This is an ongoing tale of Alan and Jo's exploits in Austin, TX. Alan hopes there will be plenty of tasty beer involved, while Jo hopes to find lots of interesting aircraft.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
Fees
A quicky post, while I think about it.
I've noticed in the USA that when you get a bill for something, they love to tell you about all the little fees and extra charges that get tacked on for whatever reasons. In the UK, you just get a bill and it will probably have 'service charges' on which no doubt contains the same kind of stuff, they just don't tell you what it is.
Here, they spell it out.
Examples:
Car registration. This is somewhat anagalous to road tax in the UK. You pay some money each year for a sticker for your windscreen/shield. Aside from the cost of the sticker itself, fees include: Reg fee-DPS Reflectorization fee County road bridge add-on fee Automation fee (large county) Mail in fee Service fee
Cable TV/internet service: County 911 surcharge FCC Regulatory Fee - Cable FCC Regulatory Fee - Voice Federal Universal Service Fund Public Utility Assessment Regulatory Recovery Fee State 911 Equalization Surcharge
Cellphone service: Regulatory cost recovery charge Federal Universal Service Charge Texas Infrastructure Fund Reimbursement Texas Universal Service 9-1-1 Service Fee City Special Purpose District Tax
Most of these range in value from $0.02 to $2 so they're not individually expensive but they can add up! Aren't you glad to know where your money goes?
So, we hie ourselves over to the House of Blues as previously indicated, to experience the joys of Getting Into a Gig In Dallas.
1) Join line.
2) Collect wristband for being over 21, so we can purchase alcoholic drinks. (given the average age of the crowd was about 14 this might actually be a good idea)
3) Get searched airline-style; empty pockets, Security Bloke waves magic wand over you. Alan empties his pockets which are filled, as usual, with keys,change,knife,wallet,more keys,bits of the Berlin Wall etc. Knife ends up in bin, to much aghastness; naturally they can't hold it for us until after the gig, that would be far too convenient.
4) Security Bloke has to search bags too of course. I asked him what he's looking for. Professional cameras and pens. Pens?! Yup, in case you draw all over the artwork inside the venue. Right...
5) Show tickets. (and we don't do this first because...?)
6) Get beer.
7) (optional, but the just rewards of getting there so damn early) Get seat! Woo! We don't have to stand about for five hours!
Then of course we sit through two support bands before the act we have come to see arrives on stage. The first lot were meant to be the Black Dahlia Murder although Alan wasn't convinced they were the same chaps as he'd seen online. They were a bit ropey but the second lot - Between the Buried and Me - were OK. Children of Bodom were very good, their set was a bit short but the musicianship was good. I have no notion of what they were singing about, this is a Death Metal band after all and intelligibility comes second to raw sound. Of which there was lots.
Top marks to House of Blues here, for their PA system was actually very well set up and was a pleasure to listen to. Please take note, La Zona Rosa in Austin; when we saw Squeeze and Fastball there the other week, an otherwise good concert was destroyed by the appallingness of the PA!!
Minus a point or two for the freezing cold air conditioning, even Alan got cold and that is saying something! Alan ignored the cold by ogling the extremely fancy Soundcraft mixing desk, lit up in bright colours and with LCD screens instead of endless rows of knobs, very swish if you like that sort of thing.
Children of Bodom brought their own lighting too, lots of forward facing extremely bright strobes which started making me want to sneeze. I had a stonking cold this last couple of days, and I also have photic sneeze reflex (don't laugh, you might well have it too) so these bloody lights were having an effect and I'm probably the saddest git in the building watching the gig with sunshades on. I don't care, they worked!
So we escaped unscathed after a mostly enjoyable evening. Round 1 complete!
~~~~ Happy interlude ~~~~~
Friday was mostly spent at the zoo! We took a tram (Dallas has trams!) a few stops down the line to Dallas Zoo which is supposedly the biggest zoological experience in Texas, and it was very good indeed. Lots of really very large enclosures for the animals, and a good variety of those. And even a monorail ride to keep Alan happy!
We repaired back to the hotel and eventually ended up in the West End Pub again (top marks to them for remembering what we were drinking from the night before) and enjoyed our beers, before trying the barbeque place round the corner.
~~~~ Round 2 ~~~~
And so we find ourselves approaching the House of Blues again for the second night. Proceedings went in a similar vein to the night before. Security Bloke seemed surprised we had come back but was pleased we had done so. The bar staff had changed around so the girl waiting tables recognised us from the bar the previous night. Dang!
We kicked off with The Willowz, who were from California and a little, well, young; really. They were OK-ish but had some work to do.
Next up were the Eagles of Death Metal which a lot of people seemed to recognise. This lot were a bit of an experience. The singer looked like he was straight out of a 70's porn movie, complete with dodgy moustache. He totally hammed it up all night which was most amusing. They didn't play any death metal; it was pretty straight rock and not bad either. I'd see them again.
And finally, the one we were waiting for: The Hives! Out they bounced, all dressed in matching black-and-white blazers and suits, and proceeded to pound us all night with the coolest, rock-solidest beats; this is punk you can dance to. Maybe you know their tune 'Tick Tick Boom'. They hammered down the tunes and were really tight as a band. Very cool stuff. I am noticing on the Wikipedia entry it says they are known for their "hilarious self-glorification"; yup, I'd go with that, the singer was laying it on thick all evening to a most amusing degree!
Alan and I always say the bands we enjoy most are the ones who look like they are having a good time on stage (Rush; Shiny Toy Guns are other examples) - I'd say The Hives belong there, they were well worth the trip.
Here is a Leafy Sea Dragon in this outstanding tropical habitat and aquarium in downtown Dallas. Top place. We are now in the West End Pub next door, enjoying a fine beer. Going to see Children of Bodom later tonight at House of Blues round the corner.
It's way past due for another creature round-up, so here's a few recent sightings.
First up, a black-and-yellow Agiope. Now, we last saw one of these a few months ago, sitting in it's web outside our bedroom window. Here it is:
Since then, it's been eating lots of pies! Here it is now - at least I assume it's the same spider. It's in exactly the same place although the colouring has changed a bit. My hand is about an inch in front of the web for scale:
See what I mean about those pies?:
Avert your gaze, delicate children, for here are two crickets doing things you shouldn't be seeing:
Finally, here's a little tiny baby Green Anole. He seems to have taken up residence in the bush nearest my outdoor chair; he's been there a couple of days now. He is only about three inches long and is very cute:
It's a Roomba vacuum cleaner... we've been eyeing these things up for ages and finally took the plunge at the weekend (Costco have a very good price right now). It is so cool; you literally just hit the 'clean' button and it goes and cleans.
It is covered in sensors and knows when it is going to run into something (walls etc) - it slows down before it makes contact. It finds its way around the room, sticks its little brush into corners, navigates around table legs, scoots under chairs, and knows about not falling down the stairs (as you can see in the video above)!
When either the room is clean, or it's about to run out of juice, it will return to its docking station and chow down on some nice tasty electricity. This happens automatically if you leave it alone but you can ask him to go back to base, like this:
So what this all means is that we now spend all our time watching the robot clean, instead of doing it ourselves - hours of entertainment! ;-) Alan, of course, is biding his time, waiting to hack it...
We were in Marble Falls this morning for the Lakefest Drag Boat races. Always entertaining. There are several classes of boat; the biggest is the Top Fuel Dragster which is wonderfully loud and noisy, and will do a quarter-mile in 4 or 5 seconds!
Here's a couple of regular boats running the quarter mile:
Here's a Top-fuel drag boat doing the same distance in substantially less time!
Here's a closer look at one:
And a couple of the smaller boats:
Boy, it is hot today, though. We bailed out just after lunch having been there since 8AM, so we'd at least seen everything run at least once. Mmm, air conditioned cars...
I figured I'd post this to fill in the gaps about Oshkosh that my photos would not have conveyed, and to tell the whole story. First let me say, just in case you hadn't figured this out: Oshkosh is awesome!
I lucked out big time for the show. Took a commercial flight to Milwaukee and then a Greyhound bus through the very pretty Wisconsin countryside to Oshkosh. The bus drops you right at the main terminal so all I had to do was get a shuttle bus round to the main site, and a second one down to the camping registration.
There, I signed in, paid my money etc and asked where I should camp. Of course I only needed about 4x6 feet to camp in due to my tiny tent. The lady fetched her husband and because I was a first timer and on my own, asked him to find me somewhere good to camp. He put me with some people he knew to be OK, who were camped right near the front entrance gate. This was a blessing because it meant I didn't need to get shuttle buses to the nether regions of the huge camping ground/city.
A secondary blessing occurred when the people who I was camping next to noticed me. These folks turned out to be Mr Bill Rose and his friends, who invited me - actually I didn't have a choice! - to join them for dinner every night and breakfast in the morning. They had a circle of wagons (OK, RVs) and one of them contained two cooks, who worked overtime preparing mountains of food. So I ate well during the week! Thanks, Bill!
I arrived around 3pm on the Monday, just in time to get my tent set up and wander into the showground to find my bearings. I got to the flightline in time to see the DreamLifter arrive. Now that's a big boy! Very impressive. They towed it onto Aeroshell Square where many other aircraft were parked, including a Spitfire, P-38, KC-135 and the SB2-C Helldiver. There was a stand set up next to the Helldiver and I recognised the nametag on one of the gents manning it - Mark Novak, who flew me in his T-6 about five years ago. We had a chat for a few minutes which was cool.
Most of Tuesday was spent around the centre of the showground, slowly spiralling out as I found my way around. I headed over to the Pioneer airport and got myself a ride in one of the Bell 47s that were buzzing the site all day long. This was fab as you got to see the expanse of Oshkosh all laid out before you. I confess I was a bit daunted at the size of it and started wondering how I was ever going to see all of it! Great flight though, I like flying in helicopters.
On Wednesday morning I got the first bus over to the seaplane base which is about 5 or 6 miles away to the east (I think). This proved to be a good move as the place was lovely first thing in the morning. Not too many people about at first but it soon got busy. Luckily I'd got my name down early, to ride in the Cessna 185 on floats that was giving flights around the lake. $50 well spent for the joy of flying in a floatplane for the first time! The sensation of being on water is quite different. The transition between water and air happens quicker than I imagined; with a skoosh of spray from the floats, you're off and flying up over the lake with a gin-clear view of the surrounding countryside. You can see Oshkosh laid out to one side and a whole forest of wind turbines on the opposite shore of the lake. Seabirds fly below over the shallow water and small islands. A long slow turn back towards the shore and a pass over the top of the seaplane base (camera working overtime here) before lining up into the wind and a gentle landing back on the water. Stick the camera out of the door to catch the spray. Watch other aircraft water-taxi around. Back to the jetty with the silly grin plastered firmly to the fizzog.
I headed back to the main site slowly, via the rotorcraft/ultralight area and the Vintage aircraft parking (filled with lots of very shiny, lovely things including that Boeing 40 mail carrier) and to the media building, where I hung around waiting for familiar faces to show up. Sure enough, they did. I belong to the International Society for Aviation Photography as does a good percentage of the folks with media passes. So I met up with several friends from previous ISAP conventions there, many of whom berated me for not having told them I was coming! (I was most pleasantly surprised by this!) I ended up shooting the afternoon airshow with Larry and Brian which was a lot of fun.
On Thursday I went back to the Pioneer airport to have a close up look at the Goodyear Blimp which was parked there. Then I did the EAA Museum which is well worth a look at any time of year. Some very cool stuff in there - I loved the Bugatti Racer. Lots of lovely jet noise announced the arrival of the F-22 Raptor. The afternoon's show featured both the Raptor and the V-22 Osprey, neither of which I had seen fly before. Both were deeply impressive in their own unique ways. Unfortunately we didn't get to see the full Raptor display due to airspace/display box restrictions but the thing can turn on a sixpence and it just generally rocks. They say it can do a slow speed/high alpha pass down to 35 mph! Although if the engine quits it will fall out of the sky, so we got a pass at 85 mph instead, which still looks impossibly slow.
That evening, Larry, DK and DK's son and I drove back out to the seaplane base to catch the evening sun. We got there only just in time but got some great photo opportunities in the golden light, helped enormously by the fact we got a water tour in the aircraft tender boats which sit very low in the water. (I'd ridden one of the pontoon boats the day before too). Yellow Cubs look great in this kind of light. So did the Beaver painted with the American flag on one side and the Canadian flag on the other. Pizza and beer after this (thanks DK), followed by a bit of night shooting in Aeroshell Square.
By Friday I was feeling the week's exertions (hauling heavy camera gear around such a large site takes its toll on one's back and feet) and took a slow wander through the Warbird park, down to the other runway, where I watched the comings and goings of the GA traffic. Wow, I can see why this place is so busy. I looked across at the North 40 parking area and all I could see was aircraft that seemed to go on for ever. Coloured spots on the runway indicate where touchdowns should take place; multiple aircraft landing at once. Once down, clear off immediately to the side to allow the next one in. Quickly please, before the T-33 on your tail runs you down in your Citabria! Hordes of Yak 52s and Nanchang CJ6s taxi out, reappearing twenty minutes later at the head of the queue for takeoff, doing so in mass formations. Business jets interspersed with Piper Cubs; Cessna 172s mixed up with unusual designs I'd never seen before.
Back to the media building to meet up with Larry again. We shot the afternoon airshow together along with some other ISAP members. The airshow in question features lots of warbirds in addition to the world-class aerobatics we had been treated to all week. We'd already seen a formation of fifty Nanchang CJ-6 (in the shape of '50') celebrating their anniversary. Today we got I don't know how many T-6s and T-28s in a huge metal cloud of aeroplanes. P-51s featured, of course, alongside a circling mass off Cubs, Cessnas, Stearmans, Chipmunk and L-birds of varying natures, showing off the training and liaison roles. Finish it off with a pair of B-25s and an A-26. On the second pass, let off a monster wall of flame from which you could really feel the heat. Toast, anyone?
After the show it was back to the media centre again for an ISAP gathering featuring pizza, chicken wings, fruits and beer. I sat with Richard, Dave and Jim. We finished eating and slipped away to Aeroshell Square to catch that lovely golden light again, of which there had been so much this week. Richard dropped me back to my campsite where I shared a couple of drinks with Abel the cook.
Up at the crack of sparrowfart, strike camp, onto the bus and head home after a bloody brilliant week.
The terminal building here is very large and very posh, full of interesting shops and this mirror fountain - looks cool but attracts small children and gets them wet!
