Welcome to a web savvy pre-party sleepy afternoon. I am in Texas, somewhere between Dallas and Fort Worth. Amy and Brian are very nice and with Brian’s American Airlines employment as our avatar we flew first class from St. Louis last night, cocktails and sandwiches with our hot towel hand rub for the rock bottom price of eighty eight dollars apiece (round trip). Amy, Angela and I went to pick up the keg – forty minutes away – as we are in what’s called a dry city – while Brian cooked brats, sour kraut, etc. for the seventy or so expected. The house smells of cabbage and apfel strudel. The keg place was in the epicenter of the strip club district, where condoms and corvettes are ubiquitous on the flat Texas backdrop of hill-less homogeneity. We ate at What-a-Burger and seeped seediness all the way home.

I knew I wasn’t sure about Texas, but with such a possibility as a “dry city” my resolve to move further north has strengthened. The dryness of this locality was actually repealed last month (now beer and wine are allowed but no Gin), but I think the keg had been ordered by then – “Spaten” imported from Munich Germany – someone is doing something right.

Karl to Amy as the party plans are revealed, “If every event needs someone to appreciate it, I am your man.”

One of Amy’s jobs is that she’s a professional event planner. Yesterday she hosted a building dedicated in the name of Shuttle Astronaut Kalpana Chawla, at which Kalpana’s father spoke. They had one semi credible bomb threat involving a green van that was going to blow up everyone at the event, but that mystery machine never materialized from hoax land.

Interruption: blog tutorial – I will write more later, but in the meantime I have a question about what we should do tomorrow with our post-party pre-flight day:

1. Fort Worth Modern Art Museum
2. Dallas Art Museum
3. Nearby odd temple to which we would need to bring food donations in order to tour (Twinkies (now bankrupt) or whole grains?)
4. Bar/movie theater with drinks served in and not next to theater
5. The Cowgirl Museum
6. The Cowboy Museum – a more serious museum with Remingtons etc.
7. The Grassy Knoll and associated JFK got blown away but all this kitsch is here to stay.
8. Gondola ride in the park?
9. Aquarium – with built in rain forest!!!!!!!
10. Other things that we haven’t thought of that you who know this part of Texas could suggest.