I spent the day at the USS Intrepid museum. It was a good day, and I finally got to check out the USS Growler, a submarine that’s also at the pier. It is the only deactivated nuclear sub open to the public, and it was neat to walk through it after recently seeing the USS Bowfin in Hawaii. The Growler was commissioned in 1958 as opposed to the Bowfin’s 1943, so some of the stuff looked a bit newer, although it had the same general feel and smell to it. What it did have different was a set of Regulus nuclear missiles, and it was cool to see the little room that was the equivalent of a nuclear missile silo’s launch control center. Going through small subs and their tight quarters with very innovative storage spaces always makes me wish I could do similar stuff with my apartment so I could store twice as much shit. I wish I had a welder and a place to use it so I could buy a bunch of steel and cut it into little shelves and lofts and other hiding spaces.
The aircraft carrier was cool, although after going to some much better museums, it saddened me to see the shape of some of their aircraft. Their A-12, a masterpiece in that it’s the first production model ever, has chipped and peeling paint all over it; the very nice A-4 inside the hanger had crappy paint all over, and the cockpit looked like it hadn’t been touched in 20 years. Some of the planes on the deck had spots that were primered grey like a beat-up Impala in East LA or something. Even the ship’s bell was tarnished! I wish I could donate my time to work on a few of these planes. I don’t know that much about the actual details, but I’d gladly get out the steelwool and brasso and get cracking if I was given the chance.
A pretty lax weekend aside from that trip. It’s starting to get hot, and my stand-up oscillating fan has finally died. It has broken a few times, and I’ve managed to repair it, but now it’s flat out dead. I spent $35 of the money I don’t want to spend on a new floor fan, a generic version of one of those vortex things. It’s pretty impressive – on the low speed, it whips up more wind than my air conditioner. It sounds like a small prop airplane, but that’s actually helpful, as it will hypnotize me to sleep.
I didn’t get much writing done all weekend, but I did decide to quit the Bloomington stories for now and get back on The Device. I outlined some stuff all weekend, but no writing yet.
Okay, gotta work on the photos and stuff a bit more…