Hirsch's Log
We did our last minute cleanup of the condos, and for ours at least, we forgot
to deal with the towels upstairs, so Aldith dropped ‘em down (from the loft),
and we placed them on the washer with $5, so the maid service would wash them.
Duh. Oh well.
Everyone except for Teresa, John, Aldith and I
took off and dropped Meg off at the airport, since she had an earlier flight than
the rest of us. Then we met up with the others at the LBJ Library and Museum,
which had a presentation titled “From Gutenberg to Gone With the Wind” – it
was a sort of eclectic collection of things ranging from copies of the first
items printed (the Gutenberg bible, the first folio of Shakespeare’s works ...),
to a replica of the dress made for the movie Gone With the Wind from the drapes
(the original is not in good enough shape to put on display). Some of the
items included a Chevalier scroll signed by Napoleon, a scroll of some
sort signed by the King of Spain (“Yo El Rey!”); other interesting items such
as the world’s first photograph; a copy of one of Edgar Alan Poe’s books with
hand-written annotations, and much more. We drooled a lot.
We went to lunch at a small but good diner suggested
by a security guard at the museum, and then headed out to the airport, keeping
in mind the tightened security measures after Tuesday’s disaster.
Cars were left with the rental agencies; and
we checked in. The process wasn’t too bad. Going through the security gates
was a bit harder, but not as bad as it might have been. It was really just
a bit slower, as they were being VERY cautious (and rightly so). After bumming
around a bit, some of the group of us started a card game while some of
the rest of us just sat off to the side, chatting. Aldith and I got paged
with some others to the airline desk, and found that the plane needed parts
that weren’t available, so they put us on an earlier flight. The flight was
delayed, however, due to security checks, so after rushing to the gate,
we then had to wait for about half an hour. Figures. Aldith could’ve continued
playing the game she was in ... oh well. We got to our connecting airport
(Dallas/Ft. Worth) with no problems, spent a couple hours waiting for our flight.
Coming out of Dallas, about an hour into the flight, we passed VERY near to
a thunder storm. This was kind of fascinating, as the clouds were black,
with just a small amount of light above them and an occasional lighting flash.
When we got to the Oakland Airport, Elayna Amavia (an old friend) was waiting
for us, and hauled our tired bodies home, where our cats were happy to see us,
and we sort of collapsed.
Juan's Log
Dropped Meg off at the airport since her flight was the earliest. The rest
of us are flying out at a much later time, so we decided to go to the LBJ Museum.
There was a lot of really cool stuff there, actually. Various medieval manuscripts
and such for the scribes in the group, other neat things for everyone else.
I was particularly jazzed by the proofs of the Cottingley Fairy pictures,
the Houdini memorabilia, and Edgar Allen Poe’s writing desk and corrected copy
of “The Raven and Other Stories”.
Jeff and I made plans to load up the vans with
everything and walk away. Ah, well, one can dream.
The airport was like a ghost town. No vehicles
were being allowed anywhere near the terminals and even with 20% of all
flights canceled, there were hardly any people in the airport at all.
Even our flight was only about half full.
Most of us left sat and played one or two more
rounds of Chez Geek. I started drawing up mask designs. I’ve decided that
over the coming year I want to make myself a mask for every character.
Others want to do the same. Mostly I’m trying to improve my mask making
abilities at this point. Now that I’ve seen the professional masks, I
think I know more of what I need to do.
The flight was difficult, but we got home alright.
Kristen was there to pick us up and Tarik was at our place waiting for us.
They bought pizza and soda for us to have a nice easy dinner together.
Very kind of them.