Girl in a Fountain

This post is a mixture of dream images, hard truths and wild speculation.

Dream Images will be color coded in blue text.

Hard Truths will be color coded in gray text.

Wild Speculation will be color coded in pink text.

I no longer worked for Science City at Union Station but that didn't stop the nightmares.
I should have fixed the fountain before I was laid off. Dave Kramer my boss wouldn't let me outsource the fix and I couldn't do it in shop without risking my own life. I tossed and turned in my sleep worrying about the children. I had the big two inch thick sheet of plastic on the table saw four or five times but if it bound up it would kick back and possibly kill me. I should have paid out of my own pocket and had it done with a wet saw.

In my dream I was at the fountain floating above it. A little girl fell through grid floor and laid dead of a broken neck in the water beneath the floor. A floor held up by two tiny blocks of plastic too short to be safe.

"It's not my fault, I don't work there anymore."

The three angels came to me.

The Child Angel couldn't tell the differences between life and death.

The Injured Angel had no emotions and had trouble speaking.

The Old Man Angel seemed to be the leader.

The Old Man Angel spoke to me; "Only you can stop this."

"How can I stop this? I couldn't change anything when I was there."

" You moved the picnic table and the bike rack when parents tripped over those obstacles and got hurt."

Said the Old Angel.

"You got the ladder removed from Space Station exhibit when children fell from it and got hurt."

Said the Child Angel.

"The car, the doors, you closed down the car exhibit when children fingers were smashed. You stopped that."

Said the Injured Angel.

"You ask too much. I know these ego mad people they care for only being right and nothing more."

I said this but my words were hollow.

"Only you can stop this." Said the Elder Angel as I fell into hell.

I fell deep into the darkest pit of my soul. Designer Demons created from my own sins swirled around me waiting to feed on my deepest fears. I fell faster and deeper as the Child Angel came near me.

"I am you as a young child. Let me be one with you again and I will give you purity of imagination to do battle against great evil."

With those words the Child Angel became one with me and my decent into hell slowed.

Then the Injured Angel came to me and spoke.

"I am you in a moment of death. You may search for words you can not find in your broken mind but with me you have infinity imagination to do battle with great evil. Let me be one with you again."

The Injured Angel became one with me and my decent into hell stopped.

The Old Angel came to me and spoke.

"I am you in old age. I can give you wisdom to know when to use purity of imagination and when to us the imagination of the infinite. Let me be one with you for the first time."

The Old Angel became one with me and I became a being of pure light. The demons around me burned in the the light and returned to the nothing from which they came. I ascended to the upper heights of my soul to look down on the dark vision of the Girl in a Fountain. For that moment in my dream hell owned no part of my soul.

I floated above the old waiting room of Union Station Kansas City and a family of three came towards the fountain. The little girl of two or three ran towards the fountain but the fountain with its dangerous hidden defect disappeared and she ran on pink marble floor where the fountain once was. I had chanced the future in that moment and the little girl would grow up and know love and marriage and have children. She would have a full life and know her grandchildren and great grandchildren.

In a moment I would wake and doubt would fill me with fear. These ego driven elite would fight me in a secret war of wits but in my dream I was a being of pure light. I would win all the battles but lose the war. If I could save only one child then whatever happen to me would be worth it.

Next on this post is the true story of my war of wits with the power elite of Kansas City Mo.
More to come....

I had made a vow to myself never to go back to Union Station Kansas City Missouri but I knew I had to break that vow if I was going to get the fountain removed. There were 17 dangerous exhibits beside the fountain and I knew it would be easier to get these exhibits removed before the three million dollar fountain. At the time my friend Richard Hirsch was still working at Union Station and he was feeding me information about what was going on.

Richard told me about a couple of artists running something new called Project InSECT.

"I'm not going to set foot in Union Station Richard, nothing good can come out of that place."

"You've got to see this Robert, the artist is painting a giant praying mantis and her partner is like magic to the children."

This was my reason to go back but how was I going to force Union Station Inc. to remove that fountain? I thought about Mike Smith a former manager of mine, telling me about two children falling through the fountain floor on two separate days. One of those children was taken to Children Mercy Hospital and given stitches in his leg from a nasty gash from falling through the fountain floor. Children and adults could enter the lower level of the fountain and the streams of water through the entrance would shut off as people walked into the center and start up again in a few seconds.

Children thought you could start and stop the water streams by stomping on the rubber mat floor but in truth all this did was shift the two tiny plastic blocks over that held the floor up. An electronic beam tripped the fountain jets.

I walked into Project InSECT on the parking level of Union Station in the old Nature's Critters storefront. It was pure magic! As a adult I seldom saw the soul colors around people but Jessa had a yellow glow with streaks of blue and James a blue green glow that turned yellow on the edges when he was around children. I told them both how great they were and how they would be world famous someday. They were a free exhibit and the children and the parents loved them. Science City was part of Union Station Kansas City and was a multimillion dollar exhibit space but it could not compete with two artists pulling themselves up by their bootstraps.

"Mommy, I don't want to go to Science City. I like it here."

I heard this hundreds of times and saw many of these children return in 20 minutes with their parents.

"They didn't like Science City and begged to come back here."

Said many a parent that returned with their children not only the same day but keep coming back. For a time I believed I was wrong about the fountain, after all it was only a dream. I was happy to be in the beautiful glow of Project InSECT.

Then the folks at Union Station got jealous and started playing dirty tricks on the folks at Project InSECT. Turning the lights on and advertising they would be at Union Station when they were at the Kansas City Zoo instead of Union Station just to name two things. Along the same time Phil Kline of U.S. Toy Magic shop fame asked me to help him work on a movie about corruption in Kansas City. After saying no a hundred times I said yes. A video camera was going to make that fountain go away.

In a town hall meeting where Turner White CEO of Union Station was explaining why new taxes were needed, I asked questions and choked when the CEO racked me over the fire of his superior intellect. The man was smarter than me but I had the truth on my side and the public turned against him. A few days later he resigned and left his office at midnight.

With Richard Hirsch I organized a protest against Union Station and with a little help from a local TV station most of the dangerous exhibit were removed.

Then I put the icing on the cake and found a honest man that talked to the bully billionaire of Kansas City and the fountain was removed after a couple years of face saving by the power elite.

I wish I could tell you this hero's name but I gave my word to keep his identity a secret until after his death.

More to come.....I was going to go into more detail in the hard truth part of this post but I felt the story would go on too long.

Well this is the wild speculation part of this post. I believe Union Station Kansas City Missouri is under a 200 year lease. My Grandmother English knew the owners of the property at one time.
As this is hear say, I have no proof. Perhaps my Grandmother was told a lie.

One of my bosses at Union Station, Mike Smith told me that Donald Hall owned Union Station.
When I asked him what he meant by that he said he couldn't say anything more except that my salary and all of Tech ops was paid by Donald Hall. Again all this is hear say and I have no proof.

The friend that introduced me to the honest man said the power elite wanted a hands off policy when it came to Union Station. Still hear say.

After I faced the CEO Turner White in a town hall meeting a man named Mark Funkhouser investigated Union Station for a year. He found no misdeeds at the old landmark and then became mayor of Kansas City. Did a billionaire with plans for Union Station help him become mayor? I don't know, just a thought.

This is my question; If you ask for States, Federal and Local taxpayers to pay to rebuild a landmark do you have the right to leave it to your family in the future? Of course this is all hear say and sometimes where there is smoke, no fire is to be found.

Next Post; Birthday Boy and the Coughing Game

Anti-Imagination

I only used it once and it was pure evil.

I worked at a evil place that had an evil contest to name an evil machine that taught children nothing. I decided to enter the contest using the most evil thing I owned.
In my mind I unwrapped the evil stupid called Anti-Imagination.

"Robert are you entering the contest?"

Said a fellow Tech Ops co-worker.

"Yes I am and there is no point to the rest of you entering this contest for I'm going to win it."

"So your name for the exhibit is that good?"

"No, its the worst possible name I could come up with."

The Water Exhibit was on the second floor of the science museum. It was the size of a pool table and the water ran down at a angle in this open box exhibit. A pump recycled the water from bottom to top. At the top pool of water the children could take plastic squares of plastic and place the dividers into grooves to create channels of water. The children then floated little boats down the exhibit.

"You're joking Robert. You have a great imagination."

"I'm not using my Imagination. I'm using Anti-Imagination.
I'm naming the exhibit the Water Maze."

All the Exhibit Techs looked at me as if I was insane. A few at the morning meeting laughed.

"Robert that's the lamest name, you can't summit that. You're known for having a great imagination."

"We live in the age of the No-Talents and great imaginations are out of step with the times.
You'll see I'm right when I win."

The three headed monster came into the meeting room. I'd like to say our three managers were named Larry, Moe and Curly but our managers weren't that smart. We all handed our contest entries in. No one told the three headed monster about my little joke on upper management.

It was time to put the icing on the cake on this over the top practical joke. I made an excuse to go talk to someone in upper management. I told a person in management my name for the exhibit making sure it was over heard by many in the office. I knew I would have a tie with someone in management then.

The day came to name the winner of the contest.

"We have a tie as two entries were the same name!"

Said the Corporate Cow-town Clown.

I can't remember the name of the manager that tied with me but I do remember how loud and long all people in my department laughed. The management looked shocked but I didn't laugh.
I didn't smile and I wasn't happy for I wanted to be wrong. How far has the world fallen?

The management had a meeting about my little joke and they decided never to put the name Water Maze on the exhibit. I had made them look like fools but I had only reduced myself to their level. Perhaps I was even worst than they were because I had an imagination and chose not to use it.

Within the magic of my own mind I wrapped the Stupid Evil that was Anti-Imagination and threw it into the super nova of my mind's eye. It burned into the nothing of wasted thoughts and I vowed never to recreate the stuff of evil again.

Too many people were using Anti- Imagination and I couldn't be one of them.

Lies of a Rich Man (Part Five)

I put the CCD inside the display case using the security bolts to lock the space artifact in place under plastic.

The space telescope exhibit was a traveling museum piece created by one of the most famous institutions in the United States of America.

The space telescope exhibit was a traveling piece of junk.

In a meeting of all the exhibit techs the Three Headed Monster
( Managers; Mike, Mark and Dave) decided not to turn off the computers at night that ran the space telescope exhibit.
They told us that not enough exhibit techs were familiar with the exhibit Apple Computers (The computers weren't the reason the exhibit was a piece of junk).

"Mark that's not a good idea."

"Just why is that a bad idea?"

"None of the space telescope exhibit islands have any vents on the boxes that house the computers. If you run those computers 24/7 you'll have a fire in a few weeks from the computers overheating."

"Robert, I was an officer on a nuclear submarine. I think I know more than you do about what a computer system can take."

You would think he would know better than I, with his Navy education.

I was the last person to work on the space telescope before it opened to the public. People that build museums don't know anything about how a museum operates. The space telescope exhibit needed darkness but the end of the exhibit space was a big glass wall with a glass door in the center. This wall let light shine in from a stairwell. Dave the dominate head of the three headed monster asked me if I could think of a way to block out the light.

"Sure Dave but I'll need to destroy a little history."

"What do you mean?"

"Because the Collection Department hates this Science Museum all the concept art is stored in prop storage. All the concept art is on black foam core."

"Do whatever you need to do Robert just get that glass wall looking black."

End of Part Five

Lies of a Rich Man (Part Four)

A member of my family has asked me not to finish this story. Lies of a Rich Man is a true story and I feel I must finish this story. There is a level of criminal activity in the world that no one writes about that I call Legacy Crime. Either behind a shield of lies that we call Corporations or Marxist Dogma these highest of all criminals give marching orders to all the lower forms of evil in the world.

Moshen and I had our 15 minutes of fame for saving the girl on the Bike on a Wire exhibit.
The CEO of the museum said we followed the guidelines for a rescue but that was a lie because we made it up as we went along.

The two heroes of the hour went to Human Resources to address the issue of racism and safety in the work place. Moshen a man born in Egypt had been called a terrorist by our supervisor Richard. It was a joke but it was the worst joke I ever heard on a job. I had been fighting for over a year to get 17 dangerous exhibits removed before a child was killed. Tim the man that was the head of HR lied to both of us and nothing was done about our complaints.

I knew my time was short at the museum but I was glad to get the job of putting part of a space telescope exhibit together. This traveling exhibit had real space artifacts in it and for some strange reason the props department was in charge of security of space artifacts. I was the props department.

I unpacked the most priceless of the space artifacts a CCD (Charged Coupling Device) that took some of the most famous space pictures from orbit. I keep this obsolete electric sky eye on me so there would be no chance of theft. In the past at the museum two space artifacts had been stolen but after I threaten to call the FBI the theft returned the stolen artifacts but thats another story.

I keep the CCD in my hip pocket as we assembled the display case it would fit in. One of the three managers we in Tech Ops had nicked named the Three Headed Monster came to check on the progress we made.

"Robert where is the CCD?"

"Here in my hip pocket."

I pull the CCD out of my hip pocket and turn it in my hand to show the second head of the three headed monster named Mark that I had the priceless space artifact.

"Do you think that is the best place to keep that?"

"No, I think the Collection's security vault is the best place to keep this."

"Collection's won't take it because space artifacts aren't a hundred years old."

"If this is an artifact then its not my problem as I'm in charge of props."

Mark gave me a mean look.

"As your manager I'm telling you that you are in charge of space hardware and you will find a better place to put that CCD than your hip pocket."

"No."

I put the CCD back in my hip pocket.

"What do you mean no?"

"If the last two pieces of space hardware that were stolen hadn't been returned to prop storage I could have gone to federal prison. You aren't in charge of anything now as you're in limbo without a job but collecting pay after you slammed a door on Dean our Creative Director and our CEO's buddy. Who would have stole those Shuttle Tiles but space fanatics like you or I?
I much rather be fired from this job than to go to Federal Prison for a theft I didn't do."

Mark turned red and Walked away.

End of Part Four

This story will take the rest of July to finish. To the best of my memory this story is true.
I have omitted last names and full names of people, places and exhibits to protect myself from lawsuits. This is a complex story and I thought this would be the last chapter but I feel now the story must go on.

Lies of a Rich Man (Part Three)

How many times did I try to flip the girl on the bike upright? I don't know. People were yelling and I saw six video cameras below me taping everything. I thought the closer the girl got the easier it would be but the worst it was. The aluminum pole was bending more each time I pushed down on the counterweight. Finally the bike on a wire was close enough I could grab the counterweight frame with my bare hands.

I dropped the pole and grabbed the frame of the counterweight with both hands pushing down with all the strength I had. If I didn't get the bike upright at that moment it would get hung up on two outrigger frames coming from the platform that would make it dangerous to get the girl off the bike. All my upper vertebrae popped and I felt the muscles in my back rip. I passed out.

I came to under the platform frame. Ronnie came over to me and asked if I was all right.

"My back is killing me. What happened?"

Ronnie was the nicest guy in my department and I don't think I could have stood up at that moment if he hadn't helped me. Moshen came over to me and said;

"We did good Robert, look the girl is safe."

I caught a glance of the girl being lead out of the museum in a wheelchair by the four security guards. The girl's legal guardian was yelling at the guards that she was going to sue.

For our trouble Moshen and I were given $5.00 each and a cupcake the next day. I had to laugh.

End of Part Three.

Lies of a Rich Man (Part Two)

I ran though the museum as fast as I could and was the first Exhibit Tech to reach the loading platform for the Bike on a Wire exhibit. The wire was twenty feet off the ground and the bike that ran across the wire had a counter weight of interlocking bricks held in an open metal frame beneath the bike. A 265 pound girl of fourteen was hanging upside down on the bike halfway out over the safety net five feet below her inverted head. Four security guards were trying to pull her back with a tow rope attached to the bike to reel kids in that didn't want the ride to end.

I took my work shoes off to walk out into the net as I looked up I saw the girl was undoing her safety harness that keep her from falling into the net. Most people don't know that you can be killed falling into a safety net. You can break your neck if you land wrong. The security guards began to yell at the girl to stop from releasing the safety latch but she ignored all four of the guards.

"Stop you could break your neck in the net!"

I screamed at the top of my lungs. She made eye contact with me and stopped unlatching the safety harness. Then I didn't know what to do and just stood at the edge of the platform trying to figure out what to do once I got out on the net. The Bike on a Wire had a flaw in its design as it was in a inverted position the heavy metal rim wheels weren't making contact with the cable and no matter how hard the guards pulled the tow rope the bike wouldn't move.

Moshen an Event Tech from the same department as me walked out on to the net. I felt like a fool as the girl needed someone to do something and I had hesitated and Moshen had acted.
Then I looked down below the net and saw over a hundred people had gathered below the net to watch the rescue, many with video cameras.

I had an idea. I keep a 15 foot long aluminum pole hidden by a fence to get shoes out of net when children lost their shoes riding the Bike on a Wire exhibit. The fence enclosed the Dinosaur dig site and I directed another Exhibit Tech to hand me the pole up to me on the platform.
As the bike was inverted the counter weight of interlocking bricks was on top. If I could jam the end of the pole into a gap in the bricks maybe I could flip the bike upright. I had been focused on the getting the aluminum pole to the platform and didn't see Moshen place the girl's hand on the cable holding the west side of the net up. This put the bike at 90 degree angle, still sideways but closer to being upright.

I put the aluminum pole in the gap between the bricks in the counter weight and pushed down with all my strength. The pole began to bend and the muscles in my back began to tear.
The bike was at 45 degree angle in the upright position and the four security guards pulled the bike two feet forward. I couldn't hold the bike in that position very long and I let bike back down as gently has I could. Moshen grabbed the girl's hand and set it again on the cable holding the net up. The girl and the bike were at a right angle again.

As I straighten the metal pole to try again many of my fellow employees were making fun of me and the girl on the bike. I gave them a dirty look and tried again.

End of part two.

Lies of a Rich Man (Part One)

The Rich Man was my boss's boss. I worked for the worst Science Museum in the world. That wasn't just my opinion but the opinion of a group of international exhibit builders that held a convention in Las Vegas in 2002 or 2001. I talked to these exhibit builders on a regular basis and they couldn't believe how poor the science content was in the museum.

I was an exhibit tech and my boss was named Dave. Dave was the most vulgar man I have ever known in my life. I heard him brag about abusing women when he was a young man. He even claimed to have dumped a nude girl on a bridge over the Missouri River when he and his friends were done with her.

My real trouble with Dave began when the Fire Marshall made a sexual remark towards me.
This wasn't the first time someone of the same sex made a pass at me but this was only the second time someone demanded sex from me to keep my job. The first time I quit a dream job before it began. This time I told the Fire Marshall what he could do to himself in very mean terms.

"I'm the Fire Marshall, I can shut this museum down!"

"I don't care."

"I'm going to have the apartment you live in condemned."

"I don't live in this city, just how are you going to do that?"

"Some of your exhibit tech friends do. Where do they live?"

"None of your business."

For the rest of the work day the Fire Marshall of a major city tried to find out where my friends lived so he could condemned their apartment because I had stood up to him when he made unwanted sexual advances towards me. Gay or straight there are jerks everywhere.
At the end of the day I went over to the Fire Marshall and spoke.

"Just because I'm the only Exhibit Tech that was willing to work in the Collection Department with someone with full blown Aides doesn't mean I'm Gay. It just means I'm not a bigot or that I'm scared of Aides. I'm going to lose this job soon enough without your help but if you don't leave me and my friends alone in the here and now I'll make sure you loose your job Mr. Fire Marshall."

I never heard anymore about the Fire Marshall's little problem with me. I had seen Dave bribe the Fire Marshall with Major League Baseball tickets for the many fire violations in the museum.

There were rumors that Dave had bribed the Fire Marshall with male prostitutes but I honestly don't know if there is any truth to that. I do know that the Fire Marshall never made any inspections on days that I worked from then till the end of my employment at the museum.

I wanted to quit the hell job but I seemed to be the only person that cared about the safety of the children that came to the museum. I would say something about how unsafe the museum was for the children and the answer would always be the same;

"Don't worry about it Robert, we have three million dollars of insurance."

I felt I was working at the museum for a reason and on April 13, 2002 that reason came.

"All Exhibit Techs report to the Bike on a Wire we have a girl upside down and can't get her off the bike!"

End of Part One.

Pawnshops for Billionaires

The dark side of museums worldwide is the fact that so many are warehouses of stolen goods.
The best way to have a world class museum is to have it built in a current or ancient empire.
Lets say a little emperor steals the broken beard of Egypt's Sphinx and then he is defeated in battle and gives the stone beard to the next empire and they put it in a museum, not once thinking they should give it back to the culture it was stolen from. Does it still remain the the position of that now fallen empire?

Easy for me to say, I live in the current next fallen empire. My country has a few Pawnshops for Billionaires of its own. I know all about PFBs, you see I worked for one. The museum I worked for stole from four counties, two states, one city and one all American Empire. A Bully Billionaire ran the puppet show better than any Mafia Godfather could ever dream of.

I'm now poking the bear with a stick folks, so this would be a good time to start praying for the fool that is writing this blog. Blogger cut me some slack here, I'm trying to tell the truth without telling the truth. Google do me no evil. Bully Billionaire you're a big boy you can take it can't you?

Maybe I should have titled this post; How To Steal The Cultural Artifacts Of A City Without Really Trying. No, that title is too long. Maybe I should have called this post; The 200 Year Crime. The Bully Billionaire owns the land the museum is on and will never live to see the payoff of this Legacy Crime in or around 2114. How do I know this? My grandmother was a hairdresser and did the hair of a Lady Billionaire that owned the property the museum was on. The Lady Billionaire bragged how her family didn't sell their land to the city of my birth but had leased it for 200 years. Sometime in the 20th century the Bully billionaire had bought the land.

The city had built a transportation hub on their leased land. When that form of transportation fell out of favor the building for that hub fell to ruin. The Bully Billionaire had a business-hotel-shopping complex near the ruins of the hub so he and the other city leaders talked the citizens of the city of my birth into given him all the cultural artifacts of the city so he could turn the hub into a museum. The Bully Billionaire became a Begging Billionaire by proxy as the many divisions of governments were conned into given him millions of dollars in land improvements and artifacts.

Somebody should write a book about this. Maybe someone has.

Next Post; How Warm Was Your Cold War?

Photo GNU Free Documentation License

Remember the Children

The entrance to Daniel's Story.


The sign is printed but the background is a painting I did to match another sign.
Daniel's Story is the best exhibit I have worked on. My greatest contribution to this traveling exhibit was a large mural that I have no photos of.
If I find my sketches for that mural, I'll post those designs here.

Ant and Bee

These two color pencil drawings were studies for insect puppet puzzles for Project InSECT.
http://www.projectinsect.com/

Second Dinosaur Puzzle

The head is too big on this pink Stegosaurus.

First Dinosaur Puzzle

This is my first dinosaur puzzle.