Kids Say the Darndest Things

Last Friday I took off work to go to the San Diego Wild Animal Park with my Aunt C. who is in town. She was visiting with a friend, who has a 6-year-old daughter named M. I got to camp with them overnight at the Wild Animal Park through the Roar and Snore® program.

C and I arrived in time to see the lorikeets and a few other exhibits before meeting up at the Roar and Snore tents to unpack and get dinner.

On the bus for the Journey to Africa.

In the tent next door to us was a man probably in his late 20's and his son V, who was M's age. M and V instantly bonded and became best friends for the weekend - it's amazing how kids can do that! V's dad was pretty interesting too; he's a mechanical engineer turned marketing consultant from Germany who is working for a biotech start-up in San Diego. As a budding mechanical engineer myself, we had a lot to talk about.

Me and my new friends.

As part of the program, we got 2 guided tours and 3 presentations where care-takers brought out some of the animals not on exhibit, so it was definitely a more educational experience than your average zoo visit. (Plus, the tour guides were cute, and I got to chat with some of them for a while.)

I liked the Wild Animal Park better than the San Diego Zoo, because the enclosures were so vast, and the backdrop is pure California mountains. It felt more natural than any zoo I've ever been in, and was even drop dead gorgeous on occasion.

On Saturday, V was worn out and he and his dad left, so M grabbed my hand and gave me a whirlwind tour of the park, which she had seen with her mom yesterday. (They had arrived early on Friday.) "Quick!" she said, tugging me towards the next exhibit. "And don't step on any cracks, they're electric!" After "electrifying" myself a few times, she changed the rules so stepping on sidewalk cracks would "release monsters" - presumably a much greater deterrent. (And here I thought stepping on a crack just broke your mother's back!)

One of the coolest exhibits was Dino Mountain, a trail lined with animatronic dinosaurs! M eagerly showed me each one. "Here, this one spits water!" she warned me as we approached a dilophosaurus. Not wanting to get wet, I stood off to the side. The dinosaur turned it's head and sprayed me with water anyway. "You are right, M, it does!" I said cheerily as I tried to clean my glasses.


M really made an ordinary zoo trip vastly more entertaining. Kids say the funniest things! The most potent were two question asked right after the other:

"Will, do you have any kids?"
"Why, no M! I'm too young for that."
"Do you have a life?"

The bluntness of the question startled me for a second.

"Why, yes. Yes, M. I do. I go to college. And I have a job."

I thought deeply about those two questions, and the subtle implication of their quick succession. I hear the phrase "Get a life!" thrown around a lot at college, usually as a cheap insult, sometimes as self-deprecating humor. I think M is right though - if you don't have kids you should make your life extraordinary. My Aunt C. never married, but she has traveled all over the world (including Antarctica) and runs marathons; she plans to run a marathon in every continent before she dies. Once you have a kid, your life becomes centered around your child; you don't have as much time for a life of your own. It is almost as if you must choose between "having a life" and having kids. Frankly though, I'd choose kids any day if they a're as funny and sweet as M.

Trip to LA Part III: Griffith Observatory

Part 3 of 3: Griffith Observatory

A model of the telescope in one of the displays at the Griffith Observatory.

I don't know why, but aerospace engineers seem to have a fascination for space. (Space week on the science channel was like couch-glue for these guys.) So our final destination of the day was the Griffith Observatory. (For those who might not know, observatories are buildings that house giant telescopes.) Because of its remarkably calm skies, there is less atmospheric distortion on the west coast than probably most of the country, making California a haven for astronomers in the 19th century. Consequentally, California has lots of important observatories, including Palomar, Mount Wilson, and Lick.

The beautiful city of Hollywood stretched out beneath Griffith Observatory, giving off light pollution that I'm sure the astronomers curse.

Supposedly, Griffith Observatory was only 40 minutes or so from Hollywood, so we stayed in Hollywood for dinner and enjoyed delicious, satisfying meals at Johnny Rockets. (I caught myself singing along with the oldies eminating from the cieling a couple of times.) We headed out expecting to arrive at the observatory with plenty of time. Little did we know our GPS had other plans for us that night!

First, it tried to take us up a road through a park that was closed off with a gate. After failing to find a way around it, we stopped to ask directions from an elderly Japanese man returning to his car from a picnic. "Yes... yes! I know how to get to the observatory. It's been many years though.... If you exit the park, you'll be on Los Feliz Blvd. Then, ah... you turn on Vermont Ave. Very simple, yes?" We thanked him and headed out on Los Feliz. To our excitement, the GPS was now plotting a new course to the observatory that didn't involve crashing through locked park gates!

A few minutes later, we passed Vermont Ave. Oops! But our GPS had us turn at the very next road, so they probably meeted up somewhere, right? An extra block wouldn't hurt us. As we drove, the road became steeper and narrower. Imagine one of those windy roads they film car commercials on, except with one-lane. And cars parked on each side. This road goes on and on, and as we're getting closer to where the GPS shows our turn is, a park ranger car with lights flashing comes from around a corner and barely misses us! When we look back at our GPS, we've passed our turn. The road's too narrow for us to turn around so we keep following the road, which turns out to be a loop, and descend back down the mountain. Thinking we might have just missed the turn due to the distraction of the near-accident, we head back up. When we get to the spot though, there is no road to turn on. There's a house sitting where our road should be. Our GPS has misled us again! Giving up, we head back down and trace our steps to find Vermont, like the wise old man had suggested.

We find Vermont, and it does take us to the observatory. However, the observatory is packed and the parking had overflowed back down the road for a quarter mile. So we park, and start hiking up the road in the dark, without flashlights. We suspected the people were there for fireworks, since it was July 3, but we were never sure. The observatory was packed too, so maybe it's just really popular. It was like a small science museum, with exhibits on how telescopes work, the history of astronomy, and general space topics like the solar system. It would be perfect for an elementary school field trip. Plus, it's free! The planetarium costs extra, but we didn't do that.

Don't look now, but there is a gas giant above your head!

Me with my buddy Einstein, a humble guy who tries to deflect attention.

The observatory closed at 10 o'clock, and we drove back to San Diego. We were fairly worn out, so we spent the rest of the weekend recovering by sleeping in and watching the Science channel.

Trip to LA Part II: Hollywood!

Part 2 of 3: Hollywood

Then it was on to Hollywood! I was rather disappointed in Hollywood Boulevard - it is actually pretty run down and shady. Some of the historic theaters could definitely use restoration, and the proliferation of "adult" stores and panhandlers detracted from the experience. Nonetheless, we walked the Walk of Fame and took pictures of the stars. Each had a different style: I only took pictures of a few stars that really stood out to me (such as the band Queen) and only with with me in the picture with the star.

Buddy your a boy, make a big noise playing in the street! (Technically sidewalk.)

N took lots of star pictures - focusing on names such as Ray Bradbury, Jim Henson, and Gene Roddenberry.

(If you look closely, you'll see my shoe!)

M, playing the role of "least geeky" in our trio, took pictures of the stars for Harrison Ford, Samuel Jackson, Sylvester Stallone and the like.


At the end of our walk we reached the Chinese theater and the famous foot and hand prints! N and M only took a few pics, but I went hogwild, enthralled with comparing my foot-size to all the actors. Frankly, the foot/handprints seem much more human and intersting than the engraved stars. A lot of actors wrote little catchphrases in their concrete, such as "Carpe diem!" from Dead Poet Society and "I'll be back" from the Terminator series.


Fact: my feet are the same size as Robin Williams' and bigger than Bruce Willis'. (At least based on the shoes he wore that day.)

Yippee ki yay!!! I am so badass; my feet are bigger than Bruce Willis'!!!

Trip to LA Part I: Caltech

Earlier this month, N and M began making plans for how to spend the 4th of July three-day weekend. A and R (who are over 21) were going to Las Vegas, so N and M figured they'd have their own under-21 road trip to San Francisco. They invited me to join them, which was both polite and more importantly would reduce their share of gas and hotel fees. I said, "Sure, if you end up going I'm down for that" and left them to their meticulous plan-making - researching hotel prices, parking prices, how loooooong it would take to get there, etc. N and M have done relatively little in the way of sight-seeing this quarter, so I was surprised, but highly skeptical that they would carry the idea through. I was right: the San Francisco trip was too expensive and too short for the amount of driving required, so it was replaced with a 3-day stay in Los Angeles, which has the advantage of being closer, and significantly cheaper since we can stay at the LA co-op apartment. Apparently that was still too much for my friends to handle though, so they reduced it to a day trip to LA. But that was still more than I had expected, given their typical weekend habits. Finally, after a long hiatus, some go-getting! Some adventure! So much in fact, that I doubt it will fit into one post, so I may split it into parts.

Now, I've learned that different co-op sections of have different personalities. When the previous group went to LA, we headed straight to the beach and played volleyball, later going out for good food. This section of co-ops is a little geekier. Our must-see destinations for LA: Caltech, Hollywood, and the Griffith Observatory! I know what you're thinking - Hollywood is not geeky right? Perhaps, unless (like N and myself) your sole goal to see the triple footprints of R2-D2, C-3PO and Darth Vader in front of the Chinese Theater.

Part 1: Caltech

Caltech was pretty awesome. Of course, it was closed because of the holiday, so we couldn't actually go inside any of the buildings, but the outside looks nice. We wandered all over campus trying to find a campus map, finally finding one after we had seen 90% of the campus.

N and M puzzle over the all important question - where ARE we?

We also found a giant cannon - the famous Flemming cannon that some MIT students stole as a prank a few years back - and got our pictures with it. All three of us are thinking about Caltech for grad school now.