What Happened
I've lived in Austin most of my life, but I haven't been to see many of the museums and galleries that are scattered all across Austin, and it is starting to bug me. It's not like I'm trying to be all 'cultured', I just like to see 3D art and artifacts. They are cool. Besides, getting a little cultured would probably be good for me.
I popped onto Austin360.com and looked through their list of museums, and other places of related culturalisms. I was feeling pretty impatient so I just went through the names and picked out the ones that were mostly closest to me.
The George Washington Carver Museum
Ever since I first read that there was a museum for the Great Peanut Man himself, I knew I had to get there. It is only open during the day, and just kept getting cut off by work and other life issues. That, and I really wanted to go with someone else, but seeing as I'm such a lonely person I figured I'd better go now or not at all. So go I did.
Biggest disappointment ever... So yeah, other than the name of the building, there were only two references to this great model of peanutdom.
Yeah, weak sauce. In fact, the entire place was pretty weak for anything resembling a museum. I am assuming "cultural center" stuff must happen there? Anyway, it was mostly about Juneteenth and jazz music. If I were to take this place as a guide, the three biggest contributions of blacks to humanity were jazz, Super Soakers, and peanuts...in that order. As one whose ancestors were slaves, I'm pretty disappointed. Note that all of the people that were working inside were white. Typical whitey incompetence.
Texas Military Forces Museum
Okay, this place was pretty darn cool. Who doesn't like to see lots of big guns and tanks? Okay, what guy doesn't?
To the left you can see the 75mm carrot artillery unit. I can't even imagine what it would do to an an eagles nest. To the right we have the quad cannon, German anti-aircraft carrot gun. Ever seen what carrot shrapnel will do to a plane? I wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of that gun.
Inside another room they had a whole history of Texas wars and weapons used. They even had a few other cool items like a flame thrower. How cools is that. They also had this little jewel.
This is really cool because you can compare normal artillery shells to a carrot shell. Notice how much thinner the carrot shell is? Much more efficient.
It was here that I got the call from Cingular.
Alternate Current
Alternate Current, or The Stash as the sign in front of it says. This place, and the places right after it, I really had no idea what to expect. Not real big, and not a whole lot of stuff. But what it did have was pretty cool. Well, most of it anyway. There is this up front near the road, which I am guessing helps in some part to reduce speeders.
Personally, I would have put some reflective tape on that sucker to really draw attention to it.
Just some quick shots of the place. Lots of eclecticness, as well as some genuine art. Probably most entertaining was the friendly store lady trying to balance store duties and taking care of a couple of little ones. I got a shot of this orange picture, which I thought was very important. I also bought this candle.
I swear, it looks orangish in person. What's up with this light anyway? So, there were also windmills outside on top of the structure. I seriously dig windmills.
I wish you could see movement in these, cause baby, they were movin.
Austin Art Glass
I have no idea why it says Yard Dog Folk Art when it is in fact Austin Art Glass. Their website needs a little help with the idea of "thumbnails", so I should probably offer my services in exchange for glassy stuff. Must remember to mention that at some point. Anyway, some really good orange stuff here.
Didn't meet Aaron Gross at all, but his wife was there. Nice lady, answered all sorts of questions for me. I was so impressed with a grouping of glass mugs they had, I went ahead an ordered a custom one for myself. I got to pick out the glasses, the design, everything, all for $50, a dang good deal if you ask me. I bet her hubby tells her she undercharged. Don't tell anyone, but I have a glass mug fetish.
Ten Thousand Villages
This place was half of a disappointment, not only was it not named Texas Folklife Resources, it didn't have any orange to speak of. After poking around a bit and playing with their various foreign musical instrument type things, I bought a pan pipe for my roomie, a man with about 20 different kinds of musical instruments in his room. Why did I buy him one more thing? Because if I can convince him to play this flute, it will be the single quietest instrument he plays. I also bought a painted rock for myself. It has orangish fish thingies on it and was supposedly hand painted by someone in Korea. Yay!
After going here I saw this girl I know. She saw my bag. First thing out of her mouth was, "what were you doing at Ten Thousand Villages?" Either I impressed her or committed some sort of faux pas. Either way it can't be good.
Whole Foods Market
Whole Foods is a great place for all things organic, especially carrots. They have this newer building downtown that is right across the street from their old building, with a parking garage underneath and escalators going up. Check out what comes back down.
Get this, the shopping carts have little hook things on them so you can take them down the escalator/ramp thingy without getting pulled down. Honestly, I don't think it's safe to take without a cart. If you had some sort of really hard sole that got a little wet, you would totally slide down in a scene of panic and amusement.