Getting excited for the Ancient Philosophy workshop I'm organizing for September! And check out the poster:
The background image is the first page of the 1578 Stephanus edition text of Plato's Republic.
Now, as that nice, informative linked page will tell you, the Stephanus edition is cool not only because it's pretty to look at, but also because that edition provides the standard citation system for Plato. So your own copy of the Republic ought to have a little "327" on its first page, helping us all find quotes and whatnot; and that "327," as you can see, corresponds to this actual page. Love it!
I also love that in this magical time the entire thing is available to read online at the Internet Archive. What the heck, here's a look:
(Also kind of a cool bonus that that's John Adams' copy!)
Okay, I'd better get back to actually organizing the conference. Until next time, reader!
Emily and Franklin picked up some (washable, thank heavens) paint and paper the other day, and we gave the little man the chance to make his mark.
Did I mention how wise it was of Emily to get washable paint? :)
But a couple handprints ended up looking pretty cool. Maybe the best of the bunch:
Meanwhile, he's made the leap to technology, and is now using those hands to feed himself with a spoon:
Also using the spoon to fling applesauce, but ate an impressive amount yesterday. Quite a guy.
Finally, Magen the other day shared these great photos of the Iwanski kids using some pretty sophisticated tools. Snorkel set:
And a diaper on an Elmo doll:
My favorite part of that might be the response I got when I asked if Elmo was in fact wearing a diaper: "Elmo IS wearing a diaper...one that was a part of Amelia's birthday gift from you guys. Evan actually loves to play with Amelia's doll...so this was a way that everyone could enjoy changing a diaper :)"
Speaking of, I've got something to do. Until next time!
Well, mostly young, and definitely dear. Franklin continues to charm his way into every blog post I write... Here he is entertaining his second cousin (or is it first cousin once removed?) Diana:
He also had fun Skyping with Anders the other day.
Couple of cuties!
Well, I finished that paper, and now I need to head to the Amtrak station and get myself to the University of Oregon to read it at this year's Northwest Ancient Philosophy Workshop. Here's the sort of fun I'll have to live without for a couple of days:
Can't wait to see these two again!
In the meantime, a belated congrats to Merrica! She recently completed her initial training for the Foreign Service. Here she is finding out that her first posting (after she learns Swahili (how cool is that?)) will be in Tanzania:
With Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield: "She is our class mentor. She is currently the Director General of the Foreign Service, and before that was the Ambassador to Liberia."
Okay, this is a bit of a grab-bag post, but speaking of congratulations, this marriage proposal by David Pogue, my favorite tech columnist, is pretty cool:
Finally, for some reason this song has been in my head lately, which means that when Franklin can't sleep at night he gets to hear my try to sing it:
I'm nowhere near that good, but so far he doesn't seem to mind :)
Having a blast with our new friend these days.
Thanks, Laura, for getting this great shot of Franklin and Emily.
And thanks Emily for this great shot of Franklin and me reading the Times:
We were reading that fascinating review of the exhibit about female writers at the Folger Shakespeare Library.
Also having fun keeping track of the details of Franklin's new life (one week old this afternoon!). Found a nice iPhone app called Baby Connect that helps us generate all kinds of interesting data. An account of the last couple of days: Franklin's Activity - 2-23-12 to 2-24-12
Let's be clear: 2011 was just about the coolest year ever. And I have high hopes for '12 too!
In the meantime, how about some fifth day of Christmas fun? The photo up above was taken with the cool fisheye iPhone lens that my mom got me.
Here's a photo taken from exactly the same spot with the normal lens:
Wild, huh?
Got some great SmartWool stuff from the Iwanski's, but the package was just as cool as the gift:
Meanwhile, Mimi is keeping warm in this handsome hat:
And I went for a run. Here's a map:
Okay, reader, we've got a few things to take care of, and then we're off for a mini vacation hiking and snowshoeing in one of my very favorite places: Olympic National Park!
So, first of all, this amazing photo showed up on Facebook the other day (thanks for the pointer, Vince!):
Here's the caption from KING 5's Facebook page: Check this out! Thatcher Kelley snapped this photo from his plane on approach to Sea-Tac Airport yesterday. “I popped up my camera with a 70mm lens attached, waited for the wing and blurry jet exhaust to clear the view. I quickly focused, jammed my face against the seat in front of me to get the best angle, and snapped the shot just before Rainier disappeared from view.”
Over the weekend, KEXP treated us like VIP's as a thanks for our support. Pretty fun free James Blake show at the Triple Door.
Not familiar with his music? Here's my favorite song:
Want to think more about that? Pitchfork gave it a nice little review last year.
And of course schools' going now. Friday found me using the camera on our laptop to check my outfit:
Finally, I saw this article about personal QR codes and couldn't resist:
Well, now that you've got my info, I'd better run. Happy Tuesday!
And these tree! This one is doing just fine a hundred or so feet up, despite this damage down below:
Here's what was once the world's tallest tree:
The Dyerville Giant, "at one time the tallest tree in the world, which fell in 1991 and now provides nutrients to the next generation of trees in the forest," according to the Park's website.
Did I already mention that this place is deeply moving?
For the sake of scale, I'm standing near the crown, Emily's shooting from the roots:
Can't spot me? Try this blow-up.
Current champion Coast Redwood:
From there we went through Eureka again, and enjoyed a nice meal at the Brick & Fire Bistro.
You know what, speaking of food, I forgot to mention something about Elk: while we were there we had the best meal of the whole trip, at the Greenwood Pier Cafe. Delicious.
I seriously am going to have to get back down to Elk again soon!
Anyway, next day we did a lovely hike in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park (also pictured at the top of this post).
Here's a little video of the route, recommended by a ranger. Prairie Creek Trail, Zigzag #1, and West Ridge Trail:
Now this is a few trees that have fused together, so it's maybe not crazy as it looks.
Still pretty crazy though!
Fused together? Yes, one of the many wild things about redwoods you can read about in this excellent New Yorker piece from '05. Not a subscriber? I hate to encourage this sort of thing, but I noticed a site that posted the story & is trying to claim "fair use"...
Anyway, great read. Hundreds of trunks on the top of one tree? Animals that live their whole lives hundreds of feet above the ground? Trees growing in soil that's formed in the crowns of other trees? Yes. Good stuff.
Okay, where were we?
Oh, speaking of, here's a map of the spots in this post:
In reverse order (and note, this is only about half of all the crazy busy fun I've been having lately)...
The plot of Giselle sounds a bit over the top, but the Times review was so fascinating, especially all that stuff about old choreography—and balletic mime! So that's how we spent our anniversary.
I'm not sure it was my favorite thing ever (Romeo and Juliet from a couple of years ago still stands out as far as ballet goes), but I really enjoyed it, and the program is full of so much interesting info—I sincerely hope to find time to take a closer look at it :)
And the next day Emily and her teammates reunited and ran in the Briefcase Relay (remember?):
I'm just glad I was there to get this awesome handoff photo!
On their way to tenth place! And out of 46—not too shabby!
Finally, in between grading and submitting grades, I joined some friends for a great hike up to the amazing and amazingly cold and frozen Lake Serene.
Wore my finger shoes for the 4.5 miles up, but had to put socks and shoes on once we got to the snowy lake itself...
Kascha, her dog Mattie, Anupa, and Jerome
Great time, despite my cold toes.
And here's a video of our walk, thanks that awesome Nike+ app:
Okay, soon we'll be off to see the Redwoods. (Map's here, in case you forgot.)
I told you we went to Wallace Falls State Park, but now let me show you:
These are the "middle falls"; we didn't make it to "upper," but it was a great hike, so I hope we'll be back soon!
Part of what made it cool was that it starts under some giant power lines, and then you turn and it's just solid nature. Like travelling backwards in time! Or something.
We could actually hear them hum as we started the hike. Emily got the best shot, of course:
The other thing in that post was a screen grab of the Nike+ map. I really love that little program for my phone... Want to see it in action? Here's a link that'll show you our walk/run around the neighborhood the other day. So cool.
But those new shoes? We only ran about 1.5 miles that day, but four days later my calf muscles are still aching! Yow!
Still back a couple weeks, here's the best shot I've found so far from our friend's "Hollywood in '61" birthday party:
And my favorite tree photo from the tour we took that same weekend:
Boy, that was a busy weekend! Sheesh!
Okay, let's end even further back in time, with light that's millions of years old and a website millions of years in the making.
Seattle Times ran a story recently about a guy who quit his job, took almost 40,000 pictures of the sky, and ended up with a genuinely awe-inspiring website. Definitely worth a look: http://skysurvey.org/.
