From time to time on our morning (and sometimes evening) commute, we’ve spotted a multicolored blimp. Sometimes it’s in the air, sometimes it’s parked on a field.
For obvious reasons, we’ve started calling it the “puzzle blimp.”
We kept wondering just whose blimp it was. There was no logo we could see, and blimps are mainly used for advertising. Well, that last photo we caught turns out to have the answer:
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Picking up the oft-delayed vacation photos series, here’s the first half of our trip out to Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park and the volcano Kilauea.
Kilauea is often referred to as the most active volcano in the world. To give you an idea why, its latest eruption started in 1983… and is still going!
We got to the park fairly late in the day, partly because we underestimated the amount of time it would take to drive there from Kailua, and partly because we stopped at various points of interest along the way. It was mid-afternoon by the time we got to the visitor’s center, where Katie stood transfixed by the lava videos and I checked out the maps.
We stopped for a late lunch at Volcano House, an old hotel built on the edge of the Kilauea Caldera. Check out the view!
The crater Halema‘uma‘u, which contained a boiling lava lake from 1823–1924, is visible near the center. The southern slope of Mauna Loa rises in the background. The whole caldera is roughly elliptical in shape, and Volcano House is one end of the longer axis. I don’t remember exactly how far it is from one side to the other, but judging by the map I’d say it’s about 2×3 miles.
Off to the right, behind a tree in the panorama, are the steaming bluffs. Groundwater gets heated by the magma below the volcano and seeps out through cracks all over the caldera.
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Irvine is a strange town.
A thought: the original Teen Titans are beating the Justice League when it comes to passing on their super-genes. Leaving out possible-future stories and backstories, it comes down to just Aquaman of the core group, and Green Arrow as the most prominent member outside the “Big 7.”
As for the original 5 Teen Titans (now in their mid-twenties):
Speedy – now Arsenal, has a preschool-aged daughter, Lian (by way of international super-villain Cheshire).
Wonder Girl – now Troia, had a son Robert with her husband, but both were killed in a car crash.
Aqualad – now Tempest, has an infant son Cerdian with his wife Dolphin.
Kid Flash – now Flash, nearly had twins, but a villain beat his wife Linda so badly she not only miscarried, but lost the ability to have any more children. Update Nov. 2005: Time travel altered the attack, and Linda gave birth to healthy twins (who have yet to be named in print).
Robin – now Nightwing, no kids.
And of course if you do add in future stories, all five had children in Kingdom Come… who came back to visit the present-day mainstream DCU in “Who Is Troia?” in 2001.
Admittedly the mortality rate is high, but the 60% 80% birth rate certainly beats the core League’s 14%.
A collection of comments, thoughts and images, some highly spoilerish and not all of them canon.
1. I framed through the end of the Vader vs. Obi-Wan battle in A New Hope after being a bit confused by it last night. Watch closely, and you’ll notice two things. First, Vader’s lightsaber appears to go through Obi-Wan’s, about an inch above the hilt. This I can pin on imperfect special effects and then get on with my life. However, the second thing is that Obi-Wan’s robes start collapsing before the lightsaber even touches him. Kelson, watching it, said, “Does Vader even connect with a body?” I don’t think he does. Which looks like a very plausible solution to the disappearing-Jedi conundrum: if Obi-Wan wasn’t actually killed in action, then all evidence points to non-violent death being the only way to disappear.
2. This time through A New Hope, I had the strange experience of mentally hearing a parallel voice track for Vader, with Hayden Christensen speaking many of his lines. I don’t know how much of this is my own overactive brain (fueled by coffee and Honey Smacks, no less) and how much is a reflection on the acting/directing/writing, but it’s very cool.
