Monday, July 28, 2003

He's Got A Ticket To Fly Picked up my tickets to Germany today.  Actually, I picked up my tickets for my flight via American Airlines to Baltimore.  From there I'm taking a charter flight for military personnel to Rhein Main Air Force Base right outside of Frankfurt.  I was told I didn't need tickets once I arrived in Baltimore.  The way the lady handling my travel put it, "They know you're coming." Ok. By the way, can anyone with any experience with these military charter flights guess how many folks on the plane will be in uniform?  I'm wondering just how badly I'll stick out as the obvious non-military type. Only other downside to all of this is the fact I have a nearly six hour wait in Baltimore before the flight to Germany boards.  Being nosey, I found the website for the area of the airport I'm supposed to depart from at the Baltimore/Washington International Airport.  While it looks reasonable, I just can't picture myself in those rooms for six hours.  I don't suppose anyone reading this has any tips for killing time in the Baltimore airport?  That's what I'll be doing this time next week. After six hours of waiting, it will be about six hours of flying across the Atlantic and into the heart of Europe.  Sounds exciting, but I hope to sleep through it. Still don't know who is picking me up in Frankfurt.  Hope to clear that up tomorrow so we can work out the whole where-will-I-find-you thing.  I'm hinting to my contacts in Germany that someone holding up a sign saying "LORD MAULDIN" when I get off the plane wouldn't be a bad idea.  Make me feel important for all of a minute or two. (bonus points to whoever can guess the allusion made by the title of this post) Related link: The announcement that I'm moving to Germany 10:09:52 PM     |

The Eyes Don't Have It   Maybe you haven't seen this illusion before, but it is actually true.  The two squares with the A and the B in them are both exactly the same shade of gray.  Neither one is lighter or darker than the other.  If you don't believe me, you can use Photoshop to copy a small area of either square and then paste it near the other square.  Or drag the pasted piece through the shadow and it will appear to change shades of gray as it moves.  It's amazing.  In my opinion, this is the best optical illusion out there. If you don't know how to do that in Photoshop, you can get a piece of paper that you can't see through, punch holes in it that match-up to the two labeled squares on your screen, then hold the paper back up to the screen.  You'll be amazed to see that there is no difference in the colors of the squares. To find out more about this illusion and see others like it, go here. Related links: More optical illusions Eyetricks.com 12:37:35 PM     |

© Copyright 2005 Alex L. Mauldin.