I heard on the news a yesterday that there has been another Disney-related ride accident. This time, it happened in California Adventure on California Screamin’. One car of 24 people was stopped at the end of the ride, and the car behind it didn’t stop like normal but instead plowed into the first cart. It looks like a bunch of the people were treated at the hospital, but as far as I’ve heard/read, no one has been seriously hurt.

This is really too bad – California Screamin’ is one of my favorite rides and generally a good rollercoaster. It will be closed for the next several days while they try and figure out if it was computer error or human error. Hopefully, they will get it up and running again and whatever had caused the accident will be fixed…

(The concert was on Thursday, July 28th)

One of the greatest concerts I have ever been able to attend. I just don’t know how to say it any better. Flogging Molly (along with Goldfinger and The Vandals) put on the best concert as part of the OC Fair music series.

My tickets included VIP Parking and access to the VIP dinner. Mayor Pringle of Anaheim was even among the attendees at the dinner (and he was really nice to talk to, even though I didn’t vote for him, but he is pretty good in reaching across the political aisle.)

Going back to the concert, when I arrived I thought my tickets were in the box. Nope, they were right down in the thick of all, in the pit. My very first mosh pit experience in my life, and let’s say I survived (it sort of helps to be a big guy in the first place to survive the mosh pit). Being so close to the stage really increased the experience ten fold. The band, which is based in Los Angeles, plays with the intensity of an Irish bar brawl and soccer riot all rolled into one.

The best part of the concert was when the lead singer started making fun of American Football (I’ve played the sport, and I sort of agree with him on some of his points). When he started talking about how the US Soccer team will eventually win the world cup (they are ranked 6th in the world) the OC based crowed started chanting “Oley, Oley, Oley” in tune with the way the soccer hooligans do it in europe. This was a much better musical effort then what was observed at the Beck concert, and made an awesome lead into the song.

Playing to a packed Pacific Amphitheatre, the band even dedicated a song called “Selfish Man” to George Bush. Dave King had guts to sing it in Orange County as I was afraid the crowd would burn him at the stake. However, the opposite happened, it caused the capacity crowd to cheer (and the cheer wasn’t directed towards Bush.)

Overall the experience was awesome, the crowd was into it, the band was into it, and it was definitely the best show at the Fair so far.

I was poking around TerraServer (similar to Google Maps’s arial images) and found the following image of an apartment fire in Santa Ana near Lyons Avenue. (A larger version is availabe here.) I remember hearing of a major apartment fire on Lyons Ave. that displaced a number of families a few years ago, but I’m not sure if this is the same one.
It looks like I’m not the only one with too much time on my hands — this fellow has a number of pages devoted to “sightseeing with Google maps.” He’s a little thin on Orange County sights, though. So what’s you favorite Orange County aerial photo?

Image courtesy of the USGS.

Also, I should point out that the Orange County Fair is having free admission when you bring one new or three gently used children’s books. Today only.

So I was at the Orange County Fair last night having fun. And with all that good food aroma floating around, I had to get something to eat. But in case you haven

Taken today on the Studebaker/22 on-ramp at about 6:40pm

Look at the expresson on the guy

Sorry, I was out stretching my legs. No wait, scratch that. This is Orange County; we don’t walk from point A to point B. We drive from point A to point B.

That’s what I have had to do every morning for the past six weeks (and by now I’m surprised my car is still in one piece, considering its age).

However, the drive is not bad in the morning. I stay off the toll roads; yet, I still end up at the same point every morning. It is sort of a county secret that only the locals seem to know…

Sorry, it was too good to keep on the main page so here it is:
(more…)

A few bits of Metblogs news to share with everybody. First, The Slogans of OC… was featured on the Metroblogging Best Of. Which is cool for us.

There is also some non-OC related news. Detroit is the latest addition to the Metroblogging empire. Stop by, say hi and welcome them aboard if you get a chance. Metroblogging also got a nice little write up by Forbes.com in their Best of the Web Directory. Way to go OC and Metblogs!

Even though I’ve lived in Anaheim most of my life, and Orange County my entire life, I’ve never owned a Disney Annual Passport. That is until yesterday, and I found it made my disneyland going experience very different.

There were quite a few things that I had wanted to do at Disneyland yesterday, but didn’t get the chance to. I’ve never been on Soaring Over California, and I hear it’s a good ride, so I wanted to check it out. But I didn’t get the chance, by the time Jill and I made it over to DCA we didn’t have a few hours to spend in line if we wanted to have a good place to view the fireworks from. But it was no big deal skipping Soaring, we can just go back another time and hop on when the lines aren’t so long.

We also only got to go on Space Mountain once, an hour before the park closed the line was still over two hours long. And Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters had some problems later in the day, so we only got to go on that once as well. But that’s ok, we can easily go back later.

Worst of all, and the thing that I would have been most pissed at if I didn’t have the annual pass, is that the fireworks show was cancelled. There are many nights when I’m driving home along the 91 or going up Harbor where I can see the fireworks. I’ve really been wanting to see them from inside the park. I’ve known for months that I was going to go to Disneyland yesterday, so I’ve been waiting patently to see them. Had I not bought the annual pass, and had the fireworks show been canceled, I would have been pissed. But as it is, I can just go back and check it out some other day.

I just snuck out of the office to get some ice cream, don