My Friday Outing in San Antonio

So, I decided since it was my last day in San Antonio before flying back to KC, I needed to get out and paint the town red (okay, maybe it was more of a pink-fuscia, urgh those paint stores never get it quite right, but I digress). So, I went to a cool place called the Rivercenter Mall. It was very scenic. Half the shops were within a indoor mall atmosphere and the other half were outside along the riverfront. The mall area was connected to a 1+ mile riverwalk that followed both sides fo the river and included numerous river tourboats. There were various restaurants alongside the river as well-- very scenic and splendid.

Here's me admiring the inside architecture of the mall through photography. I thought it was awesome how they built natural lighting into the roof, and how the steel rafters give it that nice geometric look.

Good Nonsensical Fun

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After a 98+ hour work week, I needed a break, some good honest fun. In the spirit of the heated political season, here's the latest and greatest from Jibjab.com (it's quickly becoming a favorite website of mine)

Educate about "Eight"

I feel the need to post about something near and dear to my heart-- marriage. I think it is every U.S. citizen's responsibility to get as well informed as possible on issues such as proposition 8 from several independent sources not tied to any one fundraising effort or campaign that may have skewed ideas and make be either misrepresenting the facts or not telling the whole story. Allow me to share some facts with you free from my 'religious bias':

1. Not once has there been a proposal brought to a citizen vote on the question "Should gay marriage be legalized?--Yea or Nay." In both the states of Massachusetts and California, it has been a handful of people called judges who have decided this, not the public as a whole.

2. There have been a few states recently (2-3 I think) that have passed initiatives by public majority vote to affirm and clarify marriage defined as between a man and woman.

3. So far, there is no clear evidence that gay marriage is something the majority of the American public support.

4. Under current laws, gay/homosexual couples currently enjoy medical visitation rights, have no additional tax burdens compared to married heterosexual couples, and are not prohibited from being in each other's wills or named on estates.

So my question to you is "What need is there for legal recognition/allowance of gay marriage?" I can list a host of reasons why I think it is an issue which many people could see as religiously biased and morally-skewed. But, in order to accomplish my original goal of this post to provide "unbiased" information about Proposition 8 and it's significance.

PLEASE ENCOURAGE FRIENDS OF YOURS IN CALIFORNIA TO VOTE ON THIS ISSUE so we can see what the majority of citizens feels should be public policy.

San Antonio Update

Since I've been here over two weeks now, I suppose I can give my take on this area of Texas:

THE GOOD: wide open 4+ lane freeways, traffic delays are minimal, 60-65mph speed limit on freeways even in the heart of downtown, some extremely cool shopping areas all of which have movie theaters nearby, they have SeaWorld and a SixFlags, the Alamo's here, and new homes start at about $100,000.

THE BAD: lots of one-way roads including the frontage roads (the ones that parallel the freeways) which can add a lot of extra backtracking distance to your trip and wasted gas, the traffic lights are not that responsive to traffic conditions which take FOREVER to change green even when no one else is on the road, there are only two entrances to Ft. Sam Houston open 24/7 which makes the trip longer getting onto and off of base, EVERYTHING is under construction (the airport, the freeways, the side roads, etc), and the residents (the people I interact with on a daily basis) are a little more type-A personality-wise than my last rotation which adds stress to my day.

Sarah Palin Rap (SNL)

Now that's just funny, I don't care who you are...

A Entertaining Musical Debut

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