Vicki Baker Who would have thought that good old-fashioned soap would, more than four millenniums after its invention, still be one of humankind’s most powerful tools in fighting disease? Over the past couple of years, we’ve been reminded of this fact and of the simple magic of hand washing, with its unequaled germ-killing (and lifesaving)…
Vicki Baker More than a century ago, the Western artworld found a new subject of interest. As Europeans advanced the colonization of Africa, they began returning home with a variety of exotic art pieces unlike anything ever seen. European modernists such as Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse incorporated elements of African masks and sculptures with…
Vicki Baker The aroma of a whole compendium of cuisines wafted through the air: Korean barbecue, Mongolian hot pot, dim sum, pho, teriyaki. Grocery stores stocked with the freshest produce, meat, and live seafood from Hong Kong, Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, and other Far East countries. Chinese and Indian medicine practitioners, experienced in alternative…
Vicki Baker Steee-rike! The foul line is approached. The ball is thrown. A swoosh is heard as it races down the narrow track toward a group of club-shaped wooden objects. At the last split second, the ball curves into the pocket between the number 1 and number 3 pins. Then, the crash as all 10…
Vicki Baker Imagine a copy of yourself; an interactive digital clone with a life of its own—your avatar. Imagine a place where you’re not just watching a movie, you’re a part of the action. Imagine an immersive virtual reality (VR) experience where you step into a full sensory story unfolding around you. Well, drop your…
Vicki Baker Holidays are hectic, and sitting down for tea might seem like the last thing we needed. Afternoon tea, with all of its refined traditions—the dainty finger sandwiches and almost-too-pretty-to-eat confections—was designed to serve as a respite from the fray. Girls on Wheels (Vicki Baker, Lois Reinhart, Susan Hebert, Shirley Monge, Cassie Richardson, Karen…
Vicki Baker Ever since Michael Crichton published Jurassic Park, we’ve imagined what it would be like to walk among these breathtaking creatures—to come face to face with a Velociraptor, Triceratops, Brachiosaurus, or Tyrannosaurus rex. We’ve all seen the fossilized varieties in museums, but for Girls on Wheels, the immersive 20,000 square foot “Jurassic World: The…
Vicki Baker A safari in Texas? No way! Yet, here Girls on Wheels (Vicki Baker, Nancy Burns, Karen Dipietro, Cassie Richardson, Susan Hebert, and Lois Reinhart) were on a wild game adventure at Fossil Rim Wildlife Center. It almost felt like Africa with the great migration of millions of animals moving through the savanna. Okay,…
Vicki Baker It’s a challenge that stretches through the reaches of time and space. It’s a problem that shakes the universe to its very core. It’s the battle of hitting a tiny white ball past the grandfather clock pendulum without bouncing off the … AAAHHHHH! Whether you know your way around the links or not,…
Vicki Baker In 1977, a group of Holocaust survivors had an extraordinary vision—teach the North Texas community the lessons learned from the Holocaust and memorialize the six million Jews and others persecuted by the Nazis. Their legacy, the Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum opened in 2019, nearly 75 years after the fall of the…