a new hotel (room on the 21st floor across from the Presidential Suite - so I guess we were in the Secret Service room). Their pool was under repair, so no swimming :( We decided to splurge and go out for seafood, so it was back to the waterfront. We ate at the Fish Market, which had a relaxed atmosphere and very good food. Thing 2 was being stubborn, so despite our appeals for him to try some seafood, he had pizza. Thing 1 had panko shrimp (and liked it). Sweetie and I had halibut, although hers was mesquite grilled and mine was a picatta.
One more day of vacation.
Today's theme was boats. We went down to the Maritime Museum first, which comprises 6 craft, three sailing ships, two submarines, and a ferry. First was the Star of India (originally the Euterpe). This is the oldest iron-hulled sailing ship still afloat. It circumnavigated the globe 21 times, doing things like carrying emigrants to New Zealand (who would voluntarily emigrate from England to New Zealand in the 1800's?) before 'retiring' to an Alaskan trade route. It was a cool ship. Lots of sails on this one, and a video of a similar ship sailing through an Alaskan storm. Terrifying. It didn't seem like fun to work on this ship.
Next we visited a Foxtrot class Soviet submarine. In order to go into it you had to crawl through one of the pressure hatches (I guess so the larger tourists don't get stuck inside?) It was built in 1974 and had wooden toilet seats. The Things really liked it, mostly because there was one room where you could push buttons and it would make submarine noises. I thought the political officer's room was amusing. It really was just like Red October - there was basically a loyalty officer on board. And a guard outside the warhead 'room' that took anything that could potentially be used to sabotage the missiles. Can you say trust issues? Didn't look like fun to work on this ship, either.
Next up was the Rose, which played the HMS Surprise in the Master and Commander movie. Here we learned about scurvy and how the British figuring out how to cure it changed the balance of naval warfare. We also learned about how warfare on a ship worked. The Things liked the cannons. Sweetie and I thought it was a beautiful ship.
The Berkeley was next. This was a huge steam-powered ferry boat that operated around San Diego Bay. Most of the main deck was given over to a museum showing scale models of all sorts of different boats, many of them US Navy. The upper deck was set up with seats the way it was when it was a working ferry. Very fancy woodwork and stained glass windows.
We toured the USS Dolphin, a small US submarine built around the same time as the Soviet one. It was much nicer and more modern. The Things preferred the Soviet one, because it made noises. The last ship we saw was the Medea, a wooden pleasure boat built by a Scotsman to take him to remote areas of Scotland for hunting trips. It ended up being bought by the French military and used in WWII for a variety of things. A peculiar little history. I liked that one because one could call the steward from just about anywhere on the boat via a buzzer system.
In the afternoon, we visited the USS Midway. It served from 1947 to 1991 and was home to 245,000 men and women in that time. 4500 seamen crewed it. It is a very big boat. Thing 2 didn't really have the stamina to see the whole boat, and we didn't really have the time to listen to all 62 stops on the audio tour, so we just sort of wandered around. We looked at the hangar and the crew's quarters and the ready rooms for both the helicopter and jet pilots and then headed up to the flight deck. There were lots of planes and helicopters up there. I relayed much of my airplane lore to Thing 1 while Sweetie and Thing 2 listened to the docents and learned true information. Thing 1 really wanted to try the flight simulator, so we went on it while Sweetie and Thing 2 got a snack. In the simulator we were some sort of plane from WWII fighting some Japanese Zeroes. I have to say it was pretty fun except for when we got shot down. You spin out of control while heading for the ground.
We were pretty toured out at this point, so it was off to a new hotel (room on the 21st floor across from the Presidential Suite - so I guess we were in the Secret Service room). Their pool was under repair, so no swimming :( We decided to splurge and go out for seafood, so it was back to the waterfront. We ate at the Fish Market, which had a relaxed atmosphere and very good food. Thing 2 was being stubborn, so despite our appeals for him to try some seafood, he had pizza. Thing 1 had panko shrimp (and liked it). Sweetie and I had halibut, although hers was mesquite grilled and mine was a picatta.
One more day of vacation.
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