Wow. I mean, just wow. Today made my trip worthwhile.

( No more talk. Just pictures. )

There's not all that much to see today, I'm afraid. I spent the day hanging out with the Lancasters - Robert and Susan. I won't tell their entire story here, but Robert is the person behind the Stop Kaz and Stop Sylvia Browne websites. He had a major stroke last August, and has been recovering under care ever since. He finally went home last week - he's now in excellent health. He still has mobility problems, and probably will have for some time, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with his mind. We exchanged stories. Great guy, and Susan is a wonderful woman. I'll be seeing them again at TAM.

I've been saying while preparing for this trip that I'm going to be interviewing Jesus Christ while I'm here. And I did - well, I interviewed Neil Saavedra, the host of the Jesus Christ Show on KFI-AM here in Los Angeles. It was a lot of fun. Neil is another great guy, and a very good friend of Robert and Susan (that's how I got the interview in the first place). I'm told he's something of a celebrity here in LA.

So I got an excellent interview for the God's Word segment of the podcast, covering the fundamentals of faith, extremism, his show and so forth. It'll probably be on Episode 7, since we're reserving 6 for a TAM special report.

Anyway, I need to be up really early tomorrow morning to drive out to the Grand Canyon. Expect some photos. :)

A pretty quiet day today. After yesterday, I was pretty tired. Tomorrow will be a big day - I'll have my interview to do, and apparently a bunch of people are coming back to the place I'm staying for a big party before we leave for the Grand Canyon at oh crap o'clock on Wednesday. Didn't do all that much, but we did go up into the mountains for some pretty spectacular scenery.

( Mountain Scenery )

Well, I have had a pretty awesome day today. Yes, I got to the La Brea Tarpits, which is something that I particularly wanted to do while I was here.

( La Brea Tarpits )

Day One

12:45 hour flight from Sydney to Los Angeles. Wow. That's something I never want to do again. Execept for just once.

I made notes while I was on the plane, but lost the first one because it seemed to crash the LJApp on my iPhone for some reason, and I'm not sure why. It was basically about the meal I had on the plane, which was surprisingly good, and about the remarkably extensive In-Flight Entertainment System. Here are the others, which I started doing in Notes instead:

In Flight #2

Personal time: 2:15am. So far, I've watched an episode of Family Guy, one of Scrubs, the Top Gear motorcycling-in-Vietnam episode, and the Mythbusters Ninja Special.

I estimate that I've just crossed the Date Line. Congratulations, it's now yesterday. I think we're about halfway there, judging from the map.

Okay, I'm really bored now.

And I'm pretty sure that Jay Laudig is on this flight with me.

In Flight #3

Personal time: 4:25am. The Captain has just called for the cabin crew to take their seats. I have a feeling that it's about to get a bit rough.

In other news, four episodes of How I Met Your Mother. And I think I may now be in the Northern Hemisphere.

In Flight #4

They've turned the cabin lights on and are starting to serve breakfast. No, I didn't sleep at all. About an hour's worth of dozong but that's it. For the last hour or so, I've been playing Bejeweled on the in-flight entertainment system. Got a pretty good score, too. Jay Laudig still on board, I think.

In Flight #5

I don't think they let you do an economy-class trip longer than this.

There's less than an hour left. My knees are sore, I have a headache, and I just watched a documentary about the South Pacific Islands. Not that it wasn't interesting, but...

I will shortly be debarking in LA. I can't shake the nagging suspicion that I've forgotten something important. Some vital bit of paperwork that will mean that they turn me around and send me back home. That would be annoying.

I need to turn off my iPhone now. Next update will probably be from Noel's place.

Noel's Place

Well, nothing happened. I'm down, safe, and about to go to bed (it's just past midnight local time). I estimate that I've been awake now for about 30 hours. I need to get up fairly early tomorrow to do the Grand Tour of Los Angeles.

We went and did fireworks tonight. Well, it is the 4th of July, after all.

( Ooooh. Aaaaah. )

It turns out that my iPhone gets mobile coverage in the US, so it will work for voice and SMS, but I don't get 3G so unless I can connect to a wireless network, I won't be Tweeting, except when I make an LJ post. I'm hoping to do one post every day while I'm here.

Sleep now. Sleeep goooood.

I'm about to start packing in earnest for my trip to the US, which starts tomorrow. My plan is to try and make an update here as frequently as I can - daily, if possible. Much like my SA trip, if you remember that, I plan to do a photodiary. Stay tuned!

Wish me a safe flight. I'll be 18 hours on the plane. :)

Wow.

I've had a Google Alert set up for quite some time to search for the terms "Barry" and "Worm". I just received an alert for the official Facebook page for Barry the Giant Sea Worm, which I created back in early April.

I'm fairly impressed. It appears that Barry has made it to the big time. Finally.

As some already know, I have a shiny new iPhone.

This is an opportunity to cull my contact list. If you want me to have your phone number, please send me an SMS. My number has not changed.

Thanks.

Well, this is the conclusion to a fantastic day.

After a very late night (for the best possible reason) and a languorous sleep-in, I went with a friend to see the Soft Art exhibition at the National Gallery. It was quite interesting, although at times it certainly was a little... pretentious. "Wanky" would also be an appropriate adjective. There were some really interesting pieces of work though.

Afterwards I hung out with theloldog and his human. That was such a wonderful way to spend an afternoon.

Tomorrow, I make a very fun and useful purchase.

I've heard some very good reports about Monsters and Other Childish Things. It looks like a fun little game. I might purchase it if enough people express an interest in playing.

Monsters are real. You know because you have one. He’s the best! He’s more fun and way tougher than the other kids’ monsters.

Try not to let him eat your friends.

The idea is that you play a kid, and each kid also has a monster. The game revolves around the Relationships that the kid has - with her mother, his soccer ball, her soft blankie or his grandad. Apparently it's really easy on the rules and is fantastic to play.

Let me know if you'd be interested in a game.

One of these days I'm going to catalogue and post the blogs and podcasts I subscribe to.

Hi LJ, how you going? Yeah, I'm okay. I'm a little sad right now, but I'm not going to tell you why. Sorry.

But it was nice going to meetlilysea today. We saw the Vanity Fair exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery. That was very interesting. And I think it may have mused me. I've got this idea to take portraits of prominent skeptics at TAM. That could be interesting, and fun. I'll have to explore the possibilities.

I have to give a shoutout to Giveaway of the Day. filkertom pointed it out to me a while back. It gives away free full copies of downloadable software, so long as you download it within 24 hours. You get a valid licence code with the download.

So far I've got three different audio editors for free. Subscribe to the RSS for updates.

Tonight, Smidgeon ran under a car. He's been with us for almost fourteen years. We'll miss him.

Reclaiming the Blade

Interesting documentary about the European sword tradition. It covered rather a lot of ground quite well.

I've been watching "martial arts" shows on Discovery Channel and National Geo for some time, and I've always been very disappointed with their bias towards the Asian martial arts. I've always thought that there should be something balancing it for the European side of things. Well, this is it. It's about the only decent doco on Western Martial Arts that exists. And it's really quite good.

The doco is about an hour and a quarter long. Now all that's left is the three hours of special features!

Yes, this will be doing the rounds of the AAF.