Gallifrey One

Last weekend was this year's Gallifrey One, the fan run Doctor Who convention in LA.  This year I was delighted to see one of my favorite actors, Mark Sheppard, was attending.  He blew me away as the lawyer in Romo Lampkin in Battlestar Galactica, and that's when I realized I'd actually seen him quite a lot in earlier roles.  X-Files, Invisible Man, Firefly--he'd made all the rounds of sci-fi in small but memorable roles.  And then he got the role of Crowley on Supernatural and just took it to the next level.

This latest season of Doctor Who he starred in the first two episodes which meant that he was fair game for an invite to a Doctor Who convention.  The favorite part of the convention for me was the live commentary that he did with the director (Toby Haynes.)  I did not like everything about that episode, but Sheppard and Haynes' commentary was great--highlighting things I hadn't noticed and giving a unique perspective on the action.  

It wasn't until I saw that episode of Doctor Who that I realized that W. Morgan Sheppard and Mark Sheppard were related--father and son.  The elder Sheppard is another great character actor who has swept through some great sci-fi.  It's irrational, but you always hope that the actors you love to watch are actually as great in person as the characters they play.  A wonderful day!

Mark Sheppard and W. Morgan Sheppard answer audience questions at Gallifrey One

The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular

I've been an audience participant at a lot of shows in Orlando but in fifteen years I've never been able to crack the big one:  The Indiana Jones Epic Stunt Spectacular.

Until now.

This past Christmas Eve, I was with my parents celebrating the Disney way, and as evening approached, we wandered on in to the Indy show.  The show does three of the most famous scenes from Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.  Being Christmas Eve, the theater was packed to the gills, it probably holds several thousand people.

That's what makes volunteering for this show so hard!  They pick a dozen folks out of a couple thousand, and so you have to bring your A game to be a volunteer.  I did my best, wearing a bright red Disneyland shirt, screaming joyfully when he asked for volunteers, and finally got it!  And not just any spot, but the coveted "last pick", where you get to let out a primal scream for the crowd.  Thanks to my Mom and her trusty Powershot, you can see for yourself!

It was great fun!  After the introduction you see above we got our requisite turbans and robes for the Cairo market scene, and got a front row view of the action as the stunt performers worked all around us.  Afterwards we received our final parting gift, yes, an official Disneyland cup of water!

Official Disney World paper cup

After being a volunteer, we got to return to our seats in time to see the great finale with the out of control airplane and the cool explosions.  At that point I was glad that the sun had gone down, fire looks so much cooler at night!

Boom goes the fuel dump

One more surprise came later.  During the Christmas Break, a student of mine from Calculus last year wrote me an email to ask if that was really me volunteering at the Indy show.  If it was not me, she said "I'm just giving you a heads up that you have a doppelgänger in Claremont."  First, major props for use of the word doppelgänger!  Second, that's just crazy amazing that one of my students happened to be in the audience.    It's a small world after all.

Cranial Activity

This past summer was a good one for seeing cranes! Back in May I visited the International Crane Foundation for the first time. They are one of the few zoos that has all fifteen species of cranes on display. Also, they do a lot of great work getting Whooping Crane population numbers back up. Here's a picture of their enclosure for the Whooping Cranes where one crane was always on the nest while the other was looking for food.

Later that summer I was in Montana. While walking in a field near Anaconda with some family, we disturbed three cranes who immediately took flight. The red heads, black wing tips, and white bodies indicated that these were three more Whooping Cranes! The only thing I can't figure out is the brown splotches on the back since adult Whooping Cranes are pure white. So I believe that these are young cranes, still with some of the brown coloring from their younger days. Any crane experts out there?

Birds do it

One of my grandmother's great joys in her last few years was watching her hummingbird feeder.  They still keep it well fed up at the farm, and the birds still love it.

Most of the pictures I took of the Red Ruby Hummingbirds were on continuous shooting mode, which captures about five shots per second.  Of course, what goes in must eventually come out.  The following frame captures a quick event, a Hummingbird lightening its load.  This did not appear in either the preceding or successive frames, so I now know that a Hummingbird can do it's business in under 0.4 seconds!

Ken and Jean's Wedding

The month of May was full of travel for me!  Right after I had submitted my grades, I flew up to Wisconsin to see my uncle Ken get married.  Jean is a wonderful woman, and I wish them both all the happiness in the world. The wedding was held at St. Mary's Church in Briggsville.

After the wedding, everyone headed over to Maggie Mae's Barn for some great food. Maggie Mae and her band provided the entertainment at the reception.

Weddings are an excellent way to reconnect with family that you haven't seen for a while, and this was no exception.  In fact, I met and got to chat with folks and relatives whom I hadn't seen in decades.   Perhaps the highlight, though, was the wedding cake: a miniature replica of Clover View Farms.

Southern California Renaissance Faire

Last Sunday I attended the Renaissance Faire that's about 20 minutes from my house.  And what a faire!  These folks have clearly been doing this a while.  The layout is like a giant snake--so every single stage, shop, and eatery is on the path from the entrance to the joust.  They have an NC-17 stage where I spent most of the morning replenishing my levels of bawdiness.

The Belles of Bedlam

Then it was off to watch Jack the Dagger do some impressive knife throwing.  Yes, that blurry grey thing in the middle picture is the knife.

I ended the day by watching the final joust, which was excellent as well. Lots of fighting on both horse and ground. Altogether a wonderful way to spend a day!

Catalina Island

California continues to amaze me.

Prior to coming to Claremont as an undergrad, what I knew about California I learned from TV and movies:  San Francisco is hilly, Napa Valley has great wine, and Hollywood is full of movie stars.  That's what makes my new discoveries of the gems that lie within California all the more exciting.  

Avalon Harbor viewed from above

One such gem is the Channel Islands.

Those who pay attention to such things probably have heard of them already.  A long ago getaway for movie stars, places such as Catalina Island grew up on the twin pillars of their beauty and mild inaccessibility.  Today it is still a gorgeous place to visit, with many plant and animal species that only live on one or more of the Islands, and a wonderful harbor lined with shops, restaurants, and the occasional candy factory.

I went there for the first time with my Mom, who was visiting during her Spring Break.  One very exciting thing to do is to take one of the semi-submersible undersea tours:  the next best thing to scuba diving.  We saw loads of fish during the tour, including the easy to spot Garibaldi.

Garibaldi fish in the ocean

The Island ethos of tourism with conservation was put in place by the Wrigley family, and the Wrigley Memorial and Botanical Gardens is a great way to see many of the plants (and animals!) that only grow on Catalina or other Channel Islands.

Mark and Tam in from of a Catalina Mahogany Tree

The trip back is also a lot of fun.  The jet ferry takes about an hour to cover twenty miles of open ocean.  Pelicans and seagulls like to follow the wake churned up behind the boat.

Pelicans accompanying the ferry ride back