Ideas from Mark Stout

I've written here many times about visiting aviation museums. Today, chatting online with a friend about China's new Flying Boat that is as big as a Boeing 737, I realized I'd never written about touring a Short Solent Mk. III Flying Boat at the Oakland Aviation Museum at the Oakland, California airport. It must have been sometime in 1999. My wife was working a few hours at her job with a network equipment manufacturer on a Saturday in San Leandro. Our nine year old son and I dropped her off, then went to look for something to do while she worked. I'd ridden my bike past the museum many times, but never stopped in. I explained to my son who Amelia Earhart was as we looked at an Electra aircraft similar to the one Earhart flew when she departed on her fateful flight from Oakland in 1937. Oddly, I do not see that aircraft on their current list of aircraft on display. Update 7-27-2016: The museum director responded to my email and told me the Electra is now at...

Model of the Old City of Jerusalem in the Second Temple period On Saturday, we had the challenge of making our way back to Jerusalem to visit the Israel Museum. I say challenge because in Tel Aviv, the buses shut down for Sabbath at sun down on Friday to sun down on Saturday. In Haifa, where my wife is studying, the buses do not shut down for Sabbath, so when we planned the trip Friday night we were surprised and initially concerned we would not make the trip. We discovered Sheruts, shared taxi vans that run from Tel Aviv's Central Bus Station to many locations in Israel, even on Sabbath. We grabbed a cab, and once there found the first bus in line going to Jerusalem.  Once the van was filled with ten passengers, it set off. From Central Jerusalem we cabbed to the museum. The photo at the start of this post is a 1:50 model of the Old City of Jerusalem as it was when the Second Temple existed.  The structure nearest is the Second Temple. At that site now is the...