March 11, 2008
Four Minute Warning
My other touristy stop in Tucson was the Titan Missile Museum, the only remaining Titan II silo in the country. It's a fascinating and unsettling relic of the Cold War. The tour took a little over an hour and provided a look at the outside of the facility, the bunker & command center, and the ICBM itself. The guide provided a great deal of information on the facility, which -- eerie as it is -- is an engineering feat. He also walked us through the process that would have occurred in order for a launch.
The Wikipedia pages give a pretty good overview. For more pictures, check out this News.com photo essay. You might also be interested in last year's New York Times story on "atomic tourism". Finally, trekkies should note that part of Star Trek VIII was filimed at the silo.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of these Cold War sites is their simple tangibility. It's one thing to talk about game theory and the "rationality" of mutual assured destruction, to comb through historical details of the Cold War, or to shake your head over nuclear near-misses. It's quite another to see and touch the physical proof of how close the USA and USSR truly came to ending civilization. (It's also worth mentioning that there is still an abundance of warheads and other nuclear material still sitting around -- enough to create 300,000 bombs. It is dangerous to speak of the nuclear threat in the past tense; I shouldn't do it.)
One thing that struck me while visiting the museum was the almost unthinkable number of security measures and failsafes designed to prevent sabotage, accidental launches, and the like. It was very apparent that the weakest link was not the ICBMs, the facilities that housed them, or the launch crews. Instead, it was the president of the United States and his close advisors. It would have been nearly impossible for the missiles in this particular facility to be launched without direct order of the president (although I can't say the same for other launch sites like submarines).
When you think about some of the commanders-in-chief we've had during the last sixty years or so (and their political and military advisors), it's very disconcerting. Just the other day, I linked to a clip with one of those classic lines from Dr. Strangelove: "Now then, Dmitri. You know how we've always talked about the possibility of something going wrong with the bomb. The bomb, Dmitri. The hydrogen bomb." It's funny because it's true: the fate of civilization was (is) in the hands of a few politicians, whose sanity and "rationality" was (is) difficult to guage.
Just a couple of weeks ago, Wired published an article that claims the following:
Frustrated, Nixon decided to try something new: threaten the Soviet Union with a massive nuclear strike and make its leaders think he was crazy enough to go through with it. His hope was that the Soviets would be so frightened of events spinning out of control that they would strong-arm Hanoi, telling the North Vietnamese to start making concessions at the negotiating table or risk losing Soviet military support.
Codenamed Giant Lance, Nixon's plan was the culmination of a strategy of premeditated madness he had developed with national security adviser Henry Kissinger. The details of this episode remained secret for 35 years and have never been fully told. Now, thanks to documents released through the Freedom of Information Act, it's clear that Giant Lance was the leading example of what historians came to call the "madman theory": Nixon's notion that faked, finger-on-the-button rage could bring the Soviets to heel.
Lovely.
(The title of this post comes from the UK's four minute warning. See also: 1, 2)
11 Mar 20:18 | Link | Category: Travel
March 10, 2008
" Say it 'sah-WAH-row' "
One of my stops last week was Tucson, Arizona, where the weather was heavenly. I found myself with about half a day free for touristy activities. I thought of visiting the old Biosphere II, but I did that years ago. So this time, I checked out Saguaro National Park, an interesting park with two separate districts on either side of the city.
Americansouthwest.net has several QTVRs of the park and GORP has an interesting article on the cactus the park is named after:
One saguaro produces tens of thousands of seeds in a year, and as many as 40 million in a lifetime of 176 to 200 years. From the start, the odds against survival are great. Out of all the seeds that a saguaro produces in its life, probably only one will survive to adulthood.
10 Mar 18:39 | Link | Category: Travel
March 3, 2008
Out of Office Auto-Post
I will be out of town through Friday. I might check e-mail & the web intermittently, depending on availability of wireless access and whether or not I feel like checking in.
In other words, I haven't been keeping up on e-mail or blog posts anyway, and it could get even slower for a while.
03 Mar 0:12 | Link | Category: Site/Life News, Travel
April 23, 2006
Anyone up for some desert wandering?
I think spring has finally arrived. Yesterday it was 76° F. A couple of days before that, I finally took the top off my Jeep. (What a glorious moment that always is -- I've been saying it for years, but I'll say it again: the dogs are right; a drive is not a drive unless your face is in the wind.)
All of this means I've caught the annual springtime travel bug. One of my favorite destinations for a quick getaway is Southern Utah. During recent years, I've been visiting fairly regularly during April. I was too busy - and the weather was too bad - this April for me to consider going. And during May I have two trips to California planned. But I would still like to take a short trip to Southern Utah soon.... maybe during June.
This time, I'm going to spend some more time exploring the Comb Ridge / Butler Wash area (in the four corners area near the San Juan River and the town of Bluff - population: 320). It's an area full of beautiful canyons and rock formations.
Because the area was heavily settled by Ancestral Puebloans, it is rich with ruins and rock art - nearly 200 sites per square mile. I explored the area very briefly a few years back (it's where this photo comes from) and I've been itching to go back ever since. If you care to join me, drop a line and let me know when you can go. I'm thinking early June, depending on what I do as far as summer classes.
The images at the top of the post are from Google Earth. If you have the program (it's free for Windows & Mac), download this file to have it automatically take you to the location. Notable cliff dwelling sites are also marked. Damn, I love Google Earth.
Elsewhere: Utah adventure cures vacation doldrums
23 Apr 15:42 | Link | Category: Travel
January 7, 2006
It's 2006! (Or: Sorry for making you stare at Dick Cheney for two weeks)
I hope you all enjoyed the holidays. I got some much needed relaxation (and, as you can tell from the lack of posts, spent almost no time in front of the computer). I can't say I'm terribly happy about starting another semester of school on Monday, but at least I'm feeling grounded and refreshed. Earlier today, I returned from a short trip to Northern California, where the weather was warm, the sky clear, and the company wonderful. A few photos:
07 Jan 22:46 | Link | Category: Site/Life News, Travel
September 13, 2005
Just take everything down to Highway 61
Steve Dougherty spends some time on the "Dylan Trail" in Highway 61, Visited, a travel article for the New York Times. (Let's hope it stays up for a while before they start charging for it.) Interesting stuff for any of you fellow Dylanphiles. (via Ghost In The Machine)
Also, while I'm talking about His Bobness, I should mention that PBS will be airing Martin Scorsese's documentary "Bob Dylan: No Direction Home" September 26-27. I think you can also buy it on DVD, but at the moment I'm too poor for such luxuries.
13 Sep 19:30 | Link | Category: Music, Travel
August 24, 2005
Photos of ghost towns
Some nice ghost town photos here: Ghost Town Gallery. Some of the towns don't look very interesting, but there are a few really cool places to check out. If you're itching to visit in person, the site has a handy clickable map to help you get there.
24 Aug 19:24 | Link | Category: Photography, Travel
April 8, 2005
Google Maps
If you've been under a rock for a few days, you might have missed all the buzz about the new satellite imagery feature from Google Maps. Check out Google Sightseeing (from Shreddies) for quick aerial visits to places like Rainbow Bridge, Alcatraz, and the Neverland Ranch. Chris of Cynical-C has also put up a list of interesting views from the Golden Gate Bridge and Las Vegas Strip to Burning Man setup.
I have to agree with Mark Morford's assessment that it's creepy, but in a very cool way. I'm actually a little surprised by the buzz, since TerraServer has been around for ages, and their aerial photos are far more detailed than Google's. But apparently Google's imagery is more comprehensive. And the interface and loading speed are both quite impressive.
Incidentally, TerraServer has a collection of famous places, too. Click the "urban areas" tab (when available) for color photos.
Now I'm going to sit back, imagine the CIA spying on me, and muse on that whole WMD thing. I have this vivid memory from school during the 80s of some official-ish person telling my class that, using spy satellites, the military could tell if someone was drinking Coke or Pepsi (ah, for the heydays of the cola wars...) because they could tell what color of aluminum can a person was holding. I've always wondered if that was true...
Oh, here are a few of my creepy TerraServer photos:
- Part of my university's campus
- The neighborhood where I spent the first half of my life (things do look a bit different now)... I'll spare you the long slideshow of other places I've lived.
Weird. Anyway, remember: You are being watched.
08 Apr 14:53 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Libraries & Digital Information, Misc. Tidbits, Technology & Computing, Travel
March 19, 2005
Congo Gorilla Forest at the Bronx Zoo
The other night I was watching a TV show about Snowflake the white gorilla. They showed a zoo exhibit at the Bronx Zoo called the Congo Gorilla Forest. (Official site at congogorillaforest.org.) Have any of you ever visited the exhibit? I'd love to hear first hand accounts. If it's as cool as it looked, I'll have to add it to my list of things to see next time I visit New York.
19 Mar 13:37 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science, Travel
March 17, 2005
Photography (+Travel) Links
- Notes from the Road - a superb site that isn't just about photography... it's more of a travelogue, full of beautiful descriptions, captivating photographs, stories, and thoughts. I loved this one.
- Polar Inertia - excellent: "Armed with a laptop computer and increasingly aging Winnebago, our editor-in-chief Marcel E. Yarnow has brought together artists and writers who can tell the story which has been ignored by all others. It is the story of the highway, mobile home, fast food chain, suburbanite, truck stop and industrialized landscape, which characterize our growing nomadic culture."
17 Mar 13:31 | Link | Category: Photography, Travel
March 6, 2005
Hotel Rwanda
Last week, I was reading this article about the film Hotel Rwanda when I noticed the hotel name - Hotel des Mille Collines - and realized I stayed there a couple of nights when I visited Rwanda a few years ago. (I'm completely embarrassed and ashamed that I had no clue about the hotel's history when I was visiting.)
I saw the movie a few nights ago. Unfortunately, it was filmed in South Africa, so they didn't use the actual hotel. (Indeed, the actual hotel is not nearly as fancy as the one in the movie.) The outside grounds and the inside of the lobby were decent facsimiles, though (and their little transport vans looked identical).
Aside from my slight disappointment over the filming location, I was pretty impressed with the film. Many reviewers have complained that it sanitizes or washes over the brutality of what happened. This is certainly true (the film is only rated PG-13) but I don't think it diminishes the impact of the film as much as some reviewers say. I'm not sure if the filmmakers were more concerned with taking the focus away from bloody killing (perhaps to prevent an R rating and open it to a potentially wider audience) or trying to focus mainly on the personal, human side of the story (as any good film set in a time of crisis does). In other words, it would be more of an issue if the film presented itself as a documentary-like effort rather than a drama (though I will admit that can be a thin line when it's a factual drama).
It was a bit sanitized, but in the end I think the film is still nearly as powerful and moving as it might be with a few more scenes of innocent people being hacked to death with machetes.
I would definitely recommend the film to anyone... both those who are familiar with what happened and those who aren't. The most nagging thought I have is that in ten years, someone will probably be making a similar film about Sudan (or any number of other conflicts and incidents in Africa and around the world, both present and past). Or that people will think animosity between Hutus and Tutsis is a thing of the past. They're still fighting in the Congo and Burundi is only now getting back to a semblance of order. Conflict in Rwanda, Burundi, and DR Congo is estimated to have caused the deaths of five million people in just over a decade.
06 Mar 12:48 | Link | Category: Art & Entertainment, Travel
December 16, 2004
Las Vegas
Xeni (of BoingBoing) has this to say about Las Vegas, in an entry titled The Fertile Valleys:
I'm not sure why it's so compelling right now, but it is. Sometimes, a thing swells to a scale so tasteless, so grotesque, it crosses a magical threshhold and becomes beautiful. Like matter to antimatter. Beauty from antibeauty.
16 Dec 17:13 | Link | Category: Misc. Tidbits, Travel
September 21, 2004
Amazing airplane landing
The other day I had to fly to Phoenix to pick up a car for my dad and drive it back. (The beauty of the situation is that I was just there last month... in fact, I've had the opportunity to "enjoy" the 13 hour drive between here and there three times in the last month. Ay ay ay.)
The weather made the plane ride a bumpy one. Then the Phoenix airport was shut down for a while, so we circled in and out of thunderclouds waiting in turbulence for clearance to land. We finally got clearance, and the landing was... well, a bit sketchy. I've been through much worse, but it was enough that the rest of the passengers gasped and then clapped when they realized everything was fine. I overheard several on their cell phones describing the terror to spouses and family. (I suggest they try flying an overloaded Cessna through thunderstorms over Tanzania with a very inexperienced - and visibly nervous - pilot.)
However, I'm quite sure it was a lot better than this amazing landing.
21 Sep 22:08 | Link | Category: Misc. Tidbits, Travel, Video
July 5, 2004
The World's Top 100 Wonders
HillmanWonders.com lists the top 100 wonders of the world. I'm very sorry to say I've only visited five of them (technically more, but these are the only ones I remember well). If I want to see all of them before I die, I need to get cracking. Right now the only ones I can cross of the list are:
- Serengeti Migration
- Ngorongoro Crater
- Neuschwanstein Castle
- San Francisco Bay / Cityscape
- Las Vegas Strip
(via Pale Blue Dot)
05 Jul 23:49 | Link | Category: Travel
May 14, 2004
Nile River Adventure
Standing on the shore of Lake Victoria during our Africa trip, we joked about coming back someday and embarking on a river trip from Lake Victoria (or thereabouts) to the Mediterranean. A fine idea, no doubt, but it was a preposterous joke to us because we knew what a monumental undertaking such a trip would be... and even we underestimated such a journey because we assumed that someone had probably done it before.
In January, I read a BBC article about a group of rafters bidding to be the first expedition to travel the entire length of the Nile by boat. They started in January and should reach the Mediterranean this month. (It's possible they've already hit the ocean but haven't updated their web site yet.)
You can learn more about the mission, meat the team, and read newsletters from the river at their web site, TheWhiteNile.com.
14 May 0:52 | Link | Category: Travel
April 15, 2003
A Short Blink in Time
My short vacation was nice... I hadn't expected a solo road trip to be enjoyable, but it was. I needed some thinking time. I visited some national parks, took a few hikes, ventured off-road in the Jeep to explore some BLM land, did a lot of driving, listened to many hours of music, and stood in four states simultaneously at Four Corners Monument (also known as The Official Middle of Nowhere).
There were a few odd twists, too. Like when I arrived in Moab at about 4:30 to a plume of smoke (and a million or so Jeeps... turned out to be this year's Safari). A fire had killed all electricity to the city. I figured they'd have it back on by dark, so I drove to Arches N.P. and hiked up to Delicate Arch to watch the sunset. I arrived back in Moab after dark, ready to eat and find lodging... but still no power. Ehhh.... I had very little gasoline, but finally found one station outside of town that had electricity (needless to say, it was packed). I fueled up and took the long drive to Monticello (I had planned on heading there anyway) where I found a great deal on a motel. So no need to sleep in the car. Also, I learned that melted PowerBars and warm water can make a pretty decent dinner if necessary...
I always enjoy time spent in S. Utah. I visit too rarely... one could honestly spend several lifetimes exploring everything. There are so many stunning places, both on and off the beaten path. It's awe-inspiring, quiet, adventuresome, spiritual. There's nothing like wandering among ancient geologic formations and ruins of cultures past to make one understand that we're just a short blink in time, a tiny part in a universe that is grander than we usually realize.
I took a bunch of photos. Many didn't turn out as I had hoped, but I put some of them in the photos section anyway.
15 Apr 12:00 | Link | Category: Site/Life News, Travel
May 13, 2002
Mountain Gorillas
One of the most incredible highlights of my stay in Africa was visiting the mountain gorillas. Though I had looked forward to the experience, I had no idea how truly fascinating and enlightening it would be.
After a bit of hiking and hacking through the jungle, we caught our first glimpse of a young gorilla. From the first moment you lay eyes on these creatures, you are quite inexplicably mesmerized. In a very unconscious way, your voice and movements are hushed, a smile appears on your face, and you watch in wonder... a sort of awe-struck marvel. I can't explain it.
Many have said of Dian Fossey that she was a bit of an eccentric, a zealot. Perhaps she was. But every one of us who watched the gorillas came away understanding how someone could study them for hours, days, years at a time. We even understood the attachment, affection, and loyalty that she undoubtedly experienced, and which led her to some of the extreme measures she took to protect these animals. In other words, perhaps she wasn't such an eccentric after all.
As with other apes, I suppose it's their "humanity" that makes them so fascinating to watch. They're remarkably different from, say, chimpanzees... very laid-back and 'low-energy', but still interesting to observe. Watching the young ones roll on the ground or observing the facial expressions and body language of the adults is spellbinding. One unforgettable moment was watching two young gorillas play-fighting over a piece of fruit, then seeing the large silverback move over to them and calmy, gently stop them... then play with them a bit.
It's impossible to put into words, but there's something about them that is remarkably captivating. And there's so much we could learn about ourselves from these fascinating cousins of ours. Let's hope we do before they're gone forever.
13 May 12:00 | Link | Category: Travel
May 12, 2002
Etched in my mind
Sitting at the border station handing the bribe to the official, I wasn't prepared for what I would see on the other side. I had sensed it in Gisenyi, in the contrast between the beautiful lakefront villas and the hillside shanty-towns. Crossing the border into Goma, though, the scene was more extreme than I had expected... a city now largely covered by ash and volcanic rock. Black rock, grey dust, and desolation. Streams of people going somewhere despite having nowhere to go. Makeshift villages, endless fields of squalid huts bearing a grimy "UN." You could sense the hopelessness and despair - and most of all the stress - in the faces of nearly everyone.
One of the most unforgettable images - and I'll never forgive myself for not having the camera ready because it was like a work art symbolizing so much of this planet - was a boy, perhaps twelve or thirteen. He was standing barefoot in the street wearing a tattered American flag shirt, smoking a cigarette. I'll never forget the look in his eyes. I'm still not sure exactly how to describe the expression... it was one of being lost; an expression of despair, resolve, antagonism, hopelessness. This is the impression of Goma etched in my mind.
Returning from our visit, we enjoyed a tasty meal and lively conversation. I stayed awake for a long time that night, lying in bed full of confusion, conflict, and contradiction.
12 May 12:00 | Link | Category: Travel
May 10, 2002
A New Continent
It's a beautiful sight, seeing blue Mediterranean waters meet dust-colored land from 30,000 feet, followed by the endless expanse of the Sahara. Looking down at the vast, beautifully desolate desert from the airplane window... that's when it hit me. I was halfway across the planet from home. Europe just doesn't feel terribly far from home. It's foreign yet familiar. This... well, this was the Sahara I was looking at. So there I was on a nearly empty jetliner, heading into the middle of Africa. I can only say that the feeling was freedom. I only wish more people around the globe could experience the freedom and excitement of traveling to completely foreign lands.
The sky was dark by the time we reached Kigali (a fairly large city, though from an airplane at night there is a dearth of lighting by Western standards). From the moment my feet hit the tarmac, I was taking in the scene. The smell of the humid air, the cool temperature. The sounds of a foreign tongue, the interactions of the people. Driving through the crowded post-dusk streets, trying to orient myself in the dark. And the first meal, sitting on the open balcony with the breeze and the bugs. There I was, in a place -- on a continent -- wholly unfamiliar to me. I knew then that I was in for a fascinating experience.