Dunno, does it seem like I’ve been doing a whole lot of New York posts lately? Maybe I can’t help myself. After all, it is almost summer, and I have a feeling that it is going to be a great season. Time to do a lot of paddling, to run and bike and hike. And maybe even do some spelunking. Yes, there is far more to New York than what you see on the surface. In fact, the whole underground is rather fascinating. To see what I’m talking about, check out this cool interactive over at National Geographic. It takes a look at the sewers, subways and sinkpipes that make this city what it is.
Alcatraz at Night
Ever wanted to visit the legendary Alcatraz Prison? To see the very place that Clint Eastwood once set off the escape from the supposedly unescapable island? Well, you’ve been able to do that for some time now, since the prison closed many years ago. But here’s a piece about visiting the island at night, which I confess, must be a rather creepy experience.
Buy a Piece of Times Square History
Just caught this one in the paper this morning and thought it was pretty cool.
Now, if you know Times Square (and believe me, I do…I fricken work right there) then you know that today the area is mostly taken up by vast acres of bright TV screens, all of them outdoing each other, or trying to, to display the flashiest, most eye catching and high def images. But that’s not how it always was. You see, there were people around before there was television, before there were television screens. And way back when, say, oh 50 years ago, some of the signs there in Times Square actually used images that were of a non-TV screen based medium. Isn’t that strange? That something could be entertaining and NOT be on a TV screen?
OK, OK. Enough sarcasm. Here’s the rub. It turns out that all those signs from yesteryear had to go somewhere. So for years they were stored somewhere like, um, someone’s garage. And now its time for a garage sale. Yes, now a seasoned entrepreneur and the builder of these old signs Artkraft Strauss is set to auction off about 100 of the signs and various drawings of them to the highest bidder.
Among the items being sold will be the sign for the original 1962 run of The Sound of Music as well as the model of the old Coca-Cola billboard which used to drink itself and more. Of course, kitsch ain’t cheap, so you’ll probably have to come up with a lot of money as well as space to store the damn things. But that’s probably a small price to pay for owning a bit of history. Oh yea, the auction will be held on Thursday.
Freedom of the Seas Sets Sail
Maybe it’s just me, but I thought that the largest ship in the world was the Queen Mary 2. Turns out I’m wrong. At least as of today. Why? Because today a new ship set sail called the Freedom of the Seas, which I think is a far lamer name that the Queen Mary 2, and this 1,112-foot-long, 15-deck sea-borne behemoth set sail the other day with ice rink, climbing wall, numerous pools, and every other extravagance possible.
Now, perhaps the marketing folks with the company are fond of irony, and it was all a big, fun joke that the movie Poseidon, about a monster cruise linter that is hit by a rogue wave, was just released. I like to think so. I like to think that they sat around a table and conversed about how funny it would be to have a movie about a ship being destroyed and their ship’s maiden voyage occurring around the same time. But somehow I doubt that’s how things worked out.
Spaceports Near?
Call it unbridled optimism, the coolest thing you’ve ever heard, or just plain silliness. I’m not sure where I come down on the matter yet. But the fact is that folks around the country are avidly, aggressively wanting to build space ports, yes you read that correctly, airports that take you into space, so that we can all, someday, hopefully before I die, travel into the great black void and come back to tell about it.
Of course, much of the enthusiasm is warranted. Burt Rutan, the business space pioneer proved recently that one could take a commercial vehicle to the edge of the atmosphere. He won the famous X-prize doing so, thereby showing that civilian space travel was possible. So now, based largely on that and some other efforts to build space craft for mostly high-paying customers, the Federal Aviation Administration says it is reviewing proposals from New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas to be gateways for private space travel. Of course, it helps everyone if a spaceport is in a rather barren place. No one wants to be hit on the head when one of these things inevitably comes down.
But it is cool, I think, that we seem to be edging close to this idea of civilian space flight. I know the costs are going to be ridiculously high at first – like $100,000 – $200,000 a person – but man oh man, I’d go in a heartbeat if I had the cashola. So lets keep our fingers crossed, eh?