Chihuly Glass at the Desert Botanical Gardens

I'm as much of an art fan as I am a garden/plant fan, though modern stuff is less appealing to me in general. But, enough people said the Chihuly Glass exhibit at the Phoenix/Scottsdale Desert Botanical Gardens couldn't be missed that I decided to give it a look.

Boy, were they right.

My hosts assured me that going to an outdoor garden exhibit at night was not as absurd as it sounded--apparently, they lit the glass up at night. What I didn't realize until I got there was that in many cases that meant "like a light bulb", not just a spotlight on the chunk'o'glass. The exhibit was spectacular. It might have helped a lot that I'm a huge fan of science fiction, and frankly, most of it looked like the artist was going for renditions of the latest alien landscape...especially when put against the backdrop of the amazing cacti specimens the botanical garden has on display. We got there at dusk, and stayed until they started roping off the footpaths.

In many cases, the "art" was almost indistinguishable from some of the plants--here's a daytime/nighttime shot of the same piece as an example:

And this was just a cool shot of a cactus (no glass) that I took as it started to rain:


And here's some of the other stuff we enjoyed [more to follow...this takes a LOOONG time to upload images]:

Kids and Goal-setting

But...I thought it was GOOD for kids to have step-by-step goals for achievements in their life? And plans for the future...?

This evening, my daughter (age 9) came out to the kitchen and announced, "If I were taking over the world, I'd start small. With the town. THEN the county. Then the state, the region, and then the whole country. THEN I'd move on to another continent, and do like six of them, and get them under control. THEN go and get the seventh."

The mom in me was conflicted. It was great easy-to-achieve planning steps for a kid to have broken down from a major project. BUT...my darling daughter is plotting world domination?!?! And, if I say so myself, plotting it Well. THAT could be an issue...

So, I said, "That would probably be the best way to do it, break it down into smaller, more manageable pieces. ARE you planning to take over the world?"

"No. But the bad guy in the cartoon started with trying to take over the WHOLE WORLD at once, and they stopped him. He should have started smaller. Can I have dessert?"

Dessert, yes; Belgium, no...not yet, anyway...

The Aerial View

Had a window seat for the first time in ages on my flight back from Phoenix. I'm not the best flyer these days, so I haven't really missed it. Besides...lately, I usually sleep as much as I can, so don't see much anyway.

This time, however, I woke up about 45 minutes out from Reagan National Airport, and flipped up the window shade. Lush green terrain spread out below. Trees. Mountains. Valleys. I tried to guess about where we were, and started looking around for landmarks. A minute later, I stared down at the ground. There was a large, white, circular structure waayyyyyy below me. The pilot announces that we're starting into our final approach, and coming down from 26,000 feet--so I KNOW we're wayyy up there. I stare harder.

Below me is the Green Bank Telescope--the huge radiotelescope in West Virginia. I can't believe its that clear from the air. I try to convince myself I'm wrong--if it were the GBT, then there'd be another smaller dish just...to...the... Yup. That little circular dot would be a smaller (much smaller), older radiotelescope dish. Sure enough, I recognize the entire facility--the line of various sized telescope dishes, the business and dorm buildings, etc. I look back as the plane flies on, and the structure of the GBT becomes REALLY visible--it is definitely the GBT. It was too far away to show up on my camera (I tried), but I'll post a photo from my meeting at Green Bank. I still can't believe how clear it was from that high up. TOTALLY identifiable. VERY cool stuff. I'm glad I had a window seat. I also can't believe its less than 40 minutes by flight from National Airport--that was a loooonnnngggg 4+ hour drive from home, on narrow, windy scary mountain roads. Ah, some days I wish for a real gryffin...

Then, when we came in for a landing, we came right down the Potomac, over Georgetown University's stadium and buildings, past Georgetown itself, saw the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the Washington Monument, the Capitol building...everything. It was like a postcard view of Washington, D.C.--and followed by a very smooth touch-down. All in all, a nice trip home.

Travel tip #1--Art Appreciation is in the eye of the beholder

I try to be careful on flights and follow all the rules. As a meeting planner, that whole "no Xacto knives" thing is harder for me than your standard business traveller, but I cope. When possible, I ship most stuff out ahead with the meeting boxes to avoid hauling a lot of crud through the airport, and so on.

BUT...when on travel, I try to buy something for the kids. This time, in Scottsdale, Arizona, I managed to find some cute little "southwestern style" pottery statues--a medicine bear for my son, and a running horse for my daughter. Kinda fragile, so they went into my carry on. Which then went through the security scanner. And through the security scanner. And through the security scanner. Other large security guys were called to the station, and it went back through the security scanner. I'm standing there wracking my brains thinking, "no...all the scissors and box cutters are in the box at the hotel getting shipped back to the office", and coming up with NOTHING for possiblities of trouble.

Sure enough...they pull me over to a table on the side and start unpacking the carry on. Luckily, not much was in it. They come to the wrapped/bubblewrapped/taped statues--and wipe them down with one of those explosive testing swabs. Negative. Then the unwrapping starts. No problem with the bear...then he opens the horse. The running horse. The running horse who's movement is signified by the LONG SWIGGLY COPPER WIRES used to form the flowing, wind-blown mane and tail. I just flinched when I realized what it must have looked like on the X-Ray picture. *sigh*

BAD pony. Bad!

I guess that means I have a clean conscious, cuz it NEVER occurred to me what it could look like when I was carefully packing it in my carryon.