What I Learned Today…

What I Learned Today… family con

Sara 3 Comments

Comic Con brings family and friends together, especially this year.

Since securing a four-day Comic Con pass with preview night included, I have been making plans to meet up with people from all walks of my life. It dawned on me today that even if I don’t go, Comic Con bears a huge impact on my life both socially and familialy. 

I know my home is prime real estate for going to Con (for those with cars at least). So I have always wanted to house friends during their stay rather than having them pay astronomical prices for a downtown or Mission Valley hotel. Well… this is the year.

I have friends from college staying over for Friday night that I haven’t seen in  nearly two years. Then I have a cousin who works at the zoo (practically next door to where I work and live) who I haven’t seen in at least two years, as well, that I hope I’ll connect with. Plus there are dozens of other friends I hope to run into at this monstrous event. You say, that’s nearly impossible… friends usually get lost from each other in the mayhem, not find each other.

Well, this year Comic Con is stepping things up a bit. You can pre-plan what events you plan to attend and share them with your friends in the social media of your choice. I love the fact I can directly compare my friends’ schedules with my own making it more likely that we will actually meet up.

A couple of downsides to the way they have it set up:

  1. You can only sign in with one social media site… which mean that if I am signed in through Twitter, I can not see what my friends who signed in through facebook are doing. Lame but I sort of get it. I wish there was a way to tie the two together. Let me know if you somehow figured this out.
  2. The app for the iPhone/iTouch they created has a lot of bugs and does not include many of the “My Schedule” functions. Again, I understand they were working under a short time frame, but I think they shouldn’t have built it half ass. It is better to have no app, than a crappy one.

With my few complaints out-of-the-way, I am truly excited to reconnect with my family and friends in this mega-event of the year. Thank you Comic Con!

What I Learned Today… paper cranes

Sara 1 Comment

Tiny paper cranes make me happy.

This little guy was found sitting atop an empty bottle of beer alongside the box of matches from the Wynn in Las Vegas. Creative finger tips took precious time to make this little slice of positive energy and left for others to enjoy. To all my friends, you are awesome.

What I Learned Today… rocks in a hard place

Sara 1 Comment

California’s state rock is serpentine.

There seems to be a state symbol for everything . I’m not really sure of the history of assigning creatures (including mammals, birds, reptiles, fish, and insects), flora (including trees, flowers and grass), colors, minerals and other seemingly random objects to our regions. California has developed or proclaimed 35 symbols representing its vast history, culture and land.

In 1965, California became the first state in the union to name an official state rock. Pretty cool, but odd. serpentine has a beautiful olive-green coloring with a sort of waxy or greasy feeling. And due to California’s location along to major tectonic plates, serpentine is prevalent as a result of the stresses caused from the two plates colliding.

According to this recent article from the San Francisco Chronicle, the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization began a campaign called “Drop the Rock” in 2008  to remove serpentine’s status as state rock since it contains the toxin, asbestos. But geologists and others are stepping up to the plate (pun intended) to keep this rock’s reputation and integrity.

I am not a geologist or scientist of any sort, but even if serpentine contains cancer-causing agents, that fact should not change its place as our state symbol. The historical and scientific value does not change. If we are going to proclaim and renege random symbols then the next time a grizzly bear mauls a person, we should offer the position to the endangered giant kangaroo rat.

Photo source: Geohiking

What I Learned Today… peaches and puns

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There are some punny one liners in James and the Giant Peach.

I’m not sure if this is a first to brag about, but I finally saw the Disney version of James and the Giant Peach. In attempts to avoid another night of Finding Nemo (aka Elmo Shhh… translated into Nemo Fish while the real Elmo is just Elmo), Fraggle Rock or Lilo and Stitch, I hit up the Netflix instant movies. Vaguely remembering seeing James and the Giant Peach as a children’s theater production at the Casa del Prado theater in Balboa Park, I pressed play hoping for the best. Or at least something tolerable.

I amazingly never read the book, but in true Roald Dahl style, the movie was sufficiently dark and disturbing. James’ parents die almost instantly in the beginning by a roaring rhino and then large insects aid and abed his escape from his creepy, abusive aunts’ cottage, in a quest to reach the big apple… a great pun in itself.

Here are a couple of my favorite lines from the movie. And since shamefully I don’t own the book, I am not sure if these were Disney adaptations or genius work of Roald Dahl. 

As the Brooklyn accented, cigar smoking Centipede dives into the icy waters to steal a compass from an old ship (trying to redeem himself from the royal F*#% up of landing the giant peach far from New York), the Grasshopper declares “He’s committed pesticide!”

Running from the aunts the Earthworm exclaims, “She won’t be coming down here with the spray. She’ll be coming down here with a shovel. It happened to my brother. Split him right down the middle. Now I have two half-brothers.

The music seemed forced, although I seem to recall the play being a musical too, which means I can’t really blame Randy Newman entirely. The combined forces of Roald Dahl’s writing and Tim Burton’s directing and the use of stop motion animation, made this movie more than tolarable. Great for me because I think the kid liked it too.

What I Learned Today… journalism

Sara Leave a comment

Interviews are not my forte.

A simple task really, “Get some quotes from girls while you are at camp.” I get there in the middle of a busy day of campers both coming and going. Strike one. None of the girls will be doing anything fun today. It is all tired faces and tears of sadness as campers depart from the fun memories. The girls who are venturing to camp for their first day, will be in the beginning stages of bonding while at the same time mourning the familiarity of their homes.

Ok, not what I really expected… but I roll with it. I will find out from the girls leaving what they loved about camp the most and asked the arriving girls what they are most excited about. The staff know I am doing this but it still feels weird. A random lady, who looks kind of official asking prodding questions about their time at camp. That’s me. Strike two.

So I manage to get a few decent answers to my questions. I jot down notes to make sure I remember by tomorrow morning, because that is what the pros do. Am I right?

As I am leaving I take a glance over my notes. I totally understand what they mean. Awesome. But upon looking closer I realized I failed to get pertinent information. No ages, no grades, no camp units and worse, no names. Strike three, I am out. My quotes are pretty much useless… but I totally completed the assignment. I can’t say if they will ever ask me to help again though.