Excursion to Ancient Egypt
Ok, I really went to Chicago to see the "Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharoahs" exhibit at the Field Museum with my friends Leslie and Michelle. It was very cool! Aside from the many people crowded around the artifacts, we had a great time. The Field Museum has an impressive collection of mummies and artifacts outside of the Tut exhibit. We also checked out the largest T-rex skeleton to be discovered (aka "Sue"), an exhibit on Africa, a full-scale Pawnee earth lodge, and the Nature Walk, where we managed to get lost right before we were due to enter the Tut exhibit. The Nature Walk included every animal you can imagine, stuffed and preserved for your viewing pleasure.
After the museum we drove to IKEA in Bolingbrook. Surprisingly, the choice of sit-down eateries in that area was slim. We ended up at Cheddars, which turned out to have pretty good food for the money.
IKEA is so much fun. Low, low prices for cool stuff! We were shopping for nearly two hours, and we filled our cart to the brim. I wish IKEA would build closer to Indy.
At 3am I was finally in bed, while visions of mummies danced in my head. I think next time I will plan to stay all night in Chicago. It was a fun day trip, but if we had stayed all night we might have been able to eat somewhere really unique, visit downtown, or spend more time by the water around the museum area.
Monday, August 14, 2006
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Music Mania
For some reason, I've been on a CD buying binge in the last couple of months. I guess I just needed some new (and old) stuff to listen to. It's certainly an interesting mix of stuff:
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) - Best Of
Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) - Best Of
School of Fish - self-titled
Sisters of Mercy - Vision Thing
Lightning Seeds - Best Of
Midnight Oil - Best Of
Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend
Toad the Wet Sprocket - Fear
Live - Songs From Black Mountain
I could have sworn that I had the Toad CD, but perhaps I was thinking of the cassette because I couldn't find the CD. I am really excited because I just learned that Loreena McKennitt is going to have a new album out this fall! It's been nine years since her last one, and I've been waiting!
For some reason, I've been on a CD buying binge in the last couple of months. I guess I just needed some new (and old) stuff to listen to. It's certainly an interesting mix of stuff:
Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD) - Best Of
Electric Light Orchestra (ELO) - Best Of
School of Fish - self-titled
Sisters of Mercy - Vision Thing
Lightning Seeds - Best Of
Midnight Oil - Best Of
Matthew Sweet - Girlfriend
Toad the Wet Sprocket - Fear
Live - Songs From Black Mountain
I could have sworn that I had the Toad CD, but perhaps I was thinking of the cassette because I couldn't find the CD. I am really excited because I just learned that Loreena McKennitt is going to have a new album out this fall! It's been nine years since her last one, and I've been waiting!
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Life Goes On... Maybe for Ghosts Too
So I haven't had a lot to blog about lately. I've just been going about my life... working, taking care of Tess. She recently started a new daycare, which has been mildly stressful because she has to get used to going to a new place all over again. She takes her anger out on me. The first couple of days she hit me and pulled my hair when I picked her up. I found another in-home daycare (by referral), and it's a good place. I'm sure she'll get used to it. I do feel a little guilty because she stays longer now. I've been picking her up somewhere around 3:30.
Last weekend I stayed all night in a haunted house. It's an old house (built in 1858) called the Hannah House. There are a few stories about the house that involve people burning to death in the basement (and being buried under the basement floor), a stillborn baby, and an old woman dying in one of the bedrooms. So a group of us went there for the night to check out the house and do a bit of ghost hunting.
The first few hours were the scariest. I had some very creepy sensations in the basement and in the attic. The curators of the house had turned out all the lights, so the only light in the house was from flashlights, bathroom lights, and faint outdoor lights. The darkness alone was enough to elicit creepy feelings. I mean, I would probably get creeped out sitting in the dark in my own house after awhile.
In the dining room, someone had set up a monitor connected to four cameras in the house. It was very interesting to watch what they were picking up. I saw several fuzzy spheres drift by the camera lense, especially in the upstairs stairwell. Someone said they were dust particles, but they seemed to move too fast to be dust. Plus, I never saw more than one at a time. They moved almost as if they had a destination in mind.
A guy who may have had some psychic abilities showed up around midnight, and the night took on a different tone from there. He took groups of us around the house. This time, I didn't feel any creepiness at all in the attic. He took it upon himself to "read" some of us in the group, and for some reason he liked picking on me. It was OK. Some of the stuff he said made sense to me and other stuff didn't. So be it. I really just wanted some ghostly experiences.
In the very early AM hours, some of us were sitting in the basement, again in the dark. The psychic was using a pendulum to communicate with spirits. I had brought a Ouija board, but some people didn't want to use it without the "proper methods", which I guess involves six candles, a Bible, and a blessing (?). Whatever... I didn't argue and took it back to the car. One of the first comments the psychic made when he arrived was "What I wanna know is who had a Ouija board in here." He warned us about using it in this house... not a good idea. So, I don't understand what the difference is between communicating with spirits with a board manufactured by Parker Brothers (those evil Parker Brothers!) and a pendulum. Oh well, I didn't ask.
In the basement there were shelves along one wall that were lined with many jars of century old fruits and vegetables. These jars had been canned sometime around the turn of the century (1900), and trust me, they looked like it (gross!). Apparently, anytime someone attempts to move the jars, ghostly activity increases in the house, and one person was even physically pushed back from the jars. As we were sitting there in the basement, asking questions of a spirit and watching the pendulum answer yes or no by swinging in a circle or back and forth, someone asked a question and POP! One of jars' lids popped as if it had been opened. That was rather bizarre... everyone jumped, and I have to admit it was odd timing that a jar sitting there for 100 years would suddenly pop open.
After that, it started to get light outside, and we left the house. Overall, it was a great time. The event could have been a little more organized. More ghost hunting and less psychic readings perhaps. Oh yeah, and it was hotter than hell because they didn't have the air conditioning on. Other than that, it was fun, and a bit creepy too. I would do it again in the flutter of a heartbeat.
Click Here to view my pictures.
So I haven't had a lot to blog about lately. I've just been going about my life... working, taking care of Tess. She recently started a new daycare, which has been mildly stressful because she has to get used to going to a new place all over again. She takes her anger out on me. The first couple of days she hit me and pulled my hair when I picked her up. I found another in-home daycare (by referral), and it's a good place. I'm sure she'll get used to it. I do feel a little guilty because she stays longer now. I've been picking her up somewhere around 3:30.
Last weekend I stayed all night in a haunted house. It's an old house (built in 1858) called the Hannah House. There are a few stories about the house that involve people burning to death in the basement (and being buried under the basement floor), a stillborn baby, and an old woman dying in one of the bedrooms. So a group of us went there for the night to check out the house and do a bit of ghost hunting.
The first few hours were the scariest. I had some very creepy sensations in the basement and in the attic. The curators of the house had turned out all the lights, so the only light in the house was from flashlights, bathroom lights, and faint outdoor lights. The darkness alone was enough to elicit creepy feelings. I mean, I would probably get creeped out sitting in the dark in my own house after awhile.
In the dining room, someone had set up a monitor connected to four cameras in the house. It was very interesting to watch what they were picking up. I saw several fuzzy spheres drift by the camera lense, especially in the upstairs stairwell. Someone said they were dust particles, but they seemed to move too fast to be dust. Plus, I never saw more than one at a time. They moved almost as if they had a destination in mind.
A guy who may have had some psychic abilities showed up around midnight, and the night took on a different tone from there. He took groups of us around the house. This time, I didn't feel any creepiness at all in the attic. He took it upon himself to "read" some of us in the group, and for some reason he liked picking on me. It was OK. Some of the stuff he said made sense to me and other stuff didn't. So be it. I really just wanted some ghostly experiences.
In the very early AM hours, some of us were sitting in the basement, again in the dark. The psychic was using a pendulum to communicate with spirits. I had brought a Ouija board, but some people didn't want to use it without the "proper methods", which I guess involves six candles, a Bible, and a blessing (?). Whatever... I didn't argue and took it back to the car. One of the first comments the psychic made when he arrived was "What I wanna know is who had a Ouija board in here." He warned us about using it in this house... not a good idea. So, I don't understand what the difference is between communicating with spirits with a board manufactured by Parker Brothers (those evil Parker Brothers!) and a pendulum. Oh well, I didn't ask.
In the basement there were shelves along one wall that were lined with many jars of century old fruits and vegetables. These jars had been canned sometime around the turn of the century (1900), and trust me, they looked like it (gross!). Apparently, anytime someone attempts to move the jars, ghostly activity increases in the house, and one person was even physically pushed back from the jars. As we were sitting there in the basement, asking questions of a spirit and watching the pendulum answer yes or no by swinging in a circle or back and forth, someone asked a question and POP! One of jars' lids popped as if it had been opened. That was rather bizarre... everyone jumped, and I have to admit it was odd timing that a jar sitting there for 100 years would suddenly pop open.
After that, it started to get light outside, and we left the house. Overall, it was a great time. The event could have been a little more organized. More ghost hunting and less psychic readings perhaps. Oh yeah, and it was hotter than hell because they didn't have the air conditioning on. Other than that, it was fun, and a bit creepy too. I would do it again in the flutter of a heartbeat.
Click Here to view my pictures.
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