Movie Theater's I've Known

My first movie experience was...well, I don't remember but I do remember the first theater my Mom let me go to alone. Well, not precisely alone, my sister Deej was with me. But there were only two movies in that theater at the time -- now I think there are six or more. It was a Disney flick to be certain, probably Aristocats! My most memorable movie experience was the first Indiana Jones movie. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" came out at a difficult time in my life. I remember first seeing the film in Bellevue, I was one of the last to get in at the preview showing and I've never before or since felt so one with an audience in a movie. When Satipo has the trantula's on his back I wasn't the only one to lift my feet. When Indy shot the swordsman we all cheered, as we did at the end of the film. Back then when the movie ended its first run it could run a long time in little local theaters for $2 I must have seen that film 25 times, every time I got depressed I went to that movie and was taken away from my problems for 115 minutes, for that reason alone it will always be my favorite film.

I had never left the United States until my family and I went on a trip to Puerto Vallarta. I was 31. Consequently, I had never been to a movie theater outside the United States until I joined the Foreign Service.

I went to my first posting in Asuncion, Paraguay -- very small country, not a lot to do or see, particularly in the early 1990's. When a movie came to the theater there it was there for a long time and there were only two theaters in the city. Who knows, maybe in the country. I remember going to see Jurassic Park (the original) for the first showing with my friend Jeff. His wife La was 8-3/4 months pregnant and did not relish the idea of sitting in a Paraguayan movie theater for two hours -- in less than comfortable seats, at least for a pregnant lady. The movie started, no THX sound, but whatever -- then in the middle of the movie, it stopped for intermission. A young man came out carrying a tray, like the cigarette girls in movies from the 1930's, in it he had candy, popcorn and dixie cups of warm Coke. It was an interesting experience and the movie itself was fantastic.

While in Paraguay, I went on my only real visit of South America, a co-worker, Ms. Katie and I went on a trip that went through Chile, we started in Santiago, did a day trip to the desert in the north, another south to an area that reminded me a lot of Monterrey, California. We went further south to Puerto Montt and then over to Bariloche, Argentina with a stopover in Buenos Aires. Ms. Katie and I had McDonalds for dinner. Give me a break, it had been nearly a year since the last time I was there! And then we went to the movies -- Schindler's List. You have to understand Ms. Katie and I had only a basic grasp of Spanish. So when we bought our tickets we just went and sat down. Someone came down and kicked us out -- we walked over to the usher who took us down and showed us where to sit. Pointing and gesturing, we finally figuree dout the seats were assigned. Ohhhhkay, but boy did we feel dumb. The movie was good, but sobering and I cried like a baby. But at the end where they're doing the epilogue -- it was all in Spanish and I couldn't read it fast enough. So I had my Mom buy me the book (pre-Amazon) and the book is different and the people in the movie are composites so I never have understood why they would do the epilogue.

My second posting was London, they have lots of movie theater's there. I saw movies I loved, some I hated, some I just plain didn't understand. Most were at Leicester Square -- it is full of movies, half price ticket booths, hucksters and pickpockets. But always full of life. One of the things I remember most is it was my first experience with having popcorn choices, salty or sweet. I tried both but I'm a traditionalist -- give me the salty! Also, it was the first time I had ever been to a movie theater that showed advertisements before the film started. WOW, was that a long time ago! When I go back to London, I usually always head to Leicester Square. The movies and concessions were expensive!

When I rejoined the Foreign Service, I went to Tel Aviv for my first assignment. We went to movies there quite often, particularly when my friend Ack was there -- she loves movies. We generally only went on Friday night or Saturday afternoons, as these were the days when the Israeli's didn't go to the movies. It was a security thing, back then a lot of malls were getting bombed. Except for the theater that was in the building in this picture -- you could go anytime there because it was an apartment buildng with a few shops and a movie theater and not a mall. The theaters in Tel Aviv did the same thing as in Buenos Aires, the seats were all assigned and woe betide you if you sat in the wrong one. It also did the intermission in the middle of the film, in mid-sentence if it hit the 40 minute mark there. Quite disconcerting. The movies were cheap and the concessions more expensive. Once a bunch of us were at a special showing of Harry Potter in Hertzliya and two cars got stolen from the parking lot while we were all inside. They were BMW's or Volvo's...

I loved going to the movies at my next post in The Hague. You could sit where you wanted, and no intermissions. You were spoiled for choice because there were a lot of theaters nearby. I would do "chick flick" get togethers when a particularly chicky flick came out and we would go and have a coffee and applebak after, or if we were down in Scheveningen go down to the Pier and go to the waflehaus for Poffertjes (tiny puffed pancakes, served warm with melting butter and powdered sugar on top but I always got them with fresh strawberries and whipped cream). Yummmmy. I want to go back to The Netherlands for Poffertjes!

Going to the movies in Australia is just like going in the United States, but the cost is even more than back home -- if you can believe it. I usually don't get any concessions because those are expensive too. But I will always go to movies!

Star Trek Lives!

Wow!

I dragged my good friend Happy to see the new Star Trek movie. Now Happy isn't a huge SciFi or Star Trek fan, but she's a good friend and said, "Sure, I'd love to see that movie with you." We went and had lunch at the new Vietnamese place my sister Deej and I had found when she was here, then went to film.

Now some background, as a kid in the 1960's and '70's I watched Star Trek the original series in syndication on KSTW Channel 11 in Seattle. I enjoyed it, I can't decided if the "I, Mudd" or "The Trouble with Tribbles" episodes are my favorite or not. Time went on and I never really got into the new series Next Generation, if it was on I'd watch it, but it wasn't appointment TV. Then I got my first overseas posting to Asuncion, Paraguay. Lovely country, but at the time not much on TV in English and though I could do conversational Spanish -- the other person needed to speak much slower than they do in movies or television. But my good friend, Kreen had all the original episodes on VHS, and all the shows that showed of the Next Generation and Deep Space Nine. Kreen's collection became an unofficial lending library -- we all got hooked on Star Trek Next Generation, we even had a finale party for the series last episode. After Paraguay, I went to London and kept up with Deep Space Nine and the new series Voyager (but I was obsessed with Babylon 5). When the movies came out the entire Economic Section would go to dinner and the movie -- it was great fun. Then the movies started to suck eggs. DS 9 and Voyager went off the air. Enterprise did not grab me even though I have had a thing for Scott Bacula since Quantum Leap. So, when I heard about the new movie I didn't think much of it, but reports on http://www.aintitcool.com/ and were uniformly very positive--and these geeks are very critical of remakes, so I decided to give it a chance.

It was AMAZING. I want to see again! TODAY! Well, maybe not today, but soon.

The casting was spot on -- particularly Karl Urban as McCoy -- wow, a young (and a bit more handsome) DeForest Kelly. Yummy. But I digress -- the movie. The tone, the story, the sets, the action, the quiet stuff. Spot on in every sense. I haven't wanted to read anything about the movie because I didn't want to come into it with preconceived perceptions. I have inferred that some hardcore Trekkie's aren't happy with the change in canon. I can understand their point of view, but it's a new generation and they are remaking Star Trek and making it relevant again. I almost wish it was a TV series again, because I would totally watch this group go boldly onto strange new worlds and adventures. But a TV series would have the same production values and they'd end up losing the actors to movies.

My favorite bits -- the relationship between Spock and Uhura -- amazing and I never would've though it, but I love it. The bridge of the Enterprise -- WOW. I liked seeing the insides of the ship (where Scotty and Kirk ended up). I liked the scenes with Kirk's mother and father -- set a tone that really carried through. I wish Wynona Ryder and been on more -- I miss her as an actress. Need to see her doing more work. I liked the Spock/Kirk relationship, warts and all. I really liked the Captain Pike stuff. Loved seeing Leonard Nimoy as Spock...welcome back! Glad not to see William Shatner, I like him as original Kirk, but he would've been very out of place in this movie. I liked Simon Pegg as Scotty and John Cho as Sulu and the young man who played Chekov was good as well. I hope the next movie in the franchise gives them more to do.

I can't recommend this movie highly enough!

Technology...arghhhh

Well, my old laptop is dying, it is only six years old. It's name was Dell Inspiron 9200. It has been through two major surgeries in it's brief lifetime, in 2006 it developed a problem with vertical single pixel lines. It took some work, but eventually this problem was fixed. Dell finally conceded that the problem was not a limited problem, but a series problem and replaced the screen for free. That took some major lobbying by any anonymous person who created a website devoted to that problem on the internet and the hundreds of people who added their same problems. My precious laptop lived another two years when this past November the hard drive started to fail, the hard drive was replaced in another major surgery, but this didn't take. It was a lovely machine, it's lived in The Netherlands, Pakistan and now Australia -- so you couldn't say it wasn't well-traveled. But I had hoped it would have a longer life span.

I decided to replace it, which believe me, was hard to accept. So I went online and found a PC that was half the price of getting an equivalent laptop. Even considering shipping costs. When I got it I was soooo happy, I almost immediately started putting it together. I looked at the power output it was 100-127/220-240, yippe no transformer needed! Well, for the past 10 years I've had laptop computer that automatically switched between power voltages. Well, I plugged my lovely (if BIG) PC into the wall and pop. I knew immediately what I'd done -- I'd blown the power supply. S--T, I swore very loudly, Darlin' came in wondering what had happened. I was concerned, this was a brand new computer, it was a major pain bringing those heavy boxes from the APO to my car and into the house. It was a major pain unboxing everything and setting it up. I didn't know what to do, I was depressed. Plus my lovely sister Darlin' had left and I would see no more family until Christmas. So when I went back to work I talked to the lovely men in the IT section at work. They said that's easy, won't cost more than $30 AUD to replace the power supply. But I told them I had no clue how to replace a power supply -- they took an old computer they were retiring and showed me how to do it. They told me where to go to buy one.

So this weekend I went to the computer fair -- found a lovely man who sold me a power supply and I put it into the computer. It worked! I'm using it now. Now, the love for this new PC hasn't come to me like it should, but hopefully over time it will become as beloved as my old laptop. Though I haven't completely given up on it. I want to take it somewhere to see if it can be fixed for a reasonable price -- cross fingers. If not I'll take the hard drive out and destroy it and recycle the rest of it. But that would be so sad, we've been through a lot together.

But I can do without anymore technology issues for a while. For quite a while.

Another Oz Trip

My sister Darlin' came to visit me! Yipee, another family visit and so soon too, how lucky am I? Darlin' was here on business so was quite busy in Sydney so was very tired by the time she arrived. I decided she needed to see Jervis Bay as I have fallen in love with Jervis Bay and the lovely community of Huskisson. This time Darlin' and I stayed in a different B&B, instead of my wonderful Jervis Bay Guest House, this time stayed at the Huskisson Bed and Breakfast. Kate and Steve were awesome hosts, very friendly and accommodating and the rooms were lovely. They had loads of books available for reading which of course made me very happy!

I plugged the B&B's address into the GPS, who was nicknamed "Tomy Girl" by my sister Deej's friend Stacy on our trip through Europe. Tomy Girl is only a computer and as the default setting for calculating the route is "Fastest." Well, hmmm....not so sure that is always the best. We ended up on Turpentine Road, which was...scenic. And unsealed, which is Australian for gravel road. Luckily it had been recent graded so no major potholes, but...it was bumpy and dusty. But you know you travel for the adventure!

After we had settled into the B&B we went to the beach Steve had suggested to us, Steamer's Beach. He warned us that it was quite steep downto the beach. And it was! When Darlin' sends me the pictures she took I'll add them to this post. It was at least 250 steps, some quite steep down to the beach, but it was so worth it. The water was so many wonderful shades of blue and had a perfect surf, big and with lots of bubbly water as it crested, it made you want to jump in however, Darlin' says, it was darn cold! I plan to go back there and bring a blanket and picnic and spend a few hours next summer. Wow!

Later, we went to dinner and a pretty good Thai restaurant and had an early night. That night it rained. And rained. It's hard to begrudge drought ridden Australia rain, but why me? Anyway, we leisurely got up, had breakfast and got ready to leave and it was still raining -- so rather than going to another beach as planned, we headed to the Kangaroo Valley. It is the cutest little town, I picked up British first editions of two books by Frank B. Gilbreth, one written with his sister, Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. One book was "Belles on Their Toes," the sequel to their 1948 book , "Cheaper by the Dozen and the other "Time Out for Happiness."

Then we headed to a few of the wineries in the vicinity of the Kangaroo Valley. At the first one we encounted the owner, who was rather rude and so we left. The second one, Jacob's Creek, was awesome the owner was very nice and welcoming and his wine was very good. He gave us a taste of a sparkling red wine, which is apparently quite popular in Australia now. Then we headed for another winery, well this was a unique place. The wine wasn't very good, but the owner which a kick. He was somewhat elderly, his white hair was sticking out on end, he had "British" teeth, which is to say they were crooked and missing. He was wearing the ubiquitous Australian shorts and a flannel shirt and had a very winning manner. He told us they hadn't expected anyone, and as it was a cafe as well as a winery, had no cook. But people kept coming in! He was so busy, he couldn't handle everything which included giving out tastes of wine, seating people, taking orders, deliverying orders. We didn't buy any wine but we quite enjoyed his personality.

Finally, we headed back home -- on the way we needed the "facilities" somewhere, anywhere!!!! Plus we were hungry. So as I saw another winery/cafe sign I knew they had to have a toilet so I stopped there and planned to eat as well. We were able to do one, but there were no seats to be had for lunch. But we did try their wine, it was very good and we bought quite a lot -- I mistakenly told Darlin' I could mail it home -- but later found out I couldn't. My very bad. So then we headed home and stopped and Maccas (Aussie slang for McDonald's).

It was so nice to get off the road for a bit. On Monday I went to work and Darlin' went on a run. That afternoon we headed to Tidbinbilla, I got a bit lost on the way, but we eventually found it. No koala's this time, but we saw emu's, a kookaburra, wallaby's and numerous kangaroo's. It was very nice. I took Darlin' to the airport and discovered that she had too much in her bag, and she ended up with overage charges -- darn budget airlines. So I took some home to bring with me when I head home at Christmas. Then I gave Darlin' a hug and was very sad to see her leave.

I had a great time with Darlin' and we sort of planned the trip she'll do with the kids next year. So much too look forward to!

First Oz Trip

Well what a great trip! My sister Deej came for her first visit to Australia and we had a terrific time. I had Deej meet me in Sydney, so I worked half a day and drove up to Sydney, a very easy 3-hour journey--thank god for the GPS when navigating big city traffic. When I arrived Deej had pretty much just gotten back to the room after walking around Sydney since 9:30 a.m. She was tired, not just from not sleeping for umpteen hours, but from all that walking around. But it was great because I had been to all the same places just a few weeks before. It was great to see her again.

The first day the weather in Sydney looked...Seattle-like. So we decided to up to the Blue Mountains, which is roughly an hour outside Sydney -- first though, Deej needed her coffee and I needed breakfast so we headed to the a French patissiere and I had awesome hot chocolate and croissants. Then we got in the car and headed toward the Blue Mountains, again, thank god for the GPS in getting us out and into Sydney. As we got close to our target, a mist settled down all around us -- hmmm. We finally got to the visitors center car park and it was clear -- yipee. We went into the visitors center and got a map of walking trails, we came out -- yep, misty again. We looked in the direction of the Three Sisters natural feature and it was -- surprise, obscured by mist. Well, we decided to take one of the walking trails hoping it would clear up again, and ended up doing the Giant Staircase walk of more than 800 steps. It was steep in places and made up of rock, cement, and metal stairs but always with beautiful scenery--even if it was draped in mist. It was a long way down, then we walked over the the Scenic Railway which was another 2-3 km and saw the Koomba Falls on the way -- very pretty, but doesn't match what I saw at Iguazu Falls in Paraguay. We took the scenic railway back up, it is the steepest in the world and short, and fast. But it was pretty neat and I certainly didn't want to walk back up those 800 steps! All in all a very good day, if misty. We never did see the Three Sisters, just a bit of one or two on the way down.

The next day we headed to the beach--I was a bit sore from walking those 800 steps. First, we walked from the hotel to the ferry, going through the Botanical Park, which was cordoned off in the most inconvenient places. They were hosting a local triathalon there -- we were looking for the Ironman Triathlon Deej's co-worker had entered and my friend Brandon wanted pictures of -- but nothing, was was that darn thing? We took the local ferry to Manley Beach -- it started out to be a very nice day and for a while it was, then the clouds shrouded the sun and the wind picked up so we started walking around the area, the sun came out again and we enjoyed soaking up those rays! After we felt we'd had enough beach time we headed back to Sydney on the ferry to get a good view of Sydney Harbour from the sea. Then we did a bit of walking around the oldest part of Sydney, The Rocks. We stopped in the Visitors Center and found out the Ironman was indeed this weekend, but in Port Maquarie -- a 4-hour drive away -- maybe next time! We then went to the Susannah Place Museum -- which is 4-row houses that were built in late 1844 and continuously used until the early 1990's. They've kept it more or less as it was in different eras of the houses. I really enjoyed that, then we had pub dinner and went back to the hotel.

Monday we headed back to the car and started our drive down the Prince's Highway toward Melbourne. We took 5 days of 2-3 hour drives, our first stop in Jervis Bay was a winner, white sand beaches, pleasant bushwalks (hikes), wallaby's and quiet. Then as we headed to our next stop of Narooma, we stopped at a beach where, we heard, there were plenty of kangaroos (Deej hadn't seen one yet and really wanted to) we took a left at the sign for Pebbly Beach and it was a dirt road with plenty of potholes. We got to the beach, which was quite nice and settled down to wait for kangaroos -- but nothing. After a couple hours of enjoyable beach time and lunch we got back in the car, ended up on a different road with 200 yards of freshly graded dirt road and then ashphalt -- hmmm. When we got back on the Prince's Highway, I saw the turnoff sign, it said Mt. Agony road, personally I think road signs were switched! We walked around Narooma -- not much there actually, then had dinner in a great fish 'n' chips type place sitting on the water. It got very cool when it got dark though.

Then we headed to Orbost and stopped at Eden Beach, which was beautiful and we saw dolphins -- no good pictures though my camera just isn't good enough for that distance. Orbost is at the base of the Snowy River and we easily found our B&B -- it was a great place. We went for a long walk around the area which was lovely and quiet. When we got back the fire pit was lit and we took our bottle of wine and chairs and looked up at the stars, but it was too cloudy to see many. Sue and Glenn, our hosts, came out and we had a very interesting and wide-ranging conversation. They invited to their club the next night and gave us some suggestions for the next day. We went to the Buchan Caves to see the really cool stalagtites and -mites, as we came out we headed toward the carpark and guess what we saw -- kangaroos! Then we did a bushwalk to the Falls and saw a goanna (huge lizard) and a lyre bird (just the back but it was big and had long feathers) we got to the falls, but due to drought, no water. Then we headed back to Orbost to take the paddlewheel boat on the Snowy River -- very relaxing, if chilly. Then we headed to Cape Conran Reserve and went walking on the boardwalk at Sailor's Grave, it was great and there were beaches with some great seashells and photo ops. BTW a boardwalk here is just a nature hike over boards, I guess to try and minimize destruction of nature by manhandling it to make paths and people going off-path. Late we joined our B&B hosts Sue and Glenn at their club and had a great time, I haven't laughed that much in ages. Wonderful people, wonderful town! I'm going back!!!

The next morning we headed back down the road and stayed at a not-so-great motel and saw the old mining town of Walhalla, it was interesting, but the most interesting bits burned down in the 4 different fires they had from 1860 to early 1900's. I didn't like the motel so much, so we headed 45+ minutes away to go to a movie! So as to spend as little time as possible in the room.

The next morning we headed to Melbourne (again, thank god for the GPS) where we stayed with my counterpart, Leez. We saw Melbourne, which is a lovely city including the National Library where we saw the real iron suit worn by Australian outlaw Ned Kelly (he's Oz's Butch Cassidy, Billy the Kid type) the suit only covered his chest and torso, his arms and legs were not covered and that is what eventually got him caught. Deej, Leez and I participated in the Ned Kelly trial reinactment and it was great fun. Deej was the prosecutor, she took the role to heart and was very good, I was the chief witness and enjoyed it immensly. The guy may have been guilty, but that trial was a travesty of justice. The next day we did a trip to Dandenong Ranges on Puffing Billy, a old steam train -- gorgeous day and scenery. The next day we went to Bendigo another old gold mining town and went deep into a mine to look for gold, walked through tunnels, used a drill, cracked some quartz to find gold (but only found pyrite) and had a miners lunch of meat pasty and tea. It's a beautiful town with very eclectic and pretty architecture, you can tell it benefited quite a bit from the gold the miners found. Then Donna and I flew to Alice Springs to see Uluru (Ayers Rock). Out of 30 days of bad weather a year, we were there for two of them and couldn't see the great sunrise/sunset at Uluru or the Olga's because of all the cloud cover. Bummer. There was a great long and somewhat difficult walk around the Olga's, it was gorgeous though. There were some very good shops for typical Australiana souveniers in Alice Springs and I'm very happy with my purchases. But don't ask me to play that digereedo, just does'nt seem to want to happen!

Our final big trip was to Port Douglas and the Great Barrier Reef. This was amazing!! When snorkling or diving it was like swimming through an aquarium. It was to me, the major highlight of our trip. We stayed at a great studio room with a hot plate and stuff, and a grill by the pool, walking distance to town, the beach and marina. Loved it. The beach was gorgeous and the water soooo warm. I did the intro scuba dive and enjoyed it, would like to finish getting my dive certification and am working on planning that now. If you come visit me you CANNOT miss this. We also did some walking through Daintree Rainforest, which was rather nice with lovely beaches there too. Finally we flew back to Melbourne and drove my car back to Canberra. It's a long trip with lots of road construction -- we were so happy to be home! We did loads of laundry and saw the War Memorial (beautiful building), found a great new Vietnamese restaurant, and went to the Tidbinbilla nature reserve. Now Deej had seen the kangaroo's at Buchan Caves, but that was it. She was rather disappointed, I mean Australia is 'roo's, right? Well, driving around Canberra we saw plenty of "lazy" 'roo's (meaning dead), but few live ones. We get to Tidbinbilla and start driving to where the koala's are and she see 'roo's, so we stop and she takes some photos. Then we keep on driving and there are more 'roo's and more. Then we walk see the top bit of a koala high up in a tree, and wallaby's (same family as 'roo's), birds, etc. Then we see some duck billed platypus', but all you can see are their stomach's and if the ranger hadn't told us what they were we would thought they were anything but platypus'. On the drive back, around dusk, all we saw were 'roo's everywhere we went, more kangaroo's. It was hilarious!! But cool....so long as you don't hit one! Anyway, that is my first trip around Oz.

Deej will be back in 2011 and we'll do Tasmania and New Zealand. I'll also do some traveling with my parents and everyone else who comes to visit.

Netflix

I waste so much money on Netflix, you just wouldn't believe it. I order shows, then don't watch them for a long time. I have a huge queue of movies and TV shows. Right now I'm in the midst of watching Reaper, a Fox show I believe. It's really very good. It supposedly takes place in Seattle and I guess it must be filmed in Vancouver because it kinda looks like the Pacific Northwest, but it would be really great if they threw in some Mt. Rainier, Puget Sound, shots of Seattle and it's landmarks. Just having a Washington state license plate does not make it Seattle.

The show itself is really cleaver and Ray Wise is awesome, young Bret Harrison is very good as is rest of the cast. I'm really enjoying the show and apparently it hasn't been canceled yet! I just finished the arc with the Devil's mistress and it was a lot of fun. I think they need to keep doing little arcs like this otherwise it will fall into too much of a routine. Like the Danielle Steel books.

I hope the show lasts a while longer. Next up in the queue is Captains and The Kings, a miniseries from 1976 and was based on a book by Taylor Caldwell. It starred a young Richard Jordan (he was beautiful) and a very young Jane Seymour (also very beautiful). We'll see how it stands up to my memory of it as a romantic 15-year old.

More Battlestar

Hurrah! It's Fraking great! What's even better is that it is showing down here in OZ just about the same time as at home. What could be greater than that. I just don't know. The shows just keep getting better and better. Kudos to all in front of the camera and behind the scenes.