I mentioned when I left on vacation that I would possibly post photos from our secure, undisclosed location. So I'm trying to make good on that aspiration.
We've been enjoying the natural beauty. (Click to enlarge photos.)
I couldn't resist this last one. It's the best mailbox ever. If you don't know what's covering it, you've never had the pleasure of repairing or upgrading your computer. Or building it, I guess I should add. I've uploaded an even larger click-to-enlarge version of this photo (1024 x 768), to give you some of the detail.
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label travel. Show all posts
July 18, 2008
Report from the secure, undisclosed location
February 18, 2008
I'm back
Thanks very much to Soccer Dad for posting twice in my absence. Two very interesting posts, which you can read by scrolling down or clicking on the links.
I want to offer you greetings from the boys.
And one photo of an interesting flower in the dark.
January 05, 2008
B2 goes to Legoland
When my kids were younger, my wife and I managed to avoid taking them to the major kiddie sites, like Disney World. I think my kids were the only kids in the entire U.S. of A. that never went to Disney World. Because we were mean, mean parents. Although we did take them to Universal Studios once when we were in Los Angeles, but that's not nearly as bad as Disney World must be.
B2, on the other hand, is a nice parent. He took his kids to Legoland. If you're a long-time reader, you may remember that B2 was my guest blogger in July 2005, when I was away in Israel for a couple of weeks. (Click here and scroll down to July 23 to see his guest posts in reverse chronological order.) B2 is one of the bloggers at Toner Mishap -- which I've always thought is one of the great names for a blog -- although he doesn't post nearly enough, in my opinion.
Anyway, as I was saying when I so rudely interrupted myself, B2 went to Legoland and posted photos of the visit. You are definitely going to want to see the third set of them here. Once you get there, you can easily find the first two sets. But I would definitely focus on part 3.
December 17, 2007
Tourism of environmental destruction
If you are a rich liberal -- if you are a right-thinking sort with huge amounts of disposable income -- in short, if you are the classic New York Times demographic, you will naturally have to go to the right places on vacation.
But where? The Hamptons and Martha's Vineyard are fine, but they'll be there next year.
How about those locales that global warming is going to destroy? How about the threatened rain-forests? Now we're talking!DENNIS and STACIE WOODS, a married couple from Seattle, choose their vacation destinations based on what they fear is fated to destruction.
It's called "Eco-tourism," or, by the more cynical, the "Tourism of Doom."
This month it was a camping and kayaking trip around the Galápagos Islands. Last year, it was a stay at a remote lodge in the Amazon, and before that, an ascent of Mount Kilimanjaro.
“We wanted to see the islands this year,” Mr. Woods, a lawyer, said last week in a hotel lobby here, “because we figured they’re only going to get worse.”
The visit to the Amazon was “to try to see it in its natural state before it was turned into a cattle ranch or logged or burned to the ground,” Mr. Woods said. Kilimanjaro was about seeing the sunrise on the highest peak in Africa before the ice cap melts, as some forecasters say it will within the next dozen years.
Next on their list: the Arctic before the ice is gone.
And you will not be surprised to learn that those who want to explore sites threatened by global warming will be arriving in their less-than-carbon-friendly jets.Almost all these trips are marketed as environmentally aware and eco-sensitive — they are, after all, a grand tour of the devastating effects of global warming. But the travel industry, some environmentalists say, is preying on the frenzy. This kind of travel, they argue, is hardly green. It’s greedy, requiring airplanes and boats as well as new hotels.
Nor should you expect that these super-rich liberal travelers will be roughing it at their destinations. As the article notes about travel to the Amazon: "At hundreds of dollars or more a night, people do want hot water and other comforts."
However well intentioned, these trip takers may hasten the destruction of the very places they are trying to see. But the environmental debate is hardly settled. What is clear is that appealing to the human ego remains a terrific sales tool for almost any product.
As Jonah Goldberg wrote about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge several years ago, we have a romanticized view of what the wilderness is like. To paraphrase him, it's basically wilderness.
The same holds true for the eco-travelers mentioned in the Times article. One traveler, who spent $22,000 to go the North Pole on an icebreaker, expressed some surprise there still is ice there, after all we've heard about global warming. He agreed that our view of such regions is romanticized, and quipped: "And then there's the reality. It's cold. It's stark. Santa Claus wasn't waiting to greet us."
But for the eco-tourism businesses who get this demographic to pay those kinds of fees for the trips, Santa Claus is visiting every day.
November 21, 2007
Pre-Thanksgiving linkfest
Things I'm thankful for:
1. That mine don't itch (video).
2. That I've never had to do this while on TV (video).
3. That my wife doesn't have one of these blenders (also check out the video at the end).
Reposts from previous Thanksgivings:
1. PSA: Don't deep-fry your turkey. And you must, you absolutely must, click on the link where it says "Click here to download the movie." In fact, I've pasted it in here to make it easier for you.
2. A bunch of turkeys tried to get on a commuter train at Ramsey, New Jersey.
November 20, 2007
Flaunting it and groping it at the airports
Not long after I started Pillage Idiot, I wrote a series of posts on what I called "lawyer groping" at the airports. (Google it; I'm at the top.) A lawyer named Rhonda Gaynier had complained about having been subject to a bra-and-breast exam by TSA screeners at the airport. I concluded: "Brought to you by TSA, whose motto is: Better that 100 innocent lawyers be groped than that one suspicious Arab be inconvenienced."
It turned out that the groping was not limited to lawyers, or even to people who were mistaken for lawyers. In early 2006, a class action suit alleging illegal pat-downs and strip searches of black women at O'Hare International Airport was settled.
Today, we learn through HotAir, that if you're a Canadian newspaper columnist who's "a robust 34 FF," you might be subject to TSA screener groping, too. (Paula Simons: "If my bra is a threat to national security, we're in big trouble.")
Most people would agree that subjecting women who wear bras with underwire support to groping at the airport makes little sense. The TSA ought to be trying to figure out who's suspicious, not who's large-bosomed (which, I admit, is a lot easier). But as I argued in the first series of posts about Ms. Gaynier, we do stupid things precisely in order NOT to profile people. The lesson is that we need to change our approach to airport security through increased profiling and intelligent scrutiny of travelers.
Sadly, Paula Simons learns the wrong lesson. She says: "When we blindly follow rules, when we waste time and energy defending ourselves from imaginary enemies, we actually create the potential for real threats to overtake us." Like the imaginary enemies who flew jets into the World Trade Towers and Pentagon.
When someone is such a total fool, it's very hard to summon any sympathy. Grope away!
October 22, 2007
This airport code sucks
There are many reasons I despise Dulles International Airport, from the repellent Saarinen architecture to the distant satellite parking to the remote terminals requiring a ride in the cattle-movers to the long delays one inevitably encounters there.
But I've always been fond of the airport code, IAD, because it seemed like a bungled acronym for a birth-control device.
I guess Dulles should count its blessings. The folks in Sioux City, Iowa, have been stuck with the airport code SUX. Which Dulles really does, which makes it not at all fair that Sioux City should have to be stuck with the code.
But Sioux City has given up and decided to be a good sport about it. The city's airport site (flysux.com) even sells products like teeshirts that read "FLY SUX."
Apparently, one of the reasons Sioux City gave up was this:
Sioux City officials petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration to change the code in 1988 and 2002. At one point, the FAA offered the city five alternatives — GWU, GYO, GYT, SGV and GAY — but airport trustees turned them down.
GAY? Some bureaucrat obviously had a sense of humor. But I suspect the real reason Sioux City didn't take the code GAY is that Minneapolis put in a claim for it first.
Besides, I don't think the shirts would have sold so well.
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