Treasures of the Forbidden City

In my extra day in the Dallas area, we went to see a traveling art exhibit at the Dallas Museum: Treasures of the Forbidden City. This was a collection of relics from the Emporer Qianlong of the Qing dynasty.

The collection showed various pieces of art, furniture, religious items, clothes, and sculptures. The most interesting sculpture was a large jade boulder carved to represent the countryside - complete with trees, bridges, flowers, and nine poets. As typical in this type of art, the people were small in relation to nature.

Also interesting were the clothes, the ceremonial robes the emporer and empress wore: golden robes (yellow was the royal color) inlaid with intricate dragons.

I didn't bring my camera on this trip or I'd definitely put pictures up.

Cancelled Flight

It appears my visit is unexpectedly extended, due to a connecting flight cancellation by America West - I fly through Phoenix on the way home, and the Phoenix-Seattle flight was cancelled due to weather in Seattle.

Naturally, I checked the weather once I got back to my parents, and saw it is "foggy". Well, that seems like a flimsy excuse but I can hardly make the airline fly.

They offered me the opportunity to hang around Phoenix all day tomorrow, on stand-by status. Potential hotel bills would be picked up my me. I declined this wonderful offer and instead booked the next guarenteed flight home, which leaves at 6 am on Thursday.

Well, I'll get a bit further into Life of Pi and may get to see my aunt again before leaving, so this is just inconvenient. After reading about others stuck for days in airports, and tales of lost luggage, perhaps I am lucky to have the connecting flight cancelled in time to stay with my parents. I'd be really furious if it were cancelled while enroute to Phoenix.

Christmas

Yesterday we exchanged presents and then went to eat at a Chinese buffet, which is our holiday meal tradition.

I got some clothes and an ice cream maker. This one doesn't require ice or salt, as the unit includes refrigeration. It makes about one quart, which is better for single servings. My other ice cream maker produces about five or six quarts, which means I try to only make ice cream for other people or events - otherwise I'll have to eat all of it!

Texas is a lot like I remembered it - lots of space: seven lane roads through quiet residential areas, quarter-mile vacant lots, category-killer stores and long strip malls, huge parking lots, and flat to the horizon. My aunt treated us to lunch today, and we drove up to a restaurant in Frisco, which is in the northern part of the Dallas-Ft. Worth metroplex. From my parents house, it was 42 miles one-way. There aren't many places you would drive 85 miles round-trip to go to lunch!

Flights to Dallas

I wasn't able to get a direct flight from Seattle to Dallas, or at least a cheap direct flight - instead my outbound flight passed through Las Vegas, and I'll stop at Phoenix on the way back.

I had an hour to spend in Las Vegas at the airport, so perhaps this is my little Vegas trip. I didn't gamble though - all the airport has is slot machines and after hearing the "Wheel of Fortune" machines ding for the umpteenth time I was ready to board the flight out of there!

During my flight flight and at the airport, I made good progress into It's Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong. I was all set to continue reading on the flight from Las Vegas to Dallas except I got to talking to the people in my row: Kevin, a running back for the University of Wyoming, returning from a bowl game versus UCLA; Kristin, who recently started her own business as a recruiter for health care executives. Both were pretty interesting and I think they were the most fun total strangers I've ever sat with on a flight.

Vegas Trip?

Some friends are planning a trip to Las Vegas in January. I'm currently signed up for the Houston half-marathon the same weekend, but I must admit the Vegas trip sounds more fun and exciting.

I like to see shows - in past visits I've attended the Blue Man Group, two Cirque Du Soleil shows (O and Mystère), and had a great time at all of these. A friend at work recently saw the latest Cirque show - KĀ - and told us all this is the best one of them all!

Plus, I just finished reading Bringing Down the House, about a team of card counters from M.I.T. and the fortune they made in Vegas in the 90's. I'm not good enough to count cards, but it is fun to play basic strategy at the low stakes table...

Also, Vegas has an IN-N-OUT Burger, which various friends heap an amazing amount of praise upon. Unfortunately for me at this point, the reality cannot possibly live up to the hype - after all, how good can a burger really be? - unless they are doping the meat with serotonin or some other neurotransmitter.

Gubernatorial Election

My home state of Washington is still trying to figure out who really was elected governor over a month ago. The first count had Rossi by 261 votes, a recount lowered that to 42 votes, and a third recount has Gregoire by 10.

But it isn't over yet - there are 700+ previously uncounted ballots, people yammering about other ballots, and the lawsuits will undoubtedly tie this up for quite a while.

This whole process gives me the creeps. The engineering/mathematical/analytical side of me thinks that any election where a recount doesn't produce identical results means there were errors, which in turn undermines confidence in the entire process.

At least my state is floundering along on its own, and not (for example) holding up a national result like Florida in 2000!

Online RPG

A friend of mine IM'ed me to come join him and another friend for pizza. I already ate, but I decided to hang out for a bit anyway. This was partially because I knew these two would talk about World of Warcraft, the most recent release in the genre of massively multiplayer online games. They are really into the game, playing it hours every day - which is fine since they are on vacation through the end of the year.

I played another one years ago, Asheron's Call, and while it was a lot of fun, it got a little boring after a while. The basic idea is you play in a fantasy world, kill monsters, collect treasure, and get more powerful. Games of this nature are also big time sinks, which makes me hesitant to start another one. Plus, these games usually charge a monthly fee to play.

It is somewhat annoying to pay a monthly fee to play. Yes, I can understand that ongoing infrastructure and content requires some fee. However, paying an ongoing fee always made me feel like I had to play in order to get my money's worth. An interesting entry into this genre is Guild Wars, which promises not to charge a fee to play - they plan to make their money by releasing expansion packs.

Anyway, I like buying a game and playing it as much or as little as I want: let it sit until I have time, play it a bunch, put it aside, come back to it later, etc. These kinds of games are time intensive in that you don't always have that control.

Listening to my two friends talk about the game reminded me of all the downsides. While it does sound fun, I have a bunch of computer and PS2 games I haven't even tried yet, so I certainly won't be bored. For a bunch of reasons, I don't think I'll play WoW - of course, I might change my mind. ;)