As of January 1, 2019, we have closed our forums. This is a decision we did not come to lightly, but it is necessary. The software our forums run on is just too out-of-date and it poses a significant security risk. The server software itself must be updated, and it cannot be without removing the forums.
So it is with a heavy heart that we say goodbye to our long-running forums. They came online in 2000 and brought together so many wonderful Disney fans. We had friendships form, careers launch, couples marry, children born ... all because of this amazing community.
Thank you to each of you who were a part of this community. You made it possible.
And a very special thank you to our Guides (moderators), past and present, who kept our forums a happy place to be. You are the glue that held everything together, and we are forever grateful to you. Thank you aliceinwdw, Caldercup, MrsM, WillCAD, Fortissimo, GingerJ, HiddenMickey, CRCrazy, Eeyoresmom, disneyknut, disneydani, Cam22, chezp, WDWfan, Luvsun, KMB733, rescuesk, OhToodles!, Colexis Mom, lfredsbo, HiddenMickey, DrDolphin, DopeyGirl, duck addict, Disneybine, PixieMichele, Sandra Bostwick, Eeyore Tattoo, DyanKJ130, Suzy Q'Disney, LilMarcieMouse, AllisonG, Belle*, Chrissi, Brant, DawnDenise, Crystalloubear, Disneymom9092, FanOfMickey, Goofy4Goofy, GoofyMom, Home4us123, iamgrumpy, ilovedisney247, Jennifer2003, Jenny Pooh, KrisLuvsDisney, Ladyt, Laughaholic88, LauraBelle Hime, Lilianna, LizardCop, Loobyoxlip, lukeandbrooksmom, marisag, michnash, MickeyMAC, OffKilter_Lynn, PamelaK, Poor_Eeyore, ripkensnana, RobDVC, SHEANA1226, Shell of the South, snoozin, Statelady01, Tara O'Hara, tigger22, Tink and Co., Tinkerbelz, WDWJAMBA, wdwlovers, Wendyismyname, whoSEZ, WildforWD, and WvuGrrrl. You made the magic.
We want to personally thank Sara Varney, who coordinated our community for many years (among so many other things she did for us), and Cheryl Pendry, our Message Board Manager who helped train our Guides, and Ginger Jabour, who helped us with the PassPorter-specific forums and Live! Guides. Thank you for your time, energy, and enthusiasm. You made it all happen.
There are other changes as well.
Why? Well, the world has changed. And change with it, we must. The lyrics to "We Go On" for IllumiNations say it best:
We go on to the joy and through the tears
We go on to discover new frontiers
Moving on with the current of the years.
We go on
Moving forward now as one
Moving on with a spirit born to run
Ever on with each rising sun.
To a new day, we go on.
It's time to move on and move forward.
PassPorter is a small business, and for many years it supported our family. But the world changed, print books took a backseat to the Internet, and for a long time now it has been unable to make ends meet. We've had to find new ways to support our family, which means new careers and less and less time available to devote to our first baby, PassPorter.
But eventually, we must move on and move forward. It is the right thing to do.
So we are retiring this newsletter, as we simply cannot keep up with it. Many thanks to Mouse Fan Travel who supported it all these years, to All Ears and MousePlanet who helped us with news, to our many article contributors, and -- most importantly -- to Sara Varney who edited our newsletter so wonderfully for years and years.
And we are no longer charging for the Live Guides. If you have a subscription, it's yours to keep for the lifetime of the Live Guides at no additional cost. The Live Guides will stay online, barring server issues and technical problems, for all of 2019.
That said, PassPorter is not going away. Most of the resources will remain online for as long as we can support them, and after that we will find ways to make whatever we can available. PassPorter means a great deal to us, and to many of you, and we will do our best to keep it alive in whatever way we can. Our server costs are high, and they'll need to come out of our pockets, so in the future you can expect some changes so we can bring those costs down.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for your amazing support over the years. Without you, there's no way us little guys could have made something like this happen and given the "big guys" a run for their money. PassPorter was consistently the #3 guidebook after the Unofficial and Official guides, which was really unheard of for such a small company to do. We ROCKED it thanks to you and your support and love!
If you miss us, you can still find some of us online. Sara started a new blog at DisneyParkPrincess.com -- I strongly urge you to visit and get on her mailing list. She IS the Disney park princess and knows Disney backward and forward. And I am blogging as well at JenniferMaker.com, which is a little craft blog I started a couple of years ago to make ends meet. You can see and hear me in my craft show at https://www.youtube.com/c/jennifermaker . Many PassPorter readers and fans are on Facebook, in groups they formed like the PassPorter Trip Reports and PassPorter Crafting Challenge (if you join, just let them know you read about it in the newsletter). And some of our most devoted community members started a forum of their own at Pixie Dust Lane and all are invited over.
So we encourage you to stay in touch with us and your fellow community members wherever works best for you!
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We blitz tour the National Air and Space Museum!
We had a few objectives for this trip. We wanted to miss the traffic during the morning (and evening) rush hour, get back home in time for the closing on our re-financing, and finally, not chancing getting a ticket by exceeding two hours on the parking meter. There were a couple of things working against us – there was a power outage in downtown DC that was affecting both the metro subway system and the traffic signals. PLUS, it was Friday the thirteenth!
My DW and DS#2 had been on a field trip to the NASM in the spring, so we could afford to skip some exhibits if we needed to. We got downtown in record time and found a working parking meter in the same block as the museum, as there were no available free parking spaces along the National Mall. We put our quarters in the meter and trotted towards the museum…
1012 hours, we approached the mall entrance to the museum, and we walked really fast so we could get there before the Brazilian tour groups could exit their buses.
We got through security quickly and made our way to the WWI gallery:
L: a Pfalz D.XII biplane. R: An exhibit about the Red Baron
They made great strides in aviation technology, even though the munitions were somewhat crude..
You can’t have an exhibit about the Red Baron without something to do with Snoopy:
This is a model of a Sopwith 2F.1 Camel.
L: a Top Secret Norden bombsight. R: Part of Flak Bait that flew over 200 missions and was never shot down, even after repeatedly taking heavy damage. It was a Martin B-26B Marauder.
L: a Supermarine Spitfire Mk VIIc (high altitude version). R: a North American P-51D Mustang
L: some of General Doolittle’s medals. R: Mural of a B-17.
1040 hours, to the Sea-Air Operations gallery!
Tail from a Douglas A-4C Skyhawk is displayed with markings of VA-76 on the USS Bon Homme Richard which is the only jet aircraft on display in this gallery.
This display illustrates the development of aircraft carriers from true ‘flat-top’ conversions to today’s super-carriers.
This gallery has some really neat carrier bridge displays!
Just outside this gallery is a display of UAVs:
L: Lockheed Martin / Boeing RQ-3A Dark Star. R: Above, MQ-1L Predator, Below, Boeing X-45A (J-UCAS)
1055 hours, on our way to the Apollo Gallery, I saw this:
V-1 “buzz bomb” cruise missile.
Here is something we are not likely to see on a launch pad anytime soon:
Saturn V Launch vehicle with Apollo Spacecraft
This command module hatch design was one of the results of the Apollo I tragedy that claimed the lives of Grissom, White, and Chaffee. Grissom most likely would have been the first man on the moon, had that tragedy been averted. The new design only requires 5 seconds to open, as opposed to 90 seconds.
L: Lunar Module 2, which was built for testing in earth orbit of the docking procedures and was not used because LM1’s tests were completely successful. R: The boys with an EVA suit (I think from STS Series).
Well, after looking at all the astronaut food, we were kinda hungry, so we went to the food court:
This is a space-aged place, as you order and pay the cashier first, and then you go pick up your order. You have to fill your own drinks and get your condiments, but it was amazingly FAST! I did not get food photos as it was all the standard McDonalds, anyway.
1130 hours, our next stop was “How Things Fly”, which our son did not get much time in on his field trip.
L: An image of air pressure on an aircraft showing where it is higher and lower. R: David tests the rigidity of various materials and strength vs. weight.
The boys at the Cessna demonstrator.
We decided to split up at this point as time was getting short. My DW took David to a gift shop and I took Tim to see the jet aviation gallery and Wright Brothers gallery.
Views of a Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe. The first jet fighter aircraft, placed in service in 1944!
Views of the Lockheed XP-80 Lulu Belle, the P-80 Shooting Star Prototype.
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Wow, you are cramming a lot into your day. I can't wait to read more.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RobDVC
Terrific pictures!
Thank you! It was fun, but we had seen most of it before, and we also wanted to see some exhibits our older son was interested in due to some the videogames he has been playing. If you haven't seen it before, you should take you time and enjoy!
I like coming to NASM so I can see how far aviation came in less than a century: Here is the four-cylinder cruising engine from the Rutan Voyager aircraft, which flew around the world non-stop, and without refueling in 1986! Compare that with a Wright Brothers Flyer four-cylinder engine!
We managed to get back to the van and pull out of our parking space with five minutes to spare! Hard to believe, I know! I would not expect anyone but a local to try and see NASM in that amount of time as we can come back soon! If you are visiting for possibly once in your life you would definitely want to spend several hours here. When I was a kid, all they had was a Quonset hut out back of Arts and Industries, with a little rocket ‘garden’ -- it is really nice to see how it has grown! We want to get out to Udvar-Hazy center, someday soon. My DW did manage to get me a book of some of the aircraft, but because many of those are housed at the Dulles facility, it did not help me as much as the NASM website, which has many resources for exploring the museum, so there is MUCH more to see than what I included in this TR.
Today we walked: about a mile. The weather today was: about 90 degrees and dry. The best thing today was: getting a parking spot in the same block. The worst thing today was: being short on time. The funniest thing today was: David at the controls of a simulator. Today we tried: the food court at NASM. And the result was: we got our meal at the speed of sound!
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