Airports and Airplanes

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Sorry, this is sort of filler, but greetings from O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. In an hour we board our flight to Delhi. By the time this post goes up Friday morning in the US we'll be over Russia or the Middle East or Something-astan or I don't know what. I've loved airports since I was a child.

When I was growing up in Queens, my friends and I would ride our bikes to La Guardia and JFK (Idlewild back them). There were observation decks on the terminal roofs. The international airport was my favorite. In the background of this picture you can see the livery of United, Swiss, Aer Lingus, Turkish, British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. American, our regular airline, is up front.

AND A BIG HOWDY FROM DELHI! We just got to our hotel. Smooth flight, good service. So far, so good but my brain isn't completely screwed into the socket at the moment.

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We're Outta Here

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Guest photo by Mrs. C., taken in Kathmandu a year and a half ago. A young Buddhist monk walks past Boudnath Stupa in the sunset. You can see more of her Nepal pictures here.

We leave today on a 19 day trip, going through Chicago and then on to Delhi, a 14 hour flight. One night there and then Kathmandu Saturday. Tibet on Tuesday. I may post a few days ahead if I get some editing done on the plane - no problem with Internet service in India. With luck I'll post something from from Nepal, as long as there is a place to hook up my laptop. No uploads from Tibet - the altitude is too high to run a laptop without damaging the hard drive. The Chinese government blocks Blogger, anyway.

Team member ShadowyOne will cover St. Louis as much as possible while I'm away. Expect a big tub-o-photos from Asia starting about September 22. Hasta la vista, y'all.

The Blues

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From the St. Louis Festival of Nations. American blues certainly counts as part of the spectrum of international musical art. This picture is one of the early shots in my hands project. Those arched fingers cover a harmonica, a blues harp. So simple an instrument, yet so capable of the sound of human melancholy.

TOMORROW: K KK KK KK Kat... (guest photo). Time to head way, way east. No Arch picture this week.

CDPB Monthly Theme Day: Big

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Hommage à Ronald: the biggest things in town. Sort of a nice repetitive pattern going, too. Big doin's today throughout the CDP world. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Two days until the big plane ride...

At the Festival of Nations

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Seen at our Festival of Nations in Tower Grove Park this weekend, as a group of Indian dancers prepared to take the stage. The lovely performers appear to include a young Lakshmi, goddess of beauty and grace, and a beatific bodhisattva, as near to enlightenment as one can get is St. Louis, Missouri. But how did Molly McGuire, there in the background, find her way into this troupe?

Electronics and jet planes have created a world unknowable to our ancestors. Here I am on Monday morning, in my office, looking out the window at the Arch. By Friday I'll be in India, if only for one night. Most of us now realize that there are no fairies and that Harry Potter is just an entertaining fiction, but this planet has become more magical that we could have ever imagined.

TOMORROW: CDP monthly theme day, BIG.

Mitrata Nepal Foundation

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You may have noticed the last thing on my left sidebar, promoting the Mitrata Nepal Foundation (click it!). Well, these women run the U.S. side of the operation here in St. Louis. Mitrata has a children's home and school in Kathmandu. It provides care and education to orphans and kids whose families have no means to support them in one of the world's poorest - and most beautiful and sweetest - countries. They had a table at out annual Festival of Nations this weekend, which celebrates all of the lands and cultures that contribute to our region. We will be visiting Mitrata soon.

Nepal is the only country on earth that has the creativity to break out of the rectangular flag habit. That's it in the center of the table. Mrs. C and I will arrive in Kathmandu on Saturday. She knows a little Nepalese. I can barely manage "namaste" but I can hardly wait.

Open Freeman

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Read this anyway you like. Maybe it's what psychologists call a projective test.

Actually, it's a port cover on the huge Mississippi River towboat I featured a couple of weeks ago.