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Galveston, Day 1
Mar. 26th, 2007 09:08 pmWarning: This entry is disjointed, but it's here.
This is the perfect time of year to drive to Galveston. The grass is green after recent rains, and all kinds of wildflowers are in bloom: beautiful yellow composite flowers (daisies) of some kind, bluebonnets (blue), wine cups (magenta), Indian paintbrush (orange), pink evening primrose, and some white ones.
So I spent all morning singing along to music and looking at the beautiful landscape. It was lovely.
Then I got to Galveston.
Ooh, doesn't that sound all foreboding? Fooled ya! Actually, I'm just fine. I have found everything just fine.
I got to tour the Moody Mansion, finding out more about a family of rich people than I would normally have wanted to. But their house had some cool things, even besides the dangerous spindly spiral staircases.
My favorite was the internal shutters. Normally when I see shutters, they come in pairs, and each one has two panels. The ones I saw today also came in pairs, but each had four panels, so they were narrow enough to fold against the wall at the side of the window.
I also liked that all the doors were labeled with small metal plaques. Including closets. This house was state-of-the-art when it was built in the late 1800s and was set up for both electricity and gas. It even has an elevator, though it is powered by humans. It has everything but an air conditioner according to our tour guide.
A crazy thing was walls covered in silk damask fabric. Forget this wallpaper stuff--that's too cheap! There was also a very impressive stained glass window. And a huge, fabulous kitchen. In the olden days it had a huge work table in the middle, but we didn't get to see it as it was used.
And there was a giant dining room. When used to its fullest, they had a single very long table in there. I had been wondering that--they could also have had several smaller tables like at weddings.
I found the hostel and checked in. I was told once again that there were generally one or two people per room. Each room has a regular big hotel bed plus two bunk beds. The common room/employee break room is as big as my whole house with three dining room tables, a couch, several chairs, a piano, and a computer, which I am now using.
The hostel is practically on the beach. So I also walked along the beach. It's windy! Someone said it's always breezy in Galveston. That's good because it's often hot. I did the right thing in wearing shorts today, though it did feel a bit chilly on the beach.
I also registered at the conference and went to the opening night open house. There was a game involving talking to vendors and each other which didn't really work for me. I tried, though.
I found three of the people I went on a walk with last year, which was nice. And I sat with some other people, one of whom was fine, one who was awesome, and one who I really didn't like.
From the awesome one I learned that in the field of instructional design, the big money is in assessment. That is sickening in so many ways. I'm into teaching more than learning.
I learned that St. Ed's in Austin has a very good instructional design program, but it's very, very expensive.
When the fun person dragged off the nice person to talk with someone else, I decided to leave.
Based on the number of cars in the parking lot, I'm going to guess that I will be the only one in the room tonight, if not the only one in the entire hotel. So I'm going to take the big bed, even though I don't really need that much space. It's got more head space than the bottom bunks and is easier to get into and out of than the top bunks.
This is the perfect time of year to drive to Galveston. The grass is green after recent rains, and all kinds of wildflowers are in bloom: beautiful yellow composite flowers (daisies) of some kind, bluebonnets (blue), wine cups (magenta), Indian paintbrush (orange), pink evening primrose, and some white ones.
So I spent all morning singing along to music and looking at the beautiful landscape. It was lovely.
Then I got to Galveston.
Ooh, doesn't that sound all foreboding? Fooled ya! Actually, I'm just fine. I have found everything just fine.
I got to tour the Moody Mansion, finding out more about a family of rich people than I would normally have wanted to. But their house had some cool things, even besides the dangerous spindly spiral staircases.
My favorite was the internal shutters. Normally when I see shutters, they come in pairs, and each one has two panels. The ones I saw today also came in pairs, but each had four panels, so they were narrow enough to fold against the wall at the side of the window.
I also liked that all the doors were labeled with small metal plaques. Including closets. This house was state-of-the-art when it was built in the late 1800s and was set up for both electricity and gas. It even has an elevator, though it is powered by humans. It has everything but an air conditioner according to our tour guide.
A crazy thing was walls covered in silk damask fabric. Forget this wallpaper stuff--that's too cheap! There was also a very impressive stained glass window. And a huge, fabulous kitchen. In the olden days it had a huge work table in the middle, but we didn't get to see it as it was used.
And there was a giant dining room. When used to its fullest, they had a single very long table in there. I had been wondering that--they could also have had several smaller tables like at weddings.
I found the hostel and checked in. I was told once again that there were generally one or two people per room. Each room has a regular big hotel bed plus two bunk beds. The common room/employee break room is as big as my whole house with three dining room tables, a couch, several chairs, a piano, and a computer, which I am now using.
The hostel is practically on the beach. So I also walked along the beach. It's windy! Someone said it's always breezy in Galveston. That's good because it's often hot. I did the right thing in wearing shorts today, though it did feel a bit chilly on the beach.
I also registered at the conference and went to the opening night open house. There was a game involving talking to vendors and each other which didn't really work for me. I tried, though.
I found three of the people I went on a walk with last year, which was nice. And I sat with some other people, one of whom was fine, one who was awesome, and one who I really didn't like.
From the awesome one I learned that in the field of instructional design, the big money is in assessment. That is sickening in so many ways. I'm into teaching more than learning.
I learned that St. Ed's in Austin has a very good instructional design program, but it's very, very expensive.
When the fun person dragged off the nice person to talk with someone else, I decided to leave.
Based on the number of cars in the parking lot, I'm going to guess that I will be the only one in the room tonight, if not the only one in the entire hotel. So I'm going to take the big bed, even though I don't really need that much space. It's got more head space than the bottom bunks and is easier to get into and out of than the top bunks.