Get the motor running

Warning:  Most of this post will be boring unless you have an interest in Pete Buttigieg. After Tennessee, I needed to get up to Madison, Wisconsin to see my good high school friend, Judy and her wife Margie. Now, that was 750 miles away, and I didn't want to do that drive in a day. So I had to pick an overnight stop. Originally, I was going to stop at Peoria cause it has historically been used as a bellwether for American mainstream culture. But then I realized I could go to South Bend, home of Pete Buttigieg - who is my choice for the Democratic nomination. And, then, I could make this blog post a shameless pitch for him! Though, yes, I will vote for whoever wins the nomination, of course. But just bear with me and my one paragraph pitch! Well, actually, I am not going to do a pitch in any convincing detail because it would take up too much space.  Not a good forum for that.  But just a few thoughts: To me, he is a visionary with a long-term focus. His ...

This one: part travelogue, part love story. This is the love story part; it comes later in the blog. My first stop in Tennessee was to see Tobae's brother BJ and his wife Sylvia (Tobae is my sister-in-law.) They welcomed me with great bourbon (though we drank the one I brought -  McKenna  - they had great bourbon to offer!) This was followed by an incredibly good dinner plus a wonderful time. BJ was particularly inspiring as he is an optimist, unlike me (and Sylvia!) He - a guy who certainly knows about the horrors of our modern world, as his family barely escaped the Holocaust - thinks everything is going to work out just fine! My friend, Jane, thinks so too. I like to hear their voices! I think we are doomed, actually. But optimists make me happy! What great smiles they have! I then headed off to spend two days with my first love, Karen, her wonderful wife Jade, and their three dogs on their rural property near Strawberry Plains, Tennessee.  Jad...

It wasn't my first stop in Kentucky, but it was the one must-do: go to Claiborne farms to pay my respects to Secretariat, my favorite athlete of all time. If you haven't seen it in awhile (or have never seen it - could that be?), this is the Belmont run that made Secretariat immortal.   He set a track record that day - 32 lengths from his nearest rival - that stands to this day and always will. It's also fun reading about the win, like this article. Anyway, I took a tour of the farm and it was a fascinating experience. The guide - whose principal job is the stallion manager - was just full of facts and figures. He went in great and very graphic detail about the process to breed their stallions to the mares (mostly to make sure no person or horse is hurt in the process.) A little snippet here (though not the part with the graphic details).  After we got to know the ins and outs of breeding, we met three horses. First up was the obnoxious, mea...

The last few days have had some challenges such as a flat tire, a difficult crawl and a cast that was driving me a bit nuts. But also some fun stuff - seeing friends, of course, but also getting to spend some time with Amish folks, which was really interesting. First stop after Detroit was to see two old Santa Cruz friends, Bill and Kelly, in Chagrin Falls. It's really a lovely town. Kelly's Working Well Farm has a school, which is "a self-directed learning school run by student democracy for ages 5-18."  It's based on the Sudbury model . Watch this short video to find out about Kelly's version of this unique educational model. Bill, in the meantime, after studying the puzzle of consciousness for many decades, has it all figured out now thanks to Lisa Barrett's How Emotions are Made . Anyway, that's the sort of thing we talked about - always stimulating at Bill and Kelly's home. I had a plan to go fossil hunting first thing i...