Orbits of a deluded mind

Everyone says weekends are for resting. Everyone except me apparently.

Friday - Full day at work, followed by a late viewing of The Brothers Grimm.

Saturday - Thought I was going to Disney, but (fortunately) discovered BATS Day was really on Sunday. Instead of sitting around the house, we drove north into the desert and took an impromptu abandoned sites expedition (woo hoo). In the 107 degree Mojave heat, we wandered around an abandoned (tire/auto) test track, which was built over a previously abandoned airfield. Then we drove northwest, to recon the Tropico Gold Mine complex. We only got external shots there since the site is posted. I'm following up on some leads to get me in this week. Then we drove further north along Tropico Mojave road to find an abandoned (and semi-intact) gas station garage complex. We decided that really wasn't enough, so taking some suggestions from a new friend (Angie), we drove out to West Lancaster and scoped out several farmsteads along Ave H.

All in all, I shot 5 rolls of film, and Brenna shot about 104-107 digital pics. The film's developed and I'll start posting these in the coming weeks. A number of the photos taken at midday, while wandering the test track, suffered from substantial light wash-out. I've never seen this happen with my 35mm camera, so I may need to change film and shot technique to accommodate. Slower film speed and a polarizing filter for midday shots I think should work. We'll see. I think the film to digital pictures can be filtered, but if not I may be expediting the process of going to digital.

Sunday - Sadly my scheduling confusion dorked up my chances to finally meet Angie. ::sigh:: It never fails... Vikki was going to bring her to practice on Sunday morning and I was going to get to see the cool Sony digital camera she now has. Hopefully she'll forgive me for not making it.

Instead, I packed up the kids early and drove to Anaheim for BATS Day at Disney. To note, all of us dressed in varing amounts of Black. Brenna tricked out in nets, mini corset, and black pants (not bad for a 12 year old). Gotta love Chris because without any prompting or suggestion, he chose a black Luxor (Casino) T-shirt and dark shorts. Me? I put on one of my black Ren Shirts, jeans and my thigh-high fencing boots. What's humorous is I kept getting compliments on the boots all day.

We got to the park at around 8:30 and started making our way through the masses of (mundane) humanity. At first I was a little concerned, because while walking in, saw no-one in attire. While waiting for the tram, they started to appear. By the time we were actually in the Park and strolling down Main Street USA, more and more came out of the proverbial woodwork. Many nods and comments of "Happy Bats Day" (even from Disney staff) were exchanged, and many an odd stare or comment was heard from the "normal folks." We made it to three of the four scheduled gatherings during the day.

I'll write more on specifics about our Bats Day adventure tonight and tomorrow. I want to have pictures available. Oh BTW, Brenna and I took plenty of pictures!