Vacation update - Thursday

Went to the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park today, which is by far the best thing of the trip for the adults. The kids were not impressed, but Kris and I were. This is the place I could spend some time, but the boys weren't having it. Back to the hotel for more swimming, which is where we encountered The Coming Hoard. I guess I'd not thought of Thursday as being "moving in from Kansas" day, but it seemed like everything went rogue.

First off, there were about 30x the normal number of people at the pool - all of them sporting two arms of beers and two wagons of kids. All the kids were nasty and rancorous, and their parents were loud and obnoxious. We vacated the pool early, and headed to our rooms for a quiet evening of relaxation. Not to be, since the younger versions of the Pool Invaders decided that they needed to try and head-butt their room doors open, shake the Pepsi machine until it started fizzing from the top, and practice slamming their room doors in preparation for future domestic violence episodes. This continued pretty much unabated through the night.

Leaving on Friday, and happy for it.

[ddg]

Vacation update - Wednesday

San Diego Zoo today. I don't think I'm wired up correctly for zoos - I can't get into oohing and ahhing over some stupid panda, and I'm pretty sure the black panther is pacing back and forth, thinking only about breaking my legs and sucking the marrow out of the split bones. The only sign of excitement from the kids came when we saw the pythons; other than that, it was all boring-boring-boring to them. They came alive for the swimming at the end of the day.

Thankfully the sun came out today, and it made the afternoon swim much more enjoyable. Worked for me!

Tomorrow, more zoo! How did that happen?

[ddg]

Vacation Update - Tuesday

Seaworld today. Aiden (the 6 year-old) is our family biologist, and he loved it. Cynicism completely washed away when I watched his take on Shamu, and as a result I bought him the largest stuffed Shamu we could find. It is about as big as he is, and I have no idea of how we will get that thing home. Cynicism completely returned when we paid $60 for a stupid lunch meal, only to see a dude named Jesus slap my burger together with amazing contempt. I'm sure at he really wanted to wipe his ass with my bun, but I also suspect that Seaworld has them wear assnets for exactly that reason. Snot on your lettuce, anyone?

The whole park was kind of dingy, but it was saved by the last show - the SLL (Sea Lion Live) show. The sea lions weren't that great, but the main entertainer, Jeff, lit up the place and had us all howling. Low-brow for sure, but still fun. Also, they did a 20-minute pre-show, which is exactly the right thing to do to help bide time. More event places should take a cue from this.

Positives: Aiden loved the whales, sharks and other stuff. Touristy toys were inexpensive, and there weren't too many super-commercial things.
Negatives: Jesus (shudder...),raft ride wasn't as cool as advertised.

Two days in SD, two completely overcast days. Does the sun ever shiine here? Was I somehow tricked into returning to Wisconsin?

[ddg]

Vacation update - Monday

KidFit-at-Legoland by DarwinGrosse

On vacation with The Family this week - San Diego, making it our first vacation ever that didn't include either work or family. Woke up at 3am,in the car at 4am for a 7am flight. Into SD at 8:30, and straight to Legoland. Please to spend all your money...

We went to LL first to get it out of the way, since it's all the kids could talk about, and the rest of the trip would have been miserable if we hadn't done it quickly. Massively overspent on everything, but had a good time. I got to see and hear one of the most outrageous kid-fits ever in the line for the junior driving school ride; it was so good that I downloaded a field recording app on the iPhone so I could capture some of it. It sounded like the raptor cage in a Jurassic Park movie, and I'll post it here when I get home.

Positives: Fun rides, especially with Graham (the 4 year-old), interesting purchases of big-ass Lego Star Wars stuff and OK food.
Negatives: Onerous parking, didn't take Lego VIP points for the purchases, and a damned long way from SD.

Staying on Mission Bay; 2 rooms poolside. Everyone is very tired this evening...

(Edit: The track is now added to the post, but it isn't as horrible in recorded form as it was in real life. Just assume that the tortured cat sound is a 3 year-old boy, and you'll get the picture.)

[ddg]

Sequence duplicated.

Here's a little Sunday afternoon toon done completely with the modular. The percussion tracks are filtered noise with interesting modulations. The various harmonic and melodic lines are all the same 18-note sequence, time and rate shifted, and played with variations of the same patch (varied via different settings). Volta played an important part in this one...

Round Robin by DarwinGrosse

Enjoy! (Or not!)

[ddg]