More on my recent travels a bit later, if I'm not chased off the PC by my parents, but I am here in Oklahoma City now, land of the Will Rogers Airport, the Cowboy Museum, and sprawling ranch houses with decor tinged with eighties Miami Vice minus the color. Yeah, that last bit describes the house in which my parents currently live. It needs some work. They've acknowledged that fact. I just hope they can remove all the mirrors without causing too much damage...

This place is one wiiiiiide open landscape. The problem is, I can't get the things that were said years ago by a visiting lecturer at the college adjacent to the one I went to out of my head. A fellow experienced in the whole grind of getting public art proposals off the paper and out into the world was asked about the process as it relates to memorials. He brought up the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building as an example and said that one of the biggest forms of cruel irony was that Ryder rental's headquarters were in Oklahoma City, with a spinning Ryder truck atop their building. "Their memorial's right there, if you think about it," he said.

Knowing what I know now, I'm horrified by the example he gave and the way he thought about how the dead ought to be remembered. I'm glad the city didn't take his cue, thanks very much.

Check the plan and take a virtual tour here.

I can't tell you how much I wish this country could have learned more lessons from this tragedy.