-
It doesn’t get much classier than this!
Posted by barb on Sep 15, 2005 in Pictures, Random Thoughts
Cheesy hologram crucifix seen at El Charro in Tucson.
-
Airport Blogging
Posted by barb on Sep 13, 2005 in Random Thoughts
Dear Dallas-Fort Worth Airport:
I don’t care how shiny and new your hallways look. I don’t care if you have interesting-looking shops for me to waste my time and money in while waiting for a connection. I don’t even care if you have lots of fast-food restaurants so that I can grab a bite to stave off hunger during my cross-country trek.
What do I care about, then, you might ask? Clocks. For goddess sake, put a freaking clock or two around the concourse. I’m not asking for much. Just a display of the local time on a wall somewhere on the concourse other than the “departure” or “arrive” schedules (on which I couldn’t actually see the time — I assume it appeared at the bottom, which would only have been visible from a good twenty feet away, and then likely illegible at that).
This might come as a shock to you, but unlike shoppers at a random mall in middle-america, it is not a good thing for your customers to lose track of the time. I understand that shopping malls want their customers to lose themselves at the mall — spending for hours and hours without realizing that the sun has long since set and the moon is high. However, when customers to your shiny-new stores get lost in time, they delay flights.
Sure, the flights may not actually wait for the passengers, but in this post-911 age, there are rules about luggage flying to destinations before their assoicated passengers. So, in the worst-case scenario, should someone get lost in time, and completely forget about their flight (or, more likely in the D-FW case, have no access to the current time) they will cause the baggage handlers to locate the errant passengers’ luggage in the already packed cargo bay. In the not-so-worst-case scenario, said passengers will arrive, huffing and puffing, onto the plane late, and expect that their space in the overhead bins is still free.
Of course, setting aside the worst-cases, it is just nice for your passageners to know what the time is, so that they can feel free to wander through your interesting stores and grab a bite at your numerous fast-food joints, and not feel rushed to return to the gate 30 minutes before boarding just because they don’t have a watch.
So, I implore you, and many other airports across the country…nay, across the world…to feel free to liberally install clocks throughout the terminal.
Sincerely,
A not-so-worldy traveller
-
Back, but tired and busy
Posted by barb on Jun 10, 2005 in Random Thoughts
I’m back from the AAS meeting and my mini-vacation in Minnesota, and I’m hoping to start updating my blog over the weekend. Though, I’m going to be up in Baltimore all day tomorrow helping out with Big Explosions and Strong Gravity, a Girl Scout activity day where we’re going to teach 80+ Girl Scouts about spectra, elements, supernovae, and black holes. It should be a lot of fun.
Oh, and that picture is me with my poster at the AAS meeting.
Felicia at the Uncles
And she had a great time browsing the shelves.
We bought a lot of books, but the pile that Felicia and I bought will be shipped later, when a could other books arrive. So much for instant gratification.
Felica’s day at the AAS
Posted by barb on May 31, 2005 in Science Musings, Travels
Felicia presented her poster at the AAS meeting yesterday, so I took a few pictures for her to remember her trip.
Here she is asking a question about the Chandra X-ray Observatory.
She also stopped at the American Astronomical Society booth to ask about membership.
When Felicia passed by the Glast booth, she saw that JD was having some trouble with a Python script, so she stopped to help him out.
At the end of the day, she had picked up just about every give-away she could find in the Exhibit Hall – she could barely lug her bag back to the car.
We’ll post all of her pictures from her big day after we return home next week.
Myrtle Beach Pictures are up!
Posted by barb on May 5, 2005 in Random Thoughts
I haven’t had a chance to update my blog with our escapades in Myrtle Beach, but I just posted our pictures in my photo album: Myrtle Beach Pictures. Hopefully I’ll get around to chronicling our exploits soon…
-
Sweetie’s Big Three-Oh!
Posted by barb on Apr 9, 2005 in Pictures
My best friend, Sweetie, turned 30 last Thursday, so I flew in to MN for a big bash. I won’t go into the gory details, but we started the day with lunch at Cossetta’s, one of Sweetie’s favorite restaurants, and then embarked on a journey chronicling our favorite memories with her.
After our journey, we met up with a bunch of Sweetie’s other friends at Keiran’s Irish Pub, where we got her a bit drunk.
I have an album of my pictures from the day up in my photo album.
-
MN, Briefly
Posted by barb on Apr 8, 2005 in Pictures
Flew home today for Sweetie’s party tomorrow, and I was able to see my two nieces this evening. Yay! Sadly, I missed Brock on this visit, but I’m hoping to see him when I’m back in May/June.
Kira and Sofia:
-
Penn State
Posted by barb on Mar 7, 2005 in Pictures
Jim and I drove up to Penn State today — we’re holding that focus group for the Beyond Einstein education materials tomorrow with a group of PA high school teachers tomorrow.
Jim spied this banner in the Engineering and Earth Sciences Building, where we met with some of the organizers of the focus group. He called it a monument to geek-dom:
After dinner, we walked back to the Nittany Lion Inn, where we were staying, and I spotted the famous nittany lion statue on the way. I snuck back out later, and got this picture:
Also tried my hand at an “arty” picture of the sundial outside the Inn — I wanted to go back during daylight and snap a picture, but forgot.
Wet San Diego – II
Posted by barb on Jan 14, 2005 in Pictures, Random Thoughts
I went out this morning to take a few pictures around the Town & Country Resort, where the AAS was held this week. I especially wanted to get “after the flood” pictures of the stream behind the resort. Here’s a comparison of the stream from Tuesday, when Pat and I braved the flood to go to Old Town, and today:
Looking West:
Tuesday
Friday
Looking East:
Tuesday
Friday
