How To Steal An Obelisk

According to Wikipedia, the Luxor Obelisk at Place de la Concorde in Paris is 23 meters tall. It is a fantastic landmark. However, it plays into a conversation that Tracey and I have been having about stolen, borrowed and transported works of art. Obviously, it is a long and complicated discussion. I guess our consensus is that it is a bad thing to go to foreign countries and come home with architectural souvenirs.

A digression – I also put plants and other possibly invasive species into that category of “things not to bring back.” Tracey disagrees. You should tell her that she is crazy on her blog.

If you ever need to steal a 23 meter obelisk and transport it to your home country, I have taken a photograph of the instructions. These are conveniently engraved on the base of the Luxor Obelisk for enterprising tourists.

Also, It would be fantastic if the Egyptians happened to read these instructions and return the Obelisk to its home.

Merry-Go-Rounds

While in France with Tracey, I was amazed at the number of Carousels there were around the tourist destinations. I was really fascinated by them. I wish I had a video camera to capture them spinning.

Anyways, Tracey keeps making fun of me because I refused to ride on any of them. She was joking that I took pictures of all the Merry-Go-Rounds that we didn’t ride on. I posted a few of the better photographs on my Flickr page.

I forgot to mention that I got my Holga pictures back this last weekend, and it looks like most of them came out! I hope to scan a few in this weekend and post the results of my experiment

No Superbowl For You!

Once again, I will miss the Superbowl this year. I don’t watch football anyways, but it would have been cool to be able to sit at home on Sunday night and have a beer. I am going to head off to the airport at 5 PM, and make it to the hotel after 10 PM in Virginia. Losing an hour always screws up my sleep schedule.

I can’t have beer anyways. About two weeks ago I strained my back traveling to a client site. To help it heal, I started taking Ibuprofen. Unfortunately, the NSAIDs gave me a mild stomach irritation (Gastritis). I know that because I’ve had it once before. So now I can’t drink alcohol or coffee and I am taking Zantac (Ranitidine).

I took 8 or 9 quick photographs with the Holga and dropped them off at Target. I just want to see that the camera is working and make sure there are no leaks. I know that they will mangle the film at Target so I will have to find a better developing shop here in Minneapolis once I get back.