In general, I don't like people. I worked customer service jobs for years before becoming disabled and I'd rather shoot myself in the foot than go back to it. For some reason, people tend to get abusive with you if they can't see you more often than if they encounter you face to face. I would love nothing more than to be able to move out into the middle of nowhere and stay there. Some days I can tolerate people and some days I can't. I was in Wal Mart the other day and some woman was screeching at the manager because the manager wouldn't allow the woman to return some ink cartridges she had bought. Now I won't pretend to know what all this was about, but I do know that listening to the woman yelling at the manager really embarrassed me. The manager finally had to threaten to call security. Plain and simple, it was a temper tantrum on the part of the woman wanting to return the ink. She began to act like a spoiled child when she didn't get her way. It makes me embarrassed for the whole human race. Too many people act like this whey they don't get their way. Now I can understand getting upset if you have been wronged. I've been wronged before and I have always managed to resolve it in a civilized manner. Yelling, name calling and threats don't fix things. And if you get your way because of doing these things, it's simply because the person you are dealing with has figured out you have the emotional maturity of a 5 year old and given up on you.

I know I've mentioned my dad's love affair with his microscopes. He loves to spend hours peering at little microscopic beasties. I like to find him new water samples from different places. One of the sources he loves to scope is his small fish pond. It's tiny really, just a few coy in it. Well, something amazing has happened. He found a creature that he couldn't identify. He posted it on the chat boards he uses and nobody else seems to know either, however a guy from a university is intrigued and not only would like to collaborate with dad on studying this thing but thinks it might be a totally new species. I'm very excited. Dad is totally in heaven. I am so happy for him. It's kind of one of his dreams. It's not often enough that people get to realize a dream, no matter how small. So many times people give up on their dreams, loose their hopes and end up just going through the motions of life instead of living it. Dad helped me realize one of my dreams when he financed our trip to Chicago to see the Tut exhibition. And then while we were gone all this happened with his microscopy. Hopefully this is just the beginning. I want him to get on to smaller and smaller things since bigger and bigger things would mean he wouldn't be using the microscope, lol.

I was doing some surfing looking for pics of the items on display in Chicago at the Field Museum and found a link to some pics of the items from when they first went on display in Europe. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/11/photogalleries/king_tut/

Ow. Ow. And did I say Ow? I hurt. Bad. Very bad. The walk around the museum and the walk to the CTA station from the museum was more strenuous than I am used to. Between the degenerative arthritis in my back and the aches in my knees (the doc says it's not arthritis but I'm betting it's rheumatoid) it made the 6 hour hike I took on Sunday about cripple me.

The trip to the museum Sunday was worth everything tho. I will never forget it. To see these objects that I've studied in books since I was a kid (basically since 1977-the last time the King Tut items were in the US). I saw details I never expected to see. I got to see the gold dagger from his tomb. It was exquisite. The inlays were incredible. Also the incomplete bust of Nefertiti was there. The one that's missing the nose. Anybody who has studied Egyptology knows the objects I'm talking about. To almost be able to touch it was magical for me. It still feels totally unreal. Except for the pain I have in my legs and back still, lol.

I hurt all over. We got to see the King Tut exhibit at the Field Museum today. The day was insane. We got started late, had a hell of a time finding parking at the CTA station, finally got on a train and it finally left the station at 11 am. Our tickets for Tut were for an 11 am admission. They were supposed to be good for any time between 11 and 11:30 am admission. We didn't get to the museum till noon. Apparently there was a Bears game today right next to the museum. We got lucky and the guy with the tickets said it was no big deal and we got to go in late. Thank god. Those tickets aren't cheap. Then we get in the line to go in and find out there's no photography at all allowed in the Tut exhibit. GRRRRR It said NOTHING about that online and in fact said that photography is allowed in the museum but that the use of flashes was restricted in some places. So, I had drug along the camera and laptop for no particular reason. I did take some pics in their regular Egypt exhibit. Not the same tho. So I bought a book of postcards and some loose postcards. I'll scan these and put up a link to where I've posted them once I do all that. There were so many people in the Tut exhibit that I was beginning to get very irritable because people were slow and it was cramped at times. I got thru it without killing anybody tho. By the time we had done Tut and a good walk around the museum, I was beat. We decided to head back to the hotel and couldn't find a cab. So we took off walking. We followed signs that said they were pointing in the direction of the CTA station we needed. Well, they ended up leading us in a huge circle and we ended up only a block from where we started. GRRRRR Then we managed to drag ourselves the three blocks down to the CTA station and make the train. By this time I was in a lot of pain. I have degenerative arthritis in my back and have issues with phantom pain due to pressure on my spinal cord from a disk that popped a few years ago. So needless to say it was a HUGE relief to sit down on the train. The ride allowed me to recoup and manage to be able to make the walk to where we parked. By this time it was 6:45 pm. We got in the car, plugged up the laptop and plugged in the GPS unit and navigated from the station back to the area of the hotel with a brief stop at Big Lots and another stop at the Dennys right down from the hotel so we could have dinner. Being able to see an exhibit of this magnitude had been a dream of mine for years. It wouldn't have been possible if my dad hadn't bankrolled us. Me, Nina, her half sister Blair and my buddy NTL's daughter Brianna went. Blair's mom sent some money and Brianna brought some cash but it was my dad who paid for the majority of the trip. It is a trip I'll never forget.