Anyone interested in a Austin gathering in early September?

Ok, y'all have a great meet. I'm staying here - too much going on to get away.

Take some pictures (please)!

mac22, We're going to miss you! It seems that many people who made committments to show up at a2k meets back out as it gets closer to the date of the meet. Even the Chicago meet last week was reduced from about 11 or 12 down to 7. It also happened to our San Francisco meet last year. I'm not sure how we can get a good head count for these meets, but we'll keep trying.

joefromchicago will be in San Francisco from Sept 23 for 4 or 5 nites, so anyone else interested in joining us, please let us know. georgeob and Cyclo are the only ones who have shown interest so far. Anybody else are certainly welcome to join us. After all, flights and hotels are great buys today.

See you tomorrow morning

oh have a great time...

now... ci - please can ya hug SheW and Chai for me - you've a got a couple of feisty gals there - they will make you laugh. The Bean will make your heart melt.

SheW - miss you bigtime - "love yo BEAN" from the British Gal


ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh - you gonna go kayaking again - hope it won't be as hot as when we were there - but such a great thing to do...


<so looking forward to your pics>

The "bean" joined us for breakfast,, and she's already won my heart and soul. We're trying to contact PDiddie, because we're considering a drive to Houston.

My other friend in Houston tried to contact me on my cellphone, but she couldn't get through. I noticed on our drive from Austin to Houston that the telephone signal was very weak. She tried several times without success, and even wrote me several emails, but I had my mini-laptop sitting in my room.

We managed to arrive in Houston a little after 5pm, and we were able to spend a little time at the science museum to look at their dinosaurs, energy displays, and native American histories including Eskimo, the Aztec and Maya artifacts. They have a traveling display of the Terra Cotta Soldiers from Xian, China, but they wanted about thirty bucks per for just a few actual displays with more displays primarily by photographs. They also have a special display on Genghis Kahn, but that required a special entry fee,so we missed that one too - because of time constraints! We did see some Egyptian display downstairs with a mummy inside one of those sarcophagus painted with bright colors and hieroglyphics. SheWolf was busy photographing it from above and from all the exposed sides.

We contacted PDiddie, and they recommended a place for dinner at Goode Company seafood restaurant with one section built from a train car which is a "long" bar with tables and chairs for waiting. I had a glass a red wine while we waited. The place was packed with people, and the stuffed crab that Mrs PDiddie and I had were excellent! I was hungry for crab too, and as Mrs PDiddie reminded me that it was an "r" month. Perfect!

We arrived home after midnight, so I slept in this morning till 8:30am.

The following day, my air force buddy I've known since our stint in Morocco drove in from Terrell, TX, arrived about 11:30am, so we spent a good part of about four hours looking at some pictures he had of our base and Marrakesh, and was surprised at how much we remembered from over 50-years ago. Jerry reminded me that over half the world's population didn't even exist from those days.

Jerry left about 3:30 to stay with his daughter in Austin, but we're planning to have dinner with his family tomorrow.

I'm just spending some leisurely time waiting for my son to call, so we can go out this eve.

No pictures Tak. We want to see the Bean.

Pictures will have to wait until I get home on the 10th, but Shewolf took pictures yesterday that I recommend she post sooner.

Oh yes. Photos .
Those little things are important arent they.


So, I am going to start with the museum photos. Simply because I loved that place even if it was at warp speed. Would even go back this week?? hint hint. But would have to be later on since my work schedule is piling up more and more. Saturday was my only one true day off for another 12 days.

Anyway..
photos.
oh yeah and stories too.

I am going to start with my favorite part of the museum. The sarcophagus.
(WOW . I spelled that correctly! Im amazed.. )

Of course it says -




everywhere.
Ahem.
Me no speek da engrish so mes can take photo now yes?

Anyway. I took photos of this guy because not only can you still see all the hand painted images on this thing, but you can also see faint fingerprints in the paint... dust, dirt and hairs that were all caught into the paint while it was still wet . I can almost see hand prints on the underside, though that did not photograph well at all. Here I tried to zoom in on one fingerprint that was just as clear as a bell though I do not think you can see it in the photo graph. The odd blue display lighting that was inside near it really threw me for a loop when trying to adjust my white balance so I apologize if the color seems a bit off...





and here is just a really nice overview of it. Again, you can still see all of the painted on designs , the wood carved face. just.. Wow. That thing was beautiful.

He was buried with some animals as well.
Unsure of the reason why, though it did bring to mind the kids song of the woman who swallowed the spider.

In this song , this old woman swallows a fly and it bothers her living in her stomach.. so she swallows a bird to eat the fly.
He eats the fly, and bothers her living in her stomach, so she swallows a cat.
And so on she goes up the food chain.

Well, the animals buried with this guy are some what linked on the food chain so, I start humming that song.
He is buried with a cat, fish, and hawk... and it fits in that song.
" He swallowed a fish to eat the fly, swallowed a cat to eat the fish, swallowed a hawk to eat the cat.." blahblah blah.
Peek into my mind there eh?




( the tall thing is the cat. The fish has little drawn eyes on it and the hawk is shaped like a triangle)

He was buried with a 'tax receipt' .
According to the plaques , those were given when the death tax was paid and someone ( I forget who) said it was ok to bury the dead.




the tax receipt is the one in the center.
I forget what the other two were for. I believe one is a permission slip of sorts and another is an acknowledgment? I really DO forget ..

And here are all of the little trinkets found in his cloth wrappings.
I will not even pretend to remember what they were, what they were called or where they were placed on the body.
I know that the scarab was close to the heart, the rest were , I believe, all wrapped around the chest area. There was a plaque explaining most of it and I did read it, I just do not remember enough of the technical aspect to try and repeat it.

Oh
and lets not forget the gas.

On a display that talked of how we get gas from the earth, there was a big red ball that light up when you touched it.
Jillian thought that was cool and ran up to it.

I told her though that the only way it would light up is if she had a lot of gas.





thats one BRIGHT red ball


she was rather proud of herself.

shewolf, It is believed in early Egyptian history that some of those burials with a royal person also had other humans (sacrifices to the gods) including animals buried with them.

Another really nice area was the dinosaur exhibit.
Of course, little Miss loves those and ultimately I think we spent more time there then anywhere else.

The mister and the Bean





CI, Mister and bean