Fun and Educational things I did this week

(not necessarily in any kind of order)

1. Visited the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, in the Texas School Book Depository. I thought it was an excellent museum, with good integration of video footage of various aspects of JFK's assassination with the museum exhibits. It is really weird to stand in the place Lee Harvey Oswald stood.

2. Fun with Rafia's WACKY GPS system. It often lies.

3. Engaging in shenanigans with Rafia's colleagues.

4. Southfork Ranch, where Dallas was filmed (outside scenes anyway). Oddly enough, we went there on my insistence. EPIC photos were taken there.

5. Ft. Worth Zoo: many active and adorable animals lived here including black bears, a white tiger, lion cubs, cheetahs, meerkats, otters, and more.

6. Kimball Art Museum: A nice art museum, with terrible signs for parking. But a nice museum.

7. Free IMAX videos including "Sea Monsters" and "Extreme". I preferred "Sea Monsters" while Rafia preferred "Extreme"

8. Movies watched: X Files I Want To Believe which I have decided was a dream and thus will pretend didn't really happen, Hamlet 2 which was mostly funny, and Wall-E, which I loved, but wept throughout.

9. Photo Shoots of Rocky, Uniqua, DJ Pinja, Bearning Love, Renee, and a nameless blue reindeer

10. Delicious foods were eaten, possibly to the point of gluttony.

11. San Antonio Missions National Historical Park was wonderful.

12. Riverwalk in San Antonio was sort of cool, if you like that sort of thing. I sort of do. Love San Antonio, and the Southwest, overall.

13. Much, much more!!!

Graceland

I am in Jackson MS tonight after spending the day at Graceland and driving part of the Natchez Trace in Mississippi (and a brief trip to Oxford MS). Memphis was full of Kentucky and East Carolina fans; having avoided the sports page over the last week I was oblivious to the bowl game being played until I started wondering about all the UK flags on the cars passing me on the highway. Anyway, Graceland was nuts. I sort of felt the same way I felt about Las Vegas--really glad I visited, but felt a little overwhelmed.

Other than a trip a while ago that took me to Tupelo and Elvis Presley's birthplace, I have not spent much time in Mississippi. Tomorrow I'm going to take the Natchez Trace to Natchez before heading to Beaumont Texas, near where my grandfather was born. I am not sure what I'm going to there, but I've never been to that area and I'm curious about where my family is from. My ultimate destination, of course, is Arlington.

The outside of Graceland:



Crazy airplane:


TV Room:


Me with mirrors on stairs:


Presents in the Jungle Room


Trees inside house:


The drive on the Natchez Trace was very foggy (still pretty, and not much traffic)

I just want to see you smile

Emusic has Bruce Springsteen performing "Dream Baby Dream"! I am so excited. I heard this during the Devils and Dust tour, in Cincinnati back in 2005 I think. Amazing performance. Um, emusic also has a Twisted Sister Christmas album, and you can download "Deck the Halls" for free.

I'm heading to Oklahoma for my grandma's funeral. Not that I update this often, but when I get back, look for some posts on MPLP and digitization projects, other thoughts about digitization, possible other ramblings about issues in archives, and possibly some crazy ideas how to revitalize Richmond Indiana.

One of the best memories of my grandma I have is spending a couple of weeks with her and my grandpa when I was kid, no parents around. It was a really fun week and I especially remember taking walks around the neighborhood in Shawnee OK looking for new things, whether a tree, leaves, flowers, whatever. I guess I don't remember the details, but I remember how wonderful it was. She taught 8th grade English for years--I have no idea how she did that. I believe she was the first in her family to go to college. I always admired her greatly and cherished those yearly visits to Oklahoma. Now as an adult I'm driving my parents to Oklahoma in my car instead of the other way around. I always loved the drive out there as kid so it will interesting to see how it has changed.

Long Drive

I'm in Independence Missouri. That's about it. Today was a long drive from Ann Arbor, but it went quite fast. Other than a bizarre weather front that brought a brief period of torrential rain and caused the temperature to suddenly drop ten degrees then go back up in a matter of minutes while in Illinois, nothing too eventful happened on the drive. It did not feel like I really got going until I arrived in Missouri, since I had driven the rest of the route before (in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan).

Tomorrow: Harry Truman Presidential Museum/Library/Home, and some Oregon Trail related stuff in the area. Alas, the Royals are not in town this week. Bad planning on my part.