We were fortunate enough to make it to TAM this year.  We had such a good time at TAM6 that we greatly looked forward to being able to go again.  It took us a couple years, but we finally made it to TAM9.

We got into Vegas on Thursday afternoon so we had a bit of chill time before things really got going.  At the welcome reception Thursday night, we found there were over 1600 registrants this year.  I think TAM6 was around 1000 or so.  On Friday, we were told that of the 1600+ registrations, 40% of them were women and 50% were first TAMers!  Very exciting indeed!

The speaker lineup was nothing short of Amaz!ng and my husband and I had a wonderful time.  One thing I didn’t do this year was take pictures.  We sat at the front of the second section of seating all weekend and the lenses I currently have for my camera don’t do very well at that distance and I didn’t want to walk to the front at the beginning of every talk so I just hung out and listened.  I did get pictures of me with George Hrab, The Amaz!ng Randi and Phil Plait.  I always feel awkward asking for pictures with people…I’m not entirely sure why, but I do.  But I managed those 3 anyway.

I’ve been sitting here this morning, in my quiet hotel room, trying to decide which pieces of TAM to talk about.  All the speakers were fantastic and the panels as well.  I don’t think I could talk about all of them and do any of them justice.

Of everyone, my two favorite speakers were Pamela Gay and Richard Wiseman.  I never did get to thank Richard for getting that “Obama’s Elf” song stuck in my head.  He’s my kind of evil.

Anyway, Pamela Gay talked about how she was inspired to become an astronomer and how science is nothing short of an inspiration.  Funding for space exploration and research is threatened and she urged everyone to talk to their congress people and get their voices heard and save science funding.  I was nearly moved to tears by the end of her presentation, she was so good.  And she’s right – if we make our voices heard, we can make a difference.

Richard Wiseman, being the evil evil person he is, not only showed some photo illusions that he’s featured on his blog, but he also showed a video of an animated elf on Obama’s shoulder singing “All By Myself”, except displaying the words “Obama’s Elf”…and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head!  Thanks Richard.  He did another song – O Fortuna – as well, that I’ll never be able to listen to the same way again.   His presentation was hysterically funny and it’s great that there was so much laughter.

Another super awesome thing about TAM this year, was the vaccination drive.  305 people, including my husband and me, got tDAP shots.  I really think they could have given a lot more (they only had 305).  Many much deserved kudos to the Women Thinking Free Foundation for putting this together — it was awesome.

There were so many great speakers at TAM, there is no way I could do them justice.  Where do you start with speakers like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Bill Nye, or Richard Dawkins?  Not to mention the gazillion other really amazing people?  I look forward to the TAM 9 DVD’s because I’d love to relive all of it.

Hopefully, we’ll get to go to TAM 10.  I can’t imagine what they’ll come up with to top TAM 9, but the JREF has such an amazing group of people, I have no doubt they will top it.

**Edit** I don’t know for sure if this is the O Fortuna video he showed, but I recognized some of the lyrics and either way, it is damn funny!

A few months ago, I decided that I would like to spend my 40th birthday in London, so I got to planning and searching for things I would like to do while there – keeping in mind that there is no way I would be able to pack in as much as I would like and still enjoy it. Still, I researched and consulted Google Earth when I wanted to see what places looked like and I planned and planned. I love doing that. Somewhere in the planning stages I decided that I would also like to go to Cardiff. And I am glad we did. So, anyway, I got the trip all planned out and booked and then we waited….for what seemed like an eternity for the time to come to travel.

Before I get into the details of our trip, I would like to say a few things about the weather this trip. We spent a week in London and Cardiff and not once did it rain while we were out and about. In fact, there was only one incidence of rain the whole trip and it was slight and while we were napping one afternoon in Cardiff. It was truly amazing. We could not have asked for more beautiful weather. It was sunny and the temperature was perfect for short sleeves for the majority of the time. We could not get over just how amazingly perfect it was.

After forcing myself to concentrate at work all week, our holiday finally began. We got to the airport early and had time to relax with a beer or two before making our way to our gate to depart. We had hoped to get at least some sleep on the plane so that we could enjoy some of Friday in London. We did get a little bit, thankfully, but not a lot, so Friday was definitely going to be a light day.

We departed the aircraft and went through the familiar immigration, baggage claim and customs before heading to the Heathrow Express train to Paddington Station. I had purposefully booked us at the Hilton London Paddington so that we wouldn’t have to even leave the station to get to the hotel. For our last trip to London, we stayed at the Hilton London Tower Bridge, which is a gorgeous, modern hotel with fantastic views of the Thames and Tower Bridge. It was also a 10 minute walk to the nearest tube stop, which, with luggage, is less than fun. This time I was willing to sacrifice the views and new looking/feeling hotel for the convenience of having the train and the tube so close by. And I am very happy I did.

Anyway, we got checked in and headed up our room. The room itself was nice enough. Nothing special, really, the hotel is showing its age. The air conditioner in the room never did work quite right, so it was always just a little warmer than either of us liked. We were told that the next several days was going to be unseasonably warm and sunny in London, so we both figured that air conditioning just wasn’t used as heavily as we rely upon it at home. Even still, I would stay there again just because it is so damn convenient and the staff was friendly and helpful.   So, we unpacked and got showered and headed out to, hopefully, enjoy a London Walk. We chose the “In the Footsteps of Sherlock Holmes“, which was guided by Richard IV (there are apparently 6 Richards that work for London Walks, so they number them).

It was a fun and informative walk. For those that have done the tourist thing in London but have not taken a London Walk tour, you really should. We happened upon them by accident the last time we were in London and it is such a wonderful way to see the city and learn of the history and lore that London has. Their guides are superb! Unfortunately, I was starting to really feel the effects of travel and little sleep and I did wish I had opted for a nap and one of the evening walks instead. Richard was fantastic. I, however, was having a hard time concentrating and, while I had intended to take pictures, I just put my camera away. I just could not do it.

After our walk, we headed back to the hotel to nap. It was necessary. We awoke in time for dinner and headed to one of the many Indian restaurants within a couple blocks of the hotel. We chose Flavours of India. It’s a really tiny restaurant with ornate decor and the food was fantastic. If you find yourself in London, in the Paddington area, I do recommend it. We decided to call it an early night so that we could enjoy my birthday without feeling exhausted.

On my birthday, I woke up quite early feeling mostly refreshed. Today, I had a couple things planned – a ride on the London Eye and an afternoon at the British Museum. After breakfast, we headed to South Bank and walked for a bit and took some photos of the area. I remembered the area quite well from out last trip, but the weather was so much nicer this time. Just perfect, in fact. Ya know, in case I have not mentioned that.

I had booked the Fast Track tickets for the London Eye; We’re not Time Lords, so for us, time is too precious to spend it in a long queue. We basically got the tickets and then went to the Fast Track Queue and withing 2 minutes we walked into our capsule on the Eye. Also, getting there early ensured that there were fewer people in the capsule. The views you get as you traverse the wheel are amazingly spectacular. I think every major city should have one of these. It was lovely.

After we disembarked the London Eye, we hopped back on the Tube and headed to the British Museum. Once we got there we decided to start with some lunch. The British Museum has a really nice restaurant called The Court that is under the glass dome of the Great Court of the museum. Unlike the cafe style places elsewhere in the museum, this was fine dining. We had a lovely birthday lunch with drinks and then set off to enjoy as much of the museum as we could, knowing that we very likely would not see it all. The last time we visited the British Museum was 1997 and we both looked forward to having another look.

We started on the top floor and worked our way down. We spent 5 hours walking though the exhibits and we still managed to miss some rooms I would have liked to see. Next time, right? We definitely exhausted ourselves, but it was such a lovely way to do it. On our way back to the hotel, we discovered that there must be a football match in London because we encountered hordes of people – quite a lot of them wearing jerseys – going somewhere. And walking down the street looking for somewhere to have dinner, the pubs weren’t as crowded as we thought they would be.

Sunday’s agenda included 2 things — a hop on/hop off bus tour, that we figured we wouldn’t do much of the hopping on and off, and another London Walk, the topic this time being Jack the Ripper. I actually got a little bit of sun on the bus tour. Go figure; we spend a week in Mexico and I come back more pale than I left, because I wore industrial strength sun block the whole time, but I come back from the UK – where rumor has it the sun doesn’t come out – with sun! It is a lovely way to see the city, though, and I recommend it. Next time, I think we will choose some sites to disembark and explore more thoroughly. The one place we did want to get off the bus was at the Natural History Museum. It is a gorgeous museum – very ornate. We did not spend much time there this trip, but will spend more time next time. It’s quite large, but we had already been doing quite a lot of walking and we wanted to make sure to save enough energy for the Ripper walk later.

The walk was guided by Donald Rumbelow, who is an historian and has researched Jack the Ripper for pretty much my entire existence on this planet. Wow. What an amazing walk. Donald is very descriptive when telling the stories of how life was in 1888 when the Ripper murders took place. He also, very graphically, describes the murders themselves and they were gruesome. The Ripper’s identity was never determined and not much physical evidence has survived, so we may never know who he was, but one thing is clear – he was a very sick person. The Jack the Ripper walk is, undoubtedly, the most popular walk available. Apparently even more so when Donald guides it. At the Tower Hill Tube stop, there were about 80 people, which split into 2 groups – some going with another guide, Molly, and the majority going with Donald. Donald’s group grew during the tour, too. I think there were over 100 people by the time the tour ended. I do hope that at least some of those people paid after the fact. This tour takes you to some dodgy parts of London, but even still I didn’t feel unsafe like I would have in some parts of DC or New York. If nothing else, there is safety in numbers, right? We also got an autographed copy of one of Donald’s books on Jack the Ripper, which I look forward to reading.

Monday we aimed to solidify our geek cred somewhat by taking a trip to The Who Shop. It’s a bit out of the way, but we really wanted to go and we’re glad we did. The folks that run it and work there are quite lovely people and they have put together a small museum of Doctor Who memorabilia they have been collecting for 30 years in a back room, which is worth seeing. My goofy husband posed for some silly pics while we were there.

After our trip to The Who Shop (where we did buy a few things, of course) we headed back to Paddington Station because we had a train to Cardiff to catch. I just love how so many things are accessible via subway or train in the UK. It is most convenient to not have to drive to get to places.

The trip to Cardiff was about 2 hours and a lovely way to travel. Once we got to Cardiff Central we got a taxi to the hotel. It was a short ride from the train station to Cardiff Bay. We stayed at St. David’s Hotel, which overlooks Cardiff Bay. It’s a gorgeous hotel inside and out. We found out that just about 3 months ago, they renovated their bar and restaurant. The staff says that before that it was looking a bit shabby. Now it is quite beautiful. We opted for a Junior Suite there and we got a corner room with floor to ceiling windows lining both outer walls with a view of the Wetlands Reserve and the bay. It was breathtaking. We unpacked a few things and changed clothes and headed to Mermaid Quay, on the bay, in search of a pint or two. Not exactly hard to find, I might add.

Mermaid Quay is a picturesque waterfront area. Shops, restaurants and bars line the streets and we looked forward to a relaxing couple days to complete our holiday. Cardiff has quite a different feel than does London. Everything slows down to a reasonable speed. And being Torchwood fans, it was neat to see Cardiff in person. Doctor Who is also filmed in Cardiff, with the difference being that in Doctor Who, they make Cardiff into other places most of the time. Torchwood is set in Cardiff, so things are far more recognizable. I’d like to spend more time in Cardiff, I think. We didn’t explore the city centre at all while we were there and there is more to see. Monday evening, we went back to the hotel to have a pint in the hotel bar before setting out again to see Cardiff at night. It didn’t quite go as planned, actually, which as it turned out was just fine. We sat down to watch one of the pre-World Cup matches — England vs Mexico and met a couple other people that were in town on business and sat around talking to them and drinking until about 1 in the morning. We had a fantastic time getting to know them.

One topic that came up over and over again when we talked to the people that lived in the UK was the recent health care legislation here in the US. Every single person we talked to there brought it up and every one of them could not believe just how much resistance it got here. That’s quite a different picture than was painted by the opposition here. The way they told it, people in the UK and Canada hated socialized health care. By and large, they don’t. Their systems do have their problems, for sure, but the people are not without medical care and they recognize the importance of that. But I digress. Back to our holiday.

While in Cardiff, we had two things planned, aside from sampling the local beers and eating way too much food. A trip to Cardiff Castle and a visit to the Doctor Who Exhibition at Red Dragon Centre. One of the gentlemen we met at the hotel bar used to work as a broadcast engineer for the BBC and after finding out that we were big Doctor Who fans, he tried to get us a tour of BBC Wales. He wasn’t successful, because of the short notice, but I was floored that he would even try. He was a lovely gentleman that I hope we run into again in the future.

We took the Aquabus taxi sevice from Cardiff Bay to the City Centre to visit the castle. I much prefer the Aquabus to regular taxi services. It was fun. We got to see quite a lot of birds, mainly swans, with their young and it was adorable. Once dropped off at the City Centre, we explored the castle grounds and had some lunch and explored some more. There is a stone circle in the park beside the castle and the castle itself is very ornate on the inside. We got a tour of the castle apartments and wow. Just wow. Not my style of decorating, but wow.

The Doctor Who Exhibition is small, but worth seeing. I enjoyed seeing Dalek’s close up and, of course, a TARDIS. There was a lot more there, too. It was most fun. If you find yourself in Cardiff and like Indian food, I highly recommend Moksh in Mermaid Quay. Mermaid Quay has quite a variety of restaurants, actually. There’s a pan-Asian buffet (Cosmo) that’s not bad, although it is very popular with groups and was very loud. There is also a Cantonese/Thai place that we really didn’t care much for – bland. There is also French, Italian, American and general cafe type places and, of course, some pubs. I wouldn’t mind spending enough time there to sample all of them, but alas, there was not time this trip. Before we knew it, it was time to catch a train back to London for our flight home. I am usually ready to come home after 5 or 6 days of a holiday. This time I wasn’t ready to come back. I could have easily stayed a while longer.

Someday, I would like to take several weeks to a few months and take the train from city to city, spending 3 or 4 days in each city we go to and see and experience new places. Someday.

And now for the photo’s…I haven’t labeled the pictures yet and some of them will undergo further editing.  I kind of wanted to be done with this for now and take a break and at the same time I wanted the pictures to be available for all those folks that have been asking me for them.  SO, I do hope you enjoy!

The British Museum, London – May 2010

Ancient Greece & Rome

44 Photos

Assyria

24 Photos

Aztek

10 Photos

China & India

39 Photos

Egypt

83 Photos

Japan

27 Photos

The Library

26 Photos

Misc

11 Photos

London – May 2010

London - Misc

47 Photos

South Bank

27 Photos

Museum Of Natural History

29 Photos

Jack The Ripper Tour

16 Photos

Sherlock Homes Pub

10 Photos

The Who Shop Museum

11 Photos

Cardiff, Wales – May 2010

Cardiff Bay

56 Photos

Cardiff Castle

104 Photos

Doctor Who Exhibition

56 Photos

Interestingly, nearly every time I mentioned to someone that we were vacationing in Cancun the first thing they asked is “is it safe there?”.  Although Mexico has seen a lot of drug related violence, most of that violence is in the border cities far away from Cancun.  Mexico is a large country with quite the range in safety and violence.   One of my coworkers also vacationed in Cancun a few weeks ago and he said he had been warned against leaving the resort, so they didn’t.  I find that sad, because all the warnings I could find really dealt with other parts of Mexico.  Cancun and it’s surrounding areas really have so much to offer.  To not see any of it really is tragic.  I’ve been to Cancun and the surrounding areas twice now and haven’t felt the slightest bit unsafe.  We haven’t gone exploring completely on our own because neither of us speaks much Spanish.  Tourist Spanish really only goes so far.  So we book tours to places we want to see.  And even when we have had free time to explore the areas we have visited we have not felt unsafe at all.

Ok, on to the fun parts..

Just like our first trip in 2007, we stayed at the Westin Resort & Spa.  We loved it the first time and this trip was even better.  Their staff is excellent and the service is impeccable.  The location is fantastic, too, actually.  They have a nice beach and the hotel is situated in a quiet area away from down town.  Our first full day there we basically hung out in the shade by the pool.  We had a long day of travel the day before and we wanted to just chill and enjoy the warm sunshine shade.  They have bar/snack service all down the beach and by the pools so we just hung out and drank all day.  It was a lovely way to start a vacation. Most relaxing.  We even took a long walk down the beach (after slathering on plenty of gazillion SPF sun block, of course).

Then on Sunday we took a private tour to Chichen Itza (where we’ve been before) and Ek’ Balam (had not been there before).  They have everything cabled off at Chichen Itza so you can’t climb on any of the ruins, sadly.  The last time we were there we were able to climb one of the smaller ruins, but they had it blocked off this time.  I do understand why, though.  Chichen Itza is very heavily toured and all those people really do take a toll.  It was good to be there again, though, as it is a beautiful site.  After taking some lovely photos, we decided to take a look at the stuff the myriad of vendors had for sale.  I had been looking for a large Aztek calendar that was brightly painted.  I found exactly what I was looking for and a few other things to bring home.  We also saw some fresh excavation which is always pretty neat.

Our next stop was Ek’ Balam, where you can climb everything.  It doesn’t look as heavily traveled, so they haven’t blocked everything off like they have in many of the larger parks.   We only climbed the main ruin, which was fairly high, and the view was spectacular.  We hired a guide there, which honestly I wish we had not done.  He was good and very nice, but he took too much time telling about the myths, which I remember nothing about (sadly, because it really is interesting) and we weren’t really able to take much time to explore.  Coy enjoyed the guide a lot more than I did.  I would have been happy to walk around, climb everything and take a lot of photographs.  I often research sites I’ve been to after the fact, actually, and match everything up with the pictures I’ve taken.  That works pretty well for me.

Tuesday, we ventured to Cozumel to take a little trip on a submarine (Atlantis Submarine) to see the reefs.  The deepest depth we went to was 105 feet.  We saw the edge of the island — it’s like a cliff.  We saw lots of reef, fish, a few sting rays and whatnot.  It was a blast.  Sadly, we were kind of stuck in Cozumel for a couple hours after that before we could catch the ferry back to Playa del Carmen and get our list back to the hotel.  Not a fan of Cozumel.  Too many overly aggressive people trying to get you to spend money in their shops.  I have never liked that.  Still, the sub ride was super fun.  I suspect that durring high season it’s actually better because there are more people.  We tend to vacation in the tropics just before their season really starts because we like the lack of people.  But it does have it’s drawbacks.

Wednesday was Coy’s birthday.  We were suppose to go on a sunset cruise and have dinner on the beach, but the travel agent changed the time of our pickup and I didn’t notice and so we missed it.  Hopefully they will refund our money. They said they would, but I’m not really optimistic.  Once we got back and I was able to check my mail again I saw it really was my mistake, but it just did not occur to me that they would move the time up.  The sunset is extremely predictable, so they really should have known more than a week out that their pickup times were wrong.  They also could have called our hotel the day before to confirm the pickup (another tour we took did just that).  But, anyway, we missed it and so we stayed at the resort for his birthday and the waiters kept feeding us cocktails and we had a really lovely dinner at their nice restaurant.  Actually, with every meal that day (including breakfast) we got a free desert.  And more than a few free cocktails.  I tell you, they really know how to take care of their guests!

Thursday, we took our last tour for the vacation and we managed to really wear ourselves out with all the walking and climbing.  This time we went to Coba and Aktun Chen.  Coba is really spread out and there doesn’t seem to be a lot to see.  Maybe there is more than we had time for, I don’t know.  There is one big ruin which you can climb — The Nohoch Mul pyramid — it’s 145 feet tall.  I didn’t climb that one. My fearless husband did, though.  After we left there and before we got to Aktun Chen, we also stopped by a local shop (the tours generally take you to somewhere to hopefully spend your cash) and we got some lunch and did a bit more shopping.  I really liked a number of the things for sale there.

Aktun Chen is a cave complete with stalactites, stalagmites, fossilized coral, fruit bats (non-fossilized) and a cenote.  However, unlike every other cave I’ve been to, this one was hot and humid.  I’m used to cool and damp in caves.

After our full day we headed back to the hotel for one last dinner for the next day we came home (to winter wonderland, as it turned out!).

Galleries:

Mexico Trip – December 2009

Chichen Itza

56 Photos

Ek Balam

32 Photos

Atlantis Submarine Cozumel

16 Photos

Cozumel

8 Photos

Coba

35 Photos

Coba Cenote

8 Photos

Aktun Chen

46 Photos

Westin Cancun

32 Photos

Videos:

The view from “our spot” by the pool:

Two videos from our submarine ride:

We found that even though we are pretty different from one another and have been apart for many many years, we have many similarities with each other. For instance, our sense of humor – we are all absolute smart asses. Also, we are all basically introverts and tend to be shy in unfamiliar situations.

I’ve always known, however, I was the “different” one in many respects (not all of which are genetic, but interesting none the less) – I’m not musically inclined, while the rest are; I’m atheist, while the rest aren’t; my hair is straight, while the rest have curly hair. But that’s not all. It turns out that which thumb is on top when you clasp your hands together is genetic and there I am the different one, too. Of me, my five siblings and our mom, I’m the only one whose right thumb rests on top of my left when my hands are clasped together. The rest are left over right.

From what I can find out, the left-over-right is the dominate configuration meaning most people clasp their hands with the left thumb over their right thumb. Us right-over-lefts are in the minority. The Heredity Project is one of the many websites I found that illustrate it. According to that site, Mom must have both the “L” and the “r” (since “L” is dominant, I’ve put it in upper case) and she passed the “r” to me. My dad could have been either an “Lr” or an “rr” and he passed an “r” to me as well. He’s no longer alive, so I am unable to find out if he’s a lefty or a righty.

There are three possible combination’s: “LL”, “Lr” and “rr”. If you have the “L” at all, you will likely have your left thumb over your right when you clasp your hands together. There are a super small number of people that don’t really have a dominant thumb and those folks will use either configuration. For the rest of us, clasping our hands in the opposite manner than our norm feels quite unnatural and strange. Go ahead, try it yourself — clasp your hands without thinking about it. Are you a lefty or a righty? Now clasp your hands the opposite way — feels weird, doesn’t it.

Anyway, I am back to the normal grind now. I hope we all manage to get together again before too many years pass.

I’d been racking my brain and going through the closets for things to sell to go to London TAM, but it just wasn’t happening.  With it being sold out, at least I don’t have to fret over it.

Damn.  I’m severely jealous of everone that gets to go.  But, I look forward to reading all about it.  Plus, I will make it to a future one.  Damn it.

Yesterday, we took a trip to visit 4 wineries. Village Winery, Lost Creek Vineyard & Winery, Hidden Brook Winery and Fabbioli Cellars. I linked to the Virginia Wine pages rather than the individual winery websites here because the info given is consistent and compact. The individual winery websites can be found at the end of this post.

Our first stop, Village Winery, wasn’t much to look at. The building is weathered and the barn next door looks like a strong wind would knock it down. The owner is in the process of restoring the farm buildings.  For wine, he specializes in apple and elderberry wines, but he also make some more typical cabernets and merlots.  Both the apple and elderberry were quite delicious summer time wines.  They both had a very casual feel to them and were sweet without being desert wines.  We marked this winery for future visits and recommend it.

The other 3 wineries we went to were all practically next door to each other.  This allowed us to visit more wineries than we normally do in one trip.  Lost Creek Winery is very modern and has a large tasting area and a gift shop.  Their wines were quite good, particulary the Chambourcin and their two desert wines – Late Harvest and Courtney’s Christmas Blend.

Next door to Lost Creek is Hidden Brook Winery.  It was opened by one of the children of the Lost Creek owners.  It’s in a log cabin building and is fairly modern.  This winery was the most bland (ie uninteresting) we went to.  And the only one where we did not purchase any wine to bring home.  Their wines were good, but nothing really unique.  They also seemed a bit unorganized.  I don’t think they had a system worked out for paying for tastings because unlike every other winery we’ve visited in VA, they asked for payment before the tasting and then as we were leaving they stopped us and asked about payment again — and then realized that we had already paid.  That was just weird.

And lastly, we headed down the road to Fabbioli Cellars.  It’s run out of the finished basement of the family’s home.  Of the 4 wineries, we enjoyed the atmosphere of Fabbioli the most.  Also, we liked every wine we tasted there.  It was actually difficult to choose which ones to buy — well we are on a budget, so we couldn’t really buy one of each.  The people that run the place are all nice and personable and love a good chat.

I love this time of year.  It’s finally warm and there are so many wineries to visit.

Winery Websites:

Village Winery

Lost Creek Winery

Hidden Brook Winery

Fabbioli Cellars

We had decided to stay an extra day in Vegas after TAM to do a couple Vegasy things. One of those things was spending most of Monday at the Las Vegas Hilton’s Star Trek: The Experience. We’ve been there before, but it’s been nearly 10 years and they’ve added quite a few things since then. Since our first trip, they’ve added a new ride – “Borg Invasion 4d” and a behind the scenes tour and several photo options. We went ahead and did all of it.

We got there around 11:30am and decided to have a drink and a snack at Quarks before getting any tickets and really deciding on what to do for the day. We had the Holy Rings of Betazed (onion rings) and a couple of their specialty drinks. Very refreshing. Then, after a short walk through the shopping promenade, we headed to buy our tickets. We chose a package deal that got us unlimited rides for the day as well as photos on the Enterprise Bridge, photos in a Borg set from either ST:TNG or First Contact (they told us, but I don’t remember) and the Behind the Scenes Tour. Sadly, because Paramount keeps a tight reign on their trademarked stuff, photos were not allowed on the tour, with exception to the “Captain’s Lounge” at the end, where wedding receptions are held. The Captain’s Lounge kind of reminded me of Ten-Forward.

Before the Behind the Scenes tour, we decided to go on both rides, so we could get a good ‘before and after’ feel, and get the photos done. We had plenty of time. The Klingon Encounter, which was the original attraction, was more fun than we remembered. The transporter effect, I must admit, is really cool. And, the Borg Invasion was also a lot of fun and very well detailed – plus a couple of the effects were a bit startling – one where you feel the borg nanotubes piercing your back. That effect made me jump even the second time when I knew it was coming.

After going on both rides and before the tour, we still had a bit of time so we headed back to Quarks for another frosty yummy beverage. I really like Quarks. It’s futuristic and fun and the drinks and food are really quite good. We also decided to do one of their alien photos and got assimilated into into the Borg collective. I guess resistance really is futile.

Now for the tour – it was about 90 minutes long and we got to see how they did the special effects for the transporter as well as many other things on the Klingon Encounter. We only went through a couple things regarding the Borg Invasion ride, but still very cool. Walking through the corridor of the Enterprise looks just like the ship on tv looked. The bridge was flawless. They even had the smallest of details down, like the little labels you see on the panels in the corridors actually had the little things that the set folks had put there. The first one I read said “Kilroy was here”. Someone else read the ingredients to a soft drink on the one they were near. And then there were the conduits labeled “GNDN…” – Goes Nowhere Does Nothing. And the button on the bridge panels were a lot of fun, too and had all the ‘hidden’ stuff that were on the real set. And they did the whole transporter effect with the lights on so we could see how it was done. I won’t spoil it for you, but I will say it was actually much simpler than I thought it would be. And seeing it didn’t at all ruin the experience the next time we went on the ride. They also took us to the ‘shuttle craft’ that is part of the ride and showed us how they work.

If you like Star Trek at all and you find yourself in Vegas, you should check out the Behind the Scenes tour and the rides. They’re a lot of fun. And have lunch or dinner at Quarks. You might even get accosted by a Klingon, a Ferengi or an Andorian. Plus, did I mention the drinks are really good?

Gallery: Star Trek The Experience

Edited 05 Jun 2008: According to this press release, Star Trek: The Experience will be shutting down on September 1st of this year. That means we visited it in its first year and its last.

We got into Vegas on Wednesday night and got checked in and stuff and were even able to get a semi good night’s sleep. We were both awake at 5am because we were still on east coast time and that was great for us because we got to have a leisurely breakfast and wander around a bit and get our bearings.

I’m going to try to get to the real highlights of TAM 6. This is going to be hard, there were so many, but ok, here it goes, in no particular order:

• James Randi – Lets face it, he is the reason that TAM was started and continues. He really is Amaz!ng. He is one of the nicest, most gracious humans I have ever met.
• Neil deGrasse Tyson – He rocks. Plain and simple. His talk was called ‘Brain Droppings’ and he did talk about a wide variety of things. He is an amazing speaker. He went way over time, which no one minded, in fact we all cheered him on to keep going. I’m sure I am not the only one that would have loved to see him keep going all day long.
• PZ Myers – I knew his talk would be good, because I read his blog. When Hal was introducing him, he said that PZ’s blog was the greatest science blog on the internet (or something like that), which, of course Phil Plait couldn’t pass up, so he gets up and gives Hal some money, so Hal revises his intro saying PZ has a pretty good science blog…Phil gives more money and Hal then revises “apparently, he has a blog”. It was LOL funny. PZ didn’t talk about squid. Hard to believe, I know. He talked about bats. And threw a few jabs toward Phil, who gave it right back the next day during his talk.
• Phil Plait – Phil is the reason I became interested in the skeptic movement, if you will. I read his blog throughout every day and I rather like astronomy, so I knew I would love his talk. He talked about all the weird stuff we find in our solar system that we don’t know much about. The universe is a crazy, weird place. There is so much we don’t know yet and so much to learn. So why, when we have all this real weird stuff going on that we can learn about and maybe even figure out, do people insist in making stuff up? As it turns out, humans are a kind of crazy breed, too. Also, Phil gave it right back to PZ in spades. Heh.
• Adam Savage – I’m hoping I managed to contain the fan girl moment I was having in my head when I met him. He is a super nice guy, by the way, and really took time out to make sure to interact with as many attendees as possible. I admire him even more than I already did. He talked about his obsessions with making the perfect Maltese Falcon replica and it sounded like he was having a lot of fun with it. Then, of course, he showed a video of gratuitous explosions (w00t!). Also he brought 1000 of the ping pong balls that they used to lift a sunken boat on the show. Oh, and he signed a good many of those balls. He went out of his way to sign them for as many people as possible that wanted them. He rocks. And, at the special dinner on Saturday night, we got to sit with Adam! He is so much fun.
• Banacheck – He ran a workshop on Thursday about memory, which was phenomenal. I can still remember that grocery list.
• Dr. Art Benjamin – Showed us all how to do complex math calculations in our heads. This one is going to take some practice, for sure.
• Richard Wiseman – Showed us all how to bend spoons. In fact, he brought with him 800 spoons so that he could film everyone in the audience doing the spoon bending trick at once. Look for it on YouTube soon.
• The Skeptologists – We got to see the pilot episode, which rocked! I really hope a network picks up this show. I want to see more.

I know that there is so much that I didn’t put in that list that should probably be there. Like I said, there was so much and it was all pretty damn wonderful. Also, we met many attendees that we really liked. Shout outs to Arjen and also the foxhole atheist Geoff that was at our dinner table on Saturday. We met many wonderful people and I do have to admit, it was pretty neat being in the same room as 900 other skeptics. Can’t wait for TAM 7 (or maybe even 6.5!).

TAM6 Gallery June 2008

edited: I had spelled Geoff’s name “Jeff”, so I wanted to correct the spelling

We got back Sunday night from our very quick trip to England. I think I am nearly recovered from all the walking and the 5 hour time difference. It was a fun trip. As can be expected in England, the weather was quite varied, from wonderful sunshine to steady downpours to hail and then back again to sunshine. Rinse. Repeat. On the whole, though, the weather wasn’t too bad. We got much much walking in and I got quite a few photos that I will put up in one of my gallery’s when I am finished with the processing.

We arrived at London Heathrow on Thursday morning, after flying all night. Amazingly we both managed to get some sleep on the plane so we weren’t completely done for. We went through immigration and picked up our luggage and headed for customs. Now, customs in Heathrow was a rather different experience for me. We walked right through. They have this section for “nothing to declare” and we didn’t have to stop at all – it was very much like a domestic US flight. Our first thought was – wow the British are more trusting than Americans. Later we were told that customs agents do watch people go through and that they do pull people for random checks.

A driver picked us up and took us about an hour and a half south of London to a far edge of nowhere place called Steyning where my husband had to work for a couple days.

Steyning is a very small town. Not a lot happening. It is very picturesque, though, so I pretty much walked around taking pictures for two days. I was rather luke warm to the accommodation, though. We were put up in a B&B that smelled like my grandmother’s house. It’s weird just how smell and memory are so much linked. Anyway, I generally prefer actual hotels to B&B’s when I travel. It’s just easier for me.

On Thursday afternoon, I spent about 2 hours walking around with my point and shoot camera kind of scoping out things I might want to revisit on Friday with my “real” camera. I walked to Bramber Castle (or what’s left of it) about a mile and a half from the hotel and took some photos there. There is a fairly large grassy field and there were several families enjoying picnics and playing with their dogs and what not. Friday morning I repeated the trip to Bramber Castle and took several photos unimpeded by any other people. Then, after a bit of a rest back at the B&B I headed out in the other direction from the hotel and took some more photos. I really enjoyed the architecture of the area. There was a mixture of stone and brick that was very pretty.

Friday evening we took the train back up to London. We stayed at the Hilton Tower Bridge, which was a great location. It’s right on the river, so we could walk out of the hotel and down to the river and have wonderful views of Tower Bridge and the city scape across the river. Friday night we pretty much ate dinner and chilled at the hotel bar. Boring, perhaps, but we were both pretty travel weary. Besides, we had figured on quite a lot of walking on Saturday.

Saturday morning we got up and had some breakfast and headed out. We took the tube to Westminster because we were planning on taking a walking tour with Photo Walks of London. We got there a little early and waited, but either the fellow(s) that were suppose to give the tour were late, or didn’t show, or were just unmarked and I didn’t know what they looked like, so we took a tour with a different company called London Walks. Our tour guide was Shaughan and the theme was Shakespeare. It was a fantastic tour. We took a boat just a bit up the river to the Globe Theater and toured the area of the city that was best known to Shakespeare. I took many photos.

After the tour, we went to a fantastic little Thai restaurant for some lunch and then headed back out for a walk along the river. My goal was to get to Dali Universe and get a photo of the Dali melting clock statue that sits out front. On our way down the river we encountered the whole range of London weather. Finally, after what seemed like an age we found what we were looking for and I got my photo and we toured the Dali Universe museum. Unfortunately photographs were not allowed inside. After 6 or so hours of walking (total for the day) we decided to take the tube back to the hotel rather than walk the whole way. Then we set off for dinner. We ate at an Indian restaurant called Tower Tandoori. It was pretty good. The Masala was just a touch sweet for my taste, but it was quite good.

Once we got back to the hotel I decided I wanted to try my hand at getting a photo of Tower Bridge all lit up. I’ve never had very good luck with night shots, but I’ve been working on my general photography skills and thought I would give it a shot. It was just so beautiful. If I would have had more energy at that point I would have ventured a bit down the river some more to get some other night shots. Next trip that’s on my list, for sure.

Sadly, Sunday was pretty much a steady rain so we really didn’t venture far. We only had until 1pm or so before we had to head out for the airport anyway, so we slept in and then stuck fairly close to the hotel. We lunched at a French restaurant near the river, which was quite good and then got back to the hotel in time to get our cab back to Heathrow. All in all, I do wish we could have stayed in London another day or two. It went far too quickly and I would have liked to get more photo’s (of course) and perhaps even taken a trip down to Stonehenge. There will be other opportunities, though, so no worries.

Edited to add – Galleries:

Steyning, UK

Photos from our trip to Steyning, April 2008

36 Photos

London 2008

Pictures from our very short stay in London in April 2008

26 Photos

Shakespeare's London

Pictures from the London Walks "Shakespeare's London" walking tour

12 Photos