There's Just No Gettin' Around It...Dinosaurs Are COOL!

Cool...but I'm still glad they're gone.

It's unlikely that international visitors to Western Canada would miss an opportunity to visit what is likely the Mecca of the dinosaur world; the Royal Tyrrell Museum. We first visited the museum in 1986 shortly after it opened. Back then it wasn't “Royal” yet, but it was still very impressive. Since we wanted to give the museum a chance to a add something new before we visited again, we hung on for about 30 years until we went back for another look, Sure enough, it was MUCH better this time, and worthy of the addition of the Royal appellation to the name.

The Royal Tyrrell Museum nestled in the badlands of Southern Alberta.

Travelers that find themselves anywhere in the vicinity of the town of Drumheller in the "badlands" of Southern Alberta would find it well worth their time to keep about 3 or 4 hours free for a trip back in time...way back. Admission is only $18 for adults, which would barely get you a burger and fries in a sit-down restaurant these days, and I guarantee you'll remember your day at Tyrrell long after you've forgotten a good burger.

Dramatic diorama-style staging of the first gallery gets you in the mood to learn more about this prehistoric world.

The museum features ten galleries, and the first (Cretaceous Alberta) is brilliantly executed in a way that sets the stage and builds anticipation for the rest of your exploration of the 121,000 square feet of spectacular displays. It features an up close and personal meeting with our very own local cousin of the T. Rex, the enormous top-of-the-food chain predator; Albertosaurus.

  In Cretaceous Alberta "objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear..."

After you leave the “you are there” realism of the first gallery, we visit a well presented historical retrospective of the museum's development and the astounding and significant finds from the region.

One of the most important T. Rex skeletons ever found.

While there are some special exhibits (like the T. Rex shown above) that will change from time to time, there will be a similar gallery to gallery flow for future visitors. That flow is not random, and the thoughtful arrangement adds to the pleasure of exploring the museum.

Truly impressive Triceratops skull.

We next get a look into the working “Preparations Lab” where you can see real work being done on the remains of these long dead creatures. If you've ever imagined yourself on your knees in the field as an archaeologist, scraping at an exposed dinosaur leg bone and then brushing away the sand with a fine paintbrush, the preparations lab will give you a look at how it really happens.

The Preparations Lab, where the real work takes place.

The next gallery, the “Lords of the Land” is in some ways the most beautiful and moving of them all. Here dinosaur bones are raised to the level of art, and are presented as such. This dark and beautiful room presents the displays as if they were sculptures or paintings, sometimes complete with frames. Here you will see a graceful and beautiful Velociraptor that is literally “put up on a pedestal,” and while beautiful, you'll be glad that nobody has actually cloned them back to life as explored in “Jurassic Park.” (A nice creature to visit, but I wouldn't want them to live here.)

The beautifully displayed remains of Velociraptor are raised to the level of art.

The gallery's centerpiece is J.B. Tyrrell's initial big find, the Albertosaurus, and the gorgeous “Black Beauty,” a rare black colored skull of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. (Note to geneticists: If you ever really do develop the ability to re-introduce these things...DON'T!)

Tyrrell's "big" find - Albertosaurus.

Heading up the ramp to the second level, we move on to the “Burgess Shale” where we see an ingenious “all around you” depiction of the bizarre and almost alien creatures that lived in the area of the Canadian Rocky Mountains more than 500 million years ago. While generally fist-sized in their real lives, here we see them as many times that size in order to let us feel as if we are swimming among them in an ancient otherworldly sea. Even the floor is glass so we see the animals below us as if we were floating in the water above them.

The bizarre creatures of the "Burgess Shale" gallery. Hmm...maybe with a little garlic butter?

A wonderful surprise to us was the small but beautifully crafted “Devonian Reef.” More a display than a gallery, it offers us a look at the underwater world of the Devonian period when the badlands of today were covered by an enormous tropical sea. Using a “dry for wet” technique, we get the benefit of seeing a most realistic presentation without any of the peskiness of having to deal with any actual water.

The "Devonian Reef" display is a realistic underwater scene.

Scuba divers will note that the changes in the creatures that inhabit our world's reefs over the eons have been much less dramatic than those on land. They will also note that the museum did a good job of depicting what the surface of the ocean looks like when you're below it.

Prehistoric calamari.

Small, but important, the "Terrestrial Paleozoic" gallery then takes you “...through over 200 million years in ten paces.” Covering the period during which life was moving out of the ocean and onto dry land, this part of Earth's past boasted dragonflies the size of actual dragons. (Well, not quite, but their wingspans were more than 2 feet).

A dragonfly the size of an eagle.

Here a happy childhood memory was crushed when I learned that one of my favorite dinosaurs, the sail-backed Dimetrodon wasn't even really a dinosaur at all, but a “mammal-like reptile.” However, without this guy, we might not have our dogs and cats today, as Dimetrodon and his like gave rise to modern mammals. I wonder if it barked?

Dimetrodon's "sail" may have been for body temperature regulation - a combination solar panel & radiator.

The next gallery, “Triassic Giant” offers the museum visitor a unique opportunity to walk around the remains of a truly enormous sea creature from our past, an Ichthyosaur (properly known as “Shonisaurus Sikanniensis”). Measuring 69 feet (21 meters) in length, the portion of the fossilized remains that were recovered are laid out on the floor atop a painted black outline of the original size and shape of the living creature.

This is how the "Triassic Giant" looked when it was still swimming around.

This is the largest known marine reptile to have existed, and like the baleen whales of today, was a filter feeder. There is something about this cleverly designed room that underscores the true sense of scale when viewing this fossil that other galleries and displays do not. Despite its apparent simplicity it was a most memorable part of our visit.

The gallery provides a real sense of scale for the viewer.

Easily missed near the exit to the “Triassic Giant” gallery is the entrance to a beautiful and restful tour through the “Cretaceous Garden.” A greenhouse of sorts, the garden features what is billed as “Canada's largest collection of prehistoric plant relatives.” This provides the viewer with an opportunity to imagine the desert-like landscape that surrounds the museum today as the lush, tropical, shallow sea and marshland that existed when the fossils showcased at Tyrrell lived and breathed. Even the pest control is all natural here, employing toads, salamanders, and ladybugs instead of ten-syllable chemicals. Don't miss this warm and humid walk through the past, especially if you're visiting during a cold time of year.

A "relative" of a prehistoric flower.

The spectacular "Dinosaur Hall" is still...well....spectacular, and in some ways remains the central display area of the museum. The Hall lets the visitor place him or herself into the world of the dinosaur, at least for a while, and I'm glad that we never really co-existed, Hollywood “evidence” notwithstanding.

A "before and after" style display is common in the Dinosaur Hall.

The feel of the room is starting to show its age, and it now has a nostalgic vibe that hearkens back to our childhood schoolroom ideas about what dinosaurs were all about. Back then, we kids stood on firm ground with what we “knew” about them (like my Dimetrodon) and nobody could have shaken us from our confidence that there really was such a thing as a “Brontosaurus.” I was heartbroken when we were later told that it was really just an Apatosaurus all along. But hold on! Paleontologists have recently decided that our beloved childhood swamp-plant-muncher really was a distinct creature after all. Yay Brontosaurus! (I know how Pluto must have felt when it got demoted to “dwarf-planet” status...but I think they really prefer to be called “little-planets” these days. Maybe it will make a comeback as a real planet too).

The guest can study these specimens very closely.

Nestled in the center of Dinosaur Hall is the dark and beautiful “Marine Hall.” In this gallery, the skeletons of enormous sea creatures cavort and swirl around us and overhead in a display that cleverly gives a sense of being undersea and at the very center of the action. Sort of like what a diver feels in a swirling mass of reef fish, but if the fish were all twenty feet long and had teeth like crocodiles.

"We need a bigger boat..."

Now we had back toward the present day as we enter the “Ice Age.” Here, despite the Arctic setting, the creatures are more familiar, looking more like alternate reality versions of elephants, bison, and cougars. Familiar or not, I'm glad that it's a deer that we risk hitting on the highway these days instead of a ten foot tall, 8 ton, woolly mammoth.

If those cats pull this off...they'll eat like kings!

Our final stop before returning to the present is “Mammal Hall.” While mammals actually developed right alongside dinosaurs, they were mostly small creatures (and really scared...ALL the time) until dinosaurs met their still somewhat mysterious demise. With the ecological niche cleared by the absence of all those twenty-five foot tall meat eating monsters, mammals had a chance to get bigger...much bigger. Our own early ancestors were probably pretty happy to have access to a herd of slow, docile, plant eaters from which they could obtain a decent steak.

I'm bettin' there'd be a few good roasts on that guy...just sayin'...

Finally, inevitably, we complete our journey through the incredible history of our planet in the time honored fashion that has itself been passed down through the ages as we “exit through the gift shop.” If you can't find an appealing souvenir widget or thing-a-ma-bob in here to put on your desk or hang from your rear-view mirror, it's really your own fault. Beware those of you that bring small children. This place is chock-a-block with plastic toy dinosaurs of every shape, size, and type, so make sure you have plenty of room on your credit card. As for me...hmmm...I like those speckled blue “Tyrrell Logo” bistro style coffee mugs...and we really ought to have some little memento...”Vicky!...Honey!...What do you you think of these?...”


Fox & Vicky

The Happiest Place On Earth Turns 60

Happy Diamond Anniversary Disneyland!

It's early evening on July 17th, 2015. Vicky and I have just arrived at Disneyland. There's a celebratory atmosphere as we approach the turnstiles, our tickets in hand. We're both just vibrating with excitement, and I can't help but imagine how Walt Disney must have felt on opening day exactly 60 years ago. I'm sure he was excited with the hope that the embodiment of his dream would be a success. We're excited because we know that it was. Once admitted we walk towards one of the entrance tunnels that pass beneath the railroad tracks. Looking up, I see the brass plaque that states: "Here you leave today and enter the world of yesterday, tomorrow and fantasy". Vicky and I walk through the tunnel -- such an easy thing -- and yet the plaque speaks the truth, and the magic happens again this time...like every time. Suddenly, we are now somewhere entirely different than where we started. A different place, a better place, and arguably a different time as well. We have emerged into Disneyland, specifically turn of the century Main Street USA (I guess that's two turns of the century ago now). This feeling just never gets old, and it might even be getting better as our love of this Park grows and deepens with every passing year.

Walt really gambled it all on this untested new concept. Sure, there were other amusement parks, but there had never been anything quite like this. His park had a magic core. It was born in the mind of a film maker, and that made it subtly yet importantly different from any other amusement enterprise of the day. The tunnel that admits guests to the Park is a three dimensional transition or "fade" between two scenes of a living film that guests are a part of. It's difficult to say how much of this genius was consciously created, and how much was the result of the ingrained but subconscious film-maker's thought processes that formed the mental groundwork for Walt's WED Enterprises team. But either way, it shows up time and time again throughout Disneyland, and it's a critical component of why this all works so well. I was always afraid that if I started to really learn about the history of the Park, if I peeked behind the curtain of its creation, that the magic would all come crumbling down around me. Like Toto exposing the Wizard of OZ. But Walt's wizardry is made of sturdier stuff, and the more I learned, the better it all got. There is a layer of genius beneath every surface, and further study reveals yet another layer beneath that. The magic of Sorcerer Yensid runs deep.

Engine No.4 - The Ernest S. Marsh

Vicky and I wander into Town Square and are rewarded with a pleasant anti-shock to the senses. This place is tranquil, simple to understand, and clearly a place where your real life can't get at you. We feel an immediate sense of relief, and happiness settles over us like a blanket warm from the dryer. We've arrived a little late, and so we've had to plan our own festivities to celebrate the 60th birthday of the only Disney Park that Walt ever actually set foot in. We've decided to do honor to the Park by enjoying an "opening day" attraction. It just feels right to do something tonight that the very first visitors to the Park also did back on that hot summer day in '55. There are still plenty of opening day attractions left, though none have remained completely unchanged over the years. For our purposes we've selected the Disneyland Railroad as that most quintessentially "Walt" of them all. We climb the steps to the Main Street Station, and wait for the next steam engine to arrive. It turns out to be the "Ernest S. Marsh" or the No.4 engine. It wasn't really yet in service on opening day, but that in no way sullies the experience of taking the "Grand Circle Tour" via live steam around Walt Disney's Magic Kingdom. The conductor yells, "All aboaaarrrd!" and we take our seats for some old time magic, Walt style.

Main Street USA

It's been said that Walt Disney built Disneyland because he wanted one. I've been enjoying its wonders for 48 years now (since 1967) and the Park is woven into the fabric of my life. I feel very lucky, since Walt himself had only 11 years with his finest achievement. John Hench, one of the greats of Walt's early team, spoke often of the "architecture of reassurance" that the Park's design elements are meant to convey. Main Street USA is a fine example. While the persistent legend held that it was inspired by Walt's "hometown" main street of Marceline, Missouri (Walt was actually born In Chicago) it isn't really inspired by any main street anywhere. In fact it is actually a clever distillation of design elements that call to mind an idealized Victorian era street as we imagine it might have been. While the buildings themselves are constructed in diminishing scale, they are not all 5/8 scale as yet another persistent legend claimed. (This can be traced back to Art Linkletter's inaccurate statement during the opening day television broadcast that the entire Park was built at 5/8 scale. It's true that some things were, but only a few). The first floors of the Main Street buildings are all built approximately full scale, with second floors at 3/4 to 5/8, and third floors at approximately 1/2. This is a use of the film makers technique of “forced-perspective” which makes the buildings look taller than they actually are. But the undersized buildings do something else too. They produce in adult visitors an unconscious sense of having returned to a well known childhood locale. We have all felt this while re-visiting a childhood home when we notice that everything seems so much smaller than it did to us as children. We are of course simply bigger. This sensation then becomes tied to the feeling of having been to Disneyland before as children, whether we really had been there as children or not. The visitor is thus affected from the moment they enter the Park by all of these skillfully applied layers of nuance: the fade-like tunnel transition from “out there” to “in here”; the profound sense of time having slowed, or perhaps even reversed; the perfectly idealized environment of a simpler past life with horse drawn trolleys and gas streetlamps; the subconscious effect of the altered scale of the buildings which produces a child-like sense of wonder, safety, and of having come home. This is the architecture of reassurance of which John Hench speaks, and it is the true genius of the mind of Walt Disney.

Rancho del Zocalo

Sadly, tonight is not the night for an unhurried stroll down a quaint and calming Main Street USA to savor its design magic. It's Disneyland's 60th birthday, and the Park is packed beyond belief. Brilliant new nighttime entertainment offerings of parades and fireworks have drawn a multitude to the sidewalks and rendered them nearly impassable. No worries though...Vicky and I are veterans, and the Park can't really throw anything at us that we can't handle. Sticking to the axiom that Disneyland should be sipped and not guzzled, we remain on the train after our Grand Circle Tour, and let the chuff and hiss of the steam engine pull us away from the mob and around the tracks for just one more stop to the New Orleans Square station before we disembark. Our pace tonight will be an easy one as we continue our opening day quest and wander over to the Rancho del Zocalo for some much needed sustenance. Frontierland has ever had a part of Old Mexico in its DNA, and while the names have changed, the experience of a Mexican meal in Disney's Old West has only gotten better. This dining venue is simply stunning at night, and it's always a struggle to keep our hands off the cameras while we eat. It's delicious Tostada salads for us tonight, and we choose a table next to a stone wall that was almost certainly there those 21,915 days ago (give or take a few) when Walt was trying to figure out which of the 29 cameras were on him for the then unprecedented and trouble plagued ABC television special. Our night is going a little more smoothly than that as we relax after our meal. We're heading for big fun next...Elvis is here!

Nighttime magic at Disneyland didn't start right away. It took a suggestion from Tommy Walker to get the ball rolling for the nightly summertime Fantasy In The Sky fireworks display. It's hard to imagine a Disneyland without colorful fireworks exploding directly over the Castle (or seeming to – since most are really launched from far behind the castle and outside of the Park proper for safety) but the institution did not even begin until 1958. (As an aside, it's also impossible to imagine any major sporting event without the impetus of the 6 musical note anthem: “Da da da DUT da DUH – followed by “CHARGE!” - Yet indeed it was Tommy Walker himself that wrote this in 1946 for the University of Southern California Trojans). The reason for the fireworks was not entirely entertainment related though, and was actually part of a shrewd plan to keep Park guests there much later so that they would need to eat dinner in the Park. This is the kind of business that all enterprises should endeavor to engage in, because the payoff for the guest so vastly outweighs any revenues generated by the effort to increase the evening receipts at the Park restaurants. While the evening meal for the family and whatever it cost would be quickly forgotten by the Disneyland guests of the late '50s, the immeasurable wonder of seeing fireworks erupt over the fairy-tale towers of Sleeping Beauty Castle would be engraved in their minds as a treasured memory for life. In the end, all we own are our experiences, and this one has become a cultural touchstone that defies the affixing of a price.

We ignore the fireworks tonight (since they're not an “opening day” thing anyway) and take the less traveled “Big Thunder Trail” to avoid the crowds on our way around to Tomorrowland. We pause on the bridge overlooking the lake that was once part of the “Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland.” Some real nature has moved in, and we see good sized turtles, bright orange Koi fish, and crawdads so big they look like lobsters. Carrying on to the land of the future, we stake out our place in front of the stage at the Tomorrowland Terrace to await the arrival of Elvis and his rock-a-billy band. “Elvis” in this case is the gifted impersonator Scot Bruce. We've seen him before, and he's so good that it's difficult after the show to shake the feeling that you were actually ten feet away from Elvis Presley himself. Now I have to apply a healthy dose of opening day double-think. While the details of the setting might be all wrong, the vibe is all right. This Tomorrowland venue and its immediate surroundings didn't come to be until 1967, but that was the year of my first visit, so that's cool. And while Elvis didn't really play Disneyland on opening day, he could have, so I let the odd mix of nostalgia wash over me as the stage rises up smoothly from below ground. Scot takes the microphone, calling on the Spirit of Walt and drawing our attention to the wonders of what might be the greatest monument ever built to a man. The people gathered near the stage aren't run of the mill Disneyland fans. They're pretty much all “foamers” like us, and there's hardly a dry eye in the house...he's got us all by the heart now. Then Scot launches into his “Tribute To The King Of Rock-N-Roll” and it feels like the birthday party has just really started. During his show is when it happens. I'm holding Vicky, and Elvis/Scot is singing “Can't Help Falling In Love” (Yeah I know – released in '61 – shhhh...don't spoil it!) I can never predict it, and it always arrives without warning like a happy sledgehammer...a moment of pure joy. They are rare, and brief, but you'll know one when you get one. A moment of pure joy is one so perfect, so happy, that you could freeze it and live in it forever and ever, but you can't freeze it, and then it's gone. They make life worth living, and I cherish every one I get. Thanks Vicky...Thanks Scot...Thanks Walt.

"Elvis"

If Disneyland itself has a heart beating in its chest, then surely it's located in Fantasyland. The iconic Castle is the “wienie” (Walt's term for a visual enticement, drawn from an animal trainer's use of a hot dog as an incentive) that beckons all that enter Disneyland toward the home of some of the Park's most beloved and long lived attractions. Here Peter Pan and Wendy fly forever over the streets of London, Snow White is saved by the Dwarfs time and again, and Mr. Toad drives wildly to his humorously macabre end in Hell. Here we see the closest links between Walt's animation heritage, and the genesis of the Park. Though all these attractions were there on opening day, they have seen changes over the decades. None however have lost the simple magic that delighted those first guests 60 years ago. Peter Pan especially maintains his position as the patriarch of the “dark ride” family, as new Park guests still gasp even today at the giddy sense of flight aboard a pirate ship sailing the night skies. What wasn't there on opening day was the fairy-tale architectural perfection of the village buildings that surround the King Arthur Carrousel today. Money ran out, and concessions were made, leaving the original Fantasyland structures to make their debut wearing flat and uninspired Medieval “tournament tent” facades. It wasn't until 1983 that Disney Imagineers bit the bullet and leveled the whole area, so that it could be reborn as it was “meant” to be. (What would Walt want? I'm sure this question still lurks in the minds of every Imagineer today, and even Tony Baxter was said to have asked himself; “What have we done?” when he surveyed the demolition of the original Fantasyland. Not to worry Tony...you did the right thing). The continuing popularity of these attractions is owed to the clever avoidance of any effort to simply retell the story of a beloved animated film. Instead, each attraction succeeds in evoking a specific feeling in the guest. With Peter Pan, it's the wonder of flight, with Snow White it's fear, and with Mr. Toad it's wild abandon. While the attraction designers never quite pulled off their original intention of placing the guests themselves in the role of Peter, or Snow, or Toad, it didn't matter in the end. The feelings they intended us to have are still there today. The guests of Disneyland are not passive observers, but are a living part of the show, on levels within levels.

Fantasyland

And so it is with a kind of unconscious drifting, nudged by forces both unseen and unfelt, that Vicky and I find ourselves crossing the drawbridge and entering Fastasyland via the one-true-way of passing through the Castle itself. I don't need to waste a moment of thought on it; I know in my heart that this is the only place to be right now as midnight of the Park's 60th birthday approaches. We'd hoped to catch a flight with Peter and Wendy, but the recent refurbishment has driven typically long lines for this attraction to lengths I've never seen before, and I was here on July 4th during the 50th. Every cloud has a silver lining though, and since Peter is getting all the love tonight, it's looking like Snow White is a “walk-on.” We enter the beautiful building and I'm filled with a sense of confidence that Walt is smiling somewhere. The feeling of anticipation has never dulled for me, and it's still here tonight as we board our ore cart and glide through the scenes. The Dwarf's mine remains a favorite, and I wonder jokingly if this is where they got all the diamonds for the 60th. Leaving Snow White, Pinocchio is next with no wait to speak of there either. While he's a relative newcomer, it's still a pretty good attraction, and I never tire of the fireworks or seeing the Blue Fairy vanish. The happy ending is a nice touch too, since it's really the only dark ride that has a proper one. As we say goodnight to Figaro and Cleo, there's a decision to be made. We could make it into the Mr. Toad line before 12:00, but that would mean it's the last ride of the night, and I hate to finish such a magical evening with a trip to Hell. I know what to do. If Fantasyland is the heart of the Park, then the King Arthur Carrousel is the warm, glowing, heart of Fantasyland. The Carrousel is still loading, and there's nobody in the queue at all. We hurry over, hoping to make it on since it might be our last chance. The cast member closes the gate in front of us, and I feel hope slip away. He says, "I'll get you on the next one; it's the last ride of the night...will that be OK?” OK?? It will be PERFECT! I let him know that Vicky is angling for Jingles, and he gives me the “nod” of understanding. When our turn to load comes, he opens the gate for us and Vicky walks quickly to the left where she knows Jingles will be waiting for her. She climbs into the gleaming saddle of Walt's favorite horse, and I take my place on my own galloping steed beside her. The music starts, the horses surge forward, and I think fondly of my Grandfather and his lifelong love of carrousels. Our horses glide smoothly up and down, side by side as the glimmering nighttime village of Fantasyland whirls around us. 60 years...the last ride of the night...spinning on the heart of the heart of Walt's labor of love..what could be better...?

Jingles

Visiting Disneyland is a skill. I don't think I'm being overconfident when I say that Vicky and I are pretty good at it these days. Like any skill, it took a great deal of practice and a bunch of mistakes to get it “right.” (Right for us that is). It started with childhood visits during which my parents called the shots, but they gave me a groundwork of familiarity to build on. When Vicky and I first started coming on our own, the visits were brief by necessity, and so we attacked the Park with military precision and planning. Armed with detailed touring plans, and an alarm clock set for 5:00 AM, we'd be right at the front of the “rope drop” mob ready to bolt (by which I mean to walk calmly and safely) to the latest hot attraction. Then, following our touring plans, we'd beetle from place to place so as to maximize the number of attractions we could experience before the crowds drove us out. Wasting time on things like eating and bathroom breaks was highly frowned upon. What mattered was the “list” and crossing things off of it. We'd take an afternoon break, and then start our touring plan again as the heat and overtired kids drove the mobs back out in the late afternoon. Oh, we'd get it ALL done in three days, and the good stuff more than once, but the pace was grueling even back then, and we were just kids ourselves. I had it all wrong. The word I had missed out on was “Park” (I've been spelling it with a capital “P” all along for a reason). Disneyland is one of the most beautiful places on the planet. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find a more concentrated patch of “beautiful” anywhere. It is also one of the most photographed locations on Earth, and for good reason. Even at today's sky-high ticket prices, you would have your money's worth if you experienced not a single attraction, but instead simply spent the day there enjoying the lush and detailed surroundings. This is what I was missing. Every square inch is soaked in the beauty of achievement. Whether it's the living legacy of Bill Evans' gardens and landscaping, or the architectural genius that lets me move from the Old West of the late 1800's to the Jungles of Africa or Asia with only twenty steps, it's an honor to just BE there. We won't go for less than two weeks anymore, and it's this luxury of a casual pace, mixed with experience, and a growing knowledge of the Park's history, that makes each perfect minute melt into the next with no sense of pressure or obligation. Now there is only happiness, in what is truthfully, the Happiest Place On Earth.

Fantasy Faire

It's after midnight now as we cross the drawbridge again, and that means it's time for a “photo-safari.” Nighttime at Disneyland has a special beauty, and thanks to the advances in cameras of late, we can finally do it justice. Vicky and I head out to the hub, and as usual we're overwhelmed by the options. The Castle is resplendent in its diamond birthday suit, but there's still a throng of people out front taking pictures of it with their phones...sigh. We decide to go over and work the now vacant Fantasy-Faire. It's not long before the ubiquitous but patient security guys make their appearance. They're used to this last minute effort to capture the park sans guests and we chat amiably with them while we compose and shoot. Now, working our way out, we hunt for more subjects. This last hour is a magic time for the camera buffs. All but the sturdiest have fled, leaving only islands of color and light for us to try to freeze for later enjoyment. Soon every entrance to every land is occupied by security, and all that's left to us is Main Street. The parade and fireworks mobs are long gone. The stores are still doing a booming trade though, as the demand for 60th souvenirs seems bottomless. The gingerbread roof-lines are all sparkling with the golden glow of popcorn lights, and there's an older couple still sitting close together on the bench of “Rolly's” porch, savoring a moment of solace at the end of the day. We stop in at the Cinema, and catch a black-and-white Mickey cartoon for old time's sake. The Cinema too is an opening day attraction, and it feels like a nice way to cap the evening. It's nearly 1:00 AM now, and our way is steadily toward the tunnels. We drift toward the one on our right. That way we pass a little closer to Walt's apartment, the lamp in the window lit to let everyone know that he's “there” tonight, as tradition dictates. With a twinge of pain that I don't think will ever stop, we find ourselves passing again through that transition, but this time from “in there” to “out here.” In there is better. I console myself with the thought that it's only the first day. I turn to Vicky and ask with enthusiasm, “Hey, do you know what we're doin' tomorrow?” Vicky lowers her brow and restrains a knowing smirk as she replies; “What?” and I explode with the answer she already knows is coming; “We're going to DISNEYLAND!”

Goodnight Disneyland!

Fox and Vicky

How I Got The Best Travel Computer EVER & Found True Happiness

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have a very specific set of needs for a computer when I travel, and they're best served by a small, proper PC, that I can use in the hotel room for about 30 minutes per day. Years ago I hauled around a full sized laptop and I hated it, so I was thrilled to hear about the pint-sized "netbooks" (miniature laptops with limited features that were introduced in about 2007) and I finally got my first one in 2009.

My 10.1" Acer Netbook

I bought an ACER netbook that perfectly suited my needs. Though slower than my laptop, it offered the right features, ran my beloved Windows XP operating system (OS), and was insanely small and light compared to my laptop. It had a beautiful screen, a very small travel charger, a nice keyboard, 3 USB ports, and separate microphone and headphone jacks. Oh...and it was red...which was cool. Sigh...finally, my perfect travel computer.

Remember when mobile devices had keyboards?

Of course it lasted all of three months before it died. (Yeah, I know what you're thinking. "Acer" is Korean for "junk cobbled together from 3rd party suppliers"). Undaunted, I replaced it, but with an Asus brand netbook that was not nearly as nice, but that had the benefit of actually working (for six years so far, and it's still going strong). The Asus also ran Windows XP, and that was what eventually became a problem...

I was horrified when Microsoft yanked all support for XP and I really tried to tough it out despite the dearth of security updates, but eventually my computer started acting weirder than I cared for and I had to face facts. I was thus ultimately forced to deal with replacing all my computers, and this gave me the perfect opportunity to attempt to resurrect my dream travel computer: the long dead Acer.

Now before we get into this, I can guess what you want to ask: Why didn't I just go out and buy a modern miniature laptop, and be done with it? Why go through all the incredible hassle and expense to resurrect a dead antique netbook?

Well for one thing, I really hate to lose, and the dead but otherwise perfect Acer netbook had been galling me for five years...and oh yeah... also because of happiness. Happiness you ask? What does that have to do with smashing your head against a wall and spending 200 bucks to bring a dead vintage netbook back to life?

Well, it's very simple: Happiness comes from being in a state of “Flow.”

To make a great book short, the author Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced: chick-SENT-me-high) wrote a scholarly assessment of where exactly it is that happiness comes from, and it comes from “flow.” (See this link for his book "Finding Flow" which I highly recommend). ”Flow” is his term for the condition of being fully engaged with an activity that presents a challenge. After decades of research to determine what it is that people do that produces lasting happiness, he discovered the following: First he found that people were almost universally happy while eating, having sex, and watching movies. No surprises there, but those are all comparatively fleeting activities in the grand scheme of things and tough to keep up all day every day. So other than the “Big Three”, what made for lasting happiness? What he found was that lasting happiness resulted from facing a significant challenge with a level of skill well matched to that challenge, and then receiving feedback regarding one's success. This challenge did not have to take the form of a paid occupation or job, but he found that for many it often did. That is to say that the only thing in the lives of many people that gave them any kind of regular dose of the “happiness triangle" of "challenge-skill-feedback" was their occupation. This was ironic, because most people think that if they could only win the lottery and quit their jobs, they'd be happy. (This is unlikely, because there is no challenge at all in being rich and doing nothing).

Even though it's often an occupation that brings the only real lasting source of happiness into people's lives, it could also be a hobby, like painting or photography, or maybe even rock climbing. As long as the challenge and skill are well matched. (If it's too easy, it's not satisfying, and if it's too hard, it's stress inducing). To be in a "state of flow" (fully engaged in a task that is being met with just the right level of skill - what sports-people often refer to as being "in the zone") is where real lasting happiness comes from. Finally, there needs to be some sort of feedback as a measure of success. Perhaps the painter sells a painting at a craft fair, the photographer gets online kudos from posting pics to a blog, the rock climber makes it to the top of a challenging cliff, and even the worker at his job might get a raise, or at least a pat on the back. The glow you carry with you from these accomplishments is with you every minute of every day. True lasting happiness.

So the long answer to the short question is: I chose to rebuild the antique netbook because it was more challenging than buying a new one, and would therefore make me happy...and it worked! I had more fun than a barrel of monkeys, even though (really because) it was at the very limits of my abilities. I'm no computer guy, and it took everything I had to pull this off.

So the next time you're unhappy, and looking for a lasting cure, look around for a real challenge. The happiness is right there, just waiting for you to come and get it.

WARNING! - Read on for the picky details of the netbook resurrection project ONLY if you meet one of the following conditions:

A) You REALLY love computers.
or
B) You are an insomniac in need of a powerful sleep aid.

Still here? OK then. I started the netbook rebuild from the assumption that the netbook was dead as the result of a bum hard drive (Hitachi 160GB 5400 RPM SATA II that had been killed -- like so many other electronics -- by the conditions in Mexico. This stuff was just never meant to work at 95% humidity). So I decided that I'd be best served by first replacing it with a solid state drive (SSD) and I chose the Samsung 840EVO 120GB. At the time I was unaware of the algorithm problem with this drive that produced very low read speeds on older data, but fortunately the firmware revision fix was issued by Samsung (download here) right about the same time that I bought the drive and all ended well. (It looks like the Samsung 850 Pro may have overcome these concerns, and it would be my new choice if I had it all to do over again).

Second, I needed to decide on an OS, and it seemed that Windows 7 Pro was the obvious choice. I knew that this netbook (called an Aspire One but more properly the Acer NAV50) had been available with Windows 7 Starter 32bit (despite my preference at the time for XP) so I set out to locate a copy of Windows 7 Pro 32 bit, reasoning that it would be likely to work and that the drivers for it would still be available on the Acer website. It turned out that finding a legitimate clean copy of the OS was not easy, and so I turned to my friend Trevor at Qwerty Computers for help. He directed me to techverse for a clean ISO file download, but asked why I wanted to go with the 32 bit version. It seemed obvious to me, since the netbook had never been sold with a 64 bit OS, but he convinced me to aim high and try to install Windows 7 Pro 64 bit, and damned if it didn't work! Now I was looking at a super clean (bloatware free) install of Windows 7 Pro 64 bit on a screaming fast SSD. So far so good.

I jumped through some crazy hoops to create a bootable USB flash drive from which to install the OS, since I knew that if I ever had a catastrophic failure while travelling, I could (if necessary) exercise the “nuclear option” and re-install the OS from scratch, and then restore the SSD from a system image file on my travel external backup HD, and I'd be back in action. Then I tracked down a 2GB stick of RAM to double the available memory (sadly 2 GB is the limit here) and I was ready to start updating the OS, and installing software. I was stymied by the fact that there were no 64 bit drivers available from Acer for this machine, so I crossed my fingers and hoped that Windows would come to the rescue. Say what you will about Microsoft, their stuff works, and sure enough, every single driver that mattered to me came down the pipe with the 120 or so Windows 7 Pro updates that I needed to install. (Note: If you are running Windows 7 of any type, be sure to take advantage of some very useful fallout from Windows 8.1, and install the Disk Cleanup Wizard add-on that is now available. This update allows you to remove all the superseded (and useless) updates that have piled up on your SP1 version Windows 7. Dramatic speed improvements will be the norm after you install and run it).

Next I installed the single most important piece of 3rd party software in existence (in my humble opinion) -- the truly awesome “Classic Shell.” Classic Shell overcomes pretty much every mistake that Microsoft has made in “improving” the interface of their post-XP offerings, and in short order I had 7 Pro looking and acting like Windows 2000 Pro (maybe the best Windows OS ever). Then after a failed flirtation with installing Chrome 64 bit as a browser (it does not yet work with Google Talk, which is indispensable to me on the road) I went back to Chrome 32 bit. Top of the line anti-virus, and anti-malware software were next, followed by a string of tests and performance tweaks to wring every single ounce of speed out of the venerable architecture that I had to work with. I minimized the start-up items, disabled services by the dozen, and reduced graphics intensive features to zero. I also installed and enabled the incredible Rapid Mode software from Samsung that produces sequential read speeds in excess of 440 MB/s, and set up an 11GB “over-provisioning” partition on the SSD. Then there were the registry hacks to increase the available resolution of the monitor, and disable the super-fetch and prefetch features as required for SSDs. I also enabled “click to play” in Chrome, which cuts down dramatically on graphics-heavy ad material. This is to say nothing of disabling system restore and the defragmentation function (both SSD issues). In the end the machine sports a 25 second boot to desktop time.

Finally, I swapped out the enormous and heavy 9 cell battery and replaced it with a new slim and lightweight 3 cell battery. This provides more than enough power for my needs, especially with the vastly decreased power needs of the moving-parts-free solid state drive, and dropped the final weight of the netbook to about two pounds. Final outside dimensions are 10” x 7” x 0.8” making it one of the smallest “notebooks” available.

I should mention here that I saw someone using what I thought was the world's smallest notebook computer one day at a Starbucks. I had to ask what it was, and it turned out to actually be an iPad mini wearing a Zagg keyboard. If I didn't prefer PCs over Apple products as much as I do, I would have seriously considered this option. (On a side note, I think that tablets have ultimately failed as an exercise in computer design. I see so many aftermarket products designed to let the tablet user replace the missing keyboard and case, and thus end up with what is really just an expensive homemade netbook).

So let's get to the bottom line here and determine what really constitutes the BEST travel computer. I was discussing this whole project with a friend, and I pronounced my hot-rodded vintage netbook the ultimate travel computer. He said that I was wrong, and that the Microsoft Surface Pro 3 was better. I looked into it, and he was right. It's a LOT better, but in its fullest “racecar” configuration, it's also about $2200. So I still give my old Acer the win on travel-computing-muscle-per-dollar, and as a bonus, it came with a heaping helping of happiness.

Fox & Vicky

Save-A-Trip Kit: Tool Time

It's time we added some more items to your Save-A-Trip kit. Vicky and I pack some very basic tools with us on every trip, and this has paid off time and again. Here are the travel tools that we've found to be most useful. They take up almost no space at all but still manage to cover nearly every need that's come up while travelling. Most can be bought at your local dollar store if you want to avoid the big brand name versions and save a bunch of money.

What they're packin'

Let's go through them and see what we've got. First is the ubiquitous "Multi-Tool". You'll find a link to the best known version here, but mine was only a buck and does the job. It features pliers (I prefer the more useful "needle nose" variety) wrenches, knife, saw, ruler, all manner of screwdriver attachments, bottle opener, and an old-style can-opener. (This last item is a must-have, so look for that on the version you choose). I add a sturdy pair of tweezers and a very fine jeweler's type screwdriver for completeness.

Next is the "Swiss-Card" tool kit. (OK, this one is the real deal, but inexpensive knockoffs are readily available). It covers a range of very fine tools like delicate tweezers and scissors, a pin for removing slivers, a file, a toothpick, and even a very tiny ballpoint pen. It fits easily inside a wallet and is about the size of a fat credit card.

Then we have our Sommelier-style corkscrew (with bottle opener, and cap cutter). I know this might be overkill, and there are likely smaller options, but we open LOTS of wine, so the smooth and easy operation of this type of corkscrew is worth it, and it was also only a buck.

Lastly (and perhaps another little extravagance) is my beloved "Pocket Ulu" knife. (If you visit Alaska and leave without an Ulu knife of some kind, you did it wrong). It's small enough for fine cutting jobs, yet extremely sturdy, and strong enough for very heavy cutting jobs. I've even used it as a steak knife, or to slice some hard cheese in the hotel room to go with all that wine we opened earlier with our Sommelier corkscrew.

How they pack

Like all the other save-a-trip items we've covered so far, the range of potential uses for these tools far exceeds those they were originally intended for, and is limited only by your imagination and immediate needs. More importantly, they bear the precious gift of time, by allowing you to solve a travel problem quickly and without unduly cutting into your vacation experience.

Remember: "Good trips happen before you leave."


Fox & Vicky

Why Do My Fireworks Pictures Look So Crappy?

If you've ever been at a major fireworks display, perhaps on the 4th of July, or any night at Disneyland, you've probably been surrounded by hopeful tourists snapping away with their cameras. Many might even have the flash turned on. (It's dark right? So I need the flash...right? Ummm...wrong). These people are all doomed to fail in their efforts to capture pictures of fireworks that will do them any kind of justice, and they'll usually end up with something that looks like this:

Not What You Were Hoping For

Part of this is a failure to understand just why fireworks look so great in person, but so lousy in point-and-shoot vacation snapshots. The rest is caused by a lack of attention to the "Two T's" of fireworks photography: Time and Tripod. With just a little attention to the details, you can expect to get something more like this:

That's more like it!

So what's the trick? At any given moment during a display, there may be several different fireworks exploding overhead, and those may also be in different phases of their explosion, some just started, some fully formed, and others fading out at the end of their few seconds of sparkling life.The important words here to the budding fireworks photographer are "few seconds".

A typical modern digital camera on its "automatic setting" might have a shutter speed of around 1/8th of a second when trying to shoot fireworks photos. That means that only what is happening during that 1/8th of a second is actually recorded in the photograph. So what you end up with is a disappointing few points of light, or a fuzzy white smudge, and never the sky filled with color that you seem be seeing as you watch. However, if the camera is set to keep the shutter open for 5, or 15, or even 60 seconds, then everything that happens during that time is recorded in the photo. A great deal happens in 15 seconds during a well timed professional fireworks display, and not surprisingly, a photo that records all of it in a single image can be pretty impressive. (The photo above was taken using a 6 second exposure).

As we wrote in an earlier post, it's in a situation like this that knowing some of the basic principles of photography really helps out. While it's difficult to give any specific instructions because of the huge variety of cameras out there, there are certainly a few general guidelines that will apply to most. If your camera has a "manual" setting, you'll want to use that, as it will give you complete control over the features that will ensure a great series of fireworks photos. If not, many cameras have a "fireworks" setting that will automatically set a slow shutter speed of several seconds, which is not a perfect solution but better than nothing.

Since we need to keep the shutter open for many seconds, we're going to need a tripod, either a real one or a makeshift tripod. (Sorry, there's just no getting around it). It's simply impossible to hand-hold the camera steadily enough for any shutter speed longer than about 1/4th of a second. The good news is that there are many practical options to solve this problem. There are traditional tripods that are extremely small and light, some even small enough to fit inside a backpack with ease.

Only 15 Inches Long & 24 Ounces In Weight

But these will still open up to almost the same size as a full-on "pro" tripod:

But perhaps more importantly, there is a range of tiny travel tripods that can be pressed into service by placing them on the ground, or on top of a nearby object like a trash bin or a fence post, and some that even have bendy, gripper legs, that can be wrapped around a handy pole or traffic sign. Vicky and I carry two of the little ones whenever we travel. (My favorite is the tiny, light, and very sturdy Q-Pod seen below on the right). In a pinch, the camera can simply be propped up on any acceptable surface and rested on something like a folded up jacket to steady and support it. Anything will do, as long as the camera doesn't move while the shutter is open to take a photo.

Tiny Travel Tripods (folded)

Open Q-Pod - Gives BIG performance

OK, the hard part is over. Now all we have to do is fine tune the amount of light that gets into the camera during the exposure. There are several ways to do this. With a long exposure time of this sort, we need to keep the ISO setting low. An ISO of 100 or 200 will do fine in most cases. (All cameras will allow you to control this). It's also wise to set your aperture as small as possible as well. (You might need a manual setting for this one). Both these things help to prevent your photo from being overexposed due to the very slow shutter speeds. An overexposed fireworks photo will rob the picture of its color, and everything might appear white. Most important by far though is setting the length of the time for the shutter to stay open. This depends a great deal on how "vigorous" the display is. A slow display may need 60 seconds, while a very rapid fire one may need only 3 or 4. The 4th Of July photo (below) needed a 60 second exposure because the firing rate of the show was very slow paced, while the faster paced Disneyland display (2nd photo below) took only 4 seconds to capture).

Slow Show! What you see recorded in this photo took 60 seconds to happen

Fast Show! This photo took only 4 seconds to capture.

This is where digital photography really pays off, since you can see the results of each attempt instantly, and then adjust the settings before the next one.

Lastly, we have to be sure not to move the camera at all when we release the shutter. This means (as with any tripod photography) that we can't actually push the shutter release button manually like we usually do. We'll either need to have a wireless shutter release, or simply use the timer that's already built into most cameras. The timer option is the easiest and least expensive, and all you'll need to do is choose the "2 second" option so that the shutter releases 2 seconds AFTER you push the button. This prevents the inevitable jiggle caused by touching the camera from being recorded as fuzziness on the final image.

Now that you're armed with the basics, you can prepare for your next night of fireworks and come home with pictures that do the show justice. Just take a little time to learn the basic controls on your camera, grab your tripod, and have fun!

Fox & Vicky

For God's Sake! You're On Vacation...Put Down Your Phone!

I'm sorry to admit that a computer has now actually become a necessary travel accessory for me, but it has. For my specific travel computing needs, a notebook type PC is perfect. That's kept me from being tempted to buy a tablet, and since I don't own a smart phone (and never will) I have been blissfully insulated from the horrifying level of distraction I see around me in fellow travelers. My years in Mexico made me the "frog in hot water" with regards to the widespread change in behavior that has come with smart phones. (If you haven't heard the analogy, it's said that if you drop a frog in hot water, it will jump right out to save itself, but if you put a frog in cold water, and then heat it slowly, it doesn't notice the dangerous increase in temperature, and just sits there until it's too late).

In the late 90's, cell phones were pretty much just phones, and I never got involved in their slow transformation into what are really just tiny tablet computers. In fact I worked in the cellular phone industry back then, and it was while I was at a seminar to roll out the new "data services" that I first saw the social apocalypse coming. A rabid presenter was urging the sales-troops to sell-Sell-SELL the expensive new data airtime packages on the reasoning that without them, the users wouldn't be able to keep up with work on their lunch hours, during their time at home, and while on vacation. I was wondering if I was the only person in the room that had recognized what an insane proposition that was, when I looked around me to see a room full of equally rabid cell-phone salesmen that were frothing at the mouth over the opportunity to make a killing while ruining pretty much everyone's lives. (I was living on a island in the Caribbean within a year of that nightmarish day).

Consequently, I was unnerved to see how much things had changed in my absence, with armies of zombie-like smart phone users roaming the streets, their eyes and thumbs firmly glued to the screen in front of them, and apparently oblivious to the real world. I felt like the only person left in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers that hadn't been taken over by the "pods" yet. It's bad enough to see it in my hometown, but on a recent cruise to Hawaii, I saw people (most people I might add) that were never "in the moment" of their travel experience for more than a few minutes at a stretch. Instead, they were single-mindedly focused on figuring out how to keep their electronic slave-drivers connected so they could obsessively check their Facebook accounts, or whatever it is they do with those things.

Your travel memories should look like this... 

Bear in mind, we're in Hawaii here, and it was no doubt the first visit for most of them, yet I'll wager that the thing they saw MOST of during their entire fifteen day cruise, was the screen of their smart phone. At the dinner table, during shows, during excursions, on the beach, in the lounges, at the movie theater...NEVER free. There's a pretty fine line between that sort of obsessive phone checking, and laying in your cabin in a heroin induced stupor. Both are addictive behaviors, and both rob the user of the real pleasures of the real world, uninterrupted by constant pointless distraction. (Indeed, there seems to be a real chemical dependency here related to dopamine production in the brain. See this link about the condition called "Nomophobia"). And if you're reading this and thinking that I'm the one with a screw loose, just try to leave your phone in the drawer for a whole day and see what happens. It's wireless heroin, and I weep for this generation.

Or like this...

Now I admit, there I was on the same cruise ship with my travel computer -- but -- I did what I needed to do in about a single 30 minute stretch late every night, and that was that! The rest of the time I was actually fully engaged with my surroundings, and in the moment.

But NOT like this!

I realize that trying to tell people to give up their smart phone mania is like trying to tell people to give up their cars and go back to the horse and buggy for a better way of life. It's not going to happen. But at least make the effort to moderate your behavior, and dial it back while you're dropping five grand to go on a cruise to a beautiful group of tropical islands in the Pacific. Set yourself a specific half an hour of time each day and then ruin it completely with your phone, the same way I do with my travel computer. Then the other 23 1/2 hours a day you'll be free from the evil little device, and you might actually remember a few sights that didn't include a smart phone screen.

Aloha!


Fox & Vicky