Desperate Taxation

When I checked out of my hotel yesterday, I discovered that the local taxation unit had some weird taxes.  It always seems as if the odd taxation always seems to happen in California.

The first odd tax I ran across was in San Francisco County.  It was the end of August or beginning of September that the county instituted a tax on fines.  Yeah, they were taxing fines and it was not a small tax.  Normally the fine on jay walking was $17.00 but with the tax, it shot up to $51.00, an increase of $34.00.  That is a ton of money.  It also meant that one of the highest speeding fines went up to over $1000.  I don't know if that was repealed but it was shocking at that time.

Then there was the tax I payed on a hotel room in the Los Angeles area.  The tax was instituted at the end of July, beginning of August.  It had to so with energy and raising money to pay for producing electricity so they added the tax to hotels.  This was around the time of rolling brownouts which gave governmental entities the chance to add tax.

Yesterday when I checked out of my room, I discovered another way you can be taxed.  I stayed at a "resort" rather than a hotel, so the local entities taxed both my room and the daily resort fee!  When I checked out, I had two entries for the local hotel tax and for a regional body, so I asked what was going on.  It took the gentleman a few minutes of checking and calling the accounting department before he had an answer.  In addition, the "resort" fee was labeled as a Hotel group usage fee and my friend translated that for me.

Ohhh well.  I'm glad I didn't call room service or they might have taxed that.......LOL.  I'm off to town to take care of a few things.  Hope everyone has a good day.

Disneyland Secrets

Ir is my last day in San Diego, early in the morning and I have the tele on.  One of the short news blurbs was on the secrets of Disneyland.  In case you didn't know it, Disneyland is celebrating its 60th anniversary later this month.  It opened on July 17, 1955. My father was privileged  to visit the park the day before it officially opened.

There are secrets like secret bathrooms in the Indian Jones line up area, secret paths that wander through parts of the park,  a pet cemetery that you can get a tour of if you ask during a non busy time but there is one thing that really caught my attention.

The part that caught my attention?  Walt Disney had a real apartment hidden in one of the buildings!  I've been there several times but I didn't know that!

When Disneyland was being built, Walt Disney had an apartment built on the second floor above the Fire Department.  It is a fully designed apartment with kitchen, bathroom, If you look for the window with the burning light, you found the apartment.  When Walt was alive the light indicated he was in residence but now it is kept lit for remembrance.  There is a lovely little article on the apartment here.

Based on research, Walt stood at the window the very first day the park was open and watched all the people who came in to experience a new vision of an amusement park.  He was happy to see how well people received his idea. 

Creatures of the imagination

Last night, I had a wonderful time see creatures of the imagination strolling around through the night.

There was the female vampire who vamped it around in corset, tight pants and tons of bling but don't worry, she brought her own blood pack so as not to disturb people.

Then there was the Countess in a beautiful Red and Black Rococo dress complete with wig and paniers.  The dress was out of a beautiful shiny material that was like something out of PVC type fabric.  It was soo awesome.  I did not her name but she was fantastic.

Of course there was the Rocket Man from the 1950;s complete with leather Indiana Jones Jacket,  rocket backpack and weapons.  Every time I saw him, I heard Elton John's "Rocket Man" in my mind.

I found out about a new sub genre in Science Fiction.  I don't know if you've heard of Steampunk. If you haven't heard of it, it is a world where steam and such is the main energy source and the world is kind of like what you read about in Jules Verne's books.  Well it for some people they wanted the Steampunk world but a bit later so now they have Steam Diesel which is allows them to change direction and go a bit later.

Graceful Motion.

When someone mentions Hula, you automatically picture graceful movement in Hawaii, done by Hawaiians, either on a stage or at a party.
 
According to my father, there used to be the Kodak Hula Show in Waikiki where you could see a wonderful show filled with awesome dancers who did it for a living.   It went away sometime after 1971.
In Hawaii, hula is a big thing.  There are  regular shows in Waikiki, Ala Moana center, at various other tourist attractions and then on the big island (Hawaii), there is a large competition called the Merry Monarch and brings groups from all around.

This past June, I went to one of the shows down on Prince Kahio beach.  It was wonderful because each group was introduced by two MC's.  One MC performed the introduction in English while the other did it in Japanese.


 The surprise to the whole event is that all the dancers were from Japan.  It was awesome.  If I had not heard the introduction and see the names of the groups posted to one side, I  never  realized that Japan had developed a hula culture, nor did I know they performed as well as the Hawaiians.

I loved every minute of watching these wonderful groups. They were as graceful as" the birds in motion" and had "lovely hula hands."

Rainbows

Red, blue, green, orange, yellow, pink, purple, and all the shades inbetween.  I know, based on the title and the list of colors you are thinking of rainbows.  Those beautiful naturally formed sights we see every so often.  Most rainbows that we see are single but once in a while, we have the privilege of seeing a double one.

In this case, I am not talking about the naturally occurring rainbows.  In this case, I refer to the rainbow of hair colors I saw last night at a meeting.  I saw one lady who had blond hair with a mane of orange hair to frame the face. 

Another had a bright red to black to bright smurf blue.  It was done in a tasteful way.  There was another lady whose hair looked like someone splattered color on it like a modern painter might so there were few bands of solid color.

Of course, my hair is deep red at the roots and it segue ways into black about two inches in.  Then there was my favorite, a gentleman with shaved sides and a mohawk in the middle, all done in a black and white zebra pattern.  It was so cool.

These folks kind of reminded me of a line from a movie "What happened?  Did you escape from a zoo?"

I love seeing the artistic side of hair coloring because for many, their hair is their canvas and the hair coloring is their palette. 

Beautification.

I spent most of today either traveling or attending a conference.  I finally got a chance to sit down and write about what I've seen.  Today was a day filled with all sorts of art work.  The first bit I saw was at the San Diego International Airport in the shuttle  area of the Terminal 2.  There is some sort of overpass that the shuttle pulled under as it was stopping to pick up a passenger.  I looked up and there were several long stranded plants on the cement.  I continued looking around at it and noticed some fish sprinkled here and there.

After an aha moment, I realized I was looking at seaweed that flowed gracefully all over the underside of that cement overpass.  It was sooo cool.  In many ways, I wish cities would  add a bit more art work in out of the way places such as that. 

I know that cities are often fighting with graffiti artists who love adding pictures in places the city does not want decorated.  Maybe they can designate areas that are in need of beautifying and allow these artists to use their talents to improve these areas.

When I was young, graffiti usually referred to spray painting nasty words on the side of a building.  Over the past few years, it has evolved into an art form that rivals many paintings in the museum. 

The stars, the moon, and space

I got back from class last night and in my e - mail was a lovely announcement  from the Make Store with a list of things on sale.  Several items caught my attention but the build your own planetarium kit stole my interest.  Think of it!!!!  You don't have to wait for a clear night, you don't have to even to have darkness outside.m Yeah!

It called to me so I decided  to spend a bit of money (just under $8.00) for the kit.  The best time to watch the stars in Alaska is in the middle of winter when there is a lot of darkness.  On the other hand,  it's extremely cold and I hate being outside when its -30 or -40.  Yuck.

A planetarium would allow me to turn my bedroom into the outdoors with the stars projected on the ceiling and upper walls.  The projector even lets you check out the star placement in what ever season you want.  Furthermore, if you want to see what the stars look like in Florida, or Hawaii, you can make minor adjustments and voila you have it.  Unfortunately, its only set to view the northern hemisphere.

I'm disappointed because I've lived in the southern hemisphere and I remember viewing the southern cross.  Ohhh well. The best thing is I can build it myself and  enjoy a beautiful starry night, anytime I want.  Cooooooolllllll!!!!!!!!