1998 Vacation Part VI: Zoo Day
9/21/1
written by Postwood, Monday, September 14, 1998
The thing that the rest of the world will remember that Tuesday by is Mark McGuire hitting the 62nd home run that beat that other dude's record.
But here is what we did:
I had to set the alarm for 7 a.m. since I had forgotten to fill out my time card when I left on Friday. We get into work at 6:45 and usually have a meeting on Monday mornings in the conference room. But this was obviously a different kind of day, as I was gone, Greg was on grand jury duty, and Pat was at some environmental conference given by the EPA. I called the 706 extension that gives you the conference room and no one was there. I tried 719, which is the front desk, and Bill, head of the department, answered it on the first ring. Hmm, I wonder if the secretaries were late again.
I told Bill that I needed someone to fill out my time card for me. He asked where they were, I told him that they were more than likely in the middle drawer of my desk. He said, "Ok" and I said, "Bye." And that was it.
Then I went back to bed. Aisai never got up. We slept till 9 a.m.
Let me tell you about the beds there. The bed we have here hurts my back and occasionally I will sleep on the floor to "straighten me out." Our bed here is so gushy and has so many broken springs it is absolutely horrible. Horrible to me that is. Aisai likes it. The beds at the condo were nice and firm. Not quite as firm as plywood, but close. Ooh, I loved it. Aisai didn't sleep well.
Eh, I tried to call Matt again. We were supposed to get together with him at lunch on Tuesday or Wednesday. I just left another message on his machine.
I don't know when it was that I called MCI. But I had been operating under the assumption that we got the 10 cents a minute nationwide all the time, as we do at home, when we use our calling card. Well, that is not the case. I don't remember all the rules, but if we call anywhere that isn't our home number, it is 45 cents a minute. Ook.
Aisai and I went to Whataburger and Got Taquitos. They ripped us off. There was a 2 taquitos for $2 in 2 minutes. I didn't care about the time, but I didn't like that our 4 taquitos, a medium drink, and a coffee cost $8 and something. The food was good though. We can't get breakfast burritos in Alabama, not even at Taco Bell anymore.
There was a poster in the window that had great novelty value for me. It was an advertisement for a buyout night when the Rice Owls played some team with a horse mascot. The poster was favoring Rice since the horse was really goofy looking and had crosshairs on him. Not only that, but it had the Whataburger W symbol on it in several places. And the kicker was that the game was in the past.
I went up to the cashier's counter and asked the gal if I could have the poster, since the event it advertised was in the past. And I probably phrased it like that too. The gal digested what I had said and asked her manager. "Sure" said unseen manager entity from it's dark, and probably money counting, enclave. I hopped up on the bench seat of the booth and took it down. Ha! I was victorious.
Eh, then we went to stinkin' old Wal-mart again. Took our new loot back to the condo, and set off for Houston to go to the Zoo.
Rather than take the path that I had planned to get to the zoo, and you Houstonians email me if my route would have been better, we took the signs that tell you how to get there. I was planning on going I-45 to 610 then north on Main that takes you right past it. Instead of that, we took the signs you see if you get on west 610. But after a while the zoo signs stop and you have to follow the museum district signs and then the Museum of Natural Science signs. We parked at the Museum of Natural Science (and you don't have to tell me that there is a parking lot at the zoo we could have parked at, I saw that one once we had walked there) and we walked to the zoo, which we had no idea where it was until we asked an older gentleman on a bicycle.
The zoo was like all the other zoos I have been at in one way or another. Each has had wonderful habitats for what it really likes, in this case the aquariums and reptile house and bird places. But other animals got the shaft. The bears always get some stinking place smaller than my great room and they have to stay there forever. No dirt in the thing, it is all concrete.
We got hot and hungry. It sprinkled on us a little, but they had big palm trees that shielded you completely from the rain. The humidity was horrible. The few places that had air conditioning were the old ape's place and the night fellows. The old ape was a really old ape that had is place air-conditioned, as well as the observation place. He had a big bowl of fruit and he was sleeping and flapping his mouth in his dreams. The night animals were in a building that effectively reversed their 24 hour cycle so that they were awake during the day and asleep at night. That was one of the more overcrowded and horrible areas.
"It was a gorilla. He was chewing." - Aisai
But when you go to a zoo, you have to get the zoo mentality. These animals live in hell so that people can become educated about them. Not a terribly great argument considering the discovery channel and all that. But Aisai and I routinely go to zoos, so they aren't all bad in either of our books.
But if we always had the zoo mentality, we would be able to keep 3 sheep, 4 goats, and a cow in the back yard. Or maybe just one giraffe.