I must be getting senile

We had a whirlwind traveling weekend and I'm beaten. We took Friday off to go to Wichita Falls and visit Grandma Karl. Rita joined us from Ft. Worth so we didn't do all of the driving. On the way she took us by one of the SBC central offices which was pretty cool. You can see several generations of telephone switching equipment working side by side.

The visit in WF was pretty neat. I'm glad Jfer is keeping up her intentions to visit her grandmother more frequently. I hadn't seen my grandparents very often once I moved to the US and I kind of wish I had had the opportunity to interact with them as an adult. My favorite parts was beating Jfer and her mom at Euchre. I'll take Grandma Karl as a partner any day.

On Saturday we hurried back to Ft. Worth to go visit Roger and Martina in Allan. For some bizarre reason we missed all our exists and ended up heading south on I35E through downtown Dallas (starting from north FW). We made it there only fifteen minutes late and spent a lovely lunch and afternoon with them. Roger's working at Nortel and they are doing some pretty cool stuff with the next generations of telephone systems. I'm not a big fan of the (North) Dallas (flat, windswept, not many trees) area but their house has a pretty cool location. They overlook a wooded creek area with a nice cliff and are walking distance from their community pool and playground. The only thing that's missing from their huge yard is a nice dog.

After our visit we headed back to Ft. W and made a mistake to take a "direct route" instead of sticking to the major highways. We didn't get lost but wasted way to much time we'll never get back in slow traffic and red lights. Made it back in time, changed in a hurry and met with everyone in downtown Ft. W at the Blue Mesa. The food was good, but despite reservation it took them half an hour to seat us and our food arrive with 15 minutes left to eat. Never again.

After dinner we saw The Exonerated at the Casa Mañana. It was based on interviews and court documents from six death row inmates that have been exonerated after having spent between 2 and 22 years in prison. Jfer wanted to go because it featured Lyle Lovett and Kathleen Turner. it was a bit underwhelming. Kathleen Turner was awesome as were some of the other cast members (not Lyle, though) but it didn't have nearly the impact of the "Dead Man Walking" opera we saw in Austin.

After we got back to Benny's we had an incident with Homer which took me out searching for a pharmacy. The first Walgreens I came across was already closed (as was the Eckerd's across the street). Figuring that any road in America eventually comes across another Walgreens/Eckerd's combo I followed the street and, indeed, found a store. However, on the way back I must have turned wrong (when I thought I was driving past the original Walgreens/Eckerd's I was actually going by yeat another set of pharmacies). So I ended up doing an extra ten miles before I found my way back. This homogeneity is one thing I really dislike about American suburbia. All the freaking Walgreens look exactly the same and they all have a freaking Eckerd's across the street from them. That's just wrong.

On for Sunday we had a brunch planned with Hanka and Ron so after church we hurried to east Dallas. While driving through downtown we got directions to a restaurant which started with a highway exit which, I'm convinced, doesn't exist. So we did another 10 miles before we called them again, turned around and headed back. We ended up with great breakfast and fine time in the park.

Once we left Dallas we had no problems staying on track and heading home. So I don't know if it's the construction, poor signeage or some weird radiation, my mental denseness or what, but driving around the DFW area trully sucks, as far as I'm concerned.