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I'm still due for Anime Boston dumps. There was a bunch of interesting stuff there.
Recent reading: _Black Like Me_; _Willpower_ by Baumeister and Tierney; _Mindfulness_ by Ellen Langer, _One Night in the Lonesome October_ by Zelazny (nth re-read), _Astro City_ (Local Heroes and Dark Age, re-read). All good.
Last week was way social for me. Friend in town from Indiana, friend in town from Australia, went to the Aquarium finally, went to Chacarero finally, went to the BPL map exihibit, went to the MFA, went to the Wellesley greenhouses finally, plus a D&D game after that. Turned into a pumpkin after all that, and the rain hasn't helped. But tonight, a first date, then swing dance. The people I talk to the most keep disappearing, but I got to teach and improve a couple of followers, plus a bunch of good dances. Also something like six people were wearing Doctor Who related t-shirts. Weird, even for MIT.
Aquarium: surprisingly crowded for a Monday. Huge central tank. Bought a membership, which lets me bring someone for free.
Chacarero: Chilean sandwich place downtown. They only do chacareros, with green beans added; the place in Waltham does those and churrascos, and I think better.
BPL: special exhibit (free) of 1770s English maps of colonial North America (_Atlantic Neptune_), also a bunch of Age of Exploration world maps. Also yet another globe lacks a copyright date and has misaligned latitude lines.
MFA: went through the samurai armor exhibit, then like two other rooms -- a bunch of models of sailing ships, and a room on Mesoamerican art.
Wellesley: I have a thing for greenhouses. Boston isn't very good at them; the closest are in Wellesley, a $13.50 commuter rail round trip away. I'd known of them for a while, finally got out. They're decent. Small desert room, big tropical room, couple of places to rest. Of course they're best appreciated when it's cold and snowy outside and you're in this man-made paradise; IU was great for having one as part of the biology building. OTOH, in the summer you get to also appreciate the extensive botanic gardens outside.
There was a tiny century plant which supposedly grew and bloomed through the ceiling in 1964. The ceiling that's like 100x higher than the width of the plant.
I'd wondered what a girls-only college would feel like; answer: almost totally empty, because it's between regular term and the summer session, I guess. Green Hall has some neat internal architecture -- lots of Gothic arches, like it was a church once -- and an interesting freeform mural in the corridor.
Commuter train back was a horrible experience. Wrong site, late, then we stopped for four trains to pass us going the other way. Why? No explanation.
Recent reading: _Black Like Me_; _Willpower_ by Baumeister and Tierney; _Mindfulness_ by Ellen Langer, _One Night in the Lonesome October_ by Zelazny (nth re-read), _Astro City_ (Local Heroes and Dark Age, re-read). All good.
Last week was way social for me. Friend in town from Indiana, friend in town from Australia, went to the Aquarium finally, went to Chacarero finally, went to the BPL map exihibit, went to the MFA, went to the Wellesley greenhouses finally, plus a D&D game after that. Turned into a pumpkin after all that, and the rain hasn't helped. But tonight, a first date, then swing dance. The people I talk to the most keep disappearing, but I got to teach and improve a couple of followers, plus a bunch of good dances. Also something like six people were wearing Doctor Who related t-shirts. Weird, even for MIT.
Aquarium: surprisingly crowded for a Monday. Huge central tank. Bought a membership, which lets me bring someone for free.
Chacarero: Chilean sandwich place downtown. They only do chacareros, with green beans added; the place in Waltham does those and churrascos, and I think better.
BPL: special exhibit (free) of 1770s English maps of colonial North America (_Atlantic Neptune_), also a bunch of Age of Exploration world maps. Also yet another globe lacks a copyright date and has misaligned latitude lines.
MFA: went through the samurai armor exhibit, then like two other rooms -- a bunch of models of sailing ships, and a room on Mesoamerican art.
Wellesley: I have a thing for greenhouses. Boston isn't very good at them; the closest are in Wellesley, a $13.50 commuter rail round trip away. I'd known of them for a while, finally got out. They're decent. Small desert room, big tropical room, couple of places to rest. Of course they're best appreciated when it's cold and snowy outside and you're in this man-made paradise; IU was great for having one as part of the biology building. OTOH, in the summer you get to also appreciate the extensive botanic gardens outside.
There was a tiny century plant which supposedly grew and bloomed through the ceiling in 1964. The ceiling that's like 100x higher than the width of the plant.
I'd wondered what a girls-only college would feel like; answer: almost totally empty, because it's between regular term and the summer session, I guess. Green Hall has some neat internal architecture -- lots of Gothic arches, like it was a church once -- and an interesting freeform mural in the corridor.
Commuter train back was a horrible experience. Wrong site, late, then we stopped for four trains to pass us going the other way. Why? No explanation.