San Diego Trip Part III

I was hoping that this would be the most interesting of my San Diego posts, but due to extraordinarily bad luck with my camera(s) -- I didn't get very many good pictures.


First off, the tale of Quinn's haunted camera (OOOOOOOOoooooooooooooohhhhh!)

I don't know if you're aware of this, but most multi-story hotels do not have a 13th floor. I had always heard this but had never remembered to actually look while I was staying at a hotel. On this trip, I remembered to look, and sure enough, the San Diego Doubletree Inn skips from the 12th floor to the 14th floor. Well, I thought that was pretty interesting, and wanted to get a picture of it as evidence. But when I walked to the elevator with my digital camera to take a picture of the elevator buttons, it mysteriously broke, and wouldn't work again for the rest of the trip. Freaky! The camera has worked fine since I got home, but the Ghosts of the Non-Existent 13th Hotel Floor didn't want to be photographed. Luckily, though, I still got a picture with a disposable camera:

See? No 13th floor. Weird.

Anywho, since my digital camera was haunted, I had to buy some disposable cameras, which didn't work out so well. Due to either the quality of the cameras, or the quality of WalMart developing (I can't rule either out: the cameras were bought at a gas station, and WalMart is...WalMart) many of my pictures didn't turn out.

First stop: USS Midway. The Midway set sail in the latter stages of WWII. It underwent remodeling twice and was used throughout the Cold War, in Korea, Vietnam, and Desert Storm. It spent most of the 1980s stationed in Japan. It is now a floating museum. It held up to 137 aircraft and 4100 people. It was soooo cool! I spent more than 3 hours there, and could have spent more time except that it closed. I even got lost in one of the lower levels. It was simply amazing.



A funny thing about aircraft carriers is that the guy steering the boat can't actually see where the boat is going.

The flight deck is 3 football fields long. At night, the deck is open for private parties/receptions. The waiting list is about 3 years long.

This is the radio room. I can't even imagine having to figure out all those knobs. On newer ships, though, the radio looks like this:

The flight deck contained dozens of aircraft that have flown on this deck over the years.

The F-4 Phantom -- probably my favorite fighter jet.

The F-14 Tomcat. Yes, ladies, this is the kind of plane that Tom Cruise flew in Top Gun.

The F-8 Crusader.

The F/A-18 Hornet.

The carrier has a few WWII planes, too:

The SNJ Trainer.

The TBM Avenger.

Sorry for all the plane pictures. That's not even all of them. I just love military aircraft so much. When I told Lauralee I was going to the aircraft carrier she said, "Oh, no -- you're not going to come home with 35 pictures of airplanes, are you?" Sorry, babe.

I thought this was funny. This is where the flight deck boss sits. He is in charge of everything that happens on the deck. The guy that sits next to him is the mini flight deck boss. I have no idea if this terminology predates the Austin Powers movies or not.

This was a display of the different deck hands. There are so many people working on the deck that it paid to have them color coordinated. That way, if someone needed information, they wouldn't spent an hour asking random people on the deck. They could find someone wearing the right color to answer their question. For example: the yellow guys direct traffic with those cool little ping-pong paddles (during the day) or those cool little Arctic Circle Halloween flashlights (at night). The red guys loaded the armaments onto the aircraft. The purple guys bring peanuts and soft drinks to the pilots. Just kidding. Here's what they all do:

Yellow: directs aircraft

Purple: fuels aircraft

Brown: performs aircraft maintenance

White: performs aircraft safety inspections

Red: loads weapons

Green: operates the catapult and arresting cables

Blue: drive the tractors that position the aircraft

Silver: fire and rescue

If you can't tell, I totally loved the USS Midway.

Next stop: around town.
Just a few images from around the city.

Here's the San Diego City/County building.

And here's a drunk guy 'sleeping it off' on the front lawn of the San Diego City/County building.

This is one of the many private cruise ships operating in the harbor. Whenever I saw one, I couldn't help but thinking of the "Booze Cruise" episode of The Office.

A ginormous statue of that famous WWII photo.

The 'scales' on this swordfish were actually broken CDs. Ingenious.

A rose garden across the street from Balboa Park. Portland's rose gardens are better.

Next stop: The Museum of Man

The Museum of Man was pretty cool. It is located in Balboa Park. It had exhibits on the history and future of mankind, Egyptian and other mummies, and a Smithsonian Exhibit on early American cultures. Unfortunately, this is where my gas station camera (or the WalMart photo technician) began to fail me, because not all my pictures here turned out.

This is a model of what "Lucy" supposedly looked like. For all you non-anthropology nerds out there, "Lucy" is the name given to the earliest-known semi-complete hominid skeleton (Australopithecus).

Imagine my joy when, in the exhibit about the future, they had a full-scale replica of C-3PO. His plaque was unfortunately riddled with inaccuracies, such as his classification as a 'robot' when he is really an android, and his function of "domestic service" when really is primary function -- as everybody knows -- is 'human/cyborg relations'. And they call themselves a museum...

I forget what was unique about this coffin. Oh well. Sure is pretty.

Next stop: Air and Space Museum.


AH-1 Cobra Helicopter. Not to be confused with the Cobra Helicopter used by the enemies of GI Joe:

Soviet MiG-15

This is the largest working replica of the Spirit of St. Louis in the world.

P-40 Warhawk.


Next Stop: San Diego Padres game.

After everything closed on Friday night, I was walking back to my hotel, wondering what I was going to do for the rest of the evening, when I saw 3 people get out of their car dressed up in Padres gear. I didn't know if the Padres were playing that night or not, but I figured I'd follow them and see. Sure enough, they were walking to Petco Park. We arrived just in time for the game to begin. I got in line to buy a ticket. A guy came up to us in line, and had 3 tickets to give away. He gave one to the guy two spots ahead of me and one to the guy in front of me. I thought I was going to get the last ticket, when the guy in front of me said, "I actually need 3 tickets -- do you have any more?" The ticket giver said, "Here's one more ticket, but the third one I already gave to the guy in front of you." At this point, the ticket giver tapped the first guy on the shoulder and said "I'm sorry, but I need that ticket back that I just gave you. It turns out that this guy behind you needs 3. Can I have it back." The guy was hesitant to give the ticket back, and then finally said that he needed 3 tickets, too. So now the ticket giver turns to the guy in front of me and says, "Oh...sorry, but he was first in line, so I need the two tickets I gave you back to give to him." Anyway, while all this confustion was going on, I was just standing there thinking "I only need 1 ticket -- why don't you just give one to me?" I guess I looked desperate enough or sad enough or whatever, but while this confusion was going on, a nice usher came up to me in line and gave me an extra ticket that he just got. Sweet! Lower level, row 23, first base line, by the visitor's bullpen. Not too shabby.

Pregame pictures. Yeah, that's right Padres: give yourself a bunch of high fives. You're about to lose to one of the worst teams in baseball.

One interesting thing about Petco park is that there is an old warehouse in the outfield that they just kind of built the stadium around. The building still has the original paint, but the inside has been remodeled to house the main fan store and Padres Hall of Fame.

Next stop: Maritime Museum.

In the harbor there is a collection of boats that you can tour.

The Star of India is the oldest seaworthy ship in the world. It is 140 years old. The hull is still original; the decks, masts, etc have been restored/replaced over the years. It's amazing how big it is and the amount of manpower and know-how to maneuver the sails and rudder to steer it where it needed to go.


This is the "Surprise." It is a replica of an old British fighting ship and was built for the filming of "Master and Commander." It is a working, sailable ship, but has some modern features that make the sailing easier. I was expecting there to be some period antiques on board or something. It was mostly full of memorabilia from the movie. It's really a floating tribute to the movie rather than a monument to sailing or naval warfare.

This is a diesel, foxtrot-class B-39 Soviet submarine. I love submarines, and have been on 3 different ones so far, but I had never been on one from another country, much less an (at the time) enemy country. It was weird to see Russian intructions on all the valves and gauges. The creepiest thing was a display of several spy pictures that this sub had taken of American vessels. It was weird to think that during the Cold War, this sub stalked US ships and was within site to torpedo them. None of this class of soviet sub ever fired on American ships.

It was such a tight fit through these doors. On your back, on your bum, on your tummy: there just wasn't a comfortable way of getting through them.

These torpedos were 25 feet long I don't remember ever seeing torpedos that big. They wouldn't even fit in a single camera frame.

Well, this may have been the longest post ever! I had a lot of fun in San Diego. And the great news is that I just got my exam results back today (the whole reason I was in San Diego) and found out that I not only passed the test, but got the highest score in the class -- 97%. Holla!

Quinn