Author: Steve

We drove to Upstate New York and picked up this little puppy Jesse.

There were go kart tracks.  We could take the kids to the Green Scene in North Boulder.  Video arcade games, miniature golf, batting cages, and go karts.  That was worth a couple hours.  Then a Malibu Grant Prix opened in North Denver.  Again, video arcade, and a go kart track, but these karts were patterned after Formula 1 cars.  It felt like a step up.

Malibu Grand Prix is long gone, but now there are F1 Galleries.  Food, drink, and Formula 1 race simulators, with feedback.  Sophisticated high-end immersive simulators for people to race against each other at specific F1 tracks, with up to 20 racers at a time. Driver’s view screens that keep it real for each participant, and another higher-level view that allows the gathered fans to watch and root for their favorite drivers.  Competitive Socializing.

We haven’t been to an F1 Arcade yet, but there is one in Denver, so it could happen.  The dream lives on.

It is so common and easy to use, it could be overlooked.  But look at it.  A metal so thin it is perfectly smooth, flexible, and strong.  It comes off the roll easily.  It’s flawless.

I remember aluminum foil’s predecessor, tin foil.  It was not so uniform and flexible, and not as cheap.  Tinsel on the Christmas tree was made of tin foil.  Metal.  I know it was metal because when it fell off the tree and landed on the train tracks, it would spark and short circuit the train.  Tin foil was precious enough that we would recover it from the tree after Christmas, piece by piece, to be put away for use again the next year.

But back to aluminum foil.  The aluminum gets mined, refined, and rolled out into these fine flexible sheets for our convenience, and it’s so inexpensive, when we’re through with each piece, we just crumple it up and throw it away.  Amazing.

Always fun to have kids come visit, even if the kids are now closer to 60 than 50.

Picked them up at the giant McAllen International Airport today  (McAllen International Airport has all of six gates.)  and walked the 300 feet to the car in the airport parking lot.