Dallas

Took a trip to explore the far reaches of the place modern scholars refer to as "Dallas, Texas." on Monday. The three of us—Rachel, Ryan, and myself—adventured, basically, to downtown.

This view is from the top of the Reunion building. The weird stick-with-a-ball-on-top building. Pretty high up, as you can see.

This was some kind of horse made out of old automobile bumpers. Oddly, it was tail-less.

Some dinosaurs I was really excited about. Also made from old chrome bumpers.

Me sitting, quite awkwardly, on the dino's nose.

Rachel apparently got her hand stuck in its mouth. Agonizing indeed =]

And now for our trip to the aquarium. My camera and I are mortal enemies, so some of the shots came out frustratingly fuzzy.

This fish was TINY, which is deemphasized by the large type. Nevertheless, it was a tiny fish and my camera does pretty well with close-ups, as long as I can manually adjust the focus. The sea-anemones were quite small too, and I was impressed with how they came out.

Some kind of weird rock-looking fish. I walked by thinking there was nothing in the tank. There were a bunch of "rocks" which were actually fish. Must be God's sense of humor because, seriously, they just look ridiculous. I think that bump sticking up is one of the little guy's eyes. Hmm, could do with losing a few pounds as well.

Ryan was gracious enough to drive us around too, because neither Rachel nor myself had any clue where anything was. Overall, after the experience, I must say I'm still a proud Austinite.

Melli's Donuts

I new tradition has surfaced in Jonathanland...in Marlin, TX:

Not content to sob, mope, and moan about Krispy Kreme's (aka "The Kreme") recent expiration, matters were taken into our own hands. Yes, we ventured to Marlin, one of the many third-world towns that dot the rural areas of these fine United States. What is there? Not much, really, besides a sizeable population of rural/semi-rural poor. Much more to the point, however, was the existence of Melli's DONUTS. Soft and glazed, like The Kreme's, these have a slight vanilla flavor, bursting with doughy goodness.

We went a little donuts.


That's my buddy Choong-kun. He's 100% Korean. From Seoul. Todd drove us.

Street level, this is a typical sight in Marlin:

So poor, sadly, that that we weren't charged sales tax—neither at Melli's nor the nearby gas station. Which reminds me: Those fighting poverty shouldn't forget that poor folks don't just live in big cities...it's counterpart, rural poverty, in the small towns across the U.S. is alive and well, and receives very little attention from both the media and from aid groups.