Elsewhere, Jim talks about his own South Pole adventure, battling frostbite and altitude sickness as he dragged a 110-lb sled for 8 hours a day–burning 1000 calories per hour! That part, at least, sounds very good to me!
Ronni’s bright-red time machine and my beige-y gold one whisked us last Friday into a lovely mid-century twilight zone of stage-settings from the 1940’s and 1950’s.
The remarkable thing about NH’s “Strawbery Banke” is that wandering there lets you side-slip from the many memory-objects on display there into your own private world of forgotten memories.
What a pleasure it was to wander there riffing on memories with Ronni Bennett, who has even more photos in her blog “As Time Goes By”.
Not that I regret this young woman’s decisions, crazy as some of them were–well, maybe I’m blushing a bit at those orange curtains.
You see in this photograph married grad student housing in Princeton, where Frank and I were living when we got the word–we were pregnant! Well, OK, I was.
So this long-haired black turtlenecked soon-to-be-ex-grad-student, wearing a lotus-y necklace, decides …I’m going to be a mom–time to get serious about my life! No more cigarettes–well, that was a good decision.
Get serious, be grown-up–I know! I’ll get Frank’s grandmother to teach me how to crochet so that i can make a blanket for my baby.
Now, there were a ton of things I didn’t think of. Just for example, since Frank stopped being a grad student and started being a post-doc during my pregnancy–neither of his two different medical insurance groups would pay for the delivery.
But, by gosh, my baby had the most beautiful blanket!
I grew up in a (New England) world with no air conditioning. I’m not sure how grownups who spent days in offices managed on really hot days–but little kids with backyard sprinklers did just fine.
Keeping our house cool inside needed different tactics.
First, our windows were opened up wide every bedtime, on the theory outdoors would get cooler before we woke up.
Second, once sunrise arrived, grownups stayed alert for the absolute instant when air outside the house got hotter than the air inside. Bang, bang, bang, those windows got shut again!
This morning in Cambridge, MA, I’m sorry to say, that slam-windows moment came at 8:30 a.m. But at least so far I don’t need the whir of my room air-conditioner, thanks to old New England tactics from long ago.
As of July 3, it’s 34 years and counting for Frank and Betsy–not to mention (wow!) more than 60 years now for Frank’s mom and dad.
I still don’t understand why the long-term love of any two people is endangered by the thought that two different people (whose lifestyle couple #1 might not approve) want to promise to love one another forever.
It’s easier to imagine that Hollywood “marriages” lasting 55 hours set a bad example to couples from more normal origins–but I hate to think that our US Constitution needs an amendment fo protect us from poor Britney Spears. (And isn’t she heterosexual, IIRC?)
The best marriage advice, according to my little brother, is to keep on caring about each other, respecting each other. For my more long-winded but heartfelt version, here’s some advice I wrote way back in 2003.
Love is a wonderful thing, and good luck to us all!
By December 8, 1980, nothing had gone wrong in my life. My parents were middle middle class, although growing up I thought we were wealthy. None of my desires were frustrated (well, except for prom night, but that’s a different story)…
Another great Weinbergerism on John Lennon there: “What a great blogger he would have been, so eager to be imperfect in public.”
Here’s something I haven’t seen before, over on Flickr–a “photorecipe” that combines food instructions with helpful pictures of each different stage. And, in this special case, with a physics flavor!
The creator, Funadium teaches both cooking and photography in Italy, close to France, but with lessons in English.
Judging from these fusilli, those courses would be delicious.
July 3rd, 2007 · Comments Off on Breaking: Both NH GOP Senators want President impeached
Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH): “Our society treats both perjury and obstruction of justice as extraordinarily serious crimes, ones for which people are put in prison,” Gregg told the AP.
Senator John E Sununu (R-NH) strongly agrees: “These acts are not merely technical violations of federal law; they demonstrate a broad and consistent pattern of behavior designed to corrupt our system of due process.”
“The President has undermined the judicial process, shown contempt for judges and officers of the court, and failed egregiously to uphold his oath of office. The President should be impeached. Those who will vote to exonerate a President who has shown such contempt for our judicial system either discard the evidentiary record, or willingly betray their own oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States.”
“In a country based on the system of laws, which is really the great gift given to us under the terms of our Constitution, there needs to be a consistency of application. The idea that all people are equal under the law is not a relative term.”
Bzzt–thank you for playing! These quotes all come from 1999, when perjury and obstruction of justice were dead serious matters to Republicans Gregg and Sununu–and their target was President William Jefferson Clinton. But perjury and obstruction of justice are much more forgivable now–and how sincerely President Bush agrees with them!
July 2nd, 2007 · Comments Off on The Star/Wars/Trek Method to diagnose One-Two-Three-ness
CERN’s Microcosm garden holds four giant chunks of classic physics equipment. Even if they were unlabelled, which they aren’t, you could guesstimate their chronological sequence using my Star/Wars/Trek Method to diagnose One-ness, Two-ness, and Three-ness.
One-ness: Early members of a high-tech sequence get built on mega-ideas with micro-money, by enthusiasts running on caffeine and pizza. To diagnose one-ness, look for stuff cobbled together. In the CERN garden, their first particle accelerator is built of unshiny sheet metal and old plumber’s pipe on a model developed for Rutherford back in the 1930s. Definite one-ness!
Two-ness: Most great ideas never get past the stage of one-ness, sad to say. But sometimes they do–sometimes the first item was such a big success, you get actual money to do what you love, only better! The best diagnostic for two-ness is craftsmanship plus simplicity. The original wild-eyed dreamer eagerly hires big-unionized workers who already know how to make big shiny things. The goal in stage two is to make something gorgeous that will do all the great stuff you wished you could do at stage one.
Three-ness: Three-ness marks the onset of “no more mistakes.” Let’s be responsible here–thousands of people depend on this project’s success. The mark of three-ness is shiny Frankenstein stuff–as if the skilled craftsmen of stage two now get conflicting orders from five different foremen. Let’s build a sphere–no, a tube–ok, a sphere on a tube. Give it lots of portholes–no, give it seams for access–no, both seams and portholes! I’m sure that’s not how the big copper resonator for CERN’s recent LEP experiment got designed, but you have to admit, that is very much how it looks. Definite three-ness.
Giant projects need three-ness, (and four-ness (and five-ness!)) CERN (where are they, ten-ness?) seems to be doing much better on all this than did the Star Wars franchise. No JarJar Binks, yet,–and hey, thanks for that World Wide Web thing, guys, really enjoying that!
There’s a lot of great one-ness that couldn’t get built in the first place if it didn’t have somebody else’s good solid three-ness to build on top of.
p.s. This image is part of a series from a great Fark contest for Star Wars vs Star Trek. This version was uploaded by Fark photo-ninja And-1!
I once read on the Internet (so we know it must be true) that being in love is delicious because it gives joy both to familiarity and to surprises.
I think I’ve just fallen in love with some candied fruit that funadium Flickred from a street market in the French town (not village, I’ve been informed) Menton.
