The most interesting thing I did this week was have lunch with Senator Sununu. Well, lunch with a bunch of other MIT alums, followed by a talk by the Senator. Who is, himself, an MIT alum and the only the engineer in the Senate. I was surprised that he didn't have a lot of prepared remarks, but mostly responded to the audience. He said that the reason there aren't more engineers in politics is that the skill set needed to be elected is persuasion, which is something lawyers learn and engineers don't. But engineer's skills are useful for doing the actual job of legislature. Most of the questions had to do with how the government does and does not (and should and should not) encourage math and science education, along with some other general comments about competitiveness. Overall, I'd say he spoke well and he was definitely generous with his time, spending a little over an hour with us.
As for the weekend, I did a quick day trip to Knoxville, Tennessee yesterday. It's sort of a ridiculous thing to do, but I had the miles and I'm trying to finish two Volksmarch special programs this year. Knoxville was convenient as it starts with "K" and has a college campus. In fact, the University of Tennessee was the most obvious thing about the walk - or, more precisely, their football team. There was a game against Georgia and the Volunteers fans were out en masse. It appears that tailgating was the major activity, and I'm not sure how many of the celebrants were actually going to the game itself. The campus is not especially distinctive and, frankly, neither is most of Knoxville. The most interesting thing there is World's Fair Park, the site of the 1982 World's Fair. I might have enjoyed the walk more had it not been scorchingly hot out. That, combined with the football crowds and several hilly stretches, made it decidedly unpleasant. Still, it did accomplish its purpose and I need never go there again. (I do, however, still need a "Z" walk and 6 more college walks. I plan to do those in more reasonable weather.)
Today's major venture was renting some storage space so that all of the boxes of books in the den won't drive me crazy when I move. The idea is that I can then bring them into the condo one by one and go through things in a more leisurely manner. Public Storage is reasonably convenient and reasonably priced, but their on-line rental system is moderately useless. When you make a reservation, the property manager is supposed to call you, but they never did. And the web site had the incorrect office hours for the facility. It also didn't disclose a mandatory insurance fee for the first month (unless you happen to have brought along a copy of your homeowner's or renter's policy, which of course you wouldn't if you didn't know you had to). And the lock was supposedly included, but turned out to have another charge. My definition of "included" didn't mean that I would have to pay another nine bucks for it. I was tempted to just walk out, but, as I said, it is convenient.
On a more positive note, the Red Sox won their division series. Yea!
Copyright 2007 Miriam H. Nadel