Tag: Kodak

Vacation Crunch Time

After a few small and even separate trips, Helaine and I leave later this week for the West. We’ll be flying balloons in Albuquerque, driving to Kayenta, Arizona to see Monument Valley, Page, Arizona for Antelope Canyon, and Springdale, Utah for Zion National Park. We finish with some play time in Las Vegas.

That’s a hell of a trip.

Balloon Fiesta

We are not known for packing light to begin with. This is a major undertaking with a few different climates to prepare for.

Helaine is very organized – much more than I’ll ever be. She is now at the ‘worried about anything that might be forgotten’ stage. That will be with her until our first unpacking, in Albuquerque.

Life is much easier for me. My only real responsibility is to round up anything that gets plugged in. That is a larger list with each successive trip. We now bring an outlet strip on vacation!

Some nights we’ll be charging two cell phones and a Bluetooth earpiece, a laptop and camera batteries. That’s five plugs right there.

The main lens on my camera has been acting up, so I’ve rented a replacement from Ziplens in Maine Who even knew you could do that? It’s a very nice Canon lens with image stabilization.

I’ve traded emails with Lee who owns the business. It’s nice to help a small businessman just getting started and his product is really scratching an itch with me.

The camera is very important. We’ll be going to one of the most photogenic events on Earth – Albuquerque’s Balloon Fiesta. From there everything up to Vegas is naturally beautiful, or awe inspiring, or both.

And Vegas… please. At one point, Kodak might have paid for it to be built.

Of course I’ve got 21st Century concerns. Will there be Internet access? Actually, yes – even at our hotel in tiny Kayenta, AZ

Will there be cell service? Not so much. It’s nearly impossible to know where there will or won’t be access. The maps are awful. It’s almost as if the cell companies want it that way. And user submitted information about cells is old and often subjective.

We’re renting a car for the drive. I’m hoping it’s got satellite radio. Kayenta, for instance, is over 80 miles from the nearest radio station.

The rental company gave me a definite maybe! Many full size cars (a rental car exaggeration) have satellite… not all.

This trip promises to be the kind you remember for a lifetime. What will we see? Will the weather cooperate for our balloon ride? Will this much time together be enough for Helaine to pull out a gun and shoot me?

Anything’s possible. One more day to tie up loose ends and then I’ll be writing you from the road.

Jon Stewart On The Oscars

My friend Farrell has already written me four or five times on this subject. The last time, attaching an article, he wrote the single word, “Ouch!”

Jon Stewart was a major disappointment at the Oscars.

I guess the good news is, he was a disappointment because he’s normally so good. The bad news is, for many people, this is their introduction – and possibly their final impression.

Tom Shales was brutal in today’s Washington Post – but Shales specializes in being brutal&#185.

It’s hard to believe that professional entertainers could have put together a show less entertaining than this year’s Oscars, hosted with a smug humorlessness by comic Jon Stewart, a sad and pale shadow of great hosts gone by.

I wonder what’s going through Stewart’s mind today? Is he having second thoughts about he approached the broadcast? Has he just tossed it off and moved back to his ‘real’ life?

&#185 – After I put this online, Farrell called and questioned my characterization of Shales.

Shales does not specialize in being brutal. He writes better than anyone on the subject of television period. He’s honest, frank. Likes TV and when he sees something good, he praises it. When he sees something bad, he’ll write and say so. And you can quote me, WeatherBoy&#153!

Continue reading “Jon Stewart On The Oscars”

Father’s Day

What a beautiful day. This was a day for shooting picture postcards or travelogues. The sky was a pure blue without a hint of gray. The clouds were scattered and puffy. The air was warm and crisp at the same time.

Oh – it’s Father’s Day.

I’m not sure why we’re being feted, but we are. After all, in the hierarchy of parents, I think moms have it tougher. However, I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Steffie had handmade a card for me. Even at age 17, when she’s part child – part adult, this effort on her part warms every part of me. It is a collage – an abstract from magazines. It is a style in which she has shown great talent. I envy her skills as an artist.

Helaine bought me a few gifts: a book on poker (Doyle Brunson’s “Super System,” considered the classic in its field), cuff links made from small pieces of a computer motherboard, and a trip in a balloon over Las Vegas.

A good daughter-in-law, she got my dad that too. He’ll be joining me as we fly in wicker!

I love to fly. Once, a long time ago, I even took lessons… though I quit before I soloed.

I have flown in nearly anything you can think of from an ultralight with two chainsaw engines for power, to a Piper Cub J-3 with fabric covered wings, to a C-5A big enough to hold a Greyhound bus. I’ve had a few minutes stick time in an F/A18 with the Blue Angels and in a military full motion simulator. I’ve also flown through 2 hurricanes in a C-130 Hurricane Hunter (not as scary as you might think). There have also been flights in a few helicopters, one blimp and some time in Houston walking through a Space Shuttle trainer.

My first balloon flight was in the 80’s during my PM Magazine/Buffalo days. The pilot was Einer Wheel (a name you don’t easily forget) and the balloon was festooned with ads for a local Western New York bank. Later, with the SciFi Channel crew, I flew in the Canadian Flag balloon during a mass ascension at the Kodak Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta.

I’m looking forward to this balloon trip because it’s over Las Vegas (though probably not over the Strip), which will provide an immense panorama, and because it will be with my dad. This is the kind of thing he’d never do on his own and something he’ll really enjoy a lot.

This being Father’s Day, I went a little nuts and went off my diet. Helaine and Steffie took me to The Rusty Scupper for brunch. With today’s weather, and its location right on New Haven Harbor, it was the perfect spot.

Father’s Day ends at midnight. I’ll be dieting again tomorrow, trying to gain a cushion for our Vegas vacation. I was king for a day. It’s good to be king.