sayhitojohn

Heading out the next day we passed through the Garment District and the girls had fun looking at the wide variety of fabrics.  I tried to convince Patti to buy a 'party' dress because they we only $5, not sure how that worked. We visited the 9/11 ground zero site.  While there we had some conversation with the girls about what took place and how some think they are doing Gods will when they kill those who do not profess to believe as they do.  While the Bible has been used as a pretext for violence, this method of justifying anything but defensive neccessity is not sustainable when weighed against the breadth of the text.  From the Bible we understand that submission to God and receiving Christ the Savior is the work of God alone and no amount of coaxing or duress will advance that. Building around the site continues and I thought this was an interesting shot. From there we toured out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.  The statue was closed so we stayed on the boat and

Doo Dah The MegaBus. Today was mostly a travel day from DC to NYC.  That was not originally part of the plan but it turned it to be $320 cheaper for us to fly out of NYC the DC and the bus made it come together.  If we took the train that savings would have been eaten up.  However, the MegaBus starts at $1 and seat and goes up from there.  Our 4 seats were $30 total.  The first night in NYC was free and the second night was paid for by our airport savings.  The MegaBus was about like taking a train comfort-wise plus it had free wifi and power at every seat. The bus ride gave a little retreat from our DC adventure and a chance to reflect on some of what we saw.  One thing that comes to mind might be worship, but that is probably too strong, maybe veneration is a better descriptor.  There is a great deal of credit given to many men in DC as is witnessed in the memorials around the city.  Certainly much was accomplished though these people but I think what is lost is that God alone deserv

DC Day 4 - George Washington, Baseball, Apple Pie and Pat Sajak. Today, after the all you can eat breakfast buffet (of which the kids excitedly partook) we headed out to George Washingtons estate.  At Mount Vernon we walked the grounds and partook in a number of lectures and tours from which we learned a lot about Washington and life in general back in those days. We started our tour with a video presentation over which Pat Sajak presided.  I thought he did a good job.  I was chuckling as I thought about Pat being the Americana representative to the Mt. Vernon visiting world.  Wheel of Fortune is an international smash hit so I suppose it only makes sense. Washington was a bit of a technology fan and you could see this in a number things he had around the house.  For instance he had a rotisserie powered by fan off the heat exhaust from the cooking stove.  He also had a greenhouse, shown below, that he heated in the winter with ducts from the fireplace. The crowds

Day 3 of the Huth DC Adventure brought us to the White House for a 7:30 (5:30 Denver time) tour.  The tour allowed nothing but coats and cell phones which made the days logistics a little challenging.  This meant that Dad had to get up at 5:30 to get out the door so he could take the metro through a train change and drop a bag at Union Station and then backtrack a bit to meet the girls on 12th and G to make our way to the tour.  The forecast had a 90% chance of showers and did not disappoint. The White House tour was pretty unspectacular and I guess it is just a checklist item.  There were many kids there, late teens and 20's I would say.  We must have been behind the Young Republicans or something, or maybe Texans.  These girls had almost groupie affinity for G W Bush.  While viewing one particular photo she said she could just squeeze his cheeks, pretty creepy, especially for some 20 year old girl :-) After a quick grab of the backpack by me we headed off to a tour of the Capital

When I grabbed the Donald Duck screen for the last post, I saw this one that I captured a while back. We are heading off to China in the spring and I have the China Daily newsfeed in flipboard.  Every once in a while something strange rolls in.  Do you think they have an issue in the marketing department?

Day two greeted us with nice temps and very light crowds as we made our way down to the Spy Museum.  No pictures were allowed in this facility, unless you were a spy of course, so I csn only paint word pictures.  It was as interesting as folks made it out to be.  It is amazing and sad to see the number of ways that humans have devised to listen too, look at and kill people. The latest technology in the exhibit was cold war era with only a few video displays of modern cyber spying and terrorism. There was a WWII section that was rolling a Donald Duck wartime cartoon.  The whole thrust was to promote the early and accurate return of income taxes with the saying "your taxes to beat the axis".  You might note that we do not hear appeals like that any more.  War is costly in so many ways including monetarily.  In our day the government simply borrows and then monetizes it's way out of earlier debt.  It no longer needs the people's implicit, although coerced, consent to fun

We spent our first full day in our nations capital today. Patti landed us a nice deal with 5 free nights at the Residence Inn Pentagon City, right across the street from, you guessed it.  As I type this I am sitting in bed looking to the North East at the Capital Dome and if I crane my neck I can see the Washington Monument. We slept in this morning, until 5:15 Denver time and got our day rolling.   The girls enjoyed the very large breakfast buffet and especially the Belgian waffles and unlimited juice.  When then hopped the metro which the kids are old pros at from our last trip. We decided to start the trip with a tour aboard iGuides that Patti snagged off of Groupon and it was a nice way to get oriented with the city. First stop was the Capital.. As you can tell, Sunday is a nice quiet day in D.C.  The White House was also on our tour stop today.  I did not get my photo op with the President, will try again on Tuesday.   Among our stops was at the Jefferson Memorial which was a pant

...1,000,002... Those are the sheep I have been counting.   It was nice to hear the Colorado crickets last night and the birdsong outside my window this morning.   Hey, my first post travel blog, yikes. No sleep has given me a chance to begin catching up some of the podcasts I follow. Timothy Keller has a very distinct gift at getting to the crux of a matter. His latest podcast, Justified by Faith, is no exception. He focuses on how we all count on something to validate our existence. Linked HERE is a very concise explaination of the heart of Christianity in 35 minutes, I encourage you take a few mins.

Sunday May 27.  This is it.  We coaxed our lame luggage into the the terminal and checked that bad for the last time.  The original issue was that part of the plastic exterior was rubbing while the kids would pull it at their closer to the ground angle.  So, we ended up trading off pulling.  Eventually the plastic ground down and that was no longer and issue.  However, when we pulled it at a more upright angle it would get this weird ever increasing wobble where it would almost flip over.  As you can see from the below image, the wheels do not quite orient themselves for optimal rolling.  Kinda like walking a stubborn dog.  Having packs on us and rollers for the kids really did work out the best. The kids loved the little condiments pack that comes with the meals.  They got a kick out of drinking their own tiny one ounce milks that some strange folks poured into their coffees, and the little sleeve was an efficient sugar delivery system. I had some very interesting conversations with a

Saturday May 26.   We cruised the New Quarter today with nothing definate in mind.  Being our last day we wanted to drift a little bit.  We followed a self guided walking tour through the area and learned a bit of history about the events surrounding Czechoslovakia's escape from Communist control.  The girls had a fun time browsing and ultimately buying a few dolls.  That made a nice context to have an interactive discussion about how free markets work.  In the image below they are picking and choosing their dolly's.  They really liked the fact that if they did not like the selection or the price, or even the vendor, they could walk down a few stalls and try it again.  Voila, a free market in action. In Rome there were a number of one off guys selling stuff in the streets.  The kids got pretty good at walking away when they could not get their price on goofy little things like splat balls a voice changing whistles.  I warned them that once they made eye contact they were in the

Friday May 25.  Today we spent most the day at the Terezin Concentration Camp.  Terezin was a late 18th century fortified city constructed in the shape of a star.  It's purpose was to keep the Prussians out of Prague.  In 1941 the Nazis removed the cities 7000 inhabitants and brought in 60,000 Jews.  Then the walls of this fortress were used not to keep invaders out, but prisoners in.  This camp was used as a propaganda tool via an unwittingly deceived Red Cross who had come to investigate Nazi camp conditions.  What they found was a completely staged 'independent settlement' where the residents were nearly scripted to give the false impression that this camp and others, like Auschwitz, were suitable and even prosperous places.  One wonders if anything on this scale of deception could happen again given the connectedness of our world.  Between Wiki Leaks and Arab Springs, information is transmitted nearly without constraint via twitter and other social media.  In moments th

Thursday May 24.  Today Patti and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary.  God has blessed me with a wife and friend that complements me so well.  I pray for another fifteen and many more after that.  We arrived in Prague on Wednesday evening and monkeyed around a bit in Old Town and found some food for the tummies but spent most of the time in the hotel as the kids wanted to swim.  Patti found a credit card reward deal, surprise, that is enabling us to spend all four nights in Prague for free.  The first night was at a five star Marriott.  That is definately not our style as we show up with backpacks on and kids in tow to the stares of the business suit clad clientele.  That was the only place we could find a pool for the kids.  They shrivel up if left out of the water for an extended period. Prague was home to an early Christian reformer by the name of Jan Huss.  He preceded Martin Luther by a century and differed from Rome in a few key areas; he wanted to decentralize church cont

Wednesday May 23.  We got going this morning at a leisurely pace as we had only one stop on our way from Cesky Krumlov to Prague and planned only wandering out to eat and the letting the kids swim for that evening.  After the kids ate more food for breakfast the they do in a single day (the pension has a breakfast buffet, English style) we set out. The car experience has been for the most part good.  Highway cruising is the best, city driving is a little more stressful.  This all happened today while under four wheel propulsion; running a red light, proceeding to go straight through an intersection from a full stop when only the turn lane went green, getting honked at by the Prague street-bound rail trams for being in the way, starting down a one way street and countless times almost hitting pedestrians in cross walks. It was tough.  I was the navigator but not at the helm.  I would shout out commands but my autocratic rule fails in the car.  I was constantly wondering what we would ge