A Geek Goes Flying

I get how all of it works, but it still seems like a kind of magic... To arrive at a theme park (Disneyland in Anaheim), plug your EV in to a charging port, and, while in the park, be able to pull up real time charging stats. And knowing when I get back to the car, it’ll be fully recharged. (However slowly. The charging ports are 6.2 kW, shared, and in the morning of course everyone connected is charging. So it’s almost trickle-charging at like 3 kW. But I parked with 52% SOC and I’ll be here a while. It’s Disneyland, on May the 4th.) Solterra charging in the Mickey & Friends parking structure ChargePoint app charging stats “The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet.” – William Gibson, maybe . May the 4th be with you.

From time to time, I hear people repeat the same incorrect information - that there’s a “no fly zone” over Disneyland, or some variation of that. There is not, not exactly. The TFR over the Disneyland Resort Most airspace over the United States can be flown through by almost any aircraft (helicopter, typical small plane, jumbo jet ...). The exceptions are prohibited  airspace, like that over the Capitol, White House, and the Vice President’s residence at the Naval Observatory (which a private pilot like me can never fly through), restricted  airspace, like that surrounding many military bases (which I can often fly through, if outside the hours when that space is restricted, or if I’ve coordinated with air traffic control and the area is not “hot”), and temporary flight restriction  airspace, the rules of which are governed by the issuing Notice to Air Missions (or, now that Trump has revised our newspeak, once again Notice to Airmen; either way, a “NOTAM”). Aviation navi...

I was already a fan of the fuelrod chargers available at the Disneyland parks, as I’ve discussed before . But the old ones, with the USB A port for charging and a USB B Micro port for recharging the fuelrod, were compromised devices: Good in a pinch and easily swapped for a fresh battery inside the parks, but with the caveats of a slow 5 W charging speed and relatively small capacity. A few weeks ago, trying to swap the old fuelrod for a new one resulted in a notice that the old device would be upgraded free of charge to the new kit, which comes with a redesigned fuelrod itself (“Mobile Power Bank Model R32A/B”), USB C to Lightning, USB C to USB C, and USB C to USB B Micro and USB A to USB C adapters. The rod itself now has a single USB C port used for both charging other devices and recharging itself. Four green LEDs display the state of charge (full to empty). And, critically, the batttery appears to be larger capacity (11.52 Wh, 3.6V 3200 mAh), and the charging speed is greater, now...

Disneyland Railroad locomotive Inspired by this account from a year ago:  How to take FlyAway Bus, Amtrak to Disneyland from LAX - Los Angeles Times Transit to Union Station First, I need to get to Union Station (I use Metro Rail trains, which I can walk to). Checked the weekend / holiday schedule for, in my case, the Expo sorry, E-line , and the red/purple ... whoops again, sorry, the B-line and D-line . I have a virtual TAP card on my phone (which you can configure to work even with a low battery ‡ ). This portion of the trip will be $1.75 each way. Working backwards, I want to be at Union Station by 6:45 a.m., so I need to be at 7th Street / Metro Center by 6:37 a.m. to catch the B or D Line train, which means being at my local station about 5:30 a.m. (~60 minutes total travel time to Union Station, ± a few minutes waiting at stations / changing trains). It’s a ~40 minute walk or a ~9 minute bike ride (or a relatively cheap Uber or Lyft) to get there, so, set my alarm for ...

Loungefly backpack The quest to find the perfect Loungefly water bottle...  Loungefly backpacks (like this Mickey Mouse print bag ) are super cute, but they’re not the most practical when it comes to spending a day at a theme park with them - and that’s mostly because they don’t have many options for hydration. Solutions I’ve found so far: Hydro Flask 18 oz. The 18 oz. Hydro Flask Stainless Steel Standard Mouth Water Bottle ($25) is 10.3" tall, 2.85" in diameter, and does not fit in the side pockets but does fit perfectly inside the main compartment of the bag. I paired it with the Standard Mouth Flex Straw Cap Black ($15) and it’s super convenient. If you go this route, you might want to also get an organizer insert to keep it from being tossed around inside. Generic 8.5 oz. Bottle This long, skinny bottle (“ Insulated Water Bottle, Coffee Thermos Mug, Double Wall Vacuum Insulation, Fashionable Style Skinny Mini Slim Stainless Steel Water Bottle ”) ($7–15) was recommende...

The fewer things on my wrist, the better. At a recent trip to Disneyland, we all broke down and bought MagicBand+ devices, which have some kinda cool (the first time) interactivity with things like World of Color and Fantasmic! ( RIP Murphy ), but also just generally make life easier with things like Lightning Lane. (Oh, and, there’s apparently some sort of Batuu bounty hunter thing at Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge? We saw it and meant to participate but it didn’t happen. But Disneyland After Dark: Star Wars Nite is coming up...) So. For my Apple Watch Series 6 , I have a nice-ish metal bracelet that I actually really like a lot. Makes the base model watch feel a lot more premium. But, not compatible with the MagicBand+ holders I’ve found. (Incidentally, check the descriptions carefully, I didn’t find many solutions on Amazon for the MagicBand+, most of them are for the original MagicBand...) So I picked up this Archer Canvas Watch Strap , which I like a lot so far. It’s a bit more c...

My mom’s coming into town in September. We have two “must see” shows, Maestro of the Movies at the Hollywood Bowl, and Fantasmic! at Disneyland. Getting tickets for the orchestra was easy. Go to the website, pick decent seats, pay, get downloaded tickets. Done. Total transaction took about 5 minutes total. Fantasmic! ...? Well, that’s a different story. To get reserved seating for Fantasmic!, you have to purchase a dining package. As I write this there are four: Blue Bayou lunch or dinner ($89 prix fixe), River Belle Terrace standard, River Belle Premium (with a special menu and you watch the show immediately after your 7:15 p.m. dinner, while seated at your table), and Hungry Bear grab-and-go. All but the River Belle premium option involve getting tickets and then making your way to a designated area a few minutes before the show starts. (You can try for general admission, if you want to waste hours in the park waiting, but she makes the multiple timezone trek to SoCal, and spends on...

FuelRod charging iPhone through Klein ET920 FuelRods get dissed a lot, somewhat deservedly. I’m here to recommend them, in very specific contexts. First, the downsides: They’re expensive ($30 at a Disneyland kiosk, circa spring 2020), they have limited capacity, and they charge slowly, at ~5W. In an instrumented test, I found a fully charged FuelRod (green light, after recharging at home via microUSB) brought an iPhone 12 Pro from 13% to 67% (about a 53% recharge) and took about 1 hour 24 minutes to do so. According to my Klein , total transfer was about 6.796 Wh (1349 mAh); the iPhone 12 Pro has a 2815 mAh battery at 3.83V (10.78 Wh), though mine’s about a year old and reports 87% maximum capacity remaining. But, all of that said, they offer one huge advantage that cannot be discounted: When they’re depleted, you can swap them for a fully charged replacement, free of charge, at a number of kiosks throughout Disneyland and California Adventure. There are very few places where you can ...