i got up thinking i'd check out all of the news/photos from the big d-day celebrations over in normandy, but then found myself strangely sucked in to the brief reports of j. lo's top-secret, top-speed wedding. crazy! do you know what the funny part of the whole deal is? although it's publicly known that his last wife (who he only finalized his divorce with five DAYS ago) was a former miss universe, nobody seems to focus on that. that *shocks* me! i mean, he's not bad looking, but he's not exactly the kind of guy you'd think would snag a sex symbol like j. lo AND a miss universe! somebody should be running a story titled "marc anthony: the secret of his ladies' man success" right about now. i guess he's probably mr. smooth. it also makes me wonder if he's well hung.

so back to where i thought my mind would be this morning: d-day. i know the big hoopla was ten years ago, but i kinda missed out on that. i was aware of it and all, but i guess i was probably not as into history as i am nowadays. my grandpa reinhart was a navigator in a bomber plane over italy and north africa during the war. i've always known that, but he never wanted to talk about it. he's always been into wwII movies, and we all just left it at that. but the past few years he's definitely wanted to tell his story to us more and more (usually in bite-sized increments) and i suppose that's part of what made me more curious. although it's not really a top news magazine anymore, Time had a nice issue a couple of weeks back with some d-day vets telling their stories (way too abridged, but interesting nonetheless) and a neat map of the invasion. it got me looking for more

here's the Time microsite, which i highly recommend.
and it's sister publication, Life, has some great photos too.
There was a great map of the invasion in the magazine which didn't reproduce well online, so I went looking around the internet, hoping for some sort of interactive map (If you've seen one, let me know). I have a thing for maps, as you probably know.
There are tons of d-day maps out there on the internet, but these are some of the coolest -- very detailed scanned-in photos of actual maps used in planning the war.
i also found a cool article this morning on the Dallas Morning News website (subscription only, the bastards!) about how a major center of d-day planning, the southwick house, used a big wall-sized wooden map that was made by a toy company. check out southwick house here.