Dinosaur Day at NuMu, Sunday

The Newark Museum has one of its big special events tomorrow, in which an animated full-scale mechanized Tyrannosaurus Rex, 15 feet tall, is the centerpiece of a bunch of special programs oriented mainly to children. But I'd like to see the T. Rex too, to visualize it better than books or movies ever could.

I don't imagine NuMu would mind my using the graffic they sent out in email to help publicize this event.

I'll be getting in free, since I am a member. But I'd get in free anyway because I am a resident of Newark, and since the City provides significant funding to the Museum, the Museum lets in free all bona-fide residents of Newark. This is a benefit of living in Newark that all too few residents take advantage of.
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"Field Station: Dinosaurs" has a website, but links from the Home page to some subpages are not working. I don't know why, but the company needs to check all links from all pages and fix errors. On one of the pages that did work, I found this basic information:

Slated to open in May 2012, "Field Station: Dinosaurs" will be an outdoor science exhibition where visitors will be able to roam the grounds among 31 life-size robotic dinosaurs. The venue — fittingly complete with a 150 million-year-old rock formation — will also offer a petting zoo and educational programs about dinosaurs as well as the environment. Given its focus on the outdoors, the 24-acre park will naturally close during the winter months, from Thanksgiving on.

There is also a video that shows at least an early version of the T. Rex. The 'arms' look too small, and there is someone inside it to do the walking, because balancing the "puppet" on the dinosaur-shaped legs may have proved too difficult a technological task. But who knows? Maybe they've got those legs working by now. Here is a screen capture of part of that video.

The Field Station is next to Laurel Hill Park, a Hudson County Park around the rock outcrop in the Meadows alongside the Turnpike that is marked by Greek Letter Fraternity graffiti. This is the same hill that served as inspiration for the Prudential's Rock of Gibraltar logo. It was almost erased by stupid quarriers making gravel from its ancient rock, but a much-reduced remnant has been preserved. Next month, it becomes home to wandering animatronic dinosaurs.
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New Flite from EWR. Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer was on David Letterman's show Wednesday nite.

Schweitzer was in New York to promote the new direct flight between Newark, N.J., and Bozeman. United Airlines is offering the flight, beginning in June. United will offer a weekly flight every Saturday out of Newark Liberty International Airport to Bozeman Yellowstone International Airport from June 9 through Sept. 1.

Dave said, later in the show, "There are no return flites." Hm.
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Letterman has a ranch somewhere in Montana, and the Governor (a Democrat) has apparently been there, because he commented that Letterman's ranch is nicer than his theater. I've been to Montana twice, but not to Bozeman. Close, tho. I drove into Montana from Idaho at dawn, and was so struck by how beautiful it was that I actually sang "America the Beautiful" in the car. There were purple mountains ahead, but grasslands rather than "fruited plains" on both sides of the highway before I reached the mountains. I've been to the Custer National Cemetery in the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, to Glacier National Park, and to Billings, twice. Beautiful state, but, in winter, cold as a witch's, um, heart. (Lest anyone complain that "witch" should refer to practitioners of 'wicca', let me simply say, no it does not. Wiccans CHOSE to associate themselves with a pre-existing term — by centuries — for evil sorcerors, so cannot be heard to complain about the word "witch" being misused — because THEY are the ones misusing it.)