Disneyland Halloween Time Photos

Once I made the momentous discovery (Tripods rock!  And my dad had two!  And you can attach them to a wheelchair with a bungee cord for easy carrying!) a few months ago, I've been enamored of night time photography

A couple of years ago, I went to Disneyland and took lots of photos of Disneyland's Halloween decorations.  I regretfully noticed that they looked gorgeous at night time but knew I'd never be able to hand-hold my camera well enough to get good shots.

Enter the tripod and my other new best friend: my remote shutter release.  ('Cause, really, do you want to put it on countdown mode and wait 10 seconds for every shot?  I thought not.)

It took some time to cull the best of the best out.  For one thing, though I'm having lots of fun, I'm still not certain of my ability to expose correctly, so I took about three exposures of each shot.  For another, I did mess up on the exposure quite a bit (all the lighting on Main Street threw off the metering, I think) so I had to spend some quality time with Aperture.

The full-quality gallery is here, but to my knowledge, you must have a current version of Internet Explorer or a relatively current version of Firefox.  If you don't, here are the low-quality versions.

Also included are some wanderings around California Adventure, and some night time shots of Paradise Pier, because going on Midway Mania before going to Disneyland is Patrick's new Routine.

(And, yes, a Routine carries enough importance to Patrick that it must be capitalized.)

For the Candy Corn Acres pictures, I was on a mission not to take normal "snapshot" touristy shots.  I was actively seeking out unusual compositions.  I hope I succeeded.

The one pumpkin head I missed last time around, in daylight:

My camera did not like the reds here, but I included it because I haven't seen many photos of these decorations out and about on the Internet.

The beginning of trip number two: the soon-to-be-gone Sun Wheel.  While the new entry plaza looks cool, I'll miss it.

Still working on how to expose sunset shots, but good for me:

The gondolas are missing! :-o  Actually, I just liked the pattern of all the steel supports.

When hinges creak in doorless chambers....

Oh, look.  It's light pollution.  I saw a magazine in the store the other day (Time? Newsweek?  Something reputable, at any rate.) that had an article titled something like "The Loss of Night."

Is it sad that I stood in line to take a picture of Mickey and not to take a picture of family or friends in front of Mickey, like everyone else did?

Hmm...what to do while Patrick rides the train?  Oh, yes.  Take pictures of the station.

This might, just might, be my favorite of the bunch.

Interestingly enough, its daytime-equivalent from a couple of years ago was my favorite of that bunch.

Yeah, so I actually stood in line twice to take pictures of nobody.

 
Christmas pics will be coming...well, if the Halloween ones are any example...probably sometime in January.

Respect

When recently researching the various side effects I've had from having mono as a kid, I came across something that surprised me: that mono is in the Epstein Barr family (which I kinda knew) and that it's believed that Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is as well.

Well, let me tell you, after two flare ups in six months or so, I have enormous, everlasting respect for someone who has CFS.  I don't know if I can explain how tired you actually feel, but let me try:

1.  Every morning -- every morning -- during a flare up or when really sick, I wake up and immediately list in my head the things that *must* be done that day.  Not "really should."  Not "ought to."  Not "oh, I'd love to write a little tonight."  Nuh uh.  It's: "Wake up, get dressed, work at school, type next week's journal, dinner, SLEEP."

2.  My ability to multitask is utterly shot.  A couple of weeks ago, I successfully ran a group consisting of Elastigirl, Bart, Bulldozer, and, I think, Smiley.  Today, it was all I could do to keep track of PH and Bulldozer this morning.

3.  My attention span is nil.  I accidentally wrote "November" on four or five of Elastigirl's labels (she matches the name of the month) for next week.  I counted wrong when making labels for M to do math with.

I lived through about six months of this in eighth grade.  A week of it is driving me insane now.

So if any of my readers are diagnosed with CFS, I bow down to you in abject humility that you manage to function in the long term at all.

It Begins Again

For the uninitiated (ha!), the Harry Potter series consists of seven books slowly but inexorably building to a final showdown between the eponymous (I love that word) hero and the most evil wizard ever (tm).

Before each book came out, there was speculation that it would be OMG DARKER AND SCARIER THAN THE PREVIOUS ONE!  MAYBE OUR LITTLE BOYS AND GIRLS SHOULDN'T READ IT.

Um.

Remember that "slowly but inexorably" thing?

Remember how Lord of the Rings started with a relatively innocuous thing (Bilbo disappearing at his birthday party) and ended with "The End of All Things?"

When things slowly but inexorably built towards BAD THINGS, they slowly but inexorably get...

...badder.

This should not be rocket science, folks.

The same thing, of course, happens as trailers trickle out for each subsequent movie, to my continual irritation.

(Surely, if you're going to see the sixth Harry Potter film, you've read the books?  I could forgive, perhaps, having not read the book before seeing the first, but wouldn't that pique your interest?  More to the point, in a (ahem) post-Harry-Potter world, you surely know that....  Oh, never mind.  I give up.)

Anyhow, imagine my reaction when I saw this:

Sinister twist.

A 'darker' Harry Potter.

I just -- I just --

Okay, let me try to be rational.

Kids who grew up on Harry Potter grew with the books.  If they were 11 when they read the first, they were adults when Deathly Hallows came out.  I think adults could handle Deathly Hallows, don't you?

A kid that read Sorcerer's Stone for the first time (yep, I'm American...sorry) at 11 two months ago is in a different spot.

But here's the thing.

YOU'RE THE PARENT.

IF YOU ARE WORRIED ABOUT WHAT YOUR KID IS READING OR WATCHING THEN WATCH IT YOURSELF.

I mean, for crying out loud, people.

On another similar but related note, a couple of weeks ago, our News-2-You topic was the Country Music Awards.  Because the paper had a bit on the history of country music, I hopped onto YouTube, violated several copyrights, and made a video showing the growth of country music over time, with 30 second-ish clips from each decade of country music.

Johnny Cash being Johnny Cash showed up in two of them.

Three of my students -- including my youngest, Bart (fourth grade boy P), who just turned nine a month ago -- said, "Oh, that's that guy from the movie with the drugs!"

So we let an eight year old boy (with special needs, but even so) watch Walk the Line, but we angst that the sixth movie in a series of...well, eight, really...movies that are building to a giant confrontation with a REALLY EVIL BAD GUY...is...darker?

Walk the frelling Line.

I weep for society.

Ouch

We all slip.  I know that.  I often type "withing" when I mean "within" because I type really, really fast (80-90 wpm when I really get going...around 50ish in general) and my fingers are so used to the -ing pattern that they just add it without my brain's conscious permission.

(And, yes, typing is an unconscious thing for me; I don't spell words as I type, but I do hear them in my head -- I know there's an educational term for that, but I don't recall it at the moment.)

Anyway, I know we all slip, but slips gall me more when they are made by teachers or other school-related folks.

So this just boggles the mind.

On Mark VII Blue

By the Way

An almost-belated happy birthday, Amie! :-)

On the Train

GPS is cool.

Mixed Messages

On the one hand:

On the other:

Dreams

I have no idea why, but in high school, I became a large fan of both Romantic poets (as in, from the Romantic period), and Langston Hughes.

What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

While my favorite Hughes poem is probably either "I, Too," or "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" (I heard a recording of, I think, Avery Brooks reading this once and was enthralled by the rhythm of the language), nothing quite captures frustration and longing like "A Dream Deferred."

Intentional or not (I imagine it was probably intentional), Dr. King used the dream motif as well, in a quote that most everyone has probably heard.

I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

. . . 

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, . . . little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

 . . . With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

I must admit to pessimism.  I never thought that America was ready to elect a person of color (or a woman) to the White House.  I'm still not, if I'm entirely honest, convinced of Obama's safety, should he actually win -- as it's looking he will.

I must also admit to cynicism.  No one politician can change the world.  That President Bush was able to ram the PATRIOT Act down Americans' throats and change as much as he has has got to be a historical anomaly.  Although Obama's politics more closely mirror my own, I doubt very much that he will live up to the nation's hopes -- but then, neither would McCain should he win.  There's too much to do, and politics just doesn't work that way.

But for today -- just for today -- I want to say congratulations to America for looking beyond its troubled past.  Just for today.  Even should McCain pull a rabbit out of his hat, Barack Obama is within 70 electoral college votes of the presidency.  That in itself is huge.

Now, about that whole "equality" thing?  That "free at last" thing?  That "let freedom ring" thing?

Go vote no on 8.  If you haven't already.

Those Darn Commercials

Consider this your warning: This will be long.

I mostly try to avoid politics here; I really do.  From what I can tell, my regular readers share my view -- but who knows?  I might have nerdy conservative lurkers out there.  Who knows, right?

But I can't let this go.  The "Yes on 8" commercials are driving me freaking insane -- especially the one about teaching second graders about same-sex marriage.

Okay, first off?  Check out the English Language Arts and Social Studies content standards (PDFs), and search "marriage," "marry," "family," etc., and see how far it gets you.  Not very, that's how far.

Second.  There are already books dealing with same-sex couples.  People have complained for years about all sorts of books.  Don't believe me?  Google "banned books" and see what you get.

Third.  When I had Space Cadet J in my class, her family didn't want anything to do with Halloween (for religious reasons).  Knowing this, I made my Halloween vocabulary homework optional.  Her mom said that they'd discussed not having her do it, and took the opportunity to explain what Halloween was and why they didn't believe in it.  If your school does teach same-sex marriage (which is NOT in the content standards), if you feel so moved, take the opportunity to tell your child why you don't believe in it.

Fourth.  Pardon the yelling.

RELIGIOUS MARRIAGE DOES NOT EQUAL CIVIL MARRIAGE.

Want proof?

Go get married in a church, don't get a marriage license, and see what the government says when you try to claim a benefit of marriage.

Then, go get a marriage license but don't get married in a church, and see what the government says when you try to claim a benefit of marriage.

Making same-sex marriage legal -- or, rather, keeping it legal -- does not compel your church to marry same-sex couples.  I would venture to say that there may be churches out there that won't marry mixed-race couples.  Fifth Grade Teacher E's rabbi wouldn't marry her son because he married a Catholic girl.

ALL.  TOTALLY.  LEGAL.

Fifth.

Again, pardon the yelling.

FOR FRELL'S SAKE, HOW DOES IT IMPACT YOU IF TWO OTHER PEOPLE GET MARRIED?

I mean, really.  It's not like they'll run out of marriage licenses.

It's infuriating.

Marriage, as far as the government is concerned, is a civil contract between two people that entails both rights and responsibilities.  Denying a marriage license to two people of the same gender is discrimination because it's telling one of the two that they can't get a marriage license because of their gender.

It's not right.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It may seem odd that someone raised in a conservative family who went to a conservative Lutheran elementary school, a Catholic middle and high school, and a Lutheran college would hold such views.  Because of that, I probably should share a little.

I was raised in a very sheltered environment.  My elementary school was extremely small, and -- for the most part -- not very diverse.  How small?  I was one of four graduating sixth graders.

So you'll pardon me that I was close to thirteen-ish before I realized that my uncle's sister (who had been bringing her "friend" to family-only events for years) was gay.

In my freshman year of high school, I had a very forward thinking religion/sex ed teacher (yes, our semester of sex ed was considered our religion class for the semester) who showed an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation to explain homosexuality.  She explained that the character who had committed the heinous act, according to her society, of being born a female in a genderless society was roughly equivalent to someone who was born gay.

While she was bogged down in what is (to my understanding) still current Catholic dogma -- that is, being gay isn't a sin but acting on it and having intercourse is -- it was remarkably progressive, given the environment.

Because of that, I was already predisposed to believe that being gay was just a genetic variation -- and (and this is key) something over which one does not have control.

So, that was percolating in the back of my brain as I became interested in Babylon 5 -- but I still totally missed the Susan/Talia thing until Susan blurted out at the end of an episode that she had loved Talia.  (Actually, the line was "I think I loved Talia," which I always found very poignant.)

Meanwhile (this is important, I promise), Leonardo DiCaprio was becoming the Next Big Thing.  (I'll get there; I promise.)

Also meanwhile, I was developing a "relationship radar" -- that is, if I watch a show for more than an episode or two, I can generally sense which characters will eventually pair off.  Whether it's because writers are transparent or because several years of scouring every detail of Babylon 5 and Star Trek for hidden clues predisposed me to look harder and catch subtle clues, I don't know, but the effect was the same.

By my freshman year of college, the Internet happened.  Being the inquisitive sort, I checked out Star Trek fan sites within weeks of starting college.  Being the naive sort, I did not anticipate -- at all -- the...ahem...varied views one can find in fandom regarding relationships.

That is, I had no idea about Rule 34 :  If it exists, people will 'ship it.  (Well, technically the rule is "if it exists, there is p*rn for it," but I can count on one hand the number of things with a greater-than-R rating I've ever read...and the ones I have involved a lot of skimming and page-down-ing.)

Boy, oh, boy, was I in for a shock.

Most of the pairings made very little to no literary sense -- that is, I just could not see how anyone thought the original "text" of the show suggested a relationship of any kind.  But it did force me to examine whether I was reacting negatively to a lot of those things because I am a bit of a canon-snob (in other words, you have to convince me that your story could conceivably happen on the show) or because of the content.

Well, around that time, Titanic smashed into the box office, and every female on the planet was swooning over Leonardo DiCaprio.

I didn't get it.  (I still don't.)

Now, Jason Carter?  Sure.  Kevin Smith (the kiwi, not the Jay and Silent Bob guy).  Heck yeah.  The guy who played Gunn on Angel?  Oooh, boy yes.  Honestly...Leonard Nimoy?  Uh huh.

But Leo DiCaprio?

Meh.

And I realized that if I was not able to convince my hormones that he was OMG THE BEST THING EVER...how could I expect someone else to make their hormones react to another gender?

Meanwhile, I was home for winter break and forced to watch only channel 5 due to having a c-band satellite in one room and an iffy antenna on the other.  I flipped onto an episode of Xena ("The Quest ," as it happens), and within 20 minutes, my relationship radar was going off the charts, and I was...a bit confused.  Had I flipped into the episode five minutes earlier and seen the much-discussed kiss...I doubt I would have been confused.

I don't read much fan fiction online anymore (and I find it infinitely amusing that of the little I do, they are written by opposite ends of the political spectrum, even though the second show isn't overtly conservative), but I do read Missy Good.

I found her second story, At a Distance, on one of my first searches into online Xena stuff, when I was still trying to figure out what was going on with my relationship radar.  I had no idea what "alt" was, and by the time I got to that one scene ("The feeling was stronger now..."), I didn't care.  I was hooked, and have been ever since.

It's been fun watching her writing develop over the past -- Good Lord -- twelve years.  I'm not the only one; she eventually ended up writing two episodes of the sixth season and collaborated on a musical episode that, sadly, never aired (I'd have killed to hear Xena sing "Last Dance.").

And I'm going to borrow her words -- words I read, if I'm not mistaken, when I was a sophomore in college -- to end this, because it was reading them that I became absolutely, unequivocally, a proponent of same-sex rights.  They hit me that hard.

"There was so much hate in his voice…I don't understand, Dar...how can people hate you for something as beautiful as loving someone?"

Vote no on 8.

Please.

Why You Shouldn't Don a Sweatshirt at the Table

The Vote

As I said on Twitter earlier today, I helped Patrick fill out his absentee ballot this afternoon.

Patrick, like many other young people his age, just barely missed being able to vote in the 2004 election (he was a few months shy of turning 18).  And, yet, he's always been a bit of a news junkie.

I mentioned last spring, when I had my class start following the presidential primaries, that I was partly inspired by memories of Patrick watching news coverage of the 2000 elections.  In particular, I remember being shocked when news programs (real ones, not something like The Daily Show) went around and showed people pictures of Al Gore, George W. Bush, and the like -- and a whole lot of people did not know who was who.

Patrick did.

And -- for reasons that must be genetic (I come from a primarily politically conservative family, although Patrick's main influences -- myself and my mom -- since our dad's death both lean liberal) Patrick was very clear, both times, that his preference was for George W. Bush.

In neither case could he articulate why, but how many average voters can?  Sure, there are the news junkies, the NPR or KFI listeners (depending on which way you lean on the political spectrum), but how many average j-err...Tom, Dick, and Harry could articulate why they vote for someone as opposed to someone else?

So, anyway, when she helped him register to vote, my mother had Patrick register as a Republican.

Now, I am fairly passionate about the fact that adults with disabilities have as much right to vote as anyone else.  There is no IQ testing required to vote -- though I think CA says that you can't vote if under guardianship.  But as Patrick is not, that's not an issue here.

(Also, again, IQ or not, Patrick is probably as informed -- if not moreso -- than the average voter.)

So, Patrick was waiting eagerly for his absentee ballot to come.  He is registered to vote absentee because he requires the assistance of someone to read the ballot to him, and often to clarify what it is saying.  (More on that later.)

Before starting, I laid out the ground rules for Patrick.  I would read the ballot to him and help him understand it.  I would help He of the Bad Eyesight Who Won't Wear His Glasses to fill in the right bubble.  But I would not tell him how to vote on any issue, even if I didn't agree with his vote.

The first page was the presidential election.  I explained that this was the list of candidates for president and vice president.  I pointed out that most people would vote for either Obama or McCain but told him that he could vote for whoever he wanted.  He carefully perused all the names, and eventually voted for the Libertarian candidate.

The next page was senator, state senator, etc.  I read the names to him, explained what each job was (senator versus state senator, etc.) and pointed out the person's reputation.  I don't recall who he voted for, but he said to me that he chose one person because he thought "they would do a good job for this country."

Then there were the judges.  He voted primarily on what the person's job was -- for instance, in one race, he chose a gang prosecutor over a defense lawyer because he knew "gangs are bad and he helps them go away."  I am pretty sure he voted for one candidate because he was amused by their last name.

But, to tell the truth, I usually don't vote for judges if I haven't heard of them -- and if I do, I often do just what he did...vote for the teacher or other profession I like.

Then came the propositions, and where we went from me reading the ballot to a little more interpretive work.

Before we started, I explained that the propositions are another way to make a law.  I told Patrick that most times, we vote for people who make laws for us. (You hear that, folks?  We are not a direct democracy.)  These propositions, I told him, are a way for people to help make their own laws.

I also told Patrick that there are times that I don't vote one way or the other.  If I haven't sufficiently researched a proposition, I would rather not vote at all than mistakenly vote for something I don't agree with.

We eventually settled upon this system:  I read the title of the proposition, then summarized the description (including costs), and explained what a "yes" vote would mean, and what a "no" vote would mean.

This, of course, involved explaining bonds (after two tries, I settled for "selling bank accounts" as something that would make sense to him), as the majority of the propositions were bond measures.

He listened carefully to each one and clearly considered them carefully.  He looked a little overwhelmed and at one point told me he was "nervous," which was when I simplified the language a bit more.

What I was careful to do, though, was to present both sides, regardless of how I felt about the particular issue.

Of course, Proposition 8 came up.  We had already talked about this last week, as we walked through the Disneyland parking lot (I'm pretty sure I saw a "yes on 8" bumper sticker or something), but I kept to the system.

As an example, this is how we went through the propositions:

"This is the law we talked about before," I told him.  "It's the one about being married. If you vote 'yes,' it means that you think only a boy and a girl should get married.  If you vote 'no,' it means that you think that if a boy and a boy or a girl or a girl are in love, they should be able to get married."

Because Patrick is a "default to B" type of kid (that is, if you give him a multiple choice question, he almost always picks the second option -- as in, "Patrick, is the sky blue or pink polka dots?" If he were distracted, you would likely get pink polka dots), I repeated the distinction.

"Remember we were talking about Sulu's wedding?  If you vote 'no,' you are saying that it's okay for him to marry the man he loves, or for T to marry M."  (T and M being my uncle's sister and her partner.)  "If you vote 'yes,' you are saying that a man and a man or a woman and a woman who love each other can't be married."

Patrick paused, thought about it, paused again, and said definitively, "I choose no."

I showed him which bubble to fill in, and then thanked him.  :-)

As we went through the issues, one thing became very interestingly clear:  some higher power moved him to choose the Libertarian guy.  Almost without variation, he voted the way I would expect a Libertarian to: conservatively on money issues (except the bullet train to San Fran and Sacramento...I think he thought that was cool) and Prime Directively on social issues (that is, non-interference).

I took my responsibility to be objective very seriously, but it was a cool experience helping him take this step into the adult world.

My class is going to vote Tuesday too, and compare our results to the national ones.  So far, polls are leaning towards Obama...but partly because my two twin girls, as well as Drama Queen (4th grade girl A), have decided that he is handsome.

(Betcha lots of other women are voting that way for the same reason, sad as that is.)

Whether or nor their parents ever help them to take this step...at least they'll have had practice.  Meanwhile, Patrick's vote is in the mail tomorrow.

Finally, Proof!

It might be obvious that poor grammar is one of my pet peeves.  (It particularly drives me insane when there are typos in our Teachers' Union newsletter, 'cause...well, c'mon...you're teachers.)

Anyway, it's not precisely grammar-related, but for years, I have bitten my tongue when people pronounce Ghiradelli Square (mmm...chocolate....) as "Jeer-a-deli" but didn't say anything for fear that I was the wrong one to be pronouncing it "Gear-a-deli."

So imagine my delight when I read this blog post and saw this photo:

Ah, vindication.  How nice.  :-)

Star Trek Gripe

I've jokingly said from time to time that one of my worries about the new Trek movie was the casting of Karl Urban as McCoy.

Why?

Well, here's the thing.

I first saw Karl Urban on Xena, playing Caesar-Julius-Caesar (how he always introduced himself...hey, it was a campy show, especially at the beginning) and (gulp) Cupid.  When he played Eomer in Lord of the Rings, that was marginally okay, because he didn't look like Caesar.

But...the pictures...the new pictures.

Good Lord, it's McCoy-Leonard-McCoy.

Allow me to explain graphically.

1.   equals .

2.   does not equal 

But  equals .

Now, other actors have gotten past this barrier.  For instance, in no universe anywhere does Bester = Chekov even remotely compute.  And yet, I never got past Archer = Sam Beckett either.

That said, Zachary Quinto bears an eerie resemblance to a young Leonard Nimoy.

In short: the jury is still out.