I woke up early, I probably can’t blame the shift in timezone, it’s just one hour. I took a picture through my window in daylight.
I went down to the second floor and ate a good breakfast. It’s nice when it’s included and somewhat proper. I even got a large waffle! Around 9:30, I left the hotel on foot for a 20-minute walk to the Perot Museum of Nature and Science. I managed to almost miss a couple of “green lights” for pedestrians, and I realized that there is no sound signal when it switches. In Sweden, you get a slow sound when it’s red, and a fast one when it’s green. Then you can look at your phone and notice when you can walk.
When I arrived, it was a couple of minutes before opening, and the yard in front of the entrance was filled with kids. I got warned on the website that school classes were frequent visitors Monday through Thursday until 14:00. Except for a pretty high volume in the halls, they didn’t bother much. I could read over their heads anyway. One kid complimented me for my “No Internet” T-shirt!
I started with a 3D movie called Cities of the Future. I enjoyed the 45-minute film alone in the cinema. John Krasinski was the narrator, and the movie was about how our cities could look in a not-so-distant future. Not as science fiction as I had expected, and except for flying cars, most of the ideas seem doable in just a few years, or perhaps decades.
There were a few different exhibitions, and it was quite interesting to look at them. Didn’t bother to read everything, but it was enjoyable.
One cool feature was this (check the clip), where a camera filmed you, and the wall replicated your profile by tilting the wooden bricks. In the clip, a couple of kids are jumping and running in front of the camera.
When I felt done, I decided to head over to The Sixth Floor Museum, which was just a 10-minute walk away. I bought the ticket on my phone (you had to pick a time slot), went to the museum cafeteria, and bought some chicken and fries that I could eat during my walk. At 13:30, I had arrived and entered. Then my brother Peter called, so I sat in the small space between the elevator and the exhibition and talked, for half an hour. Nice to catch up!
The museum contains the story about the John F. Kennedy presidency and his assassination. The exhibition is inside the building, on the floor, where the shots that killed him were fired. It was both text, images, audio, video, and even a couple of models and props, in a pretty good setup. After 45 minutes, the fire alarm went off. It was turned off after just 30-40 seconds, but one of the staff said we had to evacuate, so I headed to the entrance. However, you got up via an elevator, and there was no stairwell in its immediate proximity. Around a corner, I found a group of people standing close to a door with a red Exit sign; however, there were staff standing in the way, so I guess they had told them to stay put while the alarm was investigated. And surely, after a couple of minutes, they told us it was a false alarm.
I spent another 30 minutes before heading back to the hotel, where I did some research on tonight’s dinner and a tour of the AT&T Stadium for tomorrow. I booked an Uber to go to the American Airlines Center. The driver was very nice and had a couple of suggestions on what I should do in Dallas during my stay. Before getting into the arena, I went to Hero, which is at the same plaza as AAC. I got myself a burger and a mocktail. The waitress asked me if I wanted to open a tab, and I said Sure. However, as soon as I had eaten my food, she closed it and came with the bill, so no second drink for me. Felt a bit stumped.
While eating, I saw a K-9 unit walking around the plaza outside the window. I guess they were looking for explosives. When I had eaten, I took a lap around the arena. A quite nice brick building, nothing like arenas in Sweden, which tend to look very similar.
When the clock turned 18:00, I joined the short line to get into the stadium. There was no security at the museums (I was a bit surprised by that), but here I had to remove my belt; otherwise, the entry went smoothly. I went to find my seat, about 15 rows up in the lower section, right behind the basket. In retrospect, I should probably have gone for a seat a bit more towards the curve, since the basket was a bit in the way.
I walked around the arena, took the escalators up to the 300-level, where I have my seat for the Friday Stars game. It’s a quite modern stadium, didn’t feel crowded, and pretty many of choices for food and drinks. I bought a bottomless soda, which meant free refills all night, sweet!
I started to count the number of cameras, and this is what I found:
- 8 cameras (6+2) on the long sides.
- Two corners had one large camera each (same side as the six).
- At least one each on the “basket board”.
- At least a couple of “roaming” cameras on a cameraman’s shoulder.
When I had done my exploring, I took my seat again. I asked the guy sitting next to me if he was a regular, but he and his partner (I assume) had just flown in yesterday, from Australia. It was their first NBA game as well. So much for having someone whom I could ask all my questions. However, we had some nice conversations and were both a bit baffled by how much stuff goes on other than the game itself.
Other stuff I thought about during the game:
- There was a guy using the speakersystem to get the crowd going, all the time! D-fence! Let’s go, Mavs. All in coordination with the drums on the speakers as well. On the other hand, if he didn’t say anything, the crowd got silent.
- In Sweden, you never play music during ongoing play (don’t really know about basketball, though). Here, there was constant music, except when there was a foul, and the speaker needed to tell us about who got penalized.
- At one time, the shot clock showed 1,4 seconds and the ball on the sideline. They managed to throw a pass and make a shot before the time ran out, but they missed. That’s quick!
- The Miami coach was frequently on the pitch. I’ve seen the same thing in the NFL. In Sweden, in soccer, you get a warning from the ref if you leave your assigned technical area. Stepping onto the pitch doesn’t happen!
Miami started the game the best, and since Google Gemini had said that the Miami Heat had a 65-35% probability of winning (based on current form and betting odds), I thought it might get boring. However, during the second quarter, the Mavericks took over the lead, and at halftime, the score was 64-54 to the home team.
During the second half, the kid in front of me got on the big screen while doing the tube dance, and they managed to catch me in the background!
I don’t know much about basketball, but it felt like the Mavericks had the game under control, even though Miami closed in slowly. However, they never got closer than four points. Home wins with 118-108 and most of the audience is happy!
After a quick trip to the bathroom, I left the arena and took a selfie.
I had planned to take an Uber back to the hotel, but walk a couple of blocks first to skip some of the traffic and make it easier to find my driver. However, when I checked again, the price had tripled compared to what I paid before the game. Since it was only a 25-minute walk, I kept walking. Found a nice colonnade on the way.
Got back to the hotel at 22:20 and wrote this post. Then went to bed, need to get going a bit early tomorrow since the train to Arlington only runs once per hour.