The Best of the Dunesteef On SF Signal

It was recently brought to my attention that SF Signal (which gives news and reviews of Science Fiction films, books, television, and apparently, podcasts) did an overview of our show, and presented the ten best Dunesteef episodes ever (or yet, if you're an optimist).

Here's the link: (EDIT: The website is now gone, but it still exists on the Wayback Machine. So, here's the archived LINK).

It's pretty awesome that we were featured on any blog or website, especially one that's not hate-motivated.  But these guys have won two Hugo Awards, one for Best Fanzine, and one for Best Fancast, and I think, legally, you cannot shake a stick at that.

According to David Steffen, the best shows were, as follows:

1. “This Must be the Place” by Elliott Bangs
2. “Hang Up and Try Again” by Derek L. Palmer
3. “The Day Hypnotism Died” by Kevin David Anderson
4. “The Short Life and Slow Death of Timmy Van Lowe” by Bryan Lincoln
5. “Peacemaker, Peacemaker, Little Bo Peep” by Jason Sanford
6. “Anakoinosis” by Tobias S. Buckell
7. “Überman” by John Medaille
8. “Plague Birds” by Jason Sanford
9. “Saying Goodbye” by Christopher Munroe
10. “The Dead of Tetra Manna” by Mark L.S. Stone
11. “Whelp” by Damon Shaw
12. “Tattletale” by Christopher Fisher
13. “Tupac Shakur and the End of the World” by Sandra McDonald
14. “Good Day” by Saul Lemerond
15. “Open Twenty-Four Hours” by Edward McKeown

It's pretty neat to see someone else's list of your best work. I would agree with many of these stories, but also would put many different ones on as well.  Interesting.

The Wedding Planner

George R. R. Martin has certainly made some very memorable weddngs. I'll never forget the Red Wedding myself.

Welcome Home?

Man, I miss San Diego.

Dear Santa Available For Purchase

I wrote this story specifically for the 2014 Dunesteef Christmas episode. It's the story of Santa answering the call of a little boy who needs some help. It's not, however, a heartwarming Christmas tale. It's a tale that is more along the lines of Dunesteef sensibilities. So there you have it.

Head over and pick it up from Smashwords.com if you like.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Is It Or Isn't It?

I probably need to see stuff like this article more often, just to remind myself. Because I see all of the headlines...ALL OF THE HEADLINES. It's hard to put them into perspective sometimes.

Dunesteef Episode 167: Dear Santa by B.D. Anklevich

New episode up!

Just under the wire, since there’s still a few hours left of Christmas…at least in our time zone, here’s our annual holiday spectacular.

Jaxon has written a letter to Santa Claus. He needs something a little out of the ordinary this Christmas. Will he get it? Ho, ho ho!

Afterwards, Rish and I talk about the story, believing in Santa, and the crazy things people name their children…and their characters these days.

Special thanks to Justin Charles for producing today’s story, and to Renee Chambliss and Dave Robison for lending their voices to the tale.

Check it out at (EDIT: Now that the feed is gone, the only way to hear the show is over on the Dunesteef Podcast YouTube page, which I am embedding below).

Moonlit Confession Now Available

This story was on the Dunesteef as an incentive episode. So, you're probably familiar with it if you donate to the show. But, if you missed it, it's now available for purchase on Smashwords.com.

I really like the story, one of the reviewers for the Broken Mirror contest gave it a 10 after all. I won't mention that one of them also gave it a one...oh, shoot. Anyway, check it out. You might not be upset that you did.

To Tell The Truth?

My wife wants to make CDs for my 10-year-old daughter for Christmas. One for each of us, containing all of our favorite songs. I'm wondering, should I be honest and include songs like Metallica's Master of Puppets? Or shelter her from my angry music tastes of yore and only include songs that are age appropriate?

If you had to choose one song as your all-time favorite, what would it be? I'm thinking about it.

Why Now?

Why is it smoke detectors never run out of battery and start chirping at four in the afternoon instead of four in the morning?

Maybe This Is A Bad Time, But...

I was just going to the bathroom, and my two year old son knocked on the door, pushed it open, stuck his head in, and said, "Do you want to build a snowman?"

2014 San Diego Vacation 6: Pacific Beach Again And La Jolla

Our San Diego Go Cards had run out, so today was just going to be a beach day, which was appropriate, since it was our last day in sunny San Diego before we drove back to our snowy homeland.

We all got ready and the kids and I walked down to the beach at the end of the street.

Some of the kids passed their time building a sand castle.

After putting together a pretty nice castle, then went out to play in the water themselves. They splish-splashed around, and had a good time. We played on the beach for a while, and then, eventually, headed home.

We had lunch at home, and then got ready for a completely different beach. This time we were going to La Jolla. There's a nice beach there, as well as some tide pools, and a place where the sea lions come to congregate and lay on the sand.

We drove up there, and went to the sea lion beach. Those dark spots on the sand are all sea lions.

But the minute we got out of the car, we saw that the weather had changed since the time we'd spent on the beach this morning. Now it was windy, and the wind had brought cold along with it. This was not going to be an afternoon for frolicking in the sand and water like this morning had been.

We hopped back in the car, and drove the short way back to the house, and everyone grabbed their coats, and changed back into pants. Then we went back, so we could at least see the tide pools.

The tide pools were nice, but not amazing. We did manage to find some anemones to play with, so that was nice.

I didn't like the tide pools as much as I'd expected because the cold made us less inclined to get wet as part of our exploration, and Little had fallen asleep on the drive back, so he was grumpy and whiny as could be about being woken up to come down and see the tide pools.

We saw various other things, like shells and even small fish. It was fun, despite the cold. But, once again, the sun was going down. It was time to head home. Before we left, of course, we needed to get a picture of the sunset.

On the way home, we stopped by a store for some ice cream. It was our last bit of fun at the end of the trip. We went home after that, had some dinner, and then packed everything up so that we could leave first thing in the morning. For our trip back, we'd decided we wouldn't stop in Las Vegas, but instead drive the whole way in one shot.

So, when morning came, we packed up the car and said goodbye to our lovely beach house. The trip had been so completely splendid, and we were really going to miss it. It had been the most relaxing vacation that we'd perhaps ever had. Often, when a vacation comes to an end, you've had enough, and you're just happy to get back to your own home again. But that wasn't the case this time. Since we'd had our own place while we were in San Diego, we didn't get that feeling. We really would have preferred to stay, but all that was left now was the least relaxing part: the endless drive home.

At last, after many, many hours, we arrived home. We got out of the car, and brought our stuff in. My wife brought Little in, carrying him because he was asleep. When he got in the door, he opened his eyes, and looked around. When he saw that he was back in his own home, he started screaming and crying.

"No! No! Not this house! I don't want this house! I want the new house! My new house!"

Apparently the feeling was completely universal. We all loved San Diego so much that we wanted to stay for good. If only there was a way.

2014 San Diego Vacation 5: Whale Watching, The USS Midway, And Coronado

For our trip, we bought something called the San Diego Go Pass. They gave us admission to Legoland, the zoo, and Sea World, as well as several other things around the San Diego area. Our passes were good for four days, so today was our last day to use them. The last thing we had planned to do with our passes was to take a whale watching cruise.

I was pretty excited about this. I thought it would be pretty neat to see some whales, but I didn't even care if we did. Just the chance to head out on the water would be enough for me. I wanted the kids to be able to say that they did that.

Out in the bay, we got a pretty nice view of San Diego. I couldn't help but take some pictures.

The further we got, however, the rougher the sea got. Without the harbor to break the waves a little, the rocking on the boat got fiercer. We all headed back over to sit down, and did our best to keep our breakfast down. My wife was getting hit the hardest. Her stomach was doing flip-flops. They had complimentary barf bags available, and she sent me to fetch one for her.

On the boat, there were people from the local aquarium who went around teaching people about the Gray whales that we were expecting to find out on the ocean. One of them came by our family to teach us a few things about whales, how they ate, their migratory patterns, and how they got named Gray. When she discovered that my wife was feeling ill, she offered her a ginger candy. She said that she used it herself to keep from getting ill on the cruises.

She was happy to accept. The woman got one out and handed it to her, then headed off to educate some others. My wife had tried her best, but just before she got that ginger chew, she leaned forward and deposited some of her breakfast into that complimentary barf bag I'd brought her.

It was kind of too late now, but she popped the ginger candy into her mouth anyway. It helped a little, and kept her from making any more deposits to her barf bag bank, but the horse was already out of the barn as they say.

We stopped a couple of times, and floated for a while, watching the waves in search of a whale spout, but never saw any. It was starting to seem like we wouldn't find any, despite it being the best time of year to catch the whales in their migrations. Funny thing was, I wasn't sad about it at all. It had been a really neat experience one way or another, and I wouldn't have felt cheated at all if we just had to head back to shore without ever seeing a whale. The cruise could only last for so long, and then they had to head back in, and our time was running out.

We moved along again, and stopped in a new area. And suddenly, kapow! Whale spout!

 It was pretty neat to see. We watched the whales surface and spout off, then go back under again several times. Then at last we saw the spout that was followed by the whale's fluke appearing out of the water. That means the whale is diving deeper. Whales, of course, are mammals, so they have to come back to the surface to breathe, but they can hold their breath for a very long time. This whale was not going to be back up for at least five or six minutes.

It really was very neat. I could have floated around out there forever watching that. But our time eventually ran out, and we had to head back.

There was one more surprise in store for us, however. My wife, who was still pretty green around the gills despite the ginger candy, made me take Little down to the bathroom. On our way down, we heard one of the crew get on the PA and announce that their were dolphins around the boat.

"Wow, Little," I said. "Come here, quick."

We ran over to the windows that surrounded the lower level of the boat, and looked out. We could see two dolphins leaping out of the water after each other. No, wait, that wasn't right. I looked closer and realized that it was actually a dolphin and a sea lion leaping in and out of the water with each other. That was pretty neat. In the end, our whale watching cruise delivered on everything it offered, and whatever we might have imagined as well.

When we got back to the pier, we decided that we had to go visit the USS Midway. After all, it was only a one minute walk from where we were, and we got free entry with our San Diego Go cards. In fact, we got this amazing view of it as we came in from the cruise.

The USS Midway is not really a ship anymore. It's just a museum these days. You could go through the whole ship from top to bottom, and see the bunks, the laundry, the mess, and all the areas the sailors lived, as well as the upper half where the sailors fought. It was very neat to look at the jets and helicopters up close, and even better, there were many you could go inside of.

This quickly became Little's favorite thing to do. He was pretty grumpy, but as long as he could get inside of stuff, he smiled.

We were only able to see a pretty small portion of the ship before we had to go, however. My wife was just feeling too yucky. Her lunch hadn't been enough to settle her stomach. She wanted to sit down for a little while out of the sun, and rest. So, we said goodbye to the Midway, and went back to the car.

From there, we drove to Coronado Island and stayed until the sunset.

Coronado was a new beach for us. We'd spent all our time on the beach down the street from our house so far, and this one was new scenery for us. Like most beaches, it was gorgeous. It was wonderful to spend time there and soak up the sun in mid-December.

Like most days on this vacation, we were there on the beach when the sun went down. So, of course, I pulled out my camera and took pictures.

These were my favorite from this day.

Now that the sun was going down, it was time to get home and make ourselves some dinner. We kissed the beach goodbye, got in the car, and drove across the bridge toward Pacific Beach and our home away from home.

2014 San Diego Vacation 4: SeaWorld

It rained all night long on Tuesday night, but by Wednesday morning, it was all done. That was a really good thing for us, because SeaWorld was our only option today. Because of the passes we had bought, we had to go to SeaWorld today, or not go at all.

It was a little weird to think that it was Christmastime. SeaWorld did a lot more for Christmas than Legoland did, I think, but still, being in San Diego where the weather was beautiful and warm, and the beach was a nightly visit for us did not put us in the Christmas spirit. It's not like it made us angry or want to act like Scrooge or something, but we didn't really feel much like singing carols or anything either. Except maybe that Hawaiian carol.

My wife's intel on the best ways to experience SeaWorld said that the shows were the best part, so you should schedule your day around them. We got ourselves a program, and did just that. The first show wasn't all that spectacular. It was the pets show. Cats, dogs, birds, and the like did some tricks for us. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't impressive either. Although, the fact that they were able to get cats to do anything at all was a surprise. In my experience cats can't be bothered to stop loafing about and despising people to do anything.

We saw the sea lion show, which was pretty cool, and more interesting strictly based on the fact that you don't see them every day like you do your loathsome cat. And they're cute and fun as well. 

After the sea lions,we went to the dolphin show. 

My wife made us hurry to the dolphin show stadium, because she wanted to get a good close seat. One much better than the one we'd had for the sea lions. But when we arrived in the stadium, the first ten rows or so were marked off as the "splash zone". If you sat there, you could expect to get wet. It had rained the day before, and all night long as well, and the clouds hadn't gone away. It was still a pretty chilly day. Getting wet was not on my list of things I was after. I know that most visitors to SeaWorld would love it, because most visitors to SeaWorld come in July. But us crazy Ankleviches always pick December as our month to attend theme parks. So, the water features are kind of unattractive to us. She insisted we sit at the front nevertheless, so I trepidaciously parked my rear on a bench, and started prepping my jacket as a shield to hide behind.

The dolphin show was my favorite of the day. The things those dolphins could do were pretty amazing. There were also pilot whales that took part in the show. At least I think there were. I didn't really see, because I was hiding behind my jacket.

It started to seem like we might avoid getting wet, despite being front and center in the splash zone. The dolphins had splashed and soaked most everywhere except where we were sitting. But our time did finally come, right before the big finale.

Lastly, we went to the orca whale show. That's the show that takes place in Shamu Stadium. I assume that Shamu himself is long dead, mostly because if he wasn't, I'm sure they would have pointed him out again and again to us during the show. They did have a whole pod of orcas though. It was neat to see such humongous creatures leaping into the air like that, but beyond that, there was little of note to that particular show. The dolphins are much more nimble and impressive than the orcas.

Now that we'd seen all the shows, though, we were free to do whatever we wanted, and what everybody wanted was to ride the Manta. The Manta is SeaWorld's roller coaster. So, we headed in that direction.

I've mentioned more than once the rain from the previous night. It may have made the dolphin show a sketchy proposal, but all in all, it really worked in our favor. Because it had rained, SeaWorld was probably half as full as it would have been at any other time. Because it was half empty, we got really lucky with things that we probably wouldn't have experienced otherwise.

Example number one: on our way to the Manta, we came across a woman wearing what was perhaps the most outlandish (and ugly I have to add) outfit that I've seen in some time. Immediately, I tried to steer clear of this person. But she made eye contact, and started heading our way. What was in store for us? I was afraid to find out.

This woman, it turns out, was part of SeaWorld's Surprise Squad, and the awful outfit was the unfortunate woman's uniform. Here's a picture I lifted off the SeaWorld site of the outfit. Truly hideous, right?

I think she zeroed in on me because I was holding a really cute two-year-old in my arms. They informed us that it was SeaWorld's 50th birthday this year, and in honor of that, they were giving surprise gifts to the people that come to attend the park. They asked Little what his favorite animal that he had seen today was. He was shy, and we had to coax and answer out of him. At last, he admitted that the orca whales that we had just seen in the last show we were at were his favorite.

They dug around in their bag, and pulled out a stuffed animal of an orca whale, and gave it to him as a gift. For the rest of the family they had coupons for a free popcorn and a free fountain drink for each of us. That was cool, because we never would have paid the astoundingly high price to buy them.

We moved on, and rode the Manta. Little was too small to ride, though. So, I stayed with him at the pool where you could pet manta rays. I was probably too fat to fit on the ride anyway. We went around, reaching for them as they passed, and petting their slick skin. Then we came upon an area where all the rays seemed to be clustered in a big group. At first I thought that was weird, but then I realized that someone had bought food, and was feeding it to them, and that's what they were falling all over each other to get. Little and I watched, and commented about it, when suddenly the guy with the food offered one of the little fish they were feeding them with to Little.

"Does he want to try?" he asked.

"Wow, thanks," I said. I guess when you're a cute two-year-old, people are often moved to do things for you.

The man told us how to feed them, and Little bravely stuck his arm in, and waited for the rays to converge. You had to hold your arm deep enough that the manta rays could come overtop of your hand (because their mouth is on the bottom), and then they would suck the fish out of your hand like a vacuum. Not sure how much Little liked that, but as soon as it happened, he jerked his hand out of the water, abandoning the feeder fish to its fate.

It was so fun that I knew that I had to have everyone else try it too. As soon as they came back from the roller coaster, I bought some food, and gave everyone a chance to try it. It was five dollars for five little feeder fish, which seemed like an astronomical price to me, and made me appreciate the man who gave Little one of his all the more.

Each of us got the chance to have a fish sucked from our grip by a fish that was so strange looking it might as well have been an alien. And pretty much without fail, we all reacted like Little did that first time, jerking our hand from the water as quickly as we could.

SeaWorld has been in San Diego for fifty years, and, just like the zoo, I visited SeaWorld in 1982, when I was eight years old...just a few years after SeaWorld opened, I suppose. I sure am getting old. One of the few things I remember from our day at SeaWorld thirty-two years ago was the SeaWorld Sky Tower.

It's not really anything all that impressive, just a big room that goes up into the sky, and rotates slowly to give you a view of the surrounding area in San Diego. But it stuck in my mind nonetheless. We all piled in, and took a ride on it. After that, we headed over to the Bayside Skyride.

It was the same thing as the one they had at the zoo yesterday, except that you had to take it on a round trip journey, since the far end of it was all the way outside of the park. You rode it out, then turned around and came right back to where you started from.

Leaving the sky ride, I spotted a person who appeared to be an employee of the park walking along with a head of lettuce in her hand. This seemed weird, but weird brought to mind the Surprise Squad and the free stuff they gave us, so I sort of headed in this woman's direction, just in case she was looking for someone to give something to.

It turned out that my instincts were correct. The woman walked up to me, and asked if me and my family would like to help her feed the sea turtles. Again, the half empty park really worked in our favor on this day. We were led over to a pond off the side of the Shipwreck Rapids ride, and we got to toss leaves of lettuce down to the turtles that were kept there.

It was another really neat experience for us. It was starting to feel like SeaWorld was catering especially to us and us alone. After that we headed over to some of the little kid rides that we had skipped when we were making sure that we didn't miss any of the shows.

At this point, it was starting to get late. The park closed at six o'clock, and it was five already. The sun was setting and we didn't have much time left. There was one big ride left that we hadn't tried, The Journey to Atlantis. It was another one of those rides that was all about getting you wet. Basically, it was just like those old-fashioned log rides that they have at every amusement park everywhere. You get on a boat, float around for a while, then drop off a great big hill and splash down at the bottom getting all wet.

I wasn't interested in getting wet, and Little was too small to ride, so the others went on that ride without us. The lines were so short that they were able to go on several rounds very quickly. And while they did that, Little and I went to check out Christmas town.

We found there was the SeaWorld mascot, Shamu, dressed as Santa Claus, and I took Little's picture with him. Further into town was the real Santa Claus. Because the park was so empty, there wasn't even the shortest of lines to wait in to see him. Little and I walked right up, and took our picture with him. And Santa gave Little a candy cane too.

In Christmas town, they had a place where you could go sledding. They'd piled up a bunch of shaved ice to make a sledding track. A novelty in San Diego, I suppose, but no big deal to us. Since we had time to kill, though, I took Little in and let him try it. 

We met up with the others, and before we left, we went on one last ride. It was the Wild Arctic ride. It's one of those simulator rides, where you watch a movie while sitting in a vehicle that moves you around to simulate movement. Not particularly impressive, but afterward we walked through the display areas where they had a beluga whale in one tank, a polar bear in another, and a walrus in another. I was pretty amazed by the size of the walrus. That thing might as well have been a whale, it was enormous.

You exit this ride through the Wild Arctic gift shop. The people working the gift shop thanked us for coming, and just before we left, they called us over and handed us a box.

"Here," the man said, "a special gift from SeaWorld. Thanks again for coming."

It just seemed like too much. Once again, another free gift. It almost felt like they'd only opened the park that day as a special gift to us as well. Inside the box was a SeaWorld Christmas tree ornament. It was a great finish to a great day.

We'd asked everyone at the start of the vacation what they expected would be their favorite thing to visit. Pretty much all of the kids expected it would be Legoland. But by the end of our time at SeaWorld, they had unanimously changed their mind.

2014 San Diego Vacation 3: The Zoo, The Rain, And The Beach

So, Tuesday was looking to be the most weather-affected day on our trip. The skies were gray and glowering, and everyone in drought stricken California was dancing with happiness. We, however, were not. A rainy day at a theme park is not generally on the list of top vacation draws. But when it comes to weather, you just gotta make do with what get, because there's no changing it. We decided to go with the zoo as our destination today, since we'd probably be the least upset if we were sent home early by bad weather. After all, a zoo is a zoo, right? And there are zoos everywhere.

Okay, I'm being a little facetious. Yes, a zoo is a zoo, but the San Diego Zoo is well known as being one of the best zoos in the entire country. It's a really big zoo with a whole lot of animals. It's so big that you're pretty much guaranteed to be unable to see everything in one day. The ideal way to deal with the San Diego Zoo is to start off with the bus. 

The best thing about the San Diego Zoo buses is that they are double-deckers. Outside of London, England, you don't really get a lot of chances to ride on a double-decker. The bus ride will take you around and give you a glimpse of as many animals as possible in a short period of time.

My daughter said her favorite animal was a tiger, so we made our way to the tiger habitat. Zoo workers told her not to get her heart too set on seeing the tiger, because it liked to hide away from view, but we lucked out, and were able to see it pacing back an forth on an upper ledge.

We got lucky to get a really good look at several animals, because, even though they had big pens to roam around it, they still came right over to the closest place for viewing. Like this hippopotamus for example.

The polar bear did the same thing:

The biggest draw at the San Diego Zoo is the panda bear. There are less than 3,000 pandas in the whole world, and very few in zoos outside of China itself. So, San Diego is pretty proud to have some of their own. They built a giant enclosure for it with theater-style seating because it's so popular. On a rainy morning, however, the line to see the pandas was much shorter than usual. In fact it was non-existent. Which is very cool, because we passed a sign on our way in saying that the wait was thirty minutes from that point. Glad we didn't have to wait for that, because I'm not sure if I would have.

The panda sat with its back to us and chomped on bamboo while we were there. I tried my best to get a photo from a different angle that showed its face, but it didn't happen.

At about one o'clock, just as we were viewing the polar bear, the rain started to get really bad. So, we decided to finish our day at the zoo by taking the sky ride back to the front gate. You've seen sky rides before, they have them at every amusement park pretty much. I really wanted to go on this one. Seems like a weird thing to really want to try, but there's a reason for it. You see, this was not the first time I'd been to the San Diego Zoo. My family actually visited the zoo all the way back in 1982.

For a long time, I've been my family's official photo and video guy. Scanning and preserving stuff for the future. Years ago, as I was going through our old slides looking at pictures like the one above, I found this really cute picture of my sister with my mom on the San Diego Zoo sky ride.

It was Christmastime, so I got a special frame, had a print made up of the photo, and gave it to my sister for her gift. Something about it stuck with me. I loved the picture, and now here we were in the same zoo right next to that same sky ride. So, I made sure we went on it, and I did my best to get a similarly cute picture of Little with my wife.
 

 Once we got back to the front gate, we quickly ran to the gift shop, and hid away from the rain. It was really coming down at this point, and it was a good thing we were on our way out the door, because sticking around would have been really miserable. Some of the kids got stuffed animals from the exhaustive selection as her souvenirs, and we were ready to go. Everyone remained huddled in the gift shop, while I ran out to the car and brought it close for them.

We decided we would spend the rest of the day in the beach house's living room, watching some DVDs we would rent from the Redbox. Everybody wanted to see The Guardians of the Galaxy, but the Redbox we found at a 7-11 by our house did not have that movie. We tried to talk them into something else, but they wouldn't budge. My wife used her phone and the Redbox website to locate the closest Redbox kiosk that had Guardians of the Galaxy, we dropped the kids off at home, and we headed in that direction.

The rain was ferocious on our drive south toward that other 7-11, but right about the time we arrived, the storm broke. We got our movies, but as we drove home, the skies cleared more and more. By the time we got home, it looked as though there had never been a storm at all. Since we were only blocks from the beach, and we could watch movies anytime anywhere, we changed our plan. We'd watch the movie later on tonight or even later this week if we had to. Right now, we were going to the beach.

After such a downpour, you don't expect it to instantaneously be beautiful, but it was.

The kids went right to work building sandcastles.

The rest of the time, we played in the waves.

It was an absolutely beautiful afternoon, and once again, we were on the beach as the sun set. On this trip, I became somewhat of an expert at sunset pictures. I took a lot of them. This one was my favorite of today's batch.

Darkness descended, and soon we had to quit playing and go home.

But again, spending time on the beach was so relaxing and wonderful. There's just something about that place where the ocean meets the land that makes me, my wife, and so many other people happy.

Now it was time to go home, eat some dinner, and watch a movie.

2014 San Diego Vacation 2: Legoland

Monday morning was the official day one of our trip. We were in San Diego, and ready to start hitting some of the attractions we'd come to see. Of course, we'd already been to the beach the night before, and planned to go again and again. But what I'm talking about is those amusement parks that southern California is so well known for. There were three of them we meant to visit while we were here: SeaWorld, the San Diego Zoo, and Legoland.

It looked like we were in for some rain in the middle of the week, according to the weather reports. In fact, it looked like Monday would be our only rain free day. So we asked the kids which place they wanted to visit on the day that the weather would definitely not force us to leave early. Their answer, unequivocally, was Legoland.

It was no surprise to us. The kids have loved Legos for many, many years. So, with a long history of joy from Legos versus no idea what the deal is with SeaWorld; and a Zoo, something that they have in pretty much every city in the world; obviously they chose Legoland.

Legoland was all right, but it kind of failed to deliver what you would expect. Legos have always been very creative and interesting, even innovative. Legoland was pretty much like every other amusement park you've ever been too. Or perhaps even less.

It seemed to me like Legoland did what a fair number of amusement parks do. They're only interested in fleecing you for every single cent you've got. They charge an exorbitant fee to get you in the door, then, once you're in, you can't walk ten steps without coming across another place that's trying to charge you another exorbitant fee: kids' hamburgers that cost $8, or crappy souvenirs that cost at least twice what you'd pay outside the park. There were rides, but most of them were about as impressive as what you'd see from a traveling carnival stopping at small towns in the summer. And, there were surprisingly few rides too. Probably because they had to leave space for all the food and souvenir kiosks.

What was Legoland like? I'd call it a cross between a museum that would appeal to someone my age and a that traveling carnival that comes to our home town each June that would appeal to someone Little's age, maybe a little older. Why do I say it's like a museum? Well, they had a lot of exhibits like this:

A life-sized statue of Darth Vader assembled from Legos. I loved this stuff. I could have spent the entire day just walking around and looking at things like this. My wife was...well, I wouldn't say that she wasn't impressed, because that wouldn't have been right...but she definitely had a different agenda. She wanted the kids to get a chance to ride all the rides that they could. The park's hours were 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM, not very long really for an amusement park, and she didn't want them to miss out on something they would have enjoyed. So, we rushed over to as many rides as we could. But they were all pretty lackluster.

We found a building that had a recreation of the set from the Lego Movie. This was really cool.

Everybody in our family loved the Lego Movie, and it was a really successful show too. It seems like they should have had a whole lot more stuff in the park that was Lego Movie related. But this was pretty much all we came across.

As weak as the rides were, the lines were still fairly long, but a neat thing that they do at Legoland is put a section in the middle of the line where the kids can go and build with Lego blocks while their parents wait in the line. Then, when they're close to the front, they call them over, and go together to the ride.

 My kids all took advantage of the opportunity to do something other than stand in line. I might have done so as well, if only I'd seen just one other parent in their building a robot or a car or something. Sigh.

At lunchtime, we shelled out enough money to get us another night in a hotel in Las Vegas to give our family hamburgers. At least the hamburgers were pretty good, even if they cost an arm and a leg. It would have been much more frustrating if they'd cost that much and really sucked too (which freqeuntly happens at tourist traps like this). They weren't big, however, and most of us were still hungry when we were done.

From here, we went down to Miniland, where they had a bunch of Lego reproductions of famous places like San Francisco, New Orleans, New York, New England...all of those places with new in their name.
Right in that area was the boat ride, where they take you around to look at some more of these types of reproductions. We took the boat, and saw the Eiffel Tower:

And New York City:

Needless to say, I loved this stuff. As I said before, half of Legoland was like an art museum that would really appeal to old guys like me. As you might have guessed, when we reached this, I'd found my favorite spot in the park:

One time, when I was working in Sacramento, they had a Lego expert come into the studio to be interviewed for the morning show. There are people who get licensed by Lego as Lego Certified Professionals. They're the kind of people who build these outrageously awesome pieces of art. The guy sat in our studio the whole morning long, building things out of Legos. I'm not sure if it's a job or just a hobby, but if it is a job, I would love to have it be my job.

As the last hour of our stay in Legoland arrived, we finally found the places that were worthwhile. The rest of the park should have been just like these. They had buildings where you could use the Legos they provided to build cars and race them down a track, or build robots or other things. There were little kids running all over the place in these buildings, making different kinds of cars and so forth, and then there was my son. 

My older son's only fourteen, still well within the age of people who enjoy Legos, but he's also six feet tall. So, he looked a lot like Gulliver among the Lilliputians out there building his cars. I'm glad he's not one of those kids that can do nothing more than text and roll his eyes. I'm glad that he still has that kid living inside of him. Sometimes I wish he had better control of that kid living inside of him, say when it comes time to do homework and he just can't get himself to do so. But I love that he's willing to get down on his knees and build a Lego car shoulder to shoulder with eight-year-olds without a hint of self-consciousness in doing so.

We spent a fair amount of time building cars, and then finally, on our way out, hit their biggest souvenir shop. This one was full of Lego sets, and other Lego related stuff as well. The kids picked out a few souvenirs, like Lego figure keychains for their backpacks. Then we said goodbye to Legoland

Legoland, it had its shortfalls, but we did still have a lot of fun. It should have been the best place of all, and someday, Lego will get their act together and really make that place awesome. Maybe it'll be perfect for my kid's kids, when they come back in twenty years.