Guardian of the Books

The best photograph of my final day driving to Boulder goes to the cat at The Dusty Bookshelf in Lawrence, Kansas.

664 miles, one photo

Today I drove from Wheeling, West Virginia, where Dom and Neeley were kind enough to host me, to Columbia, Missouri. Sunday’s winner for most amusing sign goes to Gumby’s Cigarette world, and Monday’s goes to a trucker celebrating his birthday.

Dolores, Mesa Verde, Chaco Canyon

This past weekend I visited Tyr in Dolores, Colorado, where she’s working at the Anasazi Heritage Center. We saw Mesa Verde National Park, and Chaco Canyon, the center of the Anasazi civilization (says this site). In his most recent book, Collapse, Jared Diamond discusses why civilizations cease to exist, including the Anasazi.

Back from London, Amazing Grace

What to do as my simulation runs….Last week I got back from England, where I visited a good friend, took the Tube all over London, and spent a day in Paris. I plan to write up my thoughts on all the items I saw in the many museums there, and thoughts I had about the place. Now, however, I find it slightly worthwhile to mention an article in the April Atlantic Monthly about ‘Amazing Grace’ sung to the tune of ‘Gilligan’s Island.’ And am I using the quotation marks correctly here, or should they be double?

Twilight in Boston

Just got back from a wedding in Boston. In the back of my head I was thinking about moving there someday. Sounds like a place with a lot of intellectuals, and two people’s unsolicited comments confirmed that. My friend who got married said Phoenix has an anti-intellectal atmosphere, and his friend from college commented, passing, that people in the area love to learn. I did not even ask.

But, there’s the taxes and humidty. As I took the tax-funded T (subway, which works well, is air conditioned, but was on time until it really mattered — when I was going to the wedding ceremony), and walked around Cambridge and Boston in search of used book stores (H.L. Mencken‘s In Defense of Women for $1!! + 5 cents for damn taxes…), I kept singing lyrics of Jonathan Richman tunes about Boston (Fly Into Mystery, Twilight in Boston, New England), but “Springtime i New York” kept popping into my head because of the line about it being “sticky.” But it was a record-high weekend for temperature, so maybe that’s unusual.

Swarthmore College Class of ’97 5-year Reunion

Swarthmore College Reunion
Lesson: save! I just lost a nice blog, so I’ll be brief in retyping this.

Thoughts. Friday night was great. Hearing about what people have done since graduation is quite inspiring. Dave B., after quitting an engineering job, is building and designing furniture for a living, and is building a house for his mother, with the help of Eric S. Dave tells me the head of the Shelter Institute, where he took some courses, is a libertarian.

Sonia M. told me about her work in public health at Harvard, and about a site where you can asses your cancer risk.

Chris Muth (he’s changed his last name, but I can’t remember it) has the coolest job, as I see it. He works for the Metanexus Institute. He knows Andrew Newberg, author of Why God Won’t Go Away. He’s been to a conference honoring physicist John Wheeler, know for the “many worlds” theory of quantum mechanics. A non-testable theory, and sort of nutty, but Wheeler is famous. He’s also read grant proposals by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, who is quite cool.

Other thoughts:
Some of the much older alumnni had pictures of their younger selves on their name tags. It’s good that they’ve lived so long, but the thought of losing my youth urks me. Perhaps advances in genetic engineering will prevent aging in my lifetime? Then we’d have to colonize other planets or something to fit all the people. Yet, the Pacific Ocean is huge, so might it be easier to just build new land masses out there? Oddly, a short Google search has yielded nothing, while planet colonization gets many hits.

In any case, maybe these old people are really young inside. Surely they are. So I should get to the gym, get strong bones, and do what I can to remain agile. The reunion reminded me of how little I interact with older people.

So what’s the point of the reunion? Not to re-live college, Andrew B. pointed out. Of course. I guess just to see what people who were an important part of my life at one time are up to. Is it just for the moment? I mean, I got home, and was sitting in “my room” in Elkins Park, and thought “Am I better off now that I went?” Well, I’m glad I went, but for the in the moment enjoyment of it…that, of course, does not jeopardize future enjoyment. Any regrets from Swarthmore? Too many hours in Cornell Library? Perhaps. So what does this tell me? Do what I like to do, and live so I have no regrets. I knew that.

I must add the the weather was spectacular. Not the typical hot & humid Philadelphia day. Not too hot, not sticky, sleeping on the third floor of Parrish was fine, even with the shade covering the window.

No soap, bathroom

What to say about the convention? I’ll work back in time. On the way home Matt and I were listening to perhaps the greatest driving music in my CD collection, Crazy Rhythms, by the Feelies. Track 4 started near the on-ramp to Interstate 70, and it has this great build up of what can only be called “guitar tension”, and it broke out just as we got onto I-70 and picked up speed, and a Delorian passed us. Very nice.

There were probably 100 men at the convention. All of them use the same restroom, and there is no soap. My question: how can they just leave and not either find soap, and/or tell someone to do his job and get new soap in the dispenser? Is there something wrong in my brain? I could not let it go.

At some point I’ll mention the actual content of the convention. The highlight had to be meeting and talking to Boston T. Party.

LP State Convention

I just got back from the Libertarian Party of Colorado State Convention in Leadville. Apparently I have few deep thoughts at the moment.