Allen August 16th, 2005
From dictionary.com:
- Appropriate to a purpose.
The weekend of the 6th, as noted in an earlier post, our family took a trip to look at colleges for my son. After touring the University of Kansas and the University of Missouri, we wound up our vacation with a brief stay in Branson.
We had reserved a room via Expedia for the Comfort Inn and Suites there in Branson. Expedia had charged our card and we thought we were all set. We arrived late Friday night on what turned out to be one of the busiest weekends for Branson (tax-free shopping and last summer fling) and found out that the hotel had already notified Expedia that they were all full up and we didn’t have a room. I called Expedia who finally refunded my money. No other attempt was offered to "make right" on the problem. When prompted, they thought perhaps they could check around for other rooms.
Now I must admit that the fine print on the "confirmation" letter I printed out from Expedia’s page says that the reservations are not guaranteed, but isn’t that why I made reservations in the first place? To guarantee that I have a room?
Expedient? I think not.
Allen August 30th, 2004
down the street, down the street.
A pretty little bison I chanced to meet.
Oh, it was fair to see.
Looking for a spotter’s guide to the Bison statues in Oklahoma? Look no further than Spirit of the Buffalo - Gallery.
Oklahoma City and surrounding towns have put up statues of bison (or buffalo). I’ve been aware of these for some time, but was not aware how far afield they have roamed.
Here’s the one at Norman Regional Hospital
Allen August 15th, 2004
So the US men’s basketball team lost — again — in the Olympics.
Pardon me, but I don’t feel all that upset. My son and I were both struck several times with how poorly this team was selected and how poorly they trained. Perhaps if we had tryouts (radical idea — I know) and practiced, we might be able to field a team. This might just be preferable to a group of ultra-rich athletes who just don’t seem to be all that interested in the game.
Besides, I would much rather see a set of no-names win the gold versus a bunch of NBA stars that will put the medal in their closet.
Allen July 14th, 2004
Well, this past weekend was spent in Branson, Mo for a family reunion on my wife’s side. Here is a ‘mini-review’ of what we did and my impressions of the entire proceedings:
Was going to attend The Shepard of the Hills outdoor play on Thursday, but it was raining and we cancelled those plans. I had seen it before and thought the production (at that time) was OK. Nothing to write home about. I had read the book before attending last time, but had not seen the forgettable film. As a note, the book ends with the Shepard lamenting the fact that soon tourism would take over his precious Ozarks. There is deep meta-irony in the fact that the book, play and movie helped hasten this fact.
Attended Silver Dollar City on Friday. This is a fairly nice theme park with lots of water rides and a wonderful roller coaster, Wildfire (no link available). In preparation to leave, we decided to convert our tickets to season passes. Our next visit will cost less than our current visit and all others are “free”.
After a proposed golf game died because of dis-interest, I toured the outlet shopping malls with my family and my mother-in-law. Shoppers can be broken down, I feel, into two types — hunters and gatherers. Most males are hunters (go, find, kill, drag back to camp) while most gatherers are female (my isn’t that bush interesting, perhaps there are berries on it). My wife is more of a hunter-type shopper while my MIL a gatherer. Made for a very long day. My son and I noticed that the mall was playing the blues. I suppose for the amusement of the stranded hunters who were waiting like we were. We started singing “I’ve got those outlet mall blues” songs to pass the time away.
Attended Dixie Stampede in the evening — a dinner show featuring performances by horse riders and assorted “hillbilly” games. North/South rivalry with the South winning again. (They did last time as well. Gee, wonder how that happened, given the name of the show?
Highway 76 is eeeeevvviiillllll.
Allen July 14th, 2004
I couldn’t decide whether to group this article under “Travel” or “Religion”, but this is a cool site.
Andrea and Jim spend 3 years traveling 55K+ miles to visit every major and minor league baseball park in America.
[grovel]We are not worthy![/grovel]
This sounds so cool. I doubt if I will ever do something like this, but it is nice to know that it has been done. Sort of like Everest.
First read the news article from the Seattle Times and then go visit Andrea and Jim’s site, Baseball Road Trip.
I point out with pride that Jim and Andrea had a wonderful time at our local team, the RedHawks.
[Via WizBang]
Allen July 6th, 2004
We have visited Disney World several times with out family. In the beginning I usually had a set schedule or tour plan that I wanted to adhere to. These tour plans would minimize the wait time in lines and were usually adapted from the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World. I backed off of this in later trips — in part because I didn’t want to adhere to a rigid plan and in part because I had internalized most of the rules.
I called such planning Disney Tour Commando-mode.
A software developer for Dell went one step further and used Operational Research techniques to create the ultimate plan. He visited 41 attractions in 10 hours and 40 minutes.
Read O.R. AT DISNEY for the details at how he arrived at the plan. Note that this will not give you the plan — this can be had by registering at www.touringplans.com.
Of course, if everyone followed the plan, it would then become obsolete — thus creating the need for the Ultimate Disney Tour Plan 2.1 — begetting 2.2, …
[Via Dynamist Blog]
In my recent Boston Globe article, I wrote about how operations research would show up in nearly every aspect of a family trip to Disney World. Now a Texas engineer has taken the process a step further: using O.R. techniques…
Allen April 21st, 2004
This year will be a peak year for Cicadas (aka Katydids) with a 17 year period hatch starting in May. Oklahoma is not listed as one of the sites, but I know that in western Oklahoma (Foss, etc) there were a lot of Cicadas when I visited my grandparents.
Read Cicada Fiestas: Top Places to Bug Out for a guide to hot spots.
I wonder how central Oklahoma, where I now live, will fare. I hope, for a sense of history, that we have a good hatch.
Of course, they will dig up the ground coming out, but some people pay to have their lawn aerated. This is free!
Allen February 2nd, 2004
I’ve tried this once before, but it didn’t seem to work. Below is a map of the states that I have visited since becoming an adult. I didn’t count states where I had a lay-over during my travels, but did include state that I have driven through or visited for business purposes.
create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide