Archive for the ‘Travel’ Category

Travel Day II: The Traveling!

Monday, June 20th, 2022

Heading home. Lack of content ahead. Will be getting in kind of late. Updates to follow.

Travel day.

Wednesday, June 15th, 2022

Light blogging ahead.

Updates will be catch as catch can through next Monday.

I was constantly hearing “Get to the Austin airport three hours early! It’s a cluster! Three hours ahead of your scheduled flight!”

So I got to the airport at 0330 for my flight at 0640.

My bags were checked and I was through security by 0400. And the TSA people were actually pleasant.

(“Why are you taking a flight at 0640?” Wasn’t my choice: I originally booked it for 0830, which I thought was more reasonable. But Southwest changed it.)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thursday, November 25th, 2021

Last year, some jerk wrote:

I was hoping that Pan Am would have done “Wings to Turkey”, or something similar. But, alas, no.

From those wonderful folks at Pan Am, by way of Periscope Films, “Wings to Turkey”.

This has a date stamp of January 2018 in the ‘Tube, but I swear it was not there when I went looking last year.

Also, please note that the 707 lands in Istanbul, not Constantinople.

Speaking of Turkish delight:

C.S. Lewis’s Greatest Fiction Was Convincing American Kids That They Would Like Turkish Delight“.

And I don’t want to skip the significance of this holiday, so:

(Explained.)

Travel notes.

Friday, November 19th, 2021

As you might have picked up from previous posts, Mike the Musicologist, myself, and some other friends who shall remain anonymous went up to Tulsa this past weekend for Wanenmacher’s Tulsa Arms Show. We generally try to go to every third one, but what with the Wuhan Flu et al, this is the first one we’ve been to since November of 2018.

I’m working on a longer post about some of the things I picked up during the show and around Tulsa, but I have to wait until one item arrives at my FFL. (On a related note, I am thinking more seriously about getting a C&R license. The problem is: I am already supposed to get one colonoscopy a year. I don’t need BATFE giving me a second one.)

A few things I noticed:

  • It didn’t take us as long to go through the show as it usually did. I felt like I had seen all the tables by about 2 PM on Sunday.
  • The reason is that it seemed there were fewer vendors. I think Wannemacher’s still sells all their tables, but it seemed like a lot of vendors may have purchased tables and then backed out for this round. Additionally, it seemed like a lot of vendors who were there decided to pack up their tables and close early: either they sold everything they’d brought, or just wanted to get on the road.
  • There were a lot of people selling AR pattern rifles and parts at the show. But as usual, almost all the ones I saw were not mass-production platforms (Bushmaster, S&W, etc.) but were from small builders. I really didn’t pay much attention to prices, because I wasn’t looking for a new AR pattern rifle. (I am kind of looking for a cheapish AR upper for my own personal Behind Every Blade of Grass gun (hattip: McThag), but it wasn’t a priority for me at this show.) Someone Who Isn’t Me did purchase an upper in .224 Valkyrie, but I didn’t note the price.
  • There were, as always, a lot of ammo vendors at the show. Which means ammo prices were competitive. I didn’t buy any ammo at the show. (I did pick up a box of .221 Fireball from Sports World and a box of 10mm Hornady Critical Duty from Dong’s Guns while we were roaming the city.) My Friends Who Are Not Me keep close track of ammo prices and did pick up some at the show for what they thought were good prices: 280 rounds of M-1 Garand specific .30-06 ammo for $1.25 a round (with ammo can and enbloc clips), 1000 rounds of .45 Auto for $.44 a round, 1000 rounds of 9mm for $.34 a round, and 1000 rounds of .380 for $.37 a round.
  • I saw a lot (relatively speaking) of older Smith and Wesson Model 48 revolvers for sale. It wasn’t like every other table had one, but I saw far more than I expected to see, even given the size of the show. The Model 48 is a K-frame revolver chambered in .22 Magnum. They are nice guns, especially the older ones. I was just surprised at how many I saw for sale. (No, I didn’t buy one: I already have one in 6″. It’s very nice.)
  • Pretty much all of our meals were good. We had the traditional German food at Siegi’s Sausage Factory, Thai food at Lanna Thai (“Lana!“), pretty good barbecue at Oklahoma Joe’s, excellent bulgogi at a hole in the wall called Gogi Gui Korean Grill, and a nice higher-end meal at Smoke Woodfire Grill. (Our usual higher end Sunday night meal place, The Chalkboard, is now only serving Sunday brunch.) We also had an excellent breakfast Monday morning at Bramble Breakfast and Bar in the Pearl District. (I recommend the Monte Carlo Benedict.) Also an excellent breakfast: Toast and Franklin’s on Main in Broken Arrow.

Travel day.

Wednesday, November 10th, 2021

On the road again. Blogging will be catch as catch can for the next few days.

Travel day.

Monday, October 4th, 2021

Heading home. It will be a long day of driving. Expect blogging to resume sometime tomorrow.

Travel day.

Wednesday, September 29th, 2021

Going to be driving pretty much all day. Blogging will be catch as catch can today and for the next few days.

I’m hoping to win a Rory Award.

Thursday, August 12th, 2021

For the most gratuitous use of the word “Belgium” in a serious post.

“Work and Play In Belgium”, a 1950 propaganda film (in color!) from the “Belgian Government Information Center of New York City”.

Bonus: at least part of this is set…in Bruges.

Planet Failure.

Sunday, June 13th, 2021

This popped up on Hacker News, and, while I have reservations about linking to Esquire for anything but drinks, it did entertain me: “The Rise and Fall of Planet Hollywood“.

I never went to a Planet Hollywood: when it first opened, it struck me as a cynical cash grab, and nothing in this article convinces me otherwise.

Some relevant quotes:

The ax Jack Nicholson wielded in The Shining, still caked in fake blood, was buried in the back of the garden shed of a guy who worked on the film.
“We asked what he wanted for it,” Todd told the Los Angeles Times in 1995, “and he said, ‘Well, I’ll need another ax.’ That was an easy deal.”

In interviews at the time, it was promised that Schwarzenegger would be in the kitchen cooking Wiener schnitzel. But when the three chiseled men did press for the restaurant, it seemed clear how much the menu was an afterthought. “The day they can reduce a meal to a pill, I’ll be happy,” Stallone said with a smirk in a 1992 interview with British talk-show host Michael Aspel. “I guess it’s from doing a great deal of training or whatever. Maybe it’s just genetic; I’m just not prone to chew a lot. It doesn’t go with my personality.”

“I don’t remember it ever having a lot of class,” says Hay. “I just remember the food got worse and worse and worse and worse until it really became inedible. And if you were going to go there for an event, you ate before, because you knew you couldn’t eat anything.”

“It was incredibly monotonous for us, because there was a hierarchy like there is at any other job,” says actress Natalie Zea, who worked as a hostess at the Manhattan Planet Hollywood in 1994. “The servers were superior to us, because they’re the ones who got to interact on the occasion when somebody [famous] would come in. There was no real behind-the-scenes. It was just so rote.”

“My only real memory of [stars coming in] is this blurry vision of a very tall man being kind of swept through as I stand behind the podium thinking, Oh, he’ll see me and be like, ‘You, hostess, there. Let me put you in a movie,’ ” Zea says. “Which, to be honest, is the only reason any of us worked there.”

(For those who don’t recognize Natalie Zea’s name, she did get discovered eventually. She was “Raylan Givens” ex-wife/current girlfriend on “Justified”, and was “Wade Felton”‘s (Walton Goggins) girlfriend on “The Unicorn” before that got cancelled.)

Copycat restaurants were popping up all around. There was Country Star with Reba McEntire, Clint Black, Vince Gill, and Wynonna Judd. Fashion Cafe, with models Naomi Campbell, Elle Macpherson, and Claudia Schiffer, opened in Rockefeller Center just down the street from the Manhattan Planet Hollywood. Steven Spielberg had Dive!, an underwater-themed restaurant with, yes, gourmet submarine sandwiches. Hulk Hogan had Pastamania! Earl launched his own spin-offs to help with growth when Planet Hollywood ran out of places to open Planet Hollywoods. There was a sports offshoot, the Official All Star Cafe, with Shaquille O’Neal, Andre Agassi, and Joe Montana. When Tiger Woods made his first public appearance after winning the Masters in 1997, it was at the opening of Myrtle Beach’s All Star Cafe. There was also an ice cream chain, Cool Planet, with Whoopi Goldberg. Any cool factor associated with Planet Hollywood was melting. The stock value plummeted, and people just weren’t going back to eat. In 1999, Los Angeles magazine reported that same-store sales—a critical factor in a restaurant’s long-term success—fell by 18 percent the previous year. And the food only seemed to be getting worse.

A rep for Stallone says, “Contrary to the assertion by Robert Earl, Mr. Stallone is no longer involved with Planet Hollywood.” (Stallone and Willis, who were effusive in their enthusiasm for Planet Hollywood throughout the nineties and during the Vegas opening in 2007, declined to be interviewed for this piece. A rep for Willis never responded to my inquiry about the actor’s current involvement with the brand. A rep for Schwarzenegger didn’t respond to multiple inquiries.)

Bonus: I was sort of on the fence about using this. But in the end, it told me something I didn’t know, and the presenter isn’t quite as grating as some of those other “abandoned thing” guys.

Did you know there was a Hard Rock theme park? It opened in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina in April of 2008. The plan was for it to be the first of a chain of Hard Rock theme parks.

It closed in September of 2008. The parent company filed for Chapter 11, and the park was sold off. It reopened in May of 2009 as “Freestyle Music Park“, with the Hard Rock branding removed. Freestyle’s parent company was sued multiple times by various entities for various reasons, and the park closed again at the end of the 2009 season. It never reopened and remains abandoned today.

(I’ve been to Myrtle Beach once or twice, but it was when we lived in Virginia, so about 50 years ago, long before Hard Rock Park. My most vivid memory of those trips was us going to some other amusement park, and being upset that I was too short for the bumper cars. I do know people in the North Carolina area, but I’m not sure if any of them ever made the trip down to Hard Rock Park.)

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 420

Tuesday, May 25th, 2021

I’m moving Travel Thursday to Tuesday this week, for reasons. I have something else coming up for Thursday.

Today: “New Horizons: Argentina” from our friends at Pan Am. We’ve done South America in general previously, but we haven’t focused specifically on Argentina.

This apparently dates to 1965, so I can’t really make any “Evita” jokes here, alas.

Bonus #1: But I can put up something relevant to Lawrence’s interests, and maybe Andrew’s as well: “MOUTH-WATERING STEAK at an Argentine Steakhouse in Mar del Plata, Argentina”.

This restaurant is called “El Palacio del Bife”, which literally translates to “The Palace of Beef” and they sure know how to prepare a delicious steak.

Bonus #2: We’ve been to South America. Why not Central America on our way back?

Also by way of Pan Am, circa 1968: “Fiesta! A Central American Holiday”.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 415

Thursday, May 20th, 2021

Travel Thursday!

Continuing in our tour of the United States: “The Secrets of St. Louis”, a documentary from the 1960s about St. Louis history.

Bonus #1: I’m posting this less to tease certain commenters, and more for the scenery: “America For Me”. Yes, this a Greyhound promo film, but there’s a lot of spectacular scenery. And a love story, but you can skip over that and just watch the scenery go by.

Bonus #2: “Pan Am: Giant of the Skies”.

“What you gonna do when you get out of jail?…” part 408

Thursday, May 13th, 2021

Travel Thursday!

Since I know there’s at least one person out there who loves Greyhound (“…the awful smell of stale cigarettes, recirculated air with the BO of 50 other people that would linger for a day or two after my 6 hour Greyhound ride from college to home.“) here’s a promo film: “Would You Believe It?” from 1957, promoting the company’s “Escorted Tour” services. In color, even.

The one time I took the ‘Hound on the ground, it was only about three hours each way (Austin-Houston and back), and I think by that time smoking was verboten on Greyhound buses. However, in the interest of fairness…

Bonus #1: “10 BAD Things That WILL Happen on the GREYHOUND BUS” from the “Frugal Travel Guru”.

Bonus #2: This one’s a long one, but probably somewhat more pleasant than traveling by bus. Especially if you have a good car: a man with a good car doesn’t need to be justified.

“100 Years on the Lincoln Highway”, a Wyoming PBS documentary about the first coast to coast road.