First, before I get to anything else, the Japan travelogue is finally up. Sadly, one of the challenges was getting a decent enough connection to upload all of the photos. But it is done and, as usual, any feedback is welcome.
Secondly, the celebrity death of the week is Don Adams, who was, of course, most famous for playing Maxwell Smart. It amazes me that so many of the taglines from Get Smart still work after so many years. For example, we refer to a certain facility at work as the "cone of silence."
Third, this is something of a cheap shot, but how do believers in intelligent design justify the duck-billed platypus?
Fourth, baseball proved to be a bit too dramatic. But it's worked out in the end and I fully expect to see my beloved Red Sox beat up on the Source of All Evil in the Universe when it comes to the league championship.
As for normal life, the work week was even crazier than usual. I knew Monday and Tuesday would involve long frustrating days, as they involved all day sessions leading towards a group assessment of some potential program options. The process sort of worked, but could have gone a lot faster. The really annoying part was that the person who couldn't quite catch on to how the system worked was the guy who headed up the whole activity. The other annoyance was having to use my car almost every day of the week. The Monday and Tuesday stuff was close to home and all day, so it wasn't too bad. But I had a Wednesday meeting at another facility and that ran late enough that all of the usual places I park were taken. On the plus side, I now know where there are even more longer time meters in Roslyn. Friday also included a partial day at my regular office. In that case, the morning meeting had gone so late that I ended up just parking at a close-by two-hour meter and using that as an excuse to get out of the office at a decent hour. But the bottom line is that I still ended up deprived of my "take advantage of good weather and walk the first couple of miles home" mode. And I missed out on my "read trashy novels on the metro" time.
The weekend was a good one, for the most part. There were some complications with a planned call from Robert, but it worked out and we did have a nice conversation. Aside from that, I did a used book store excursion and got rid of another 27 books. Today, I took advantage of perfect weather to go out to Manassas National Battlefield Park. I did the Volksmarch there, which consisted more or less of two of the park hiking trails. The red trail covers Henry Hill and is roughly a mile of grassy paths through the meadows close to the visitor center. The blue trail goes out to the Stone Bridge and Henry Hill and is more of a mix as far as terrain goes. There were a couple of steep hills, but the views from their summits were a nice compensation. And the woods are lovely this time of year. The meadow areas have no shade, so must be unbearable in the summer. (The first battle of Manassas was in July.) I read most of the information signs, but I have to admit that I'm still not very clear on who was where and just what happened in the two battles beyond the South winning and a lot of people getting killed. Except for who won, that's pretty much my take on the entire Civil War, come to think of it. The thing I found most surprising, actually, was how big the park is - something you don't really grasp driving by it on Lee Highway. I suppose most battlefields are measured in miles, not yards, and my thinking of them as the size of football fields is just wrong.
Anyway, the walk was a nice one, even for somebody with as little interest in the civil war as I have. Might as well use the good weather to get in some good exercise.
Copyright 2005 Miriam H. Nadel