Friday the 13th

Today was a nice day. I went into the office for the first half of the day... And for the second half, I toured two local Memphis museums.

First, the Memphis Children's Muesum and second, the Pink Palace Museum. I especially enjoyed the Children's Musem. It was incredibly well done, creative-- and the kids who where there were loving it.

The Pink Palace was also good. They had exhibits of old clothes and tools that were used years ago in Tennessee. They also had a model railroad show temporarily going on. I haven't spent much time around model railroads, so it was a learning experience for me.

I ended up finishing a few minutes earlier than I would have anticipated, so I took the time to check out the Peabody Hotel's famous duck walk. Although I've tried to go many times, I don't know that I've actually made it in time for the walk. The walk happens at around 4:45 (they set up at 4:30).

If you've never heard of the walk-- this is the deal: The Duckmaster trains this group of ducks on the roof of the Peabody Hotel, where they have a Duck Palace (or something similiar). If you ever visit the Peabody, be sure to check out the roof because that's where the ducks have their home. Anyway, so the ducks are trained to walk from this big fountain in the center of the hotel-- down a red carpet (at the command of the Duckmaster) and onto the hotel's elevator. From there, they go up to the roof and retire in the Duck Palace for the evening. This routine happens every day at the Peabody, so if you visit Memphis its definitely worth seeing once.

I would recommend getting there early. They have a bar, so the best suggestion I have is to get there for happy hour and pull up a seat close to the fountain. It was amazing to see how rude grown adults were to the 3 and 4 year old children that were trying to get to the front of the crowd. Luckily, they made it up. But there were so many flash bulbs that you would have though Justin Timberlake was marching upstairs to the Duck Palace.

Tomorrow, I'm planning to attend a book party at the Gibson. I'm also getting a haircut, having lunch with a friend, having my car looked at, and running to the bank.

This schedule explains why I stayed in tonight. That and, I wanted to finally try out my gym here. I need to get back into the habit of going to the gym and luckily, there's a great facility here to do just that.

On Sunday, I'm considering a home decorating workshop and a tour of the downtown homes in Memphis. Should be interesting.

Update: My closet is back up. After much controversy, it's been repaired. Turns out that the closet falling is an almost assured occurance for those owners who did not upgrade the closets. The shelving was installed very poorly-- only using plastic anchors and only securing them with the drywall. I'm hoping the new metal anchors and screws that go into the studs will help keep it up on the wall this time.