I only have time to put up a couple of the highlights:

Mission Control (yep, that’s the real deal):

Shuttle and space station training centre:

The Saturn V was certainly the highlight. It is absolutely enormous. The first stage:

The second stage:

The third stage:

The top bit:

Apollo 17’s command module:

Mercury:

Gemini:

Next stop, Austin, Texas for South by Southwest.

At the Make party:

Another fancy party, this time for Frog Design:

Petey the Boston Terrier made us feel very homesick:

Tash Glen and Tash:

The next day I visited the Capitol:

Which has a Confederate memorial:

On the way back to the conference, I wandered past Barack’s Austin campaign headquarters:

SXSW was rockin’, but how about a little less swag? This is incredibly wasteful:

This sums up Vegas, the water in the fountain at Caesar’s Palace is dyed blue.

We got a chopper out to the Grand Canyon. It was a breathing trip, as we flew over Vegas twice, the Hoover Dam, and the Canyon itself.

The unmarked 737s with the red stripe take workers to Area 51:

The pilot and the Hoover Dam:

Over the canyon - none of the pics I took come anywhere near capturing its beauty:

On the canyon floor:

A blurry piccie of Vegas at night:

Also very cool! Even The King was there.

And Microsoft through a huuuge party at Tao at the Venetian. The view from Tao:

ETech was also cool:

More on that in a later post…

This is awesome! The new naval museum in San Diego aboard the USS Midway.

As I now have a USB cable I’ve been able to upload some photos.

San Diego is a cool town. Among the sites were the Pandas at San Diego zoo:

Then off to the Air and Space Centre. You’re greeted by the Apollo 9 capsule:

Apollo 11 unused food:

Phantom vs MiG:

SR71 Blackbird:

Giant magaritas in oldtown:

Just back at Mix from the indoor rifle range just out of town. Still have grease from the AK I fired. Tash had a go on an Uzi 9mm. Kinda fun but kinda scary at the same time, and some of the people at the range (although not the instructors) were pretty freaky.

Firing these things was f-ing scary, as you can probably see from the look on my face!

I’ve been using Picasa of late, you get a gig for free. Sweeeeeeeet.

It looked great when I took it, somehow I just couldn’t capture the ambiance…