Packin' up and movin' out

I've moved blogs. I'm now at http://blog.omnux.com. Enjoy.

Planning Your Visit to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

Planning Your Visit to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum

Yesterday I went to the Lincoln Museum in Springfield. It was really nice. Took me a little while to find the place. The driving instructions weren't as clear as I would have liked. But, with the help of the GPS I managed to find it.. (Come to find out, from I-72, it's really easy.. When I-72 ends at Springfield, just go straight.. Turn north on 7th street.. Go a block or two and you are at the parking garage).

Got to the parking garage at 3:28pm. Left at 6:26pm. 50 cents per half hour for parking. So, I stayed about 3 hours at the museum.

Spoilers follow. If you plan on going, I'd recommend not reading the following. Experience it yourself. That's part of the journey.

The museum had a special exhibit on John Wilkes Booth and the actual assassination, which I went to first. It discussed all of the conspiracy folk and what happened leading up to the day of the assassination, the actual assassination itself, and the followup (how the conspirators were caught, basically).. They had the actual carriage that Lincoln and wife took to Ford's Theater on the evening of April 14th, as well as the bed where they took Lincoln following the shooting (where he died at 7:22am on the 15th) Pretty neat.

Then I went to a 3d presentation discussing the lincoln library and what they have there. Something like 12 miles of stacks.. Millions of books and pieces of stuff (various memorabilia)..

Next were the pre-presidential years.. Talked about his childhood, first exposures to slavery.. (If you go, note the colors of the lights on the first slavery display.. The slave is bathed in pure white light.. The auctioneer is lit from below in red light.. very demonic looking.. He might have even had a slightly pointy nose). Next was when Lincoln started getting interested in politics and how he moved up through the ranks.

Had a cute piece of "what it would have been like if Tim Russert were around to talk about the 1860 election." That section ended with Lincoln getting elected in 1860.

Next, I went to another show on 'Lincoln's Eyes'. It was also pretty neat. The shows at the museum are technologically advanced. I won't give anything away beyond that. But, this show discussed what you could see in a person's eyes, and provided another history lesson on lincoln.

Next were the Whitehouse years. It started with a display of the women's dresses and quickly moved into the political satire of the day. Many, many cartoon caricatures of Lincoln doing stupid things. They didn't seem to like Lincoln, no matter what he did. I was really reminded of the current position that Bush is in. Both were in a war situation, etc. etc. The exhibit went on to show the whitehouse kitchen, the emancipation proclamation, and the war effort. There was a really cool display showing the north and the south on a map. It was called "the war in 4 minutes" or something like that. There was a date display at the bottom that slowly moved through the early 1860s. The map showed the area that the south controlled over time, and you could watch the area expand and shrink as the battles occurred (which were also shown). In the corner was a casualty count, so that you monitor the deaths that the north and the south incurred over time. Very very cool and very well done. Very sobering. Soon after that was an entire room devoted to the battle at Gettysburg. Very somber. Sends a chill down your spine. 52,000 dead between July 1 and July 3, 1863. Wow.

From there, they clean up the remaining details. Lincoln got reelected, Lee surrendered, and Lincoln decided to go to the theater. John Wilkes was considered by all to be the top romantic actor of the day. He was supposedly very handsome, and well respected. He just didn't like the thought of abolition. A mockup of the theater was provided, and you could see the wax figure of Lincoln sitting there, with JWB getting ready to charge in and shoot him. When I was in DC 17 years ago, I saw a play at the Ford theater, and had seats up in the balcony. I was seated one seat from the end, right next to where Lincoln's roped-off booth was at. The seat location where I sat was actually shown in this mockup that they had. Again, a very solomn thing.

After the death, they touched on Lincoln's trip back to Illinois and they had a very large room showing where he lay in State here in Illinois.

All things considered, a very nice place. I would recommend it to anyone. They have a very high concentration of tech stuff there. Projectors all over the place. Neat way to spend a few hours.

Starved Rock

While I'm slow and inefficient when it comes to posting new pictures from the camera.. My coworker is much faster. He has put up some pictures from this past weekend's trip to Starved Rock.



http://robert.omnux.com/starvedrock

AirVenture 2005

The Picture Review :: AirVenture 2005

I finally managed to get my pictures from Airventure 2005 online. Took me a while, but better late than never..

GPS Navigation

A page that I'm working on to catalog my findings on which GPS to get for an automobile.

GPS Navigation

Tortoise At The Cup

So, I went to Jarling's Custard Cup last night with some friends, and had the Tortoise snowstorm. A snowstorm is basically like a Dairy Queen blizzard, except it is made with Jarling's custard. Good stuff.

Anyway, the Tortoise, as I learned last night, is butterscotch, fudge, and almonds. It was quite tasty, and I would recommend it to anyone.

Lion Mutilates 42 Midgets in Cambodian Ring-Fight

BBC NEWS | World | Lion Mutilates 42 Midgets in Cambodian Ring-Fight

Just read the story. I report. You decide.