Here in Massachusetts in the good old (sliding uncontrollably toward becoming a fascist nuclear nightmare) USA, it is not Bellana’s birthday.
However, in Dublin, Ireland, where she is at this very moment, it is her birthday.
Happy birthday/day before your birthday, Bellana!!!
My step daughter, Bellana, is in Ireland and I am super jealous. Jelly AF. Not really, but yeah, really.
Tomorrow is her 21st birthday and she has chosen to spend the day in the land of my forefathers. We had a FaceTime (actually, I think it was snapchat) call with her this morning while she was on a bus leaving the airport. We had to pause our conversation briefly while the bus’ safety announcement was read in a marvelous Irish accent. As soon as it completed I yelled out, “now in Gaelic!” They didn’t read it in Gaelic though. Oh well.
I am so excited for her birthday. I have been excited for all of her European excursions over the last few months, but Ireland… that’s just the best. I told her if she ends up in Cork she should look up my relatives. That’s where my father’s mother’s family comes from. My mother’s parents’ families are in Newfoundland, but before that they were in Mayo, so if she ends up there she can look for them as well.
She’s going to Galway today. She’s also an Elvis fan. Those are the only two things she has in common with the protagonist in this particular song, but it’s completely stuck in my head right now.
This is going to be the most fascinating post ever. 100 years from now they are going to be writing graduate school thesis papers about this sucker, believe me.
Stats from the road trip today.
Home to school
196.8 miles
Three hours and 37 minutes
Average speed 54 miles per hour.
School back to home
190.2 miles
Three hours and 40 minutes
Average speed 51 miles per hour.
Round trip
387.0 miles
Seven hours and 17 minutes
Average speed 52 miles per hour.
I think we made the same number of stops each leg of the drive, but the short detours the first time around were longer than the second. The average speed on the second leg would have been faster but there was a two mile traffic jam merging from I89 to I93.
See? I told you this one was going to be fascinating. I can see by the look on your face that you are utterly fascinated. Like, your mind is blown.
It’s Spring Break and Harry is home! Almost seven hours round trip but he’s home and we’re thrilled!
Random road trip pics to celebrate…
We are on the road! At least we will be when the tank is full.
I spent my lunch hour reading up on the situation in Ukraine. Once again it’s really hard to tell which reports are real and which reports are propaganda or misinformation. It sounds like “Russian warship, go fuck yourself” is real. I don’t think the ghost of Kyiv is real though. Despite how much I want it to be real.
I was a good student in Junior High and High School Geography classes. The map of Europe looked massively different back then, but even if it didn’t I never saw a map that was drawn to scale so distances are all hypothetical, know what I mean?
There’s a war going on in Eastern Europe. Bellana is in Western Europe. She’s not anywhere close to the conflict, is she? How far is it from The Netherlands to the Ukraine?
Google Maps. I searched for a route from her school to Kyiv. It’s a 21 hour drive. I wasn’t nervous about it at all, and yet I am still feeling a serious sense of relief. Irrational, yes, but when is anything to do with war rational?
Western Europe needs to keep my step daughter safe. Good work so far. Keep it up.
YouTube suggested this to me today. I just found it interesting given that my step daughter is living among them right now.
We got a FaceTime call from Bellana today. She and her roommate went to Paris over the weekend. It sounds like it was one of those out of this world experiences that you can only have when you’re 20 years old and taking a semester abroad. You know what I’m talking about. She said there will be a vlog post at some point. I can’t wait to see it.
This morning I was talking about how bringing the barrels out to the street marks the high point of my social calendar. Oh to be 20 and crazy again. Again? I was 20 once, but I don’t think I was crazy. I’m proof that youth is wasted on the young as well as at least 50 other old people cliches.
They call it Galactic Starcruiser. It’s a hotel that is supposed to be a 100% Star Wars immersion experience. It’s at Disney World in Orlanda, FL and it opens for reals on March 1st.
Given that I am one of the world’s biggest (literally and figuratively), and possibly most insufferable, Star Wars fanatics, is this something I want to do? We’re hoping to go to Disney in January, do I want to experience this?
I don’t know. Really, I don’t know.
I just read this CNET article that spells out the whole deal. The events seems cool, though the price is insulting. The price is high enough that it ends the discussion. I don’t want to pay that much money for two nights in a hotel. Let’s take money out of the discussion though. What then? I still don’t know.
The immersive experience seems very regimented. Your meals are scheduled, your events are scheduled, your trip to Galaxy’s Edge at Hollywood Studios is scheduled. I guess I am curious about how that works. Will the Rise of the Resistance ride shut down while the Galactic Starcruiser guests have their turn? Will Smugglers Run then also shut down for the hotel guests? Are all of the hotel guests going to bus over to Hollywood Studios together? What if the family in the room next to yours are douchebags? Do you have to spend the whole two days with them? What if I need to take a piss during one of the scheduled events? Do I have to hold it?
I think the scheduled nature of it is my biggest source of hesitation (after the money, of course). If I am on vacation with my family, am I going to want to spend two days on someone else’s clock?
As stated earlier, the money is a deal breaker. I don’t want to go at that price. For everything else, I think I’d like to hold off until the 10-20 million Disney YouTube channels are able to release their post-March 1st experiences (looking at you, Tim Tracker and Disney Food Blog. Come through for me!) before I decide if I am missing out on anything or not.
For now though, let’s leave it at May the Force be With You.
I don’t like Discord. I know that makes me sound old, but it’s just an AOL chat room so it’s not that I am old, it’s that I’ve been there and done that and don’t want to do it again.
The RPM Challenge forums no longer exist as they have been replaced by a Discord server. Okay. I’ll play along.
There I was, typing in a post to the random chat board, and either the app on my machine crashed or the server went down. Like… right in the middle of typing!
Okay, we have established that I don’t like Discord. Now it seems that Discord doesn’t like me either. Well screw you, Chuck!
On an unrelated note, Bellana and her roommate posted another video. They went to Belgium. Just a spur of the moment trip to Brussels. How cool is that? How cool is the EU?
Maybe I’ll share the video one of these days.
On another unrelated note, why is the last post I made last night displaying in a box? Is this post going to display in a box? Did I accidentally click a put-your-post-in-a-box button? I don’t know. Let’s publish this puppy and see what happens!
ADDENDUM: I didn’t click a put-your-post-in-a-box button, but I did post the previous update while I was about 95% asleep and I did accidentally click a stick-this-to-the-top-of-your-page checkbox. It should be fixed now.
Inside the Red Head's Head 