Weekend Recap
It was a long weekend, and the need for coffee to get motivated this morning is confirming that it was well-spent.
Friday started off with a bit of a boost in helping X-Men 3 set all kinds of box office records. Great movie with amazing effects, though I think I prefer the story in the second.
Saturday was for lunch and time with the parents because it was my dad’s birthday. Happy Birthday again!
Sunday involved a new Sunday brunch restaurant (well, new to me for Sunday brunches, if not business lunches) and an open-water swim at La Jolla Cove. As a first practice for possibly doing the La Jolla Rough Water in September, it was good in the sense that the amount of work ahead of me is now better understood. Lots of work ahead of me.
Monday was a bit of a roadtrip away from all the people conducting their Memorial Day reminisces at the local beaches. We headed a few miles inland and about 5000 feet up to CalTech’s Mount Palomar Observatory. An interesting place that I hadn’t seen since I was a kid, and I’m still amazed that technology based on a mirror nearly sixty years old is still cutting edge. In some ways I’m too much a product of the disposible generation. The telescope was amazing, but the inside images were disappointing due to the lighting from the visitor’s gallery. May have to go back soon for one of the tours.
Stopped off a few times on the drive back to a poolside lunch for to try and capture some fast-moving photons on the tighter corners. From my perspective the results were mixed, but I learned a few things and may have to try that again soon too.
Fun times, and the laws (relevant or not) were scrupulously obeyed.
You went to Mount Palomar Observatory? You suck!
Any thoughts on the “X3 is a parable about the ex-gay movement and reparative therapy” meme?
Kip: I can see the basis for the thoughts and the parallels between the movie and those groups, but if it were meant to raise the level of discussion on the issue, I’d say it’s flawed and, well, overly dramatic and inflamatory. There are major differences between being gay and mutations that can cause physical harm to others (The Rogue character, and no doubt others). The concept of non-consensual permanent ‘treatment’ (love the Bushism of ‘cure-guns’ by the way) also strikes me as much more offensive than any other the ex-gay programs I’ve heard of.
If I was going to make any kind of connection like that, I’d use the historical analogy of the calls for quarantine (and exclusion of gays pos and neg from a variety of aspects of public life) during the early days of the AIDS epidemic pending some mythical ‘treatment’, which was/is of course illusory. Suppress your nature and hide where you can, less you be rendered ‘safe’ (locked up in special centers or mandatorily monitored) to be around us and our children.
Nala: Yep.