Lakeshore

The Evangelical Crackup — I guess the market on hatin' for Jesus has gone a bit soft. Once again, my sorrow knows no bounds.

Lunar lander challenge ends in fire

REVIEW: The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year Volume 1 edited by Jonathan Strahan — Some good words about "The American Dead".

Robots vs Musicians — Days of future past, and the paranoia of sound tracks. Kind of puts the RIAA in perspective, don't it?

And I'm out of here for the unfriendly skies.

Per matociquala, scalzi and others:



Not a lot of surprises there. Off to catch a plane now.

A student editorial on the idiocy of intelligent design — This got me thinking once more on issues of religion, intellectual life and the direction of society.

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A bit belated due to travel, but in case you were offline over the weekend, here's a few items of potential interest from this blog:

Travel update

the_child goes horseback riding

Miscellaneous Portland photos

the_child is funny

Automotive Zen

The cringe words poll — With a fascinating comment thread. Go back and check it out if you haven't seen it since it go big.

How my writing is changing

A pithy political observations

The Reagan Archipelago — I make a facile observation about parallels between Bushism and Stalinism, substantial comment discussion ensues.

As usual, link salad here, here and here.

After her Grand Day Out Saturday, the_child had a big day Sunday as well. In the morning we rounded up lillypond and the Niece to go geocaching. We stuck to the 97222 area code and the vicinity of Nuevo Rancho Lake. For one, I was testing the GPS features of my Nokia 800. For another, it seemed meet to have a gentle restart to our long-neglected geocaching adventures.

We went 4-2-1 for the day. Found four caches, couldn' find two, and one was inaccessible for searching. The kids loved the fun of treasure hunting.

We also made it for lunch at Swagat, an Indian restaurant recommended by deedop. That was tasty and fun.

In the afternoon, we met up with tillyjane and all five went to the Monster March. This is a kids' costume parade in the Sellwood neighborhood, complete with fire truck, marching bands, police escort and two or three thousand children, parents, dogs and spectators.

the_child had designed her own costume, a simple but effective ghost. She wore her skateboarding helmet to enlarge her head, then draped a dark blue silk sheer over it which pinned underneath her arms. (tillyjane worked out the pinning because the sheer slipped without it.) She then draped several yards of white cotton fabric over her head with cartoon ghost eyeholes cut out. The helmet made the ghost's head very large and round, and all but eliminated her shoulders. She could see out through the sheer just fine, but the eyeholes were completely dark from the outside. Plus it was cute as all get out.

The Niece went as Princess Pecto, and was quite cute her own, inimitable way as well.

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As usual, more at the Flickr set. Lots more, in this case.

Flights were good today. Arrived at Hartford in a timely manner. Unfortunately, not all of our luggage did. Time was lost dealing with same, and I am without many of my immediate necessities tonight.

Got to the rental car counter. Confusion about contract details. Finally get in the car and there's an idiot light on warning of low tire pressure. Idiot light won't go off. Visual inspection doesn't show any obviously low tires. No mechanics because it's after hours. I decline the car and secure a new one. Much time was lost and a good half dozen business travellers waiting in line for the sole clerk to resolve this merrily wished me a warm night in hell with their facial expressions and body language.

Got to the hotel. Didn't have the room we'd booked. Time was lost dealing with same. You know the drill.

The evening to that point was like being attacked by lemmings. Luckily, we had a very nice dinner with jtdiii, wherein lasirenadolce learned much about my high school years. This may have been a tactical error. the_child just called to say goodnight. It's been a good day, lemmings notwithstanding.

Tomorrow morning we have breakfast with matociquala, then down to Choate, then into the wilds of darkest Manhattan. Y'all play nice.