Archive for the 'Dave Travels' Category

They Acted Alone: The Hideous Truth of Dallas, 1963

Monday, October 27th, 2008

November 22, 2008 — DALLAS.

JFK in Dallas

JFK in Dallas

It has long been accepted that Lee Harvey Oswald, a man so hideous that he had three first names, was the sole assassin of JFK. This is not the truth.

History and mystery are taught in the same classrooms at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, where I attended college. In the early 1990s, when I was getting my undergraduate degree in Historical Mysteries, I took a class from professor Dr. O. L. Harvey, an expert on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, 35th President of the United States of America.

In the class, which was about solving the mystery of where the great, lost city of Atlanta had disappeared to, he mentioned in an offhand remark about JFK’s assassination, “Yes, Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. It’s the accepted fact. They acted alone.”

I bolted up in my seat. What had he just said?? They? They acted alone? What did he mean by that? I waited until after class and walked with him back to his office in the secret, underground academic control center of SMU.

“Dr. Harvey, did you mean to say ‘They acted alone?’ Shouldn’t you mean, ‘He acted alone’?”

And then Dr. Harvey told me the hideous, horrible truth* of November 22, 1963 and the events that happened 45 years ago today:

Lee Harvey Oswald acted with a team of three.

Lee Harvey Oswald was cloned.

A group of four Lee Harvey Oswalds killed JFK.

Many people know that Lee Harvey Oswald was a great Cuban and friend of Fidel Castro. What they don’t know is that during his time spent in Cuba, he was the test subject of Soviet cloning experiments. For the Soviets, Oswald was the perfect candidate for speed cloning, a radical method of cloning and growing a new human individual to an exact match of the original test subject.

Oswald agreed. He knew that four or five (the exact number is still unknown) clones would be the perfect accessories to commit murder, changing the course of history forever. The quick cloning process grew four known new Oswalds in record time, subjecting the clones to human growth hormones that brings them to the real Lee Harvey Oswald’s age in six years.

Mentally, the Oswald clones were less than 10 years old. But physically, they would match Oswald’s appearance and age in 1963… after 1963, they would age too quickly. Oswald had to act before 1963 was done.

So that fateful day in Dallas, four of Oswald’s clones sat in the Texas Book Depository and fatally wounded John F. Kennedy and shot John Connolly, governor of Texas at the time. After the trauma, one of the Oswald’s was captured, and later killed by another Oswald in a Jack Ruby costume (he had aged fitfully in those few days), who later died in prison by a third Oswald who became a prison guard. The fourth Oswald’s fate is unknown. He may have returned to Cuba.

All of these facts were given to me by Dr. Harvey, who passed away three years ago, on that fateful autumn afternoon in the secret underground academic stronghold at SMU. How did he know so much, I asked?

The original Lee Harvey Oswald changed his name, he said. He went back to school, specializing in historical mysteries, and now teaches at SMU. That’s right, Dr. Harvey was Oswald Harvey aka Lee Harvey Oswald, the man whose clones killed JFK.

*by which I mean “questionable but interesting lie.”

What I Learned On My Summer Vacation

Thursday, September 4th, 2008

So after a month of travel (out of three planned), I’m back in my home time on Austin.

Why? I got very sick in London, and I wasn’t having fun. I decided to cut my losses, spend a day in Paris, and come home. I might resume my trip, but it’ll be after I recover. Here’s a brief rundown what worked and what didn’t.

WHAT WORKED

  • Putting yourself in situations to meet people: I went to several geography conferences, which is a hobby/profession of mine. It was really great to meet people I could talk “shop” with. I saw one of my former professors, and I met loads of people doing interesting things. When you travel, think about ways you can connect with people.

  • Being flexible: hey, travel is about flexibility. When you’re tired of one place, or need a day of rest to take care of yourself, do that.

  • Two pairs of shorts, two pairs of pants: There’s always a balance between packing light and packing everything you could possibly need. I try to pack light, but I’m a large guy - finding “American” sized clothes in Europe can be difficult. So I try to make sure I have the minimum. In this case, two pairs of shorts and two pairs of pants (plus a pair of modesty shorts for sleeping in public) was the perfect number.

  • ASUS EEE PC: This was the perfect size for travel. Even with the all-in-one power transformer, it fit easily in my day bag and I could always find a wifi connection, even in the Sahara. HINT: all of the hotels in the Tunisian south use “11111111″ as the WEP code.

  • Buy tickets late: If you’re not sure about when you’re going to travel, buy tickets late. The change fees are high enough that it will cost you way more to buy early in all but the highest season.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK:

  • Two pairs of underwear: As recommended on Tim Ferriss’s blog, I tried two UnderArmor pairs. The idea was that while I wear one pair, I wash and dry the other. It worked fine in my home tests in Austin. Problem: nothing ever dries in Dublin or London. Tunisia was no problem, but walking around in wet underwear made me sick in London. Don’t do it. Very bad idea.

  • Not being prepared: Tunisia is a beautiful country, but you can’t find everything everywhere like you can in a first world country. Bring sunscreen, aloe vera, immodium for tummy troubles, and a hat.

  • Not wearing layers:Okay, generally not a problem, but occasionally when it was cold or wet, I wish I had brought my small fold up rain parka. Layers also means less clothes to carry. I might consider getting a pair of zip-off pants-to-shorts.

  • Not having the following items:
    • a set of cutlery
    • some liquid soap for washing
    • an amazon kindle (which I’ll take as a gift)
    • vitamin C pills

    • a portable CPAP

If you have any travel suggestions or ideas, let me know!

Wanted: Odd Travel advice

Monday, July 21st, 2008

In two weeks, I’m leaving for a three month trip across Europe and North Africa. And I’m asking *YOU* for your travel recommendations. What should I see? How should I pack? What should I eat?

Keep in mind that I’ll likely pass up museums unless they’re truly original (and have a good map collection). I won’t go to an art gallery unless it has an artist I really like (Fauvists). And I don’t eat meat, including horse penis (I’m talking to you, Tom!)

But what have you found that you really liked? Restaurants? Places to stay? Parks, walks, rivers, oceans, bays, and ancient real estate are of particular interest. Also, any cultural, geographic, or human rights items?

Here’s my itinerary:

  • Ireland
  • Tunisia
  • London
  • Prague
  • Hungary/Budapest
  • Krakow (maybe)
  • Lviv (maybe)
  • Slovenia
  • Croatia

Let me know!

I’m going to Minneapolis!

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

Excellent news! My paper, ‘Measuring research changes in Geographic Information Systems using Latent Semantic Analysis’ has been accepted into the 2008 summer assembly of the UCGIS (University Consortium of Geographic Information Science) in Minneapolis, Minnesota, June 23-24. The winning prize? A trip to Minneapolis! In the summertime! Which is still cold but friendly. :) ucgis-logo2.gif

Photos From Boston

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

I went to Boston over the last week to visit my friend Scott, attend the Association of American Geographers 2008 meeting, and climb Purgatory Chasm.