I woke up this morning at 5 am, got down to the Basin around 6:30 am…and it was crowded!  Looks like I wasn’t the only one thinking of this.  I finally left around 9:30 so I got in a good 3-hour, 5-mile walk.  Wow, 0.6 mph. BLISTERING SPEED!

Hmm…ya know, getting up voluntarily at 5 am on a Saturday…gee…why *am* I single?

I know, I know, not that exciting, but, man, is it fascinating! The object of my focus this afternoon is the LA Public Library’s online Menu Collection. Just give it a whirl and I dare you not to be sucked in.  Marvel at what ten bucks would buy you 30 years ago compared to today.

I’m not the first to find this site, but I’m damn sure not going to be the last!

My confusion is…why? Why couldn’t I just pour it into a half-filled tank and then fill the tank? It’s still one bottle of additive in one full tank.

My first thought is that maybe the additive isn’t very miscible, so it needs the physical action of the fueling to help mix? But, really, a fuel additive that isn’t miscible in fuel?

I suppose the real answer is that some yahoo had some overfilled gas tank and then added a bunch of flammable hydrocarbons to it and boom or something.

I dunno. Just irked me. Feel like they could just put “add to one full tank of gas”. But, well, we are the culture that came up with “Careful: Contents Are Hot” on a cup of coffee and all.

Decided to take the Metro which, surprisingly, got me there early. That is pretty rare in my experience when you take a long Metro journey on the weekend. So, I sat around waiting for the expo to open reading Report from Iron Mountain. (It’s an interesting read if you’ve never picked it up. I’ve always wondered if someone could translate it into today’s political landscape.)

Then, huzzah!, the doors opened to us attendees and the scrum commenced.  I did my usual pre-buying journey up and down the aisles seeing what was there. After the first go-around, started buying and talking.

I’ll try to get pics or links to the things I bought up soon, if I don’t have them now.  First item was a “She Blinded Me With Library Silence” totebag from the estimable Jeph Jacques. Or well, bought from the inestimable Cristi as Mr Jacques seemed to be a bit busy/overwhelmed with sketch requests.

I also grabbed “DAR! Volume One” from Erika Moen who was gracious, beautiful, and who looked pretty much exactly like she does in her comic!

I got to meet R Stevens and picked up a copy of “CRUSH ALL HU-MANS!“. He seemed happy to be paid in ones (which were gathered as change as I made my way over to his table). I can only imagine the sheer number of twenties that are gathered each day at SPX…

Let’s see, I picked up a cool graphic biography of Niels Bohr. I’m assuming cool as I haven’t read it, but, come on, Niels Bohr! And a variety of cool minicomics. The type that are one or two bucks and sometimes more amusing/distressing/amazing than the more mainstream comics on offer at SPX.

Fun day! If you’ve never been to SPX, I highly recommend it. I just wish I had more money to buy more books. But, luckily, most of what I saw is available on internets of various types, so I’m sure they’ll be finding their way to me soon enough.

That’s right, tomorrow night I am going to a lecture on Frank Lloyd Wright at the Pope-Leighey House, one of his Usonian houses on display here in Virginia (moved to the site of Woodlawn).

The lecture is being given by Thomas Schmidt, Director-Emeritus of Fallingwater, usually considered Wright’s masterpiece–and rightly so. (One of these days I’m finally going to tour Fallingwater, though its distance from me is just enough that I’d probably have to make a weekend of it. It’s about a 4-hour drive from DC to southwest PA, which isn’t bad, but if I tried to do it in one day…hoo boy, that’s a lot of driving.)

When I saw this come up, I thought it’d be fun to attend.  As an architecture fan, and a fan of Wright, it was a no-brainer.  Wright is not my favorite architect (that’d be Niemeyer followed by Salmona–discovered at an exhibit I attended here in DC), but he is way up there.  I’ve always had a dream of living in a Wright house, even if I’d be whacking my head on every doorframe and ceiling. The “if I had all the money in the world” Wright house for me? The Ennis House, Wright’s textile block apotheosis, which would be a money pit to restore, but it’d be worth it.

And, yep, give me textile block over the Prairie or Usonian Wright works. (I also like his commercial works like Johnson Wax more than most of his homes.) In fact, that’s probably why I’m so enamored with Salmona, who was a master of using bricks. Something about that sort of modernism-meets-solid-stone that lights my imagination and wonder.

Still, classes!  As a resident of Fairfax County, I’m looking over the Fairfax County ACE courses.  I’ve looked at them all, and most of  them sound cool, but FC is a big county and I’m not really looking to have to drive 1 hour in rush-hour traffic after work to get to a class.  So, I’m focusing on ones near me (Annandale-ish area, the Plum Center is ideal).

To that end, I’ve identified two courses that I might do.  First is Lebanese Cuisine: Vegetarian and the other is Indian Cuisine: Vegetarian. Very veggie of me, eh?

I’m also looking at Thai Cuisine as well, but it conflicts with the Lebanese course. I suppose right now I’m trying to decide, do I do Lebanese or Thai?

So, my two or so readers and my 5603242237 Russian spammers, which one should I choose?  (I thought about doing a poll, but polls on WordPress aren’t as easy as I thought so I said screw that. It’s relaxing weekend time!)

Yours in student,

Matt

However, I am going to assume the best! And what might my weekend entail? Museum! Yay! In fact, two museums! Double yay!

The first one I want to hit up is the National Geographic Society Museum. They currently have two exhibitions I want to look at. One is “Lions and Leopards” by the famous Jouberts. Maybe you don’t recognize the name, but you’d recognize their photos, I bet! The other exhibition is “Kodachrome Culture” which celebrates “the American tourist in Europe” and their photos using Kodachrome film. It also is a bit of a tribute to Kodachrome which Kodak recently stopped production on.

The other museum I plan to visit is the OAS’ Art Museum of the Americas. They have an exhibit on Colombian architect Rogelio Salmona, master of the red brick. I’m a bit of an architecture nut, so I’m excited about this one.

In fact, it isn’t my first architecture exhibit at the OAS. They had a Niemeyer exhibit there last year which was great as well. But then, I love love love Niemeyer.  One of my current goals in life is to go to Brasília and view all of Niemeyer’s works there. Ahh…perchance to dream.

Other than the museum, the weekend is probably normality. Library, grocery store, Trader Joe’s…

Yours in weekend,

Matt

If you like, the whole of Lilavati’s Daughters can be found at the IAS’ website here. Some of the autobiographical essays that I’ve read–and I haven’t read them all–are just great.  So good, in fact, that I’m thinking I might buy the book (available from Scholar Without Borders). Sure there is a slight (okay, whopping) premium over the base price of Rs300 to get it here, but $25 is worth a great book. Plus, I suppose I see buying a book like this as a show of support for women in science.

Even if they are all usually smarter than me. Damn you, nerds of the fairer sex!

Yours in women in science,

Matt

Okay, not that exciting, but they are.  Going there, I look through the watches and see this one:

Good job setting the hands, there. Hey…I can be juvenile with the best of them!

There were also some just horrible ones:

I wouldn’t wear that on a dare.

There were some that I do like.  This one, for example:

So, I look at the “specs” and see…

Dammit!  Ladies get all the good watches! Or this one at least.

Yours in watches,

Matt

Also cool: Im trying to walk more so I bought a pedometer. According to it, I did 20 minutes of aerobic walking at lunch. Yay!

ETA: After an evening walk, today I walked 3012 aerobic steps. Thats 34 minutes of aerobic walking. Overall, about 4500 steps. But most were aerobic. Double yay!