Monday, I met with My Niece Tish and her boyfriend Carl, and we did the Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) public tour. The JPL facility is huge, it covers more area that Disneyland and employes in excess of 5,000 employees. You have no doubt heard about the robotic machines we have landed on the moon, mars, jupiter, and others that have flown by the asteroid belts, the outter planets, and seen some of the pictures sent back. These machines were all made at JPL. I managed to get acouple pics of some of the models of a few of the space craft that were sent out to take pics during the flyby of the Planet Venus. I was somewhat hard pressed to get these shots as the tour group was moving along through the museum in a chaotic manner. This last picture was taken from the glass enclosed balcony overlooking the robot assembly clean room. We were told that it takes the workers almost 30 minutes to put on their "Bunny Suites" before entering the clean room. In the picture you can see them working on the next big robot to be sent to mars. It is about the size of a mini cooper car.
The tour lasted a couple hours, and was very interesting (upon the completion of the tour all of us "tourists" were given IceCream Sandwhiches, ----a nice touch I thought. Tish, Carl and I then drove to a near bye lil Mexican Restaurant, and indulged ourselves in some quite good Tostadas, before they had to throw themselves back in the heavy rush hour traffic to drive the 65miles home. I live only 25 minutes away, but don't laugh, believe it or not I got lost in the freeway system, and drove about 15 miles out of my way before realizing I was going in the wrong direction, and had to retrace myself to get back on the proper freeway to get home----. But I did make it home, although it took me an hour .
Gee whiz Gary this is the cats pajamas ( or was that expression before the 30s?) Bees knees?
ReplyDeleteIt looks like you had a great time.
ReplyDeletelol, bees knees...
ReplyDeleteGary, you just did something I have been wanting to do for so very long. You must have more pictures....tell me you do! Lie to me if you have to.
I wonder how many elementary school kids get to take that tour, or some derivative of it. Seems to me it would be quite educational for them.
Cat's pajamas AND bee's knees with a little "go daddy-o" thrown in. Glad you're home. Now, if you would PLEASE forget the housekeeper, and the laundry, and do some of your old fashioned blogging I would appreciate it. You're getting too worldly for me.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about anyone else, but I use swell all the time.
ReplyDeleteNot sure about the cats pajamas, fairly sure "the bees knees was the rage in the roaring twenties---and of course go daddy-o, was the beat generation of the fifties. Yes wayne children are allowed to take the tour but I suspect its a bit to technical for them to really comprehend, although they seem to like the vids, the models in the museum and of course the ice cream at the end. The tour is free. you can call this number and make reservations (818)354-4321. Its important to make reservations as only so many can go on tour at any one time---in groups of 50 or less.
ReplyDeleteGary,
ReplyDeleteI wondered about the direction you went in. I should have had you follow us out since we picked up the 210 right around the corner. Oh well. Lets figure out our next tour for sometime in the future. I had a great time.
T
I'm happy you had a good time and even happier that you are home safe and sound! Getting lost is just one more thing us "old farts" have to put up with...living in LA does'nt help either...anyone can get lost there!
ReplyDelete