MythBusters, rockets, and "urn-ale" climbing

Standing on a long dock/boardwalk over a small lake, watching Jamie and Adam from MythBusters shooting some sort of handheld rocket launchers (the rockets launched whereby being somewhat light and unthreatening). At first, it is more like a filmed scene -- indeed, I watch the two of them launch rockets in reverse -- the rockets find their way back to the launchers, and then the vertical smoke trail finds its way back to the rockets. Then I see them do it again. Adam's little rocket lands in the water behind him, just off the side of the dock. Jamie's lands very close to his own feet. Adam quips that this may be the first episode where they experiment on their own blood.

Seems filming has stopped now, we've walked off a little to the right, and Adam is talking to me and a friend about the background to that episode. Jamie had the idea of setting up a small monorail along the dock to which the rocket launchers would have been attached. One of Adam's assistants (not from the real show) mentioned how it would have been difficult to set up the monorail without buckling the dock because of the shape of the planks. Adam said they had actually worked out a solution to that, by fitting mounts below the railing that were the same size as the planks. In any case, the monorail idea had been scrapped. Adam also mentioned offhand that the show's photographers took way too many pictures, that there were so many photos from the show that would never see the light of day.

Then we headed off further down the dock towards land. Hopping. I hopped down the slope of the dock onto land, then started hopping towards our destination, over a pile of junk or two, and slowly uphill, with my friend (and possibly the MythBusters crew) following behind me. For some reason, the song "Civilization" by the Andrews Sisters and Danny Kaye (featured in Fallout 3) was running through my head. Possibly because of the line "They hurry like savages to get aboard an iron train" -- thinking of the monorail idea.

The ground was grassy and was pretty wet. As we got further up the hill, the wet ground changed to snowy ground. Then we reached a part of the slope that was too steep to hop (or walk) up. My friend (I think a girl, but not particularly feminine, just sort of a pal) and I started grabbing tufts of snow-covered grass with our bare hands and slowly lifting ourselves up the slope, bit by bit. We were laughing and having a grand time. I was surprised every time I grabbed the grass and it managed to support my weight and not break in my hand. My friend said this was great "urn-ale" climbing. I told her this was the first "urn-ale" mountain I'd ever climbed. We continued to climb and grin and laugh.

In the background now, the music had changed to something Celtic-sounding: It was fast-paced, 6/4 time. Every beat had a high-octave major chord on piano keeping time, and there was a pennywhistle which started on a major third, and every half measure it flourished to a different note.

Father Chuck Rogers and conc jumping

At a large, open, mall-like building called Metro Center (not that I saw any evidence of a subway), which, from the outside, had a very interesting shape. I would say it was curvy, made mostly from off-white concrete, and its profile somewhat resembled the shape of Iowa. More interestingly, an edge along the sides and roof (the outline of the building, from my perspective) had a moving track around it, like an escalator railing, and attached to the track were curvy futuristic chairs which held a single person and had them traveling (facing backwards) up the side and over the roof, tilting somewhat awkwardly up and down as the curve changed.

Inside the building, I passed by a guy who was sort of a mix of Mister Rogers, Chuck Norris, and a church pastor. He had a perfect memory for everyone he had met, and as he walked through the crowded concourse, he greeted most everyone he passed, including me.

Later, as I was headed back the other direction, trying to get somewhere, I saw him again, and I figured he might have spotted me too, but I felt like I didn't have time to say hello again, so I hurried off (perhaps not running, but certainly walking fast) towards my destination, and put quite some distance between us. But apparently, Father Chuck Rogers cannot be denied interaction, and he made like a doberman, charged after me and caught up so he could say hi.

Later, outside the "Metro Center" in daylight, I walked over to a flat, grassy, sidewalky park area. A few random men and women were there on one stretch of grass, practicing conc jumping (like in Team Fortress Classic). I decided to join in, and we were practicing choreographing our jumps with lines sung from the song I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire by the Ink Spots (featured in the game Fallout 3). Specifically, I watched as one of the women tried to time a jump to the word "fire". Her concussion grenade went off at about the right time, but she slightly mistimed her jump, so she was only lifted three or four feet in the air.

Fancy tech elevators, hopping into the yard, swimming with a drift

I guess I was going through some kind of multi-part technology demonstration. At the beginning of each part there was a sort of spiral elevator thing - a small circular spinning compartment with a green ceiling and grated floor, slowly descending while spinning, along a vertical spiral track. I nimbly hopped out of one of the elevators while it was still moving and ended up outside at dusk, in the side yard of a house. I had to hop over some large trash cans and wade through some holly bushes to get out into the open, where the people who had taken the elevator were coming out the front door of the house and down the porch stairs.

The last elevator, in which we noticed all the writing was in Korean, led to a large swimming pool. We went in (apparently here I was with my dad and Neil and possibly Greg). I decided to practice my overwater swimming technique. I usually have a hard time hitting a groove and breathing correctly, but this time I was doing great, except I couldn't see in front of me because of turning my head side to side, so I ended up drifting left.