It’s funny how small the world is sometimes. I was talking to my Mom last night and she mentioned that one of the guys from my hometown is now the minister of a church near her retirement community. I looked through my yearbooks to refresh my memory, as he was someone I knew only a little, not so close.

It brought back some memories, going through the yearbooks. We thought we were sort of grownups, but looking at the pictures you realize everyone was just kids (if that makes any sense). As I go through the faces, I wonder how people turned out and what they’re doing now. I stayed in touch with only a couple of people. Ran into another classmate at the gym a number of years ago and did business with another that became a contractor. My class had a decent 5 year reunion but the 10th was less of a success and the 20th was utterly dismal. Nobody that I wanted to see showed up, and there seemed to be only 5 or 8 people I even recognized, as well as one person I had no memory of being in my class at all. It was a strange experience. So I ended up leaving after about 5 minutes. It was a major disappointment, and the most expensive drink I've had in my life.

Anyway, flipping through the yearbooks, I did have to smile when I came across something I had forgotten all about. In junior year of high school, I was hanging out with a few other kids when a freshman or sophomore walked by looking for the “Mathletes”. This apparently was a school group that focused on math. Anyway, he had no idea who he was looking for, so one of the kids says, “Yeah, this is the Mathlete group.” So we got nine of us together, posed for the picture, and gave our names. No one apparently checked, and I guess the Mathletes never asked, because when the yearbook came out, there were the nine of us in the Mathlete picture.

I was reading a post on a website when the guy mentioned “The Kindle”. I had never heard of this, so I checked it out. The Kindle is apparently an electronic book reader. I had heard of this type of device in the past, but never knew much detail and I had the impression it was more like some exotic toy that only a few people had. I guess I was wrong. I went over to Amazon to check it out. Very impressive. It sounds like most people are pretty happy with it, although there are a few minor bugs and irritations.

This thing doesn’t weigh much, is pretty easy to read, has adjustable fonts, a way to save your place in your “book”, and access to books, newspapers, and magazines at very low prices. I saw something like 3500 reviews at Amazon so this is definitely not just some exotic toy owned by a few people. The adjustable font abililty would be a big plus for those with eye issues. It’ll be interesting to see how widespread this thing becomes in the next couple of years. While I’m sure that paper books will remain to some degree, I wonder if at some point it’ll be thought odd to have an actual paper book.

Link is below:

Kindle

Well, I tried to post a link here in my blog to a picture in my gallery, but it didn't work.

So, I guess I'll just say I updated the gallery today with a few pics from July 4 trip to Bridgeport, CA and a backpack trip to the Twin Lakes area nearby. We stopped in Bridgeport for breakfast and they were setting up for a parade. The odd thing was seeing these chairs placed along the highway as it went through town. Even though there were very few people there, you see these chairs come out an hour or two before the parade. I guess just to make sure you had your chair when the "crowd" formed. Anyway, the town had some neat stuff.

Backpacking trip that followed was fun despite being cut short by swarms of mosquitoes. Lower altitudes weren't as bad, but once you got up to the 9000' and 10000' elevation, near the lakes, wow. At numerous spots, just swarms of them. I started calling our hike "March or Die". If you stopped moving at some spots, you became lunch.

A friend sent me the following joke:

When our lawn mower broke and wouldn't run, my wife kept hinting to
me that I should get it fixed. But somehow, I always had something else to
take care of first, the truck, the car, playing golf - always something more
important to me.

Finally, she thought of a clever way to make her point. When I
arrived home one day, I found her seated in the tall grass, busily snipping
away with a tiny pair of sewing scissors. I watched silently for a short
time and then went into the house. I was gone only a minute and , and when I
came out again, I handed her a toothbrush.

I said, "When you finish cutting the grass, you might as well sweep
the driveway."

The doctors say I will walk again, but I will always have a limp.

Moral of the story: Marriage is a relationship in which one person
is always right, and the other is the husband.

Found an article about Clever Hans the Math Horse on www.damninteresting.com today. This site has some really interesting articles, probably what I'd like my blog to be if I had more time.

Link is:
MathHorse