Old Musings - October 2003

"Four score and seven hours ago, our admin brought forth on this website a new update conceived in html and dedicated to the proposition that not all web sites are created equal."

Well, Abraham Lincoln said something like that anyway.

I've just returned from a quick weekend getaway to Washington, D.C. where, like many others before me, I sought inspiration from honest Abe. He may not have inspired me to write the great American novel, but at least I got some good photos in - and I hope you appreciate it. Luke and I must have walked up and down the National Mall at least 4 times. Which may not sound like much until you realise it is some 3-4 km from end to end.

Anyway - enjoy. I just can't be too bothered writing about it too much.

Although I have to say, yes there was heaps of security everywhere. We arrived at the White House in the middle of a 25,000 people demonstration against the Iraqi war on Saturday and next day was almost as crowded with the US Marine Corps' annual marathon going on.

Just make sure you check out both the day and night photos.

Dear Diary,

It has been almost a month now since my last update, and I have been constantly hounded (well, I received an email) about new updates, so I thought it was about time to do something about it.

Nothing much has happened these last few weeks. Been pretty busy at work, so there hasn't been much time for play. Oh, wait. That's right. I did pop back to Australia for a weekend at the start of the month. I wanted to go scuba diving, but unfortunately my diving buddies weren't feeling too well on the day. Oh, well. Never mind. Maybe I'll get lucky next time.

Last weekend I did manage to drag myself away from the hotel long enough to go and see the Texas State Fair. We took the Dart - the local light rail system - into town and had a fairly enjoyable time. I say 'fairly' enjoyable because after all, it is a sad day when your highlight for the day was seeing a funny looking chicken.

Oh sure, I could have paid an extra two dollars here, three dollars there to see the side-shows, the Ferris wheel, or spend 20 minutes engaged in a fascinating exhibition on waterless cooking ('It's called deep-frying you fool....'), but that just wasn't me.

I decided to spend the time taking photos of this, that and the other instead - so you'd be able to waste five more minutes of your life gawking at some piccies.

Ok, another thing that the astute reader may notice, is that something has changed. Well, if I've done the job right you hopefully didn't. I have updated every single page on this site - I got rid of the use of frames. This means that each web page can now stand on its own - you can link directly to it and it will display correctly. You can also use the 'Add to Favourites' or bookmarks on any page on this site, and it will work correctly (before it would always take you back to the main page). In the address bar, the full URL will be displayed, which also means that it is easier to send links to other people if you need to.

Of course, if you don't understand what I just said - don't worry. Let's just pretend nothing's different.

Oh, almost forgot. It's almost Halloween over here. And of course when in Rome, do as the Romans - so I tried my hand a carving a pumpkin. I wanted to have a quick go first, to see what it is like. But even I was impressed with the final results.

It's amazing what you can do with a cheat-sheet (aka a pattern template).

Finally, I added a Dallas photo here (warning - rather large!), and another flora shot here.

Howdy Partner,

I've been rather subdued, these last couple of weeks. This week the rest of the team headed off to New York for the weekend, but I elected to skip this trip. For some reason, the big apple just doesn't seem to appeal to me. But fear not! I still intend to did a spot of travelling in the next couple of weeks/months. The wish-list still includes Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone N.P. and of course, L.A.

Even though I'm still in Dallas, this is no excuse for not getting up to mischief. I decided to head down to the Dallas Zoo to give my camera a good workout.

I suppose I should also post a couple more photos from the last few weeks as well. Don't get your hopes up though - there's just a couple of photos of people you probably don't know at the driving range (James and Leon show me how it's done), and a couple more shots of the surroundings around here.

Gidday y'all

Popped down to Houston this weekend, and checked out the Houston Space Centre / Control Centre, the Museum of Natural Sciences (which had a cool butterfly enclosure) and, of all things, the National Museum of Funeral History.

As usual, I've got lots of photos - but today I'm feeling lazy, so not much of a written update.

So go browse dem photos!

• Houston
• Nation Musem of Funeral History
• Museum of Natural Sciences (Butterfly enclosure)
• Houston Space Centre / NASA Command Control
   
• Plus some extra Flora and Fauna photos

Hola!

Over here in America, we have just had a long weekend. Not one to take this lying down, I decided it was the perfect time to head south - Mexico City, Mexico. (Ironically a good 15-20 degrees cooler than Dallas at this time of year. Even so, the temperature was still in the low 20's).

After hammering the Travelocity site for a while, a decent last-minute package was found and we took off on Friday. (My Australian colleagues popped along for the ride).

On the first day, we made straight off for the ancient city of Teotihuacán ('teh-oh-tih-wah-KAN'). Teotihuacán boast two great pyramids, the pyramid of the moon and sun (the latter being the third largest pyramid in the world), surrounded by a whole village of ruins.

As part of a guided tour package, we first visited the plaza of three cultures. An interesting area where you see some ancient ruins, two really old churches and a square where many a revolution has taken place.

A little further out of town, and we end up at the Basilica de Guadalupe - Mexico's most important church. Here we have not one, but three churches. New ones keep on being made to accommodate the influx of people. I have to admit, the newest one is pretty big, with services every 20 minutes, numerous confession booths and the first floor filled with areas for private services - such as baptisms, weddings etc. Personally though, I thought the older churches had more character.

Ok, so finally after an hour or so, we finally managed to get all the boring stuff out of the way, and we ended up in Teotihuacán. There we managed to take most of it in, climbing the Pyramid of the Sun, proceeding to the Pyramid of the Moon and the finally haggling with the hawkers that the Lonely Planet guide (a.k.a. the traveller's bible - is there anything it doesn't know?) correctly asserted were an annoyance everywhere.

Having seen some great sights outdoors, the next day we decided to take a different tack. We headed down to the Mexico National Anthropological museum (try saying that in a hurry!) and saw some great ancient artefacts. On the way, we stumbled into one of the many markets that takes place all around Mexico where some of us practised the ancient art of bargaining in an unknown language, as well as some interesting street performances.

Ok, so that about covers most of the sights and sounds that we experienced in Mexico. Of course, I would still recommend that you check out some of the photos I took. And this time I took A LOT! - Just shy of 300 I believe. Luckily for you, I have culled the numbers down a bit :)

If you haven't already found them:

    Mexico
        Mexico City
        Teotihuacan
        Museo Nacional de Antropologica

And just in case you missed the previous update, I have archived it here.