One Percent

NOTE: I know I've been incommunicado for a week or two - refer to my vow of not excusing myself - but I really haven't forgotten to document all the fun. And I have been starting posts...just not finishing them. Witness this episode I almost completed from 08/14/2010

We were lucky for the last few days to have RHM visiting. And though she's one of MY dearest friends from college, Tarzan and ATL have adopted her into the clique of They Who Sit On The Couch With Their Laptops:

She was sweet enough to take us to dinner - such good Tangerine Beef! - and we took her to one of the museums (almost) in town. As a designer, this is one of those "if only" situations where there was an unlimited budget and no restrictions other than 'spend it all.' The donor wanted to get rid of the money - tax evasion maybe? - but the city wanted the revenue from visitors, so the museum is free but parking costs $15. There are probably five people who live close enough to walk to the thing and everyone else has to drive. The experience is needs to be experienced at least once if you live here and I deem it worth the exorbitant parking fee if you go with friends:

There is a lot of travertine:

Also a lot of stairs:

A few elevators, but I get the feeling the architect did not want to include them, was forced to for accessibility reasons so he stuck them in the most out of the way places:

Dude had serious ideas about how people should tranverse this place. Witness the walkways:

I do particularly love these:

Because from far away it looks very organic, rooftop growing, living umbrella kind of thing but when you get next to it you realize they are steel reinforcing bars:

This set of directions amused me. This was the sign at the bottom of the stairs:

We went up the stairs:

And this was the sign at the top of the stairs:

In the end we had to walk back down, around the stairs, out a door and up a RAMP to get to the level they were alluding to. All that rigmarole for this sculpture plaza:

Oy.

There were alternative sculptures - modern versus the classical - on the adjacent lawn. Here is me not touching one of them:

The maze was cool:

In fact, all the landscaping was lovely:

Maybe I'm just not an art person?

We did have a good time, so that's all that really matters:

This is me and we were culturally edified.