Catch up.

A busy couple of days. Please forgive the absence. Plus — whine, whine — it’s so cold. It just saps my energy. The Parka of Tribulation has emerged from its closet, and I’ve filled the pockets with all my crap, because I cannot carry a purse with the Parka of Tribulation. It would be like carrying a purse on an Everest expedition.

Life feels like an Everest expedition. By the weekend, we’ll be down to base camp. I hope.

I did clip a few things, however. During the immediate aftermath of the Paris attacks, I looked at some of the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. They didn’t do much for me, but then, I allow for cultural differences in humor, the hardest thing to push over those lines. (I recall an excruciating interlude in Argentina when I was a j-fellow, being squired around a newspaper office to look at the framed editorial cartoons on the wall with the artist. Nothing is more perishable than an editorial cartoon. Trust me on this.)

To wit:

But then I remembered what you have to at times like this: That it isn’t about stuff you like, but stuff you don’t like. Larry Flynt understood that; most pornographers do. That said, you wonder if men like this know how they’re going to die someday. I don’t expect they know how awful it’s going to be.

For those of you who think this is all about Islam, you might find this editorial in the Arab American News interesting:

Regardless of the identity and motives of the perpetrators, this barbaric crime is despicable and we should condemn it collectively as a community. At The Arab American News, we feel painful sympathy for the victims, most of whom practiced our craft.

If the attack was a response to publishing the offensive cartoons, as most media outlets are claiming, then it is a crime against all Muslims, especially in the West and the Prophet Mohamad himself, who preached tolerance and urged his followers to refrain from the revenge mentality.

The attackers do not represent Islam.

Clear and noted.

Finally, the NYT takes on another overrated restaurant. It’s sort of a joy to read.

Limping into the weekend, I wish you a good one.

Posted at 9:30 pm in Current events |
 

60 responses to “Catch up.”

  1. Deborah said on January 8, 2015 at 9:38 pm

    I listened to this On Being podcast again, someone here linked to it a few months ago (Suzanne? Can’t remember) anyway it’s pretty interesting about what makes a terrorist become one, http://www.onbeing.org/program/scott-atran-hopes-and-dreams-in-a-world-of-fear/84/audio?embed=1 it was quite memorable when I first listened to it and with the latest news I can’t get it out of my head.

    386 chars

  2. alex said on January 8, 2015 at 11:20 pm

    Cartooning is the highest insult one can pay one’s enemies. I learned this early on. While at Howe Military School in the seventh grade, I was taking a lot of crap from a big fat bully. His doughy face and surly mien were easy to capture with a ballpoint pen, and when I stuck onto it the body of an obese, broken-down horse, it was powerful as all get out. It made the guy run bawling to the lower school headmaster, who then confiscated my note pad and beat the living shit out of me. “You call this art?” he screamed . “I call it sick.”

    I didn’t regret it in the least. I made asses out of both of them. Shrimpy principal was 5’5″ and obviously had some masculinity issues. He was gone the following year, but no one talked about it. Probably lost it on one of the Detroit mafia kids and had to hightail it out of town. He was replaced by a towering fat man who favored powder blue polyester leisure suits and big cars he couldn’t really afford and had an even bigger rage problem than his predecessor, especially after his Farrah Fawcett lookalike trophy wife dumped him for a local Realtor. Now he would have been a great cartoon subject but he was such a violent person I didn’t ever chance it.

    I missed my calling. I really do have a knack for drawing caricatures of people I detest.

    1298 chars

  3. Dexter said on January 9, 2015 at 1:58 am

    I thought the winter coat my daughter bought for me a few years ago was the warmest coat ever. I was wrong. This new army field jacket, solid OD (olive drab …green) with a heavy-duty button-in liner is the warmest thing ever. I remember the army had much heavier coats years ago but I never was issued one because I sort of followed the warm weather around the globe. I was out with the pooches at 5:00 AM yesterday when it was minus 9 and I never even felt a chill.
    I am glad I called the VA in Toledo before I drove all the way there for a re-check chest X-ray. Their X-ray equipment ceased working properly and they had to remedy that situation before X-raying anybody. They have me scheduled now for Tuesday. 18F forecast with full sunshine all day I can handle that OK.

    I watched “Rhapsody in Blue”, the story of the Gershwin brothers, focussing on George. Man, what a cornball film! It was made in 1945, and was fairly billed as “a fictionalized account of the life of George Gershwin.”
    It was made to showcase the music (allegedly the estate was in dire straits after George’s early death and needed cash). I have been a big fan of Gershwin tunes since I was a little boy of nine years, and the music did not disappoint. But man! The film plot was just a lot of blown timelines and total fiction. Oh well, like I say, I was warned, so no complaints. I do so adore “An American in Paris”, score as well as movie. I bought the CD years ago.

    1470 chars

  4. Basset said on January 9, 2015 at 7:57 am

    Reading “Stardust Melody” right now, biography of Hoagy Carmichael which seems to be well researched and factual. My parents and brother are buried pretty close to him at Rose Hill in Bloomington, there have been pennies on his gravestone every time I’ve walked past it.

    271 chars

  5. beb said on January 9, 2015 at 8:27 am

    “I really do have a knack for drawing caricatures of people I detest.”

    I really love this line of alex’s. It belongs in the list of famous last words.

    153 chars

  6. ROGirl said on January 9, 2015 at 8:36 am

    The cartoons don’t do much for me either, but France has a long tradition of outrageous and provocative art and imagery meant to satirize and offend and “epater la bourgeoisie.”

    This cartoon caused Honore Daumier to be imprisoned for 6 months in the 1830s due to its depiction of the king as Gargantua, a destructive and insatiable giant.

    http://uploads3.wikiart.org/images/honore-daumier/gargantua.jpg

    410 chars

  7. brian stouder said on January 9, 2015 at 8:59 am

    Looks a little phallic, as the conveyor approaches His Highness’ mouth.

    I’m heartily tired of the Flying Monkies of the Right Wing Airwaves eagerly throwing buckets of hatred and fear on another culture, based on nothing more than lazy prejudice, in reaction to this (still unfolding) terrorist attack in France.

    I recall when Oxy-Rush squealed like the pig he is, when the misfit lunatic blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and he was just sure that President Clinton would blame HIM and HIS incessant anti-everything-to-do-with-Clinton schtick.

    That guy is the classic coward – debating with himself and (happily) winning his debate, every day! (one would think all that self-debatin’ would make a guy go blind, rather than deaf)

    751 chars

  8. Jeff Borden said on January 9, 2015 at 9:31 am

    Alex, it’s never too late!

    Brian, there’s a fascinating essay on the Salon site today about the overwhelming need by America’s rightwing to feel persecuted and how this inferiority complex allows charlatans to rip them off. The author cites a newsletter sponsored by Mike Huckabee that plays up dystopian views of a violent, lawless future while selling overpriced survivalist food stuffs.

    Most of these big, tough rightwing media heroes are surrounded by bodyguards, chauffeured to and from their jobs and ensconced in huge, well-protected estates, yet they puff out their chests like they’re freedom fighters duking it out hand-to-hand with terrorists. Limbaugh is among them, of course, and so too is Glenn Beck, who has something like four bodyguards around at all times.

    Millionaire loudmouth con artists. . .milking the rubes. And thus it has ever been.

    868 chars

  9. 4dbirds said on January 9, 2015 at 9:35 am

    Dexter, I still have my army dress wool coat with liner, issued to me in 1975. It is in excellent shape and still fits. It is very warm and so retro I get complements on it. Loved the restaurant review. One of my NY goals is to make sushi rolls from scratch. I’ll probably need a whole saturday to do the rice and knife work correctly. I’m new to suschi, having avoided it because who knows why but my son loved it and after he died I promised myself to find the little joys in life that he seemed to relish. Sushi is wonderful.

    536 chars

  10. Bitter Scribe said on January 9, 2015 at 10:16 am

    Well, I learned a new bit of French slang today. “Allocs” = “welfare.”

    But you’re right about humor not traveling well. When I read about how well “The Simpsons” does in France or China, I wonder, How do they get any of the jokes? You have to be steeped in American culture, politics, etc. to have any hope of understanding them. Maybe they just have really good translators.

    378 chars

  11. ROGirl said on January 9, 2015 at 10:28 am

    Bitter Scribe, allocs is probably slang for allocations.

    56 chars

  12. Peter said on January 9, 2015 at 10:33 am

    Bitter, France has a huge nuclear power industry, so they can’t get enough of Burns and Smithers.

    Note to self: Make sure Alex doesn’t have a photo of me in case I ever piss him off.

    185 chars

  13. susan said on January 9, 2015 at 10:57 am

    The Brits were (are) pretty good at cartooning, too. Anyone remember Punch magazine? We grew up with it, as our Dad subscribed to it. Needless to say, as a USian kid, I didn’t understand most the cartoons, but I loved looking through it, anyway.

    385 chars

  14. brian stouder said on January 9, 2015 at 11:05 am

    Well, if my lovely wife could cartoon (and thank Heavens she can’t!) – I’d bet she would caricature me as a hopeless ass-kisser, with no back-bone.

    But hey, I’m in sales!

    173 chars

  15. coozledad said on January 9, 2015 at 11:10 am

    Alex: near the end of the election, I got corralled into doing a portrait of one of the party functionaries.

    I told them I used to do portraits, but I quit because it took too much liquor. It takes a shitload of outright mendaciousness to get from how someone looks to how they want to see themselves. But they insisted.

    It reminded me of what Gerald Scarfe said about caricature: It’s remarkable how you can get a likeness with a few of the goriest details. Portraiture is like that, but you have to work to move past the ugly truth just as it’s getting fun. Sargent was right: It’s whoring.

    598 chars

  16. BigHank53 said on January 9, 2015 at 11:23 am

    Bitter Scribe: I suspect whoever is translating “The Simpsons” does the same thing that the publishers of the “Asterix and Obelix” comics does: hire a fresh set of writers for every language and come up with a bunch of new jokes. I saw one once that punned “indiscreet” with “in-this-Crete”, a joke that only works in English…and the comic was French to begin with.

    367 chars

  17. adrianne said on January 9, 2015 at 11:44 am

    NYT restaurant critic Pete Wells has skewered many a restaurateur in his day. His latest target sounds prime for a takedown, particularly because of the cray-cray prices.

    170 chars

  18. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 9, 2015 at 11:55 am

    In truth, I think the community college tuition support proposal coming out today from Pres. Obama is largely a good idea. Having said THAT: keep in mind the inexorable “Law of Unintended Consequences.” The 2.5 GPA requirement — so imagine (as I can, and many of you all too easily can, I know, as teachers yourselves) a student tearfully coming to you and saying “If you give me a C and not a B-, I lose my scholarship and have to go back to the Kwikmart on second shift.” Yes, you can say “I’m not giving you anything, that’s the grade you earned based on the syllabus I distributed in the first class session.” And I have said that. But this will up the ante significantly, and the pressure on grade inflation is going to be meaningful. That’s not a reason not to do this, and I think Lamar can help get plenty of bipartisan support for this (I’ll betcha a nickel that Kasich will get on board), but I did have some grade-time office hours flashbacks when I read that “and maintain a 2.5 grade point average.” Not sure what the solution for it is.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/09/us/politics/obama-proposes-free-community-college-education-for-some-students.html

    1171 chars

  19. Sherri said on January 9, 2015 at 12:10 pm

    Community college tuition used to be free in California, before Prop 13 destroyed tax support for education. I don’t think there was any gpa requirement to receive free tuition, just be a resident of the state. Education used to be considered a good thing, worth doing on its own, not just if you “did it right.”

    My belief is that we could cut lots of bureaucracy in social programs if we worried less about cheating and only serving the “worthy poor.”

    455 chars

  20. brian stouder said on January 9, 2015 at 12:20 pm

    Jeff – my answer would be to drop that requirement; make the program open to high school graduates, and then require the student to pass their college course, or else flunk out. And indeed, I agree about Kasich; he has a chance to be the sane Republican in the field…which could well win the White House after 8 years of the other party

    352 chars

  21. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 9, 2015 at 12:23 pm

    Yeah, I think a “flunk two classes and lose it” standard is better. An F is an unambiguous standard, and if someone’s really not trying, that’s fair to pitch them out of the program. If someone needs community college support, and is chugging along with a solid-C average, they may be doing the best they can. That 2.5 GPA isn’t based on any standard other than being able to say to skeptical voters “they have to earn it” which I think could come around to bite them.

    468 chars

  22. Hattie said on January 9, 2015 at 12:46 pm

    We live in Hawaii and are headed into the cold for a week, and I’m cringing. I can’t bear cold weather. As with you, it saps my energy.

    135 chars

  23. Julie Robinson said on January 9, 2015 at 1:09 pm

    Because states have to kick in a quarter of the tuition, I doubt Indiana will participate in the community college plan. Our governor only cares about education dollars if they are taken away from public schools and given to charters, etc. At least that is his most recent, shameful proposal.

    I’m grateful that my own Parka of Misery, as I think of it, is not needed today–I don’t have to go anywhere!

    406 chars

  24. brian stouder said on January 9, 2015 at 3:11 pm

    And a good day NOT to be in western Michigan –

    http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fatal-150-vehicle-michigan-pileup-prompts-evacuation-n283071

    the lead:

    At least one person was killed and 10 were injured Friday in a pileup affecting both the westbound and eastbound lanes of a Michigan interstate, involving more than 150 vehicles — including a semi-truck carrying fireworks that erupted into flames, according to police.Interstate 94 was completely closed down due to the chain-reaction crash in Battle Creek that started around 10 a.m., Michigan State Police Lt. Rick Pazder told NBC News.

    Vehicular traffic in a 3-mile radius of the crash was also being evacuated because the semi-truck carrying fireworks had caught fire and a nearby truck carrying Formic acid ignited, Pazder said.

    Bad day at Paw Paw (or wherever), indeed!

    854 chars

  25. Jenine said on January 9, 2015 at 3:44 pm

    @Hattie: I had to go look up the forecast for the big island and it looks like a high of 79 for the week. You must mean that you are coming stateside to endure some cold temps. Bundle up!

    187 chars

  26. Dexter said on January 9, 2015 at 4:39 pm

    brian, my pal Corey in Holland, Michigan reported this : “12.5 inches of snow. 10.2 inches of snow since 3 pm. yesterday.”

    Now the forecast for Toledo for Tuesday is getting dicey, high of 12F now and snow flurries instead of sunshine. I hope that holds.

    Basset , I appreciate Hoagy but I am more of a Cole Porter kind of guy. I told here a few years ago of the day I drove through Peru, Indiana, and stopped at a music store for a CD or at least some sort of Cole Porter souvenir…the young clerk had never heard of him, no CDs, no poster, no nuthin’ nowhere. How soon they forget.
    I and not a cemetery chaser, gazing at famous and infamous graves, and now I am trying to think of the most famous person’s grave I ever was in front of or able to see the stone or gravesite…and no doubt I have the answer: George Washington’s Mt. Vernon final resting place and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello gravestone. http://woodardproperties.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/University-of-Virginia-Founder-Thomas-Jefferson-Tombstone.jpg

    1039 chars

  27. Deborah said on January 9, 2015 at 4:48 pm

    My niece from Minnesota who got married last summer is spending her honeymoon in Hawaii and said on Facebook that it got down to the mid 50s there. Of course it didn’t make a difference to the honeymooners but she said the locals were going apeshit.

    249 chars

  28. Dexter said on January 9, 2015 at 4:50 pm

    If you have a Facebook account maybe your browser will allow you to see Corey’s Holland , Michigan neighborhood here:
    https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206460580862966&set=a.2076990014007.129793.1522697742&type=1

    229 chars

  29. Deborah said on January 9, 2015 at 6:09 pm

    Nope, didn’t work for me Dexter even though I have a Facebook account.

    70 chars

  30. alex said on January 9, 2015 at 6:25 pm

    Same here Dex.

    14 chars

  31. James said on January 9, 2015 at 8:04 pm

    Here’s my take on the “Charlie” murders. It took me all week to process it.
    http://grumblesguy.tumblr.com/post/107638132019/je-suis-charlie-this-weeks-early-grumbles-is

    170 chars

  32. Basset said on January 9, 2015 at 9:26 pm

    Dexter, my mom worked for the Bloomington street department at the time of Hoagy’s funeral and told us about one of the street crew drivers working that day who got on the radio back to base and asked “where they plantin’ this Hoagy feller?” At least there’s a marker in front of the Book Nook now.

    299 chars

  33. brian stouder said on January 9, 2015 at 11:11 pm

    James – good stuff!

    Dex – the top gravesite I’ve visited was President Lincoln’s in Springfield. There’s a book which I know Jeff has also read (Stealing Lincoln’s Body) about the (jaw-dropping) near-success of grave robbers to actually take the remains of our 16th president from their resting place. For some long time (I think years) after that, the president’s remains were in the basement of the monument covered by a pile of lumber.

    441 chars

  34. Dexter said on January 10, 2015 at 1:22 am

    brian, the special on PBS about the history of Lincoln’s dead corpse was more frightening than and “Scream” or Chainsaw horror flick. The creepiest part was when they moved it the last time, they opened the casket and made an 8-year old boy witness the scene, and made him peer into the box and get an eyeful of the corpse. As an old man, he said Lincoln’s hair was in place and the body was preserved well enough to easily ID the remains. Then on YouTube there is a video of a 1950s “I’ve Got a Secret” show…the old man on the show had been in Ford’s Theater the night Lincoln was shot…imagine that!

    607 chars

  35. Deborah said on January 10, 2015 at 11:37 am

    I watched the news on the tee-vee last night, something I haven’t done for ages, the one thing I learned that was new to me was how to pronounce Charlie Hebdo (shar-LEE eb-dough) that was about it.

    197 chars

  36. Joe K said on January 10, 2015 at 5:34 pm

    1:49:00 for the half, 23rd out of 675 in my age group, top 1000 out of 22,000 48 degrees at the start -3 at home. All in all not bad, Brian one of the coolest thing I have done in my flying career was to stand at Gettysburg at the spot of the adress on one day, and visit Lincolns grave the next day.
    Sunny and 66, suppose to be in the high 70’s next 4 days.
    Cheers
    Pilot Joe

    378 chars

  37. Jeff (the mild-mannered one) said on January 10, 2015 at 6:41 pm

    Congrats, Joe. Have you done the touch-and-go next to Kitty Hawk on the strip there alongside the monument?

    107 chars

  38. Joe K said on January 10, 2015 at 7:14 pm

    Jeff, not yet would like to and also try one at the shuttle landing sight at the cape
    Pilot Joe

    96 chars

  39. brian stouder said on January 10, 2015 at 7:22 pm

    A goal I have – which, what the heck – let’s say for 2015, is to visit the Lincoln birthplace in Kentucky.

    We’ve been to his Indiana boyhood home, and visited his sister’s (Sarah) and mother’s (Nancy) gravesites; and to Gettysburg and to his Springfield home and law office and gravesite…so the Kentucky piece would be good stuff

    334 chars

  40. alex said on January 10, 2015 at 7:31 pm

    Where the hell are you, Joe? Can we get tickets?

    Sounds like more of the same through middle of next week. I’m getting ice dams on the roof despite my heat tape. Probably time to get serious about reinsulating the attic.

    224 chars

  41. Deborah said on January 10, 2015 at 8:08 pm

    Brian, if we have a Chicago meet up this summer you can go to the site where Lincoln was nominated to be the presidential candidate for the Republican Party. There are probably more Lincoln sites in Chicago because he visited often. Then there’s Lincoln Park, which has a great monumet not to mention a great zoo for the kiddos.

    328 chars

  42. Connie said on January 10, 2015 at 8:36 pm

    Brian, the birth place isn’t much. And is easy to combine with a trip to Mammoth Cave, not so far away.

    104 chars

  43. Joe K said on January 10, 2015 at 10:04 pm

    Alex,
    Down to the mouse house, arrived Thursday ran today here till Thursday, 2 bedroom condo in the park. I know a lot of people have a problem with disney, but it works for us
    Pilot Joe

    190 chars

  44. brian stouder said on January 10, 2015 at 10:36 pm

    Joe – We’ve visited the Mouse a couple of times, and you cannot NOT smile and have a good time, as you wander around that place. And indeed, the young folks love the place.

    Deborah – Chicago is a marvelous place, in general. I’ve visited there 4 or 5 times (not counting in-and-outs at O’Hare!), and we loved loved loved the Field Museum (especially back when King Tut was there), and whatever they call that aquarium near the big auditorium (off Lake Shore?), and the Sears Tower*, and Wrigley Field (and Comiskey Park) and the Museum of Science and Industry….

    but indeed, I’ve not wandered around there looking for Lincoln-related sites (such as where the Wigwam was); although I’ve been to Galesburg several times for Lincoln Colloquiums (which is where Abe “went through college”**), and to Springfield (for other Lincoln colloquiums) and toured his home, and Bloomington – where David Davis’s home is.

    Connie, after Wind Cave in South Dakota, from which I wasn’t expecting much, but which indeed impressed us all very much, we would definitely do Mammoth Cave, indeed!

    *I know, I know – but I’ll always call that building the Sears Tower!

    **a joke that Lincoln made before the Galesburg debate (during a US Senate race) between him and Stephen Douglas. The candidates had to go through a window to get onto the stage, prompting the ex-congressman and noted Springfield lawyer to say something like “Now I can honestly say I’ve gone through college!”

    1486 chars

  45. Basset said on January 10, 2015 at 10:51 pm

    Connie, another nearby attraction is Jefferson Davis’ birthplace, just across the Kentucky line from Clarksville, Tennessee, and an easy drive from the Lincoln birthplace. The Corvette museum at Bowlibg Green’s on the way, you can go watch ’em fill in the sinkhole.

    266 chars

  46. Kirk said on January 10, 2015 at 11:18 pm

    Brian@44: Went to Disney World 35 years ago this spring. Turned out to be everyone’s spring break. Had a generally good time, especially as we hit Space Mountain first thing after we got stoned on the way in. But I damned near had to fight a guy for a table in one of the restaurants in the evening. That was enough for me.

    324 chars

  47. Dave said on January 10, 2015 at 11:31 pm

    Scares me when I think that 35 years ago was 1980. Geesh.

    58 chars

  48. Deborah said on January 11, 2015 at 3:12 am

    Brian, the aquarium in Chicago is the Shedd. There is going to be a Lucas Museum there (George Lucas) sometime in the future and we are all hoping that the Obama Library will be there too.

    188 chars

  49. alex said on January 11, 2015 at 1:04 pm

    My last time at Disney World was in the mid-’90s, so it has been about 20 years for me already. I took in the other theme park as well — what was it, Warner Brothers? — and I can’t say I have any great desire to go back to either. Most memorable for me in Orlando were the drag queens at a skeezy motor hotel complex that had been turned into a gay resort called the Parliament House. This was in the suburb of Kissimmee. I have never seen bigger fake boobs implanted on human beings than the jugs on these wretched souls. The place was such a freak show that the overpriced cocktails were a bargain compared to all the hefty fees for the vanilla entertainment in the other two venues. This was an otherworldly experience that even beat the hell out of Epcot and relied on no high-tech gimmickry whatsoever.

    Wouldn’t mind a nice winter respite in Florida but it doesn’t look like it’ll happen this year. When I go, I favor the coasts and have friends and family to visit on both. My most memorable trip through Alligator Alley between the two coasts was in the early ’00s when traffic was stopped for hours and I got eaten alive by mosquitoes in January while Senator Bill Frist — a medical doctor — tended to some crash victims in an SUV rollover a couple of miles ahead. Of course I had no idea at the time that I was a witness to a national news story.

    1363 chars

  50. basset said on January 11, 2015 at 1:34 pm

    Never been to Disney anything, ever, and don’t care to go. My Florida experience is pretty limited; we’ve been to Navarre a couple times, up in the Panhandle next to the national seashore east of Pensacola, and that’s more our speed.

    234 chars

  51. brian stouder said on January 11, 2015 at 2:18 pm

    Alex – Many (many) years ago we were on the Gulf Coast side, on the other side of the long bridge at Tampa (it had been two spans, and one had collapsed into the ocean); it made a very positive impression upon me. The water was as warm as bath water, which was a revelation (I could remember stepping into the Atlantic ocean at NYC, and it was cold-cold-cold!)

    Florida strikes me as the classic ‘great place to visit; wouldn’t want to live there’.

    For one thing, the weather doesn’t kill the bugs, and there’s lots of creepy-crawlys. And for another, here in Indiana, you have a sporting chance versus an approaching tornado. But in Florida, if a hurricane is coming, there’s nothing for it but to evacuate…to which I say “pass”!

    737 chars

  52. LAMary said on January 11, 2015 at 3:28 pm

    Alex, it was probably Universal Studios you saw in the vicinity of Mauschwitz.

    78 chars

  53. brian stouder said on January 11, 2015 at 3:43 pm

    The thing about Kissimee/Orlando that struck me – 10 years ago – was how unfriendly the place is to pedestrians; not enough sidewalks back then

    143 chars

  54. alex said on January 11, 2015 at 3:58 pm

    Universal Studios it was! How did I manage to brainfart that?

    61 chars

  55. Joe K said on January 11, 2015 at 5:55 pm

    The trick with Disney is to stay on property and if you take a little time to plan its a fun place, I really don’t think you can go to any of the parks and watch the little kids pure joy of being there and not come out smiling. Alax at least now Disney is about the most gay friendly place I have been to, both to visit and be employed by. We go because it’s safe and clean, we don’t commando the parks anymore, if we want to take a day and go to a beach we can, but that, we generally save for gulf shores alabama. Like I said it’s not for everyone and that’s ok but I bet I could take you down here for a few days and you would have fun, maybe even come out wearing a pair of ears.
    77 and sunny, just back from the pool.
    Pilot Joe

    735 chars

  56. Basset said on January 11, 2015 at 7:07 pm

    Joe, we may agree on tenderloins but we’re pretty much opposite on vacations. Crowded, expensive, experiences prepackaged and fed to me, just doesn’t sound like fun.
    Gulf Shores is essentially Pigeon Forge with water – Mrs. B and I took Jr. and one of his middle school buddies there several years ago, after about the ninth airbrushed-T-shirt shop we said “never again.” GS is an easy drive from the naval aviation museum at Pensacola, though, so it’s got that going for it.

    480 chars

  57. Deborah said on January 11, 2015 at 7:07 pm

    My only experience at Disney World was when LB was about 4 or 5. It was in the summer and hot, hot, hot. We stood in those endless lines for stupid rides. All LB wanted to do was go back to the motel and swim in the pool. My husband has fond memories of going to Disneyland in CA when he was about 10, so eons ago in the early 50s. His family drove down from the midwest and he has hilarious pictures of his 3 siblings and himself on various rides. As a kid at that time I would have killed to have been there and done that. Many years later my husband designed the Anaheim Convention Center expansion and had to have multiple meetings with the Disney people. We got some super discounts to stay in some of the hotels both there and in Orlando but… no thanks.

    762 chars

  58. basset said on January 11, 2015 at 7:30 pm

    We went to Santa Claus Land a few times, always a day trip though.

    66 chars

  59. brian stouder said on January 11, 2015 at 9:01 pm

    The Santa Claus water park was just up the road from the Little Pigeon Primitive Baptist Church, and the Lincoln Boyhood Home national historic site – but the water park was closed, as it was in the fall.

    I figure I can talk the youngfolks into a return, when Santa Claus is open – and then dragoon them over to see the (really quite good) displays and so on, at Lincoln City/Gentryville

    390 chars

  60. Deborah said on January 11, 2015 at 9:36 pm

    Brian, you are such a good dad, it blows my mind.

    49 chars