I've taken a lot of photos of Beaker around the country, and some other folks have taken Beaker outside the country, even.
But Beaker's gotten big or at least gotten to be a hassle, so I haven't been taking Beaker much of anywhere for a while now.
I wonder, though, if I might not be looking at Beaker's replacement in the multicolored ModiBots.
They've be less weight to carry, more poseable than Beaker ever has been, more varied (coming in eight different colors with lots of different accessory sets), and small enough to throw into a pocket.
I might just get some of those printed for myself this year thanks to PHS's 3d printers.
In regards to my recent post about wanting to see the aurora borealis, and it turns out that the lights were visible in Aberdeen where I spent a year a couple of decades ago.
I hate Scotland for having the lights now instead of then.
I'm thinking I'd like to start visiting some of the best college basketball arenas in the country, maybe one a year, probably over Christmas break.
I'd rather get to them in the heart of conference season, maybe sit courtside during the big rivalry game, but that could be a bit cost and time prohibitive.
So, what are the best arenas in the country?
According to ESPN's Andy Katz...(arenas where I've already seen a game crossed off)
Kansas - Phog Allen Field House
Duke - Cameron Indoor Stadium
San Diego State - Viejas Arena
Louisville - KFC Yum! Center
Butler - Hinkle Fieldhouse
Indiana - Assembly Hall
New Mexico - The Pit
Gonzaga - The Kennel
Arizona - McKale Center
Kentucky - Rupp arena
According to Travel Channel (repeats from prior lists avoided)
Places I need to visit that are within a day trip length 'cause this year's vacation time looks to be pretty non-existant with The Girl in UC summer classes all summer.
Entertrainment Junction, West Chester, OH - This one's like ten minutes from my house, and I have a Groupon for entry for two before the end of June. I'm going to see this one for certain this summer.
Toy and Plastic Brick Museum, Bellaire, OH - It's a very unofficial Lego museum over on the far eastern edge of Ohio. I'm thinking I'm a gonna check it out this summer. I especially dig the downhome vibe because this museum is a total labor of love for one guy. I dig it, and I feel like supporting him. I just wish his online shop was actually up and running. Four hour drive away...hopefully it's a little more joyous than the building's outside looks to be.
Brazee Street Studios, Cincinnati, OH - There's a glass art studio here in town. Might as well check out the work over there 'cause I love glass artwork.
Kokomo Opalescent Glass, Kokomo, IN - One of the other master teachers with the ASM summer camps (material science stuff...I'll be in Houston in a week or so teaching their stuff) says this factory is a must to be seen. Kokomo's only three hours away from home for me.
What other places should I check out? My limit is about the four hours drive for the not-Lego museum.
I've been spending the past few weeks marveling at a Full Moon, a book that I'd pointed out in one of my Saturday lists of links a while back.
It's a book of reproductions of photos taken by the various Apollo astronauts on their journeys to and from the moon. It came to my attention because of one photo in particular that reminded a certain blogger of one of his favorite Watchmen moments, but the book is filled with outstanding photos as well as a phenomenal closing summary of some of the experiences of the astronauts who stepped onto the moon.
The first two thirds of the book, however, is wordless, filled with exquisite images from our time on - and around - the moon.
Wonderful, gorgeous book...
And it's from the author of 100 Suns, a photographic history of nuclear testing by the United States. Again, it's a nearly wordless tome with explanation only in the final pages.
If you're thinking about a trip around the Midwest, then I'm gonna suggest checking out MegaBus's website because there simply isn't a cheaper way to get around. Plus there's the whole benefit of sharing the ride to drop your environmental footprint in the process.
My only concern is the presence of some bad reviews on some of the sites that I found online. I do appreciate this review, however:
You will find a wide variety of reviews on here because Megabus is indeed an unabashedly mediocre service. The buses tend to be craptastic and one certainly must NOT depend on any sort of timely or friendly service.
The point is: you get what you pay for.
The reason I'm giving Megabus a full Three Stars is, for all of its drawbacks, the damned thing is simple and CHEAP!
To assist those who may be new to this, allow me to offer...
~~Chuck's Top Five Things to Know When Considering Megabus~~
1. Book Early, Book Online One of the recent reviews on here mentions how Megabus is actually comparable in price to Greyhound. This should not be the case.
Once again, the point is that this is a very inexpensive service. The earlier you book, the less expensive the tickets are. Literally. Book as far in advance as you can and you can even score a $1 rate!
**Special Note** You can ONLY book reservations online and in advance so don't even think about trying to show up and pay a bus driver. It simply does not work that way.
2. Temper Your Expectations Again, cheap rate = crappy service. If this isn't cool with you, don't use it. Come in with this in mind and you'll be fine.
3. Be Informed One of the ways that Megabus keeps its rates down is by picking up and dropping off near (but not at) many major transportation centers. This makes for very odd and nontraditional connection points (which are nearly always poorly marked with ambiguous signage - if any).
Be certain you check your reservation on the Megabus website as close to your trip as possible because sometimes these pickup and drop off points change and that's the only way you'll know!
4. Put Away Your Watch It's cheap for a reason. Expect pickups as early as 30 minutes before scheduled and -- more likely -- up to 2 hours late.
5. Do NOT Forget The Paperwork! Perhaps most important of all: don't ever, evereverEVER roll up into the Megabus driver's grill without 'cho papers, yo. In all seriousness. Don't even try it!
Think of it this way: it's a reservation service (albeit an extremely low-end one). Since tickets are purchased online, the printed receipt displaying your long, complicated reservation code is the ONLY indication the driver has that you're seat claim is legit.
Keep these tips in mind and you'll not only be fine, but you might even enjoy yourself! ....ya cheapskate!
It's certainly not anything Earth-shattering here, and there's a tiny bit of envy that this guy gets to go all over the world, but the video is loads of fun...
Follow up comment...the vid starts slowly, so give it a minute or so before you kill the feed. And there is a higher resolution version available on YouTube over here, but I haven't figured out how to embed the higher-res version just yet.
I've mentioned my love of Google Earth before, but that's been a couple of years now, and the use of Google Earth (or Google Maps - they're just different interfaces for the same data as far as I can tell).
Since then, MSN has jumped on the maps bandwagon as have a couple of other serivces, but I'm not nearly as familiar with the work of any of these newbies as I am of Google's.
But there's the problem with Google Earth - once I look for my house (and all the houses I've lived in) and work and maybe college and vacations, what else do I look for? What are the coolest sights to see in the whole frickin' world?
It's been thirteen years now since I first read The Electric Brae by Andrew Greig, a book subtitled A modern romance and one that spoke to me during that summer after my sophomore year at Wabash and just before I headed to Scotland for a year of study at the University of Aberdeen. The book is still one of my favorites, and I now own that library copy in which I found my then ex-girlfriend's (now wife's) bookmark just a year later. I've probably read the book a half dozen times, and I still pick it up every couple of years for a read through.
The Electric Brae itself is little more than a hillside in the county of Ayr in southwest Scotland where the landscape provides the illusion that anything allowed to roll freely down the road is actually rolling uphill.
The landmark may have disappointed me if I'd ever made it to that part of the Ayrshire countryside, but my year spent in Scotland certainly didn't come even remotely close to disappointing me. I learned more about myself in that year - a year that I spent in the company of people who had no idea who I was and where I was entirely free to define myself as I chose - and I thought I'd take a post to point out some of the wonderful places that I was lucky enough to see in that year.
From my reading of the Brae, I had one item on my list of sites that I had to see, and that was the Old Man of Hoy, a stone formation that stands on the coast of the Orkney Islands, a long ferry ride from the north coast of Scotland. I finally made it to the Old Man - or at least the ferry I was on made it past the Old Man on its way to Stromness, home of the Piers Arts Centre that I absolutely fell in love with. The Orkneys also hold the wonders of Skara Brae, a 5000-year-old archeological site, and the beautiful and simple Italian Chapel.
The Orkney Island weren't the only bits of Scotland not attached to the mainland to which I bumbled. There was the Isle of Skye, the gorgeous island to the west of Scotland. I spent a few days there with Kristen, but that was in the spring of 1995, before the Skye Bridge opened up, connectin Kyle of Localsh and Kyleakin. It may be more convenient to get to Skye now, but I'm happy that I got to kill a Sunday morn with Kristen killing time in a pub 'til the first ferry of the morning headed across the Kyle.
There was also the Isle of Arran where Luke, Kristen, and I bumbled around from the adventure playground past beautiful waterfalls and toward a gap that we never quite made it to - never really knowing whether it was just 'round the next curve or twenty miles down the path. I also got my only chance to play miniature golf in all of Scotland while we were on Arran.
The island were gorgeous, but I actually spent a lot more time in the cities of Scotland:
The city that I got to know best was, of course, Aberdeen. I walked from my flat in Hillhead Hall through gorgeous Seaton Park past the Machar on the way to the old University. Hillhead was only a ten or so minute walk from the North Sea, and I spent many an afternoon or morning walking the beach, and one amazing morning watching the sun rise (at 4:00 in the morning) over the ocean on my last day in Abdereen.
There were a couple of visits to Edinburgh with its Royal Mile dominated by the imposing Castle at one end and Holyrood Palace at the other. Princes Gardens parallel that Royal Mile and are an amazing example of metroscaping - having originally been a loch that the city filled in to make a wonderful park.
As the industrial mirror image to Edinburgh's seat of culture, Glasgow. The sandstone city still reflects its industrial roots but does have some wonderful museums: the Burrell Collection, Kelvingrove art gallery, and the amazing Botanic Gardens. I spent a couple of lonely days in Glasgow between travelling partners - having left Luke after seeing Stonehenge (England's sites will come another day) and before I met up with Kristen in...
Ayr - home to the aforementioned and illusory Brae. There wasn't much to see in Ayr, but nearby Culzean Castle (more on that in a few lines) was worth the trip.
I took two trips to Inverness - the largest city near Loch Ness, so the city most well known as part of the Highlands. In all honesty, Inverness didn't make much of an impression on me. Sorry for even mentioning it, folks.
St. Andrews, on the other hand, was gorgeous and beautiful right on the Firth of Fourth. The Royal and Ancient was beautiful, even for somebody who isn't all that into golf, and across the way is a beautiful ruined abby.
And Scotland just wouldn't be Scotland without some castles:
My absolute favorite - and one I got to visit probably four times - was Dunnottar Castle overlooking the lovely town of Stonehaven. Dunnottar is stunning on the coast, overlooking the sea, looking entirely impenetrable. Dunnottar was an hour bus ride from Hillhead, and I took the ride a number of times, sometimes enjoying the cliff walk back into Stonehaven.
I also visited the two most well-known (or at least most oft seen) castles of Scotland - Urquhart Castle overlooking Loch Ness, many of the pictures of which contain some American pointing out into the inky depths of the Loch and looking foolishly amazed - and Eilean Donnan out on its island, something that most photographers seem to have never stepped foot on. I made it onto the island, however, and was lucky enough to be greeted by a lovely dead sheep just over the railing of the bridge as it opened onto the island. Good times, folks
There were also a number of much more well-appointed castles such as Glamis Castle - home to the Hamlet-imortalized Thane of Glamis - and Culzean Castle complete with its room still reserved for President Eisenhower in honor of everything that he did for the world in leading the allied forces in WWII.
And finally there was the most ruined of all the castles - Slains Castle - must more well knows for the Bullers of Buchan that it overlooks. The Bullers are a gorgeous cliff that has been undercut by the sea and hosting some amazing cliff scenery and - weirdly enough - puffins.
I feel as though I've slighted the nation of Scotland, but this is what I've got to offer today.
Oh, that and one of the rockin'est versions of "Loch Lomond":
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