Philoi is Greek for "Friends"

(Would write φίλοι if I thought your computer could handle it, reader...)

All right, first of all, I wanted to thank Adam & Melissa (and their son Hollis), who I hadn't seen since junior year at LFC. Adam picked me up at the Baltimore airport, introduced me to the Nautilus Diner, and (with the rest of the family) treated me to some tasty food one night in Timonium. Sadly that all took place before I was into my "groove" with the picture taking . . .
Maybe next time.


Meanwhile, here are some scenes from the rest of the trip:

Dinner with Deron at the White Tiger in DC. Mmm.

Saw Haley too.

Tried to get us all in one frame; almost succeeded:

Thanks also to them for the fun and the ride to the airport on Sunday!


But why hang out in the Baltimore/DC area, aside from the cool people? I was there attending the Ancient Philosophy Society meeting. Good group. I even gave some comments on a paper on Plato's Meno, which seemed well-received. So that's cool.

APS group photo


Unfortunately, Emily wasn't able to go. But she did attend a birthday party at an apartment with this view:

So things ended up all right...

Here she is from the computer's perspective:


Hope you had a nice weekend as well.

Cheers.

Relaxation and Renewal

Haven't done a smorgasbord post in a while. Enjoy!

Heard on the radio the other day that our vacation spots don't only provide us with renewable energy--they're also prime sites for actual renewable energy production!

At Whidbey, they're talking about putting in under-water turbines so as to capture tidal energy. Very cool.



And down in Manzanita, they're hoping to put some floating windmills about 10 miles off shore.


On a sort of relatedly "green" note, I read this great line in an article Eric sent recently:
"While an average of 19 new malls per year were built in the United States during the 1990s, not a single new mall has been built in the last two years, said Ellen Dunham-Jones, the director of Georgia Tech's architecture department."

Is that not super cool?


Of course, also cool: more of photos of young Emily.







Dangerously cute, I'd say.


Now that she's all grown up, she does things like take me to the KEXP membership/pledge drive party.

Held at Sole Repair. They spent the whole day up here, because Capitol Hill raised more money than any other neighborhood. Because Capitol Hill is better.


Okay, one last, totally unrelated thing. I wrote a review of a new translation of Plato's Symposium. And now it's live online, so if you'd like, please read it, and let me know what you think!

Then and Now

I love this photo of Emily and Magen. (Click to enlarge.)

As you may or may not know, Emily's parents are gradually making the move to Green County, Indiana. So we've been getting some shipments of Emily's things as they're working through their house. Most recent included the above--and more, which I'm eagerly waiting to see!


And what is she up to lately? Well, she was involved with an exhibit that just opened at the Washington State Historical Society called Nurses at Your Service: A Century of Caring.

Involved? Well, she signed the release for some of the Mother Joseph artifacts. Mother Joseph (in addition to many other things) helped establish St. Joseph Hospital (in 1858, in Vancouver, WA), the first permanent hospital in Washington--in the Northwest, for that matter.


Mother Joseph also made wax figures:


Label:


So we attended the opening. The museum is really worth seeing (even with a bad back!), and it was fun to finally see Tacoma.

The opening also featured some students dressed in old-timey nursing uniforms:



Well, that's all for today. Reading group, KEXP party, more books to review...

Happy weekend, reader!

What I'm Eating

What's the deal with this blog lately? I'm not as busy with teaching, and the weather's been kind of cold and rainy, so I should be posting more, right? Weird.

Maybe it's got something to do with my back? Well, I'm trying acupuncture this morning, so hopefully that will soon resolve itself...

In the meantime, how about a round-up of some recent Twitter posts about food?


Recently I had my first banh mi sandwich. Honestly, I have no idea why I haven't been eating these for years! Crispy baguette, chilies, cucumbers, carrots, cilantro: oh wonderful mix of France and southeast Asia!

Got ours from Phở Cyclo, conveniently located around the corner from our apartment building. Got it because of that recent New York Times story. Huzzah!


Also from the Times (yes, I know...):

Citrus salsa (or "xec"), by Mark Bittman


And zucchini pancakes:

Recipe from the Temporary Vegetarian column.

They were great, and the garlic and yogurt sauce was also delicious!

All right, better grab some breakfast. Cheers, reader.

Lovely Day for a Bike Ride

As you might have seen over on the Twitter feed, we enjoyed a mostly lovely ride on the Cheshiahud Trail around Lake Union on Sunday.

Here's a little map I made:

View Larger Map

In case the photo-in-map trick doesn't work, here we are, about to ride back up (yikes) to Capitol Hill:


Kind of a weird trail, since it seems to spend a couple of miles in the parking lots of various yachting shops, and briefly was on some railroad ties (guess it's still under construction?), but there were some great water views, and we got some up close views of some cool looking houseboats, as seen in the background above.

And what great weather!

Oh, I hope you're enjoying some of the experimenting I've been doing with labels and such lately. That "cloud" over on the right should give you some sense of the focus of the various posts, and hopefully it's a fun way to organize things here ... (Meta note: since I'm talking about things like organizing the blog, this post will have to have the "tech" label. No "meta" label at this point.)

All right, back to work. Happy Tuesday, reader.

Tea Parties

So as I mentioned in response to Jen's comment about books, I have a serious fiction thing going.

Right now I'm reading Infinite Jest (I also have a thing for reading books by recently deceased people), which is pretty good--quite impressive to watch someone put together giant, lyrical sentences . . .

but it's also pretty dark, so I keep taking breaks to read other books. (But at p. 580, I'm just past the half-way point, so I'm sure to finish by summer! (?))

Started reading Coraline. The movie was super cool, as I said recently, and I felt bad not reading the book. So far so good. (And it only took 80 pages to be half-way done, so that's a nice change of pace.)


In the meantime, however, Emily has been trying out this new app on her phone that includes all sorts of classic (read: public domain) novels. Currently she's reading Alice in Wonderland.

Never one to ignore a new toy, I am now also reading Alice in Wonderland. Good stuff.

Reading on a phone?? Yes, and it is so cool! Check this out:



Not into video? Here are some screen-grabs from my phone:



(220 phone pages (?) = half way through this one as well. Will I finish any? And when? We shall soon see!)



And speaking of tea parties, we made some chai the other day from scratch.



Next time, probably we'll use a little less sugar. But otherwise delicious! And who knew we had things like cinnamon sticks, cardamom pods, and whole cloves in our cupboard?