Visiting Washington, D.C.

In 1999-2000, I went to DC five times. I've been there for a one-day trip, a two-day, and a four-day, so I've seen alot, but there are still things I want to see. The Smithsonian Castle is a good place to visit, because they have a very helpful 24-minute orientation video which tells you all about the various museums and galleries, if you need help deciding what to see.

I'd say most newbies should start with the monuments, when you have the most energy for walking. Keep in mind, it can take a whole day to see only the monuments.

On your second visit, or day, see the most popular museums of the Smithsonian Institute, like Air & Space, American History, and Natural History. You should also see the Holocaust Museum.

Then on your third or fourth visit, or day, see the art galleries and government buildings, like National Art, Modern Art, Hirshorn, FBI, Mint.

Find a hotel near a Metro stop in the suburbs. The hotels in outlying areas are cheaper than downtown hotels. You can take the Metro everywhere, but there's also alot of walking. I recommend taking the Metro to the Smithsonian stop. It helps to have an all-day Metro pass, so you can get on and off as often as you like. Unless you're going to be there on a Saturday, and you know exactly where you are going, driving is a bad idea. Saturdays, it's possible to drive into the city and park near a museum, but you have to get up early, and get there around 8 AM. The museums open around 9 or 10. On weekdays, you have normal commuter traffic and crowds, plus tourism, so you still have to get up early, but it's faster and simpler to ride the Metro any day of the week. You can waste alot of time getting lost, or driving around looking for parking. They have a very clean and easy-to-use Metro.

I suggest you allow at least two hours per museum. They close at 5, and there is alot of walking, so you can only get to maybe three per day, unless you run. Ideally, you could spend half a day in each museum, easy.

The FBI building, the Holocaust Museum, and the Mint, are very important if you have a longer attention span, but you have to plan your visit. For example, the FBI requires you get in line at 8 AM, they admit you at 10, and you're done around noon. You get to see a firearms demonstration, and weapons of the famous killers, etc. The Holocaust Museum requires you to pick up a ticket in advance.

I think everyone should spend alot of time in this important city, because it opens your eyes to our unique and revolutionary history, our founding principles, and our precious heritage. The idealism represented in our monuments and museums is an important counterbalance to our current mood of cynicism.

Those Amish troublemakers

Amish farmer says milk law opposes beliefs - Yahoo! News: "'You can't just give milk away to someone other then yourself. It's a violation of the law,' said LeeAnne Mizer, spokeswoman for the department."

Dog bed for your baby

The Floor Nanny was invented by a couple of women from Greensboro, NC. This product has a very short lifespan, since it's pretty much useless once the kid starts crawling.

Sesame Street Video Clips

foldedspace.org went to alot of trouble to link to this great selection of Sesame Street Video Clips on YouTube. As they say, "Go away if you have work things to get done. This is an enormous time-waster."

Via Listology.com

Bindlestiff coming to Greensboro

The Bindlestiff Family Cirkus from New York City is going to be at the Flying Anvil in Greensboro this Wednesday. This circus is not for children. It features burlesque (read: vulgar) acts involving partial nudity, along with conventional circus-type acts of slackrope, trapeze and clowning. These clowns have tattoos and piercings in all the wrong places. Because of the nature of the show, they perform mostly in bars and other venues for the 21-and-up crowd.

11-mile-wide Web page

If your monitor displays 72 pixels to the inch, then this Hydrogen Atom Scale Model is eleven miles wide, making this possibly the biggest thing you've ever seen. Try scrolling all eleven miles at one time.

Hollywood's misunderstood terrorists

By Victor Davis Hanson: "Moral equivalence is perhaps the most troubling of Hollywood's postmodern pathologies � or the notion that each side that resorts to violence is of the same ethical nature. Steven Spielberg best summed up the theme of his recently released film about the 1972 murder of 11 Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics and the subsequent Israeli hunt of the perpetrators: 'A response to a response doesn't really solve anything. It just creates a perpetual-motion machine.'

Spielberg's 'Munich' assumes just such a false symmetry between the killers who murdered the innocent athletes and the Israeli agents who hunted them down � each in their own way victimized and caught in a cycle of 'perpetual' violence. "

Quiz: Web 2.0 or Star Wars

Cerado's Web 2.0 or Star Wars Quiz: "How silly is the Web 2.0 hype getting? You tell us! Here's a quick quiz...we looked in 30Boxes and analyzed 37Signals that led us to come up with the 43Things below. So without further ado, can you decide..."

I got 36 right, which makes me a geek.

What is art?

I like to think I appreciate fine art, paintings, sculpture, etc, but lacking an education in art, I sometimes do not know what is good versus bad art. I just discovered The Museum of Depressionist Art, which helps me quite a bit. My favorites from their collection are Fog, Last Supper on Toast, and The Shroud of Hoken. The description of Pork Brains With Gravy is priceless. The Big Bruise explains how one man discovered he was an artist.

Special forces to use strap-on 'stealth wings' | the Daily Mail

Via the Daily Mail: "Resembling a 6ft-wide pair of aircraft wings, the devices should allow a parachutist to glide up to 120miles, carrying 200lb of equipment, the manufacturers claim. "

Royals are human, too

Christie's is auctioning off some of the late Princess Margaret's jewels, in order that her children might be able to pay the excessive British estate tax. I'm glad to see that even royals have to pay taxes. Some of the jewelry was given to the Princess when she was a toddler, or a young child, like the "sapphire and diamond brooch to mark the princess' confirmation day accompanied by a handwritten note 'from her loving Grannie.'"

'She came in to Christie's [in 2002, to show off a ruby and diamond ring worth an estimated $26,000 to $35,000] and said, "What do you think of my new ring?"'" Molesworth recalled. 'She'd had it made from some rubies that she kept in a matchbox that the Queen Mother had once given her.'"

Keeping rubies in a matchbox kind of reminds me that rubies are, after all, only rocks.