Category Archives: Texas

Remnants from that Project

Just a lighthearted note tonight…

After making all the cuts for that Nativity scene I wrote about a few days ago I was cleaning up the scraps of plywood from the floor of my garage and came across this.

California comes to Texas

A remnant shaped very much like the Golden State. This is fitting since the friend who lent me the jigsaw is from Palm Springs. Perhaps I’ll varnish it and give it as a gift. It might make a nice cheeseboard for his kitchen. Then again like every other California transplant to the Lone Star State of late it might just try to turn us blue.

Stars, Oil, and Me

Today I am enjoying many blessings. My niece and her husband have brought their two beautiful boys to visit. On that note I am reminded of what I told my students years ago when my oldest nephew and his wife brought their first son into the world. “Kids, my first great-nephew was just born!” “You’re a great-uncle?” they asked.

“I’m the best.”

We have taken the whole family to the Science Museum where there is some kind of celebration called “Star Wars Day” taking place. Joy. Lots of little kids constructing light sabers while their parents run around in costume living out some kinds of George Lucas fantasy. I just suggested that my wife affix some cinnamon rolls to her scalp. She was not amused. I am not a Star Wars fan as you could probably tell. Nonetheless I am mildly amused at the display from many of these parents. Whatever… You do what you have to do as a parent to amuse your kids. If you happen to be able to engage your own psychoses at the same time then all the better.

Thinking to self: why do these science museums not have a bar? Looks like someone missed a great profit opportunity.

Head ‘em up and mooooove ‘em out.

This being Texas there is a wing dedicated to the oil shale. It’s next to the “Death of Dinosaurs” room. The former is a gloriously well-lighted and large room featuring many happy motifs of the Lone Star State. It inspires great pride. The latter is a bleak 4’X4′ closet. It is black as there are no lights. Inside a few bones are thrown on the floor. They look rather like the remnants of a rack of ribs. Dinosaurs, if they ever existed, were terrible people. Therefore God smited them and gave us oil. God is good.

Next up is the IMAX theater. Five toddlers just stumbled out the exit door with parents in tow. All of them – parents and children – are vomiting profusely and struggling to walk. The feature? “An Aerial Drone Tour of Fort Worth”. I believe the drone’s operator was a child. On amphetamines.

Note to self: Must check this film after lunch.

On to the planetarium. The show this afternoon is called “The Stars at Night: the Texas Night Sky”. One patron who was exiting the previous show was heard to say “I didn’t know the other states received no starlight at nighttime.” Another was heard to say “I had heard there were other states.”

I do believe I will rustle up the herd and head on out. We’re fixin’ to get ourselves somethin’ to eat now.

Who knew science (and Texas) could be so entertaining?

More to come…