As many of you are aware, two months age I signed with the Virgina Kidd Literary agency.  (I am still somewhat boggled by that. They are a premier agency for SF/Fantasy writers.) Also in the month of June I twisted my knee and reinflamed its old injury. Now after weeks and weeks of work with my chiropractor, the knee is doing well. (The WorldCon was a test and I was able to walk 4.5 miles a day without pain.)

So now that the knee was recovered I could do what I wanted to do in celebration, go to Universal Studios Hollywood. My sweetie-wife doesn’t care for theme parks and the rides are certainly not her cup of tea, so this trip was a solo trip. That is sometimes a good thing. I am an introvert by nature and 10-12 hours on my own is good for my emotional state and usually give my brain time to ponder writing issues.

The sun beat down mercilessly on the park today, but I had  the foresight to apply sunscreen meaning I am not burned. There had been a few changes from my last trip in May. (I am an annual pass holder, so I go fairly often.) The Fast and Furious bit has been added to the tram tour/ride. It works pretty well. They use some sort of transparent screen to project footage in such a way that without glass there is a three-d effect. That’s only for the introduction, the main ride is pretty much like the King Kong 360 3D. You wear the glasses and are fully immersed in a fast action scene with events happening all the way around the tram. It’s a fairly well-executed illusion.

Raptor Encounters have been added as a character in the park. It’s very much based on the event sin Jurassic World where a trained works with the ‘tamed’ raptor. The suit/puppet for the raptor was impressive with articulated jaws and eye-lids. The Raptor performers I watched did an excellent job playing the beasts.

Photos and videos are up over at my facebook page. All in all I had a good day.