Baltimore

Had a great time Sunday spending the day in Baltimore. Thanks to my friend Jan Louis I was able to experience the pleasure of a visit to the Dime Museum, a truly bizarre, creepy, and thus utterly appropriate homage to the dime museum of the late 19th Century and the carnival sideshow of the early 20th. Exhibits ranged from a stuffed two-headed calf to an aligator-woman in a glass case (as our guide said, "Feel free to be skeptical"). Very whacky but fun place - too bad it will be closing at the end of the year.

After a delicious dinner courtesy of Faith's parents, I then went with buddies Faith, Jan Louis, and Ray to the "Miracle on 34th Street" display of shocking Christmas excess on 34th Street in Hampden. It was visual cacophony, but awesome. Back in Los Gatos we had (still have, I guess) a house we always drove past on our way home that was super, super decked out for Christmas - it sometimes included a BMW M3 covered with lights (yuppie Santa's modern sleigh) and a roof lined with lights and programed to do a rippling sequence from top to bottom. That was cool too, but it would have been just another face in the crowd on 34th Street.