Fort Worth Western Currency Facility

After a very quiet Thanksgiving, it was time to get out on the road and get some museum time in. For some time we had been kicking around the idea of checking out the Bureau of Engraving and Printing Office (BEP) in Fort Worth. Also known as the Western Currency Facility, it is the place where the U.S. Treasury makes paper money for the states west of the Mississipi. There are only two facilities that produce paper money, Washington, D.C. and Fort Worth, Texas. As it turned out, the BEP is celebrating 150 years of printing money for the Feds.

The Western Currency Facility was completed in 1991. It’s BIG! 104,000 square feet of production area (12 acres) sitting on a 100 acre plot donated by the City of Fort Worth. A Visitor Center was added in 2004. This baby has some serious security surrounding the grounds and within the facility itself. Double fences greet you with a “no man’s land” between the wire with lots of lasers running in between to catch movement. There motto is "The Buck Starts Here"....very catchy.

When you exit your car, you hear a greeting message on the PA telling you not to bring any electronic devices into the facility. No cell phones, cameras, pagers, guns, knives, bombs, lions, tiger and bears (Oh, My!). So, sorry, no photos from the high-tech, cutting-edge Rocks in my Sandals camera on this trip. These guys don’t fool around. While we were there, a pizza delivery guy brought several boxes of pizza in. They were taken by one of the armed Treasury cops, inspected and run through the x-ray machine. Wow. I suppose you can form C-4 into anything I guess. Really good tip….go view the video in the theatre before you start your walking tour. It will answer a lot of questions along the way.

Since 1861, Congress has tasked the BEP in the making of financial instruments and legal tender for the United States. It has its origins in legislation enacted to help fund the Civil War. Prior to that, just about any other bank or financial institution could print its own money or securities making the money supply unstable and full of counterfeit cash. By 1862, BEP was producing currency, revenue stamps, government obligations, and other security documents. In 1877, the BEP became the sole producer of all United States currency. BEP was also produced military “script” currency beginning in WWII. The last military currency was made for the Vietnam War. They’ve also produced some foreign currency as well.

Although the BEP has been producing all the printed-paper for the Federal agencies, in recent years, they have been the victims of outsourcing.  They no longer produce postage stamps, Savings Bonds or Treasury Securities (Securities are no longer on paper...they're all electronic now). They just make money and lots of it. And don’t use the word “dollars” when describing their product; you will be quickly corrected to use the word “notes”.

While we were there, they were producing 100-dollar bills. There is a push to do so because the old 100-dollar bills were being taken out of circulation to be replaced with the new generation of secure 100-dollar bills with all the enhanced security features we see on the newer 5s and 20s. The BEP has really put a lot of effort in securing the US money supply against counterfeiting. From watermarks, color-shifting inks, printing patterns, off-center portraits, security threads and a cool low-vision image of the currency value which helps seniors and the sight-challenged to identify the denomination better.

A common question is who picks the faces for our paper money. By law, the Secretary of the Treasury is responsible for the selection of the designs, including the portraits, which appear on paper currency.

The portraits currently appearing on the various denominations of paper currency were adopted in 1929 when the size of the notes was reduced. Prior to the adoption of this smaller sized currency, a special committee was appointed by the Secretary of the Treasury to study this aspect of the design. It was determined that portraits of Presidents of the United States have a more permanent familiarity in the minds of the public than any others. The traditional green color on the back of our money ("green back") was originally to thwart the black and white photography technology of the Civil War years to stop counterfeiting. There is primarily black ink on the front of the note.

This decision was somewhat altered by the Secretary of the Treasury to include Alexander Hamilton, who was the first Secretary of the Treasury; Salmon P. Chase, who was Secretary of the Treasury during the Civil War and is credited with promoting our National Banking System; and Benjamin Franklin, who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. By law, only the portrait of a deceased individual may appear on U.S. currency and securities.

Interesting fact is that there is about $669 Billion in currency in circulation at any one time. The Western Currency Facility runs 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and 365 days a year and produces about 17 million notes a day or (depending on the value of the notes in the run) about $42 Million an hour for a total of about $1 Billion dollars. They produce on average 5 Billion notes or about $298 Billion a year. About 95% replaces old currency and about 5% is new money.

 

 

Each currency note printed here at the Fort Worth facility has small letters "FW" written on the right hand bottom or the top.

 

The largest note ever printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing was the $100,000.00 Gold Certificate,  Series 1934. These notes were printed from December 18, 1934, through January 9, 1935, and were issued by the Treasurer of the United States to Federal Reserve Banks only against an equal amount of gold bullion held by the Treasury. The notes were used for transactions between Federal Reserve Banks and were not circulated among the general public.

 

The printing process is called “Intaglio” (pronounced In-tal-ee-o). The BEP has a very talented staff of engravers who cut very fine marks into metal plates. If you look at your dollar note you will see the images are not straight continuous lines but a series of dots and dashes (the recessed grooves are only 2/1000 (0.002) of an inch deep). In the printing process, the plates are put into these very large automated printers where the plates are initially coated with ink; the excess ink is scraped off leaving only ink within the little dots and dashes. Then a sheet of paper is layed over the plate as a roller presses with the force of 20 tons. This infuses the ink to the paper leaving a slightly raised image on the paper you can feel with your fingers.

 

BEP uses an offset printing process. The paper is produced by the Crane Paper Company and has been the sole source to the BEP since 1879. It’s ordinary paper that consumers use throughout their everyday life such as newspapers, books, cereal boxes, etc, is primarily made of wood pulp. A sheet of paper holds 32 bills and comes already with the notes watermark and security thread imbedded in the paper. The paper is 75% cotton and 25% linen. The face is done first (front Intaglio). You wait three days to dry and then the back is done (back Intaglio). Each phase prints four features.

 

Three more days and then they go to the COPE-Pak presses. The acronym COPE-Pak stands for Currency Overprinting Processing Equipment and Packaging. This press takes the 32 sheet and reduces it to a 16-subject printed and examined sheet of currency. It adds the two serial numbers, the black universal Federal Reserve seal, the green Department of the Treasury seal, and the corresponding Federal Reserve identification numbers then cuts them to single notes. All along the way, there are computers digitizing each note to determine quality and automatically rejects note sheets that don’t make the grade. There are also master printers doing random checks as well.

In the Visitor Center, there was a cool demonstration of the Intaglio process on an original  “Spider Press” built back in 1901.

The COPE machine then stacks 4000 single notes into a “brick”, four “bricks” make a “cash pack” (16,000 notes). Forty packs (640,000 notes) make a “skid” and two “skids” make a completed pallet for shipping to a Federal Reserve Bank. So…if they were the $100 dollar bills we saw being produced, we’d be looking at $128,000,000 million per pallet. As we looked down from the elevated walkway, we could see a virtual sea of shrink-wrapped pallets ready for pickup at the back end of the warehouse for delivery to one of the  one of the 4 western Federal Reserve Banks.

Each Federal Reserve Bank makes an order for bank notes once a year at the beginning of the Federal Fiscal Year in October for the entire year. The BEP then produces that amount and delivers to all 12 banks. The Fort Worth facility primarily serves the Dallas, Kansas City and San Francisco Federal Reserve Banks.

So….you might ask yourself…self, how can they continuously make new notes 24/7 all year long. Well, while the BEP is cranking out notes, an equivalent number of notes are being destroyed everyday by the respective Federal Reserve Banks. They bring in, from their commercial bank customers old, damaged and outdated bills and destroy them. This allows a constant flow of new notes to be produced and keeps the money supply stable.

That begs the question as to when do the notes they produce actually become legal tender. Only after the Federal Reserve Bank releases the money from their bank does it officially become “monetized” and able to be spent. Who knew?

Fun time for me (the wife even took away something from she’s still traumatized from being unable to constantly update Facebook while on the tour) so now I’m itching to take the tour of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank.

6th Floor Museum

October and November were busy times at the Saraceni winter residence. We were fortunate enough to have some friends and family visit (for the first time since we arrived in 2006…..you all know who you are out there, except you Dana). Our long-time friend Dennis came in October, a former partner of mine Al and his wife Pam and my (much older) sister in November. It did give us a chance to do the touristy thing and show off our wonderful part of the state.

For many years, my wife and Dennis were major “Dallas” TV show fans so his request was a visit to South Fork Ranch to go through the museum and property. We had been to South Fork before and it always strikes me as a shrine built for our generation for a period in our lives when television began to be our escape from the reality and began to rule our lives.

The original series ran from 1978–1991 and captured the imagination of lots of folks. It has been credited with defining the future of nighttime dramas. Just about all the shows that came later used the same formula (or expanded it with the relaxation of censors) of conflict, wealth, sex, good guys and bad guys. After 357 episodes, the show departed but not for good. Two TV movies and now a new series on TNT with a younger cast mixed with original cast members continue the franchise.

The visit takes you through the glitzy museum with lots of memorabilia from the series and behind the scenes views of the cast and the making of the show. It is fun to see the photos of the young cast at the top of their game. It was mostly a trip down memory lane when I considered where or what I was doing during those times.

The tour moves to the tram ride around the ranch on the way to the house used in the exterior shots for the show. Little known fact was that the show was mostly filmed (yep…before video tape) in Hollywood. Only shots around the ranch, exteriors of the front yard, locations around Dallas, driveway and pool area were done here. Thus when you get to the house, it strikes you as being very small. This was done on purpose. Through a little photographic trickery, the house was made to look much bigger and grander. Today....it’s kind of a rundown 4700 sq ft home still in the 70’s when it was built.

After a brief lecture on the history of the house and series by a lovely young tour guide (who, by the way, was an infant when the show aired), you are allowed to wander around the interior which has a theme room dedicated to each one of the main characters. Let’s not forget…they never acted or filmed in any of these rooms….it’s just fluff to balance out the tour.

 

The best part of the visits for me was that all of them wanted to see the 6th Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza in Dallas. The museum resides on floors six and seven of what was the Texas School Book Depository building. The building started out as the Southern Rock Island Plow Company. Built in 1903 it was used to build farm implements. Southern Rock sold the building and the new owner leased it to the Texas School Depository who converted it into a warehouse in 1963 with the iconic "Hertz" rental billboard on it's roof. The lower five floors make up the Dallas County Administration Center.

 

I’m not a conspiracy theorist or someone who relishes in the death of others but the JFK assassination was a pivotal moment for most Americans (like Oliver Stone) and, for me, a window into the politics and subsequent directions America took in the following years.

When we took my sister there, we really lucked out in that a couple of eye witnesses were there to give a talk in the “Meet the Museum” lecture series on the 7^th floor of the museum, which was opened in 2002. The museum is part of the Dallas County Historical Society and often has various guest lecturers speak on the events of that 22^nd day of November in 1963.

When there are no lectures, the southeast corner window is one floor above the window Oswald fired from and gives an excellent view of the roadway Oswald would have seen on the day of the shooting. You can plainly see the two white painted Xs in the center lane of Elm Street where the two shots struck the President. The sixth floor has a glass enclosure surrounding the sixth floor window and surrounding stacks of book boxes as it would have appeared on November 22^nd, 1963.

The lecture involved the observations of Bill and Gayle Newman. You all have seen Bill and Gayle. They are the subject of one of the most iconic photos of the assassination. That’s the 22 year olds Bill and Gayle shielding their children at the base of the grassy knoll as the shots rang out.

Here we are 49 years later and Bill and Gayle are (like us) older and wiser. They have been the subjects of documentaries and have traveled all over the world to meet or be interviewed by researchers producing books or movies about the assassination. Bill commented that he always knows what conspiracy theory the interviewer subscribes to because when they take Bill’s picture, if he has his back to the 6^th floor window they believe in the single shooter theory. If his back is to the grassy knoll or white picket fence, they believe in one of the multiple shooter theories.

 

Each gave a brief description of what they saw that day. They were, after all, probably the closest people to the shooting in Dealey Plaza that day. Gayle was a little quieter and gave few details but Bill was more practiced and gave a more graphic description. She did say, of all the movies and documentaries they have been involved in, Gayle said her favorite was working with Oliver Stone’s movie where she got to meet Kevin Costner (lots of eye rolling from Bill on that one).

They were just passed the freeway sign (which is no longer there) on the north curb line where the first round struck the President and then they were almost abreast of the limousine as the second shot hit the President in the head. As Bill spoke, you could see the event still affects him to this day. He had that 10,000-yard stare a person gets when they’re reliving a significant moment in time.

At one point, his voice cracked as he described seeing the back of the Presidents head explode into a red and white mist throwing the President into the lap of his terrified wife. Gayle recalled seeing Jackie climb out onto the rear deck retrieving a portion of the President’s skull as a Secret Service agent Clint Hill climbed up and pushed her back into her seat.

At that point, Bill called out to Gayle to get on the ground to shield their two boys. At that moment, Johnny Flynn of the Dallas Morning News took the shot. Also at that moment, several photographers ran up on them and also took photos. One reporter for WFAA (the ABC affiliate in Dallas) asked them what they saw. Realizing they were eyewitnesses to the shooting, he corralled the whole family and drove them to the studio and got them on the air to tell what they saw. They have been in great demand ever since.

One of the things that gave them notoriety in the conspiracy theory community was the fact that Bill made the comment that, initially, he stated he thought the shots come from behind him (the grassy knoll). Since then, Bill feels the results of all the credible researchers and the results of the two Federal investigations (the Warren Commission in 1963 and the Select Committee on Assassinations in 1979) are correct and there was only one shooter.

Interestingly, although they were interviewed several times by the FBI and investigators for both assassination investigations and participated in a couple of reenactments for those investigations they were never called to testify.

 

As we left the 7^th floor to return downstairs to the 6^th Floor Museum, we walked by two large images of John F. Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy hanging on a wall. As you walk by, you realize the portraits are actually made up of tiny images of each other. JFKs was pixilated, if you will, by images of Jackie and Jackie was made up of JFK portrait images by Alex Guofeng Cao. Pretty cool.

 



You can’t take photos of the 6^th Floor exhibits (oh…and according to a very angry docent I met, the lecture series on the 7^th floor either…oops) but many describe the lead up to and aftermath of the President’s visit to Dallas. The trip was to shore up support of conservative Southern Democrats who weren’t enamored by Kennedy’s liberal policies in anticipation of the 1964 elections. There’s where the conspiracy theories start. It ran the gamut from the Military-Industrial complex seeking more military involvement in Southeast Asia, eastern Europe, Central and South America, organized crime’s dislike of Robert Kennedy’s investigation of the mob, to Cuban revolutionaries. The list is endless.

 

Book Depository today

7th floor view of Elm St

 

But many of the displays inexorably capture, through videos and photographs, the events of November 22^nd . They even have a display of all the different types of movie and still cameras that were used that day to record the event. From an old Polaroid Land Camera belonging to Mary Moorman to the Bell and Howell Model 414 PD Zoomatic Director Series 8mm Camera Zapruder used.

A great place to relive history and get a little more of an unbiased (well unless you feel the Museum is a Government front to distribute misinformation to propagate the single shooter theory…) perspective of the assassination. Once outside, as you walk around the plaza, you can start matching up what you saw to the actual scene. If you seem lost, expect one of the many conspiracy theorists floating around the plaza to offer up their interpretation of the events for you. They have lots of company. In 2003 a Gallup poll found that three-quarters of Americans said they think more than one man was involved in Kennedy's assassination. Only 19% of Americans think it was the work of one individual. One thing was clear, time will not end the continuing controversy nor does it appear it will ever be explained or resolved.

The Newseum

After being bowled over by the grandeur of the National Cathedral, we got into the rental and made our way across town to Pennsylvania Ave. and the Newseum. We had to scurry over because; little known fact, just about every Federal Building and museum closes at 5 p.m. It was already a little before two when we got in the area and pulled into a public parking garage on 7^th and E streets.

Unfortunately, neither my colleague Tonia nor I had eaten since our breakfast at the Mark Center Hilton. It may be a Texas thing, but Tonia has neither a passion for or interest in eating Mexican or bar-b-que. As we walked from the car garage those seemed to be the only offerings within view. We turned up 7^th toward F Street. On the east side, we caught a sign for Carmines Italian Family Style  dining.

With the lunch hour long gone, we had the place to ourselves as we were seated (when I Googled the place, I found a photo of President Obama preparing to dine in the same section we were at). We turned to the menu, which had a great selection of traditional Italian fare ala Buca De Beppo. Problem was, like Buca, it was large portion family style. We were mobile and didn’t have any place to put the doggie bags but our server reported we were within the last 15 minutes of the lunch menu and could get anything they had in lunch portions. We both decided to get the spaghetti and meatballs for two.

After deciding to go to the National Cathedral, that was the second best decision we had made that day. The platter that came out had a more than ample supply of spaghetti with a sweet and rich tomato sauce topped with the densest meatballs I’ve had in a long time. The meatballs were a combination of beef, lamb and pork. I assured Tonia this would not be a “Lady and the Tramp” moment and we would most likely be sharing that third meatball. Wow!

 

Ridiculously full (no we did not do dessert); with time passing us by, we quickly walked the three blocks to the Newseum right on Pennsylvania Avenue. Just down the street from the Capitol Dome and next door to the Canadian Embassy, the Newseum is a depository of the history of newsgathering from the earliest days of our country.

The Newseum is sponsored by most of the major news outlets; ABC, Cox, News Corp, Hearst and Bloomberg are founding members and big time contributors. The Newseum’s mission is to educate the public about the value of a free press in a free society and telling the stories of the world's important events in unique and engaging ways.

We had less than two hours to rush through the six floors of the museum so the thoughtful folks at the Newseum put together a two-hour “highlight”  tour to hit the high points if you’re short on time. But, you miss out on the four theatre experiences on media bias, the press and Hollywood, the First Amendment, the press and the civil rights movement.

The Newseum takes pride in the ever-changing exhibits and displays (like the industry and history). What was very surprising to me was the amount of physical items on display from major world events specifically the events of 9/11. There were personal stories of many of the big name and not so big name reporters relating their experiences and especially photos of that time. There is even the mangled piece of antenna mast that stood atop the North Tower of the World Trade Center alongside huge copies of 127 newspaper headlines taken from the following day.

There is an eight-piece section of the Berlin Wall you can walk up to and touch. There was a section dedicated to the press and the FBI where they have some artifacts from the Hoover days and parts of two jet engines that were recovered from the World Trade Center dig. The shoes the Richard Reid, the Shoe Bomber, tried to set off onboard that Christmas 2001 Northwest flight. One of the 300 guns recovered from the Branch Dividian Compund in Waco. They even have the cabin where Unabomber Ted Kaczynski lived and was captured in rural Montana.

 

 

While on the sixth floor, you can walk out onto the outdoor terrace for a grand view of the Capitol Building and most of Pennsylvania Ave where the Inaugural Parade happens when the Presidents walk (or drive) their way back to the White House every four years.

 

 

I have to say, beside the 9/11 displays, my favorite part was the section which had examples of all the Pulitzer Prize journalistic photos and an exhibit of Presidential photographers.



There was a section dedicated to President Obama’s official photographer, Pete Souza. There was a particularly moving behind-the-scenes shot of the President in a not so private moment with his wife back stage at the Inaugural Ball in 2009. The First Lady stands in front of the President wearing his coat with her formal gown tucked, in warding off the cold.

 

 

Although we ran through the place, I came away with a deep appreciation for how the news industry does their job. They are the people we love to hate and rarely are glad to see because their presence usually means bad things are happening. But, if you believe in Democracy and all that entails, you must appreciate that a true Democracy cannot survive without a free press to give meaning to the word “transparency” and hold everyone, especially governments; accountable to the people they affect every day.

I love Tom Hanks

My Tom Hanks who made the top of my all-time favorite actor list when he did "Saving Private Ryan".

Watch here as Tom shows his true versatility doing a "Slam Poem" to memorialize the Sitcom "Full House" on Jimmy Kimmel's show:

Return to DC (sorry)

Ok...I must report on a new adventure in the nations capitol. It wasn't my fault, I was forced to attend another meeting with our grant partners CNA in Alexandria, Virginia. CNA is the TTA (Training and Technical Assistance) provider for our Smart Policing Initiative  grant.They organized a meeting and one-day conference as a replacement site audit by the US DOJ and their Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) to do a first year assessment of our activities on our two-year grant.

They normally would have come to us in Frisco except after the $16 dollar muffin fiasco earlier this year, Congress cut off DOJs travel budget and they were forced to have the grantees (that would be us) come to them. Oh, well...road trip!

The conference meeting went according to plan...you know, lots of Power Point presentations and suspiciously similar paper handouts to follow. But the DOJ audit meeting would be a little different. The "team" consisted of our Department Grant Administrator, Tonia, researcher, Dr. John of UTD (Go Horns), and I matched against two members of BJA. We were supposed to bring our SPI officer Chad but he had prescheduled a church mission to apply paint to a church in Honduras during that same week. Really, I'm not kidding.

Tonia had decided to bring the site to them so we made a 5 minute video presentation and a slew of handouts to present our case. All told the video was a hit and we got recognition for being the only site to have a "Presentation" for the audit team to watch. Cudos all around.

Having lived through that, we had built in an afternoon of sightseeing on our last full day. Tonia picked the National Cathedral and I picked (of course) the Newseum on Pennsylvania Ave. I must say, I wish I had thought of the National Cathedral on our May trip, we could have spent all day there. It's on the list for next time.

The neogothic cathedral, actually the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, was conceived by the seven Episcopal Bishops of DC after a charter was passed by Congress in 1893. Religion has always been a part of the American experience since the founding of America. So much so that three days before George Washington took the oath of office as the first president of the United States, Congress passed the following resolution:

Resolved, That after the oath shall have been administered to the President, he, attended by the Vice President and members of the Senate and House of Representatives, shall proceed to St. Paul’s Chapel (in New York City) , to hear divine service. (Annals of Congress, Vol. 1, p. 25, April 27, 1789). Once the National Cathedral was built, many of those inaugural prayer sessions have taken place at the National Cathedral.

Although Congress felt America needed a "National House of Prayer", the cathedral is wholly owned and operated by the Episcopal Church and has no connection with the federal government (that would be illegal). In the past, they have accepted grants and funding for special projects.

Started in September 29, 1907, with the laying of the corner stone by President Teddy Roosevelt, it wasn't completed until September 29, 1990 under President H.W. Bush (#41), a total of 83 years. "Completed" is not the right word in that the designers and worshipers had always maintained that the church will constantly evolve over time and never be finished.

Fourteen Presidents have had their funerals there, from McKinley in 1901 to Gerald Ford in 2007. But only one, Woodrow Wilson is buried there. The only other notable persons buried within the church are Helen Keller and her two companions, Anne Sullivan and Polly Thompson.

There are so many beautiful things within it's walls, there is no way I can describe them all or at length. Your eyes would roll back and I'd never get you to read my blog again. So I'll just hit the high points I saw.

 

The main Nave (the main floor of a church) is flanked on both sides by "bays". Each bay is dedicated to something in American history or experience. There are bays to the military, the Presidents, the wars and important events in history. One of these is where President Wilson is buried. His is typical of the theme bays. On the front is a record of his accomplishments. The symbols in front are his home state of New Jersey, his Presidency and his Presidency of Princeton University. The window is titled "War and Peace" for his term as President during WWI and his efforts at starting the United Nations.

Over the years, the cathedral was built one bay at a time from front to back. Our tour guide, a wonderful quiet spoken lady senior, recalls joining the choir in 1923 and watching the progress of construction as the church grew in proportions over the years she's attended there.The sides of the church contain upper and lower stained glass windows towering over the Nave. Many are depictions of religious events as well as the stations of the cross. Each with it's own message rise up to 35 feet tall.

In honor of the Apollo 11 flight and landing on the moon, there is a stained glass window that houses a piece of moon rock known as the "Space Window." It was donated by Dr. Thomas O. Paine, NASA's administrator during the Apollo 11 mission, and designed by St. Louis artist Rodney Winfield.Whirling stars and orbiting planets are depicted in orange, red and white on a deep blue and green field. The moon rock is in the center of a red ball representing the Moon, which is now encased in an air-tight, nitrogen-filled capsule in the window. The moon rock is a basalt, probably from a lava flow.

 

Lewis and Clark

Robert E. Lee

Stonewall Jackson

There's one to Lewis and Clark (nope, not Sacagawea), Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson. Suffice to say, photos cannot do them justice. You have to see them for yourself. An added bonus is by looking down the sides of the Cathedral. Because each bay's window is a different theme and color, looking down the bays from the front or back of the church, each bay reflects it's predominent color onto the upper reaches of the ceilings creating a rainbow effect of soft blues, greens, yellows and pinks. Again, my photos cannot express the beauty of the interior or the magnificent stained glass windows of the church.

 

It's made harder by the hanging of a mesh across the entire ceiling which partially obscures the upper windows. Recall that in 2011, an earthquake struck the DC and surrounding area which not only damaged memorials in DC proper but also causing some decorative features like the National Cathedral spires to fall to the grounds below. Although still structurally sound, some of the joint mortar broke loose and fell so the mesh remains until the joints can be inspected and filled.

The pulpit was carved out of stones from Canterbury Cathedral. The high altar, The Jerusalem Altar, is made from stones quarried at Solomon's Quarry near Jerusalem, reputedly where the stones for Solomon's Temple were quarried. In the floor directly in front of that altar are set ten stones from the Chapel of Moses on Mount Sinai, representing the Ten Commandments as a foundation for the Jerusalem Altar.The carved stone screen (or Reredos ) behind the altar, called the Ter Sanctus (Thrice Holy) Reredos is, except for the central image of Jesus Christ, carved from limestone quarried at Caen, in Normandy, France.

 

By the time they got to doing the central piece of Jesus, they ran out of the special French quarried stone so Texas came to the rescue and the central image of Jesus is carved in a brighter, yellow-er Texas limestone. Surrounding the altar are the figures of 110 men and women in various poses. Recall that all this was hand carved on special stones....no pressure for the carvers, there were no "do-overs" if they messed up.

Kneeling pillows are hand sewn by church members depicting historic events and famous people. All activities from flower arrangers, to bell ringers and tour guides are volunteers who work tirelessly to maintain the church for parishoners, tourists and guests.

 

The cathedral happens to be the highest point in DC (central tower is 301 feet) and taking the elevator to the 7th floor Pilgrim Observation Gallery gets you a panaramic view of the entire DC area all the way to Virginia and Maryland. It overlooks the U.S. Naval Observatory where the Vice-President lives, that's Joe's house at the far left of the photo.

My photos cannot reflect the scale of the place either, check out the stats:

Length (outside): 517' 8"
Length (inside): 457' 8" (a tenth of a mile!)
Width (outside across the nave aisles): 142' 6"
Height of central tower: 301' 3" (30 stories!)
Height of nave (inside): 102' 6" (10 stories!)
Total area: 83,012 sq. ft.
Weight of the entire Cathedral: 150,000 tons of Indiana Limestone
Heaviest single stone: 5.5 tons
Total years of construction: 83
Number of stained glass windows: 231
Number of gargoyles: 112
Number of angels: 288

The recurring theme of the Cathedral is that it mirrors American values and culture. As an example, in the 1980s, while the west towers were under construction, Washington National Cathedral held a decorative sculpture competition for children. Word of the competition was spread nationwide through National Geographic World Magazine. The third-place winner was Christopher Rader, with his drawing of that fearful villain, Darth Vader and placed high upon the northwest tower of the Cathedral. What's more American than a Star Wars figure decorating a National Place of Worship?  Really cool place, put it on your list if you ever get there.

Shuttle Endeavor comes to LA

Ok...I'm not endorsing the Toyota Company (although I drive a 4 Runner) but this is a pretty cool video they did for their sponsorship of the move to the California Science Center in Los Angeles.

 

And here is the California Flyover:

 

 

Last Flight for the Shuttle Endeavour

For you lucky Bastards in California who get your very own Shuttle to see and visit, here is how they got that thing onto the back of the NASA 747. Known as the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), Flying with the additional drag and weight of the Orbiter imposes significant fuel and altitude penalties. The range was reduced from an unladen range of 5,500 nautical miles to down to 1,000 nautical miles. Meaning lots of refueling stops just to get from coast to coast.

Most people shutter to think whether the 747 can hold and lift something the size of the Shuttle. Not so tough if you know the Shuttle weighs a paltry 172,000 lbs empty and a typical 747 can lift a payload of 247,000 lbs into the air. The SCA is no Trump jet in that, except for a few seats still in the first class deck, the rest of the aircraft has been stripped of wall panels and even insulation to keep the weight down. Way too noisy to hear the in-flight movie or your iPod.

Shuttle Carrier N905NA was used to ferry the retired Shuttles to their respective museums. It retired to the Dryden Flight Research Facility at Edwards Air Force Base in California after a short flight from Los Angeles International Airport on September 24, 2012. It now joins N911NA as a source of spare parts for NASA's SOFIA aircraft.

 

 

Here is one of the mounting points where they connect the Shuttle to the 747. Note the bit of NASA humor in the mounting instructions:

 

 

Here is the listing the number of ferry and free flights, in Silhouette, of the various Orbiters and the Phantom Ray on the port side of the SCA:



Mustangs of Las Colinas

In the early 1970s, Dallas businessman Ben H. Carpenter converted his family ranch into a residential and business development called “Las Colinas”. Carpenter wanted the center piece of this commercial development to be a larger-than-life sculpture of a group of wild mustangs fording across a stream.

 

As many of you may know, there are no native horses to North America. All the horse breeds we have are derived from those horses brought to the New World by the early explorers. Mustangs, in particular, were Iberian horses brought by the Spanish. A lot of cross breeding has occurred over the years but they draw their lineage from the original Iberians. The Iberian horse is a title given to a number of horse breeds native to the Iberian peninsula (Spain, Portugal). At present, no less than 18 horse breeds are officially recognized.

Iberian horses are thought to be one of the oldest types of domesticated horses. Modern Iberian breeds tend to be of a Baroque horse type that resemble their most famous member, the Andalusian horse, in “conformation” (the degree of correctness of a horse's bone structure, musculature, and its body proportions in relation to each other).

In 1976, Mr. Carpenter commissioned African wildlife artist Robert Glen to bring his vision to reality. Glen spent a year researching and studying the history of the mustangs to better understand his subject. For his sculpture, Mr. Glen discovered a line of horse with the same pure bloodlines in Southern Spain. He used these horses as the models for his sculpture.

Working from his studio in Nairobi, Kenya, Glen made scale models of mustangs in various poses to help him work out the design of the sculpture. He then made ½-life-size models of the horses. For the next step in the process, Glen made life-size fiberglass molds of these models and shipped them to a foundry in England.

 

After an elaborate course of creating positive and negative molds, the foundry completed the bronze casting in November 1981. The mustangs were shipped by air from England to Irving, Texas, and after the intricate procedure of mounting the figures, the Mustangs of Las Colinas sculpture was dedicated on September 25, 1984.

The plaza itself is massive (rather stark really) and sits in the center of a three building complex known as Williams Square on N. O’Connor Blvd. in Irving, Texas. Some of you may recall seeing the plaza and sculpture from a recent Travel Channel documentary for the opening of the new TNT Dallas series. The plaza and sculpture were depicted in an episode from the original CBS series.
 

 
The sculpture consists of nine horses in a line as if galloping through a stream bed. The running water of the stream cascades down into a steeper canyon formed from granite tiles. The canyon has steps for sitting right down to the edge of the stream where one can sit and dip their feet in the cool water. Must be a great place for workers and visitors to take a nice relaxing lunch.