Chesapeake bay-bridge

He isn't dead

really, check out swimmingholes.info

On the drive home I was trying to find a central theme that relates each place to the next, but I failed at doing that. This trip was a patchwork of places. Dan and I explored little roads in little places and drove hard against big roads in big states. So, this is more of a travelogue of cool places to see. It’s a formula for having a nice roadtrip.

Wednesday morning at around 10am we headed out towards Philly. We took the Merrit Parway, which is the oldest freeway in the world and inspired the autobauhn. (Dan is always telling me things like this, which I’d never know otherwise.) That turned into the Hutchinson, which we took the cross-county parkway and onto the 9. We got through NYC and headed over the GW Bridge. From there, we took the New Jersey turnpike towards Philly, except that I got us lost, so we took some back roads.

Once we got into Philly, we saw Independence Hall, which was surrounded by a Freedom Fence and park rangers with holsters. We saw a couple other old buildings, but I can’t remember what they were. Since Father’s Day was the following Sunday, we sat on a bench and wrote postcards for our dads. We didn’t stay downtown long, since we had tickets for the Phillies. I had put a few beers in the cooler for pre-game tailgating, so we drank those and talked to an old dude who was a Mets fan. We stood behind home base eating a Philly Cheeese Steak during batting practice. We could have stood there the whole game if we wanted to because that is how the stadium is set up. Still, we had a good view from our kinda cheap seats. Partway through the game it started raining, but we waited it out. The Phillies were getting killed, so we left in the 7th to see the Pine Leaf Boys and meet up with Rivka.

We caught a couple of songs and drank a few Yuengling’s, since that’s what everyone else was drinking. Thursday morning Rivka went up towards Asheville, but Dan and I stayed along the coast. In Delaware, we stopped in Bethany Beach to jump in the ocean and bodysurf. The waves were just big enough to catch. I got sand in my baithing suit. I thought about putting some sand in Dan’s but remembered that he has bigger hands and can put a lot more sand in my suit. As it turns out, Dan’s grandfather was on a ship that hit a mine 20 miles off the coast of where we stopped.

Dan says that in order to have been in a place, you have to stay the night, have a beer, or have sex. We had a beer and some soft shelled crab in Delaware, so we can say we’ve been there. From there we drove though Ocean City, where I hit a bump that knocked the passenger side window off it’s track. We drove through Maryland and into Virginia, then over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel and into North Carolina. The bridge is 30 miles long in total, but includes two tunnels which are each a mile long.

We stopped in Kitty Hawk for the night and got beer from a Brew-Thru, which is a drive-through beer store. From there, we went to McDonalds and back to our hotel. Finally, we were officially in North Carolina. The next day we got the car window taped closed and were on our way. We drove past the mound of sand where the Wright brothers took off. I tried to get a picture, but we went by it too fast. Before leaving the Outer Banks, we stopped just to look at the ocean. So, 45 min later we changed out of our swimsuits and were back on the road.

We headed out on Rt. 64 and started our search for genuine North Carolina BBQ. We found exactly what we were looking for at Shaws BBQ House. They had all sorts of interesting items, like kudzu jelly. Shortly thereafter we were on the 95, which brought us into South Carolina. We stopped at South of the Border to fuel up.

Our final stop before getting to Savannah we stopped at Colleton State Park. I found it on my favorite website (swimmingholes.info). We managed to get there just as the sun was settting and just wandered around enjoying it. Dan had a cigarette and we got back on the road.

We headed into Savaannah, and I got us lost again, but we found the Days Inn on Mall Blvd. So, we officially made it Georgia. Dan and I finished our beers and took a shower. There was no water pressure, and we had to fill the ice bucket with warm water and dump it on our heads to get the shampoo out. I told Dan that’s what you expect when the folks arranging the hotel were stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. We caught up with the wedding party at Churhills, which is a bar downtown. The next day we cruised the city and had Mimosa’s and black-eyed peas sandwiches at B. Matthhews, which is an alcohol-serving bakery. Rivka and I got to talk a bit. Rachel met us after her hair was done and it was fun catching up with them. They are two of the craziest and nicest people I know. Rachel joined the army after 9/11 and since then she has been a paramedic in Iraq and Afghanistan. Will was her helicopter piolot.

I went to the mall (on Mall Blvd) because I still didn’t have anything to wear to the wedding. The reception was at the Gingerbread House, which is totally georgeous on the outside and inside. The bartender made me a Mint Julep, which I’d never had before. The food was incredible. The best part was the Elvis Impersonator.

Afterwards we went on a haunted bar crawl. For $10 a tour guide takes you from bar to bar telling ghost stories. You can get booze in a plastic cup and bring it to the next place. Many of the bars in Savannah were hotels or public houses for a long while, so there’s enough history to make is fun, but not really spooky. Rivka and I got a little time to talk, which is more than I had hoped for. I knew it would be a short and busy stay, since she had other family commitments.

From the bar crawl we went to a diner where we has ridiculous amounts of greasy Southern Food. The next day we left at 11 and drove. Even that part was fun, we ate (at BoJangles) and drove. We took the 95 most of the way back and landed in Boston at 4 am.

IMMANUEL KANT :: "WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT?"

Ginevra- that's awesome that you came up with that enlightenment connection since a very smart friend of mine, Stacy Garfinkel, had told us about this Kant essay in the context of taking that student initiative. Or in a less marmy-ish voice- the potential of teaching. Education as the development of free will, critical thinking, the ability to think on your own without getting caught up in the tide. How to know what you want. Isn't that something that needs to be developed and isn't really natural? To answer for you- "Yes." Ha ha. I'm one of those people with the annoying habit of writing in questions. That's because I'm the Hamlet of my life- Here's a link to the essay:

WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT?

ps- Ginevra, look here to see how to make a link.

WHAT WE LOOK LIKE

Me 'n' Ginevra.

JUST DO IT

STORY-IMAGE FOR ZINE FROM TEXAS

HEY TEACHER!

Forming a solid goo out of gravel, this visual and mental and ear-razing some thought that really happened.

Elements are:

metal
wood
stone
fire
air


Elements should:

pizza crust (not as good as cheese)
chain link (<>)
donas (?can you please put a mexican swirly over the n?)
spinna's
scrapers
bussers
sn8ke<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<< (veronica taught me how to write snake that way]

"But it didn't happen like a list," said Dinah.
"What, then? You mean since you though this up. You cooked it up and expected me to understand the real reality of your imagination?" asked Manuel.
Veronica was just drawing some playing cards for the kids. They were so funny with their crumbled up stories that hardly made any sense. They just live in a fairy land. Newborns only years ago.

GO TO THE STORE AND GET THESE THINGS:

chips
jalapeno
you already have onion but you're going to need it so don't use it
cheese
tomato

Grate the cheese. Heat the oven to like 300. Then get a plate. Put the chips on the plate, like one layer of them. Put cheese on the chips. Stick them in oven til gooey. Then addnother layer of cheeps. More cheese. Goo=ify [the word GOOfy is trademarked by disney so I had to write it with the equals sign]. Eat them; or save in case of an earthquake along with a can opener.

You are a good person and so are the others in the world. I love you and bless everyone, especially the people I think about most. I hope you are safe and take care of yourself. I hope you get enough sleep every night. I hope you have good food (not really nachos, tho, be careful of the nachos, your butt may get full of them) every day and enough of it. And I hope that you have a warm space with warm friends and pets or wild animals who treat you well. I love you. I joke often but about this I took my tongue out of my cheek. Which means I was sticking my tongue out but not at you.

Be aware and -ware of reality. Whatever that means.

GETTING IT RIGHT

I read somewhere that “one understand a thing by virtue of getting it right.” If I recall, the quote applied to achieving enlightenment in the spiritual sense. If one acts enlightened and convinces those around oneself of it, that’s enlightenment. Getting students to just do it is the core of teaching Chemistry. Students tell me that they feel like they are just memorizing answers to problems without really understanding how to do them. There is not much I can tell them, except that repetition is the key to understanding. Learning Chemistry and doing Chemistry requires persistence, not the inspired kind, but really grinding it out. It takes years of learning to really understand even the basic principles of Chemistry, so the intro student tends to get either frustrated or hungry for the next class. Enlightenment, in the scientific world, truly is achieved by virtue of getting it right.

Pragmatically, Chem classes are objective and as such, we are all either taskmasters or unfair teachers. Intro Chem classes are filled with people who want to go to med school and Chemistry is their least favorite subject. As such, it is important to set guidelines for exactly what is required and add up the points at the end of the semester. Consistency and clear expectations keeps students from freaking out, which clears their minds for learning.

I tried an experiment last semester, when I was teaching Orgo Recitations. The students downloaded a problem set online before coming to class. Usually the recitation TA stands at the board and does the problems. Instead I had them go to the board in pairs, solve the problem, then explain it to the class. Most students didn’t respond well to it, maybe because it is embarrassing to stand at the board. Still, the students that liked it seemed to understand that this was good use of their time. This is the ultimate just do it teaching method. The experience of doing the problem and explaining it to the class taught them how to do the problem. When the students did a problem wrong, it revealed a misconception or trap that many students would fall into. It does not matter if the problem is done right wrong, the way to learn Chemistry is to just try. If the answer is right, then yes, the student understands by virtue of getting it right.

Doing research in Chemistry takes patience and is repetitive. I wouldn’t say that you just do it, because experiments need to be thought out and there is always a ton of really simple stuff to learn each time you set up an experiment. It is difficult to figure out exactly what experiments will give you decisive information. Even the best laid plans . . . well, know what can happen. In the end, yes, you say, well I’ll just try this. The greatest scientists are those who tried the most simple and obvious experiments and they worked. The great scientist finds the universal truth in simple experiments, and seeks answers which have broad implications. They are great by virtue of getting it right. The truth was on their side. This relates back to spiritual enlightenment. When you are spiritually enlightened, you get it right because you know truth.

AGE OLD QUESTION #10897362Y

How much of teaching is about being a taskmaster (recently one of students in his frustration called me a taskmaster), and how much of teaching is about inspiring students to dream the impossible dream.

The way I posed that question is decidedly tainted and skewed. Oh well.

This is an age-old battle between the right-wingers and the lefties. For instance, when teaching a child to read, the right-wingers say you should teach phonics, while the lefties say you should teach stories/ culture. The middle of the roaders say do a little of both.

Many students just want to hang out and they get annoyed when you expect them to work. Once they start working, they are happy and once they see the final product they are happy or they wish they had worked more.

I teach animation, and often my students don't want to write a storyboard or anything, they just want to randomly doodle. They want to be in their own little bubble. They could do that at home and I would not be a good teacher if I allowed that to go on.

But how do I teach- through calculated inspiration (in educational thinking, the lefties like this approach and they call this "scaffolding"). Or do I just force them to finish the damn exercise, knowing that they'll thank me in the end (obviously a right-wing tactic- Do the fighting words, "bring em on" ring any bells?).

I've found it's better to do the calculated inspiration route. However, sometimes I haven't calculated enough or I am too tired to be fully present, so I fall back on the just do it approach. It really does take a lot of experience to have the time and foresight to be fullly prepared with a ergonomically desgined, form follow function scaffolding. So I do fall back on the 'just do it' approach and it does the trick. But part of the scaffolding is this composed front that keeps the law of the land, which is all a drama of blind justice. I pretend that I'm serious about deadlines and all that, so that they have something to strive for and feel like their work is truly important and needs to get done.

It's all invisible, yet it yields real results. I am always finding out that the most important thing in the classroom is the culture of the class. It's necessary to teach skills and whatnot, but you can really make the class work for you. When they work together and teach each other, it's a lot easier for me, they feel proud to show people what they know, they learn better from their peers and they become friends. When there's laughter in a room and happiness it is such a big difference froma competitive environment. I really try to subvert the competition, not in any idealistic way. I didn't set out to have a noncompetitive classroom before I started teaching. It's when I saw the way people are, especially on computers. Some people are so know-it-all and try to beat everyone to the punch all the time (the guy who called me a taskmaster was the ultimate 'master of the computer class'). It's rough on the self esteem of the other students and then they feel like they'll never get the hang of it.

I am rambling, like a class with no structure. I love structurelessness. But I also love structure. Systems, ya know. Systems seem like a female thing- school marm, matriarchy, safe monetary investments. They seem so ball-busting. I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings, nerve endings or need to compete. Actually maybe I want to shine a mirror towards the competers until they punch the mirror in competitive fervor and with bleeding fists realize how foolish and how to open their hearts. Not only will you learn 2 kinds of tweening, you will learn how to learn to love in 2 weeks intensive computering around with me as your taskmaster/ scaffolder. What was more amazing - the Sistene Chapel ceiling by ol' what's his name? OR the scaffolding built by Jacomo di Patronelli Santa Barbara Castini IV?

WALK NOT UNLIKE EGYPTIAN, O CHILD OF 80'S

Is it fantasy or reality that the song Walk Like an Egyptian is fucking hell yeeah rad and dance-inducing coma good. I recently gave it a re-listen and just thought this is the kind of enjoyable random thing that should go in our blog. Blogging, drumming and programming are my hobbies and this is my weekend off (by that I mean Saturday since Sunday is all about trabajar). On my spare time I shuffle around my workshop/ garage and toy with hobbies. You are a victim of my hobby since you are reading this.

But revisiting the Bangles brought me to a little memory I have of my sister, me, choir and the evil and sad Miss Mudge. Ginevra and I went to a snobby Catholic grammar/ middle school for a good many years until our parents split up and my dad began hoarding his hard-earned cash (or so my conspiracy theory goes. whatever the case, my mom plummeted to below poverty, while my dad stayed upper-mid). I loved music, but our school had a hardly existent music program. My publicschool neighbor had the choice of having an instrument to borrow and learn- I was so jealous- he also had Atari- ooh was I jealous.

Ginevra and I were in the choir since that was the only music thing you could do at St. Edward's Catholic School. Miss Mudge hated Ginevra and I, and hated our singing even worse. It's funny that I actually would teach music later in my life and feel paranoid that I don't become like Miss Mudge when getting frustrated.

For Christmas the choir went around a strip mall in Dana Point and sang carols to all the storefronts int this strip mall that has a bigger parking lot than store space. There used to be a pizza place there, a stationery store and a huge grocery store and lots of other stores. And at some point we had hot cider. And also at some point we were all dancing like egyptians to that song that played everywhere at that point in time.

IN WRITING TODAY... I complained about different things, very wistfully. Speaking of victims, I am the victim of my own memoir mindset. Here I am, with a cup a tea, warmly orange-lit room, crepuscly mood, going, well when I was a child- I was wronged. O the cycle of life. O the dreams and the wistful memories, haunting yet what I would give to go back. O me. O me. Would I were that child, sipping cider. There was a parking lot, big as the sands of time.

Arthritis, Anyone?

Kids who can't afford skateboards in russia do beautiful things. Check it, yo.

Underground Man Surfacing?

There is this avante garde writer/artist who is ubiquitously labeled "underground" and his name is Weldon Keyes. If you know of him, you know that he's underground. If you don't know of him, you may either assume he's underground, if you get the chance to assume because in a heartbeat you'll be told what to think about him, which is that he's underground. Well no one really knows or has known for years where he slipped off too, but it's pretty apparent that he jumped off the sf golden gate bridge and insodoing killed himself. Underground, underwater- wherever he is- he's a fantabulous writer- a little grim at times ala flannery o'connery. It is easy to devouor his stories like eating your favorite pre-packaged junk treat. It's just that good.

I saw a few of his films Sunday night at the Yerba Buena. They were definitely underground, if that means pretentious lo-budge janky little contraptions. It's just that bad. It was a lesson in time and style as it passes. I thought about how I shouldn't overwork myself lest I get too tired and out of touch and make crappy art that people have to discover one day and then other people have to be eluded and deluded into possibly having to enudure and inure for a matter of hours or so. But then is everything I do and see about me me me? Ginevra would say, that it's true that Regina is an egomaniac. Would I then beg to differ or blithely argree.

So Weldon Kees (i always forget how to spell his name) was a true bohemian. He lived his life psychologically on the edge like so many maniacs before him. But I don't want to talk about his depressing life. It reminds me of all the nutjobs and my days of being a nutjob without help in my field of vision. Why are people interested in glorifying insanity. And talking about talent and how the meaner the more talented. Ah- I refuse to tackle this issue. I'm writing like chewing on gum. Which reminds me of a sound on the bus the other day that repeated itself often and sounded like Chewbacca and I couldn't resist laughing.

One of the movies was an anthropological/ scientific movie about a mother with 3 kids. The cameramen were hanging out in the apartment just shooting this mother feeding, clothing, bathing, etc her babies. The movie was about the mom because she supposedly had a disease that made her indifferent and not very affectionate. She didn't seem unusually course, but she also didn't seem very affectionate.

Anthropolgical movies are a funny notion to me. Only certain people can have anthro movies based on certain other people. Of course it's rooted in the tradition of university, which is rooted in a whole other set of traditions in itself. Can you be an anthropolgist studying your own people or people wealthier than you? Do you have to be looking for real scientific conclusions or can you just be a hunter and gatherer of stories that yield no true results.

CAT GETS BEAR

This story is from the BBC News!!


Tabby cat terror for black bear

Jack the cat is possessive about his territory, his owners say
A black bear got more than it bargained for after straying into a family garden in the US state of New Jersey.
The unwelcome intruder was forced up a tree - twice - by the family pet, a tabby cat called Jack.

The terrified bear was only able to make its escape when owner Donna Dickey called the hissing cat into the house.

Ms Dickey said Jack liked to keep a close watch on his territory and often chased away small animals, but one of this size was a first.

"We used to joke, 'Jack's on duty', never knowing he'd go after a bear," Donna Dickey told local newspaper The Star-Ledger.

"He doesn't want anybody in his yard," she added.

The bear was first spotted in the tree by neighbours who thought the 15lb (7kg) cat was just looking up at it.

They then realised the bear was afraid of the cat.

After some 15 minutes, the bear descended, but was chased up another tree, before finally making its escape when Jack was called indoors.

Bear sightings are not unusual in the area of West Milford in New Jersey, which experts say is one of the state's most bear-populated areas.

Hurra

So, a week ago today I saw Hurra Torpedo, which the top kitchen appliance band from Norway. They played until all of their instruments were totally destroyed and they nearly died from exhaustion. It is definitely worth checking out. The band buys ovens, freezers, washing machines, etc and plays the appliances until they no longer will produce sound, and then the band members pass out atop a heap of rubbage. The highlight was when the drummer took a giant wheel and smashed an oven, then picked the oven up and put it on top of another oven. All of this was happenining to the tune of “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” The thing that separates this show from other variety shows was the vibrancy and rawness. They weren’t just random people in blue sweatsuits, you could really see the individual personalities. The drummer was the joker; he slobbered on his to complete the impersonation of a tango dancer. He was also lead smasher. The base gutarist was more hippie-like. He liked to put things on his head and pretend to fly around. Lead guitar was the serious one.

So, after the show, I got to talk to fellow blogger misspiggyslunchbox guy. You should check out his site for more pictures and info on the show. Well, I’d write more but I’m getting ready to go on a roadtrip . . .

CITY SLICKERS

I took this picture last summer at the farm where I work in West Oakland. West Oakland is sort of a rough part of town, sort of a beautiful part of town, and a part of town where the administrative decisions have been top-down for centuries: Meaning, wealthy people who don't live there decide what happens. Then NIMBY's' get it their way when they build a freeway, BART tracks and a post office sorting center(a block's worth of people were displaced for this) through West Oakland's main commercial street. The KKK's have got their way as well. I'll explain in another segment this weekend.

These girls are the daughters of one of the best dads I've met ever. Very cute and smart kiddies. We killed the old rooster and made coq au vin.

RECIPE FROM OUR MOM

FRENCH TOAST BAKE

Ingredients
1 pound loaf French bread, cut diagonally in 1 inch pieces
8 eggs
2 c. milk
1 ½ c half/half
2 t. vanilla
¼ t. cinnamon
¾ c butter
1 1/3 c brown sugar
3 Tbl. Light corn syrup

Directions

1. Butter a 9 x 13 baking dish. Arrange slices of bread in the bottom.
2. Beat together eggs, milk, cream, vanilla and cinnamon. Pour over bread, cover and refrigerate overnight.
3.Preheat oven 350. In saucepan, combine butter , brown sugar and corn syrup; heat until bubbling. Pour over bread and egg mixture.

4. Bake uncovered for 40 min.

Human-Animal Harmony

This is the picture of an indian boy feeding a canadian elk a lollipop. I found it on the internet and saved it for my perusal and now I'm re-posting it to our world's wide web. A reddish-brown elk in yellow grass leaning towards a remarkably smaller mammal- a human toddler. The file name says this child is an Indian.

I've inferred several things one of them is this, tell me what you think: The elk leans towards the child because he's scared of humans, yet he loves lollipops. Lollipops are actually a technological confection that couldn't have come about without trade, sugar plantations, production lines, fossil fuels/ petroleum products (to color the lollipop, but maybe the elk doesn't care about the colors) and trucks/ boats. This elk is dependant on humans if he wants to get a lollipop. His clunky hooves and huge bulky body would never do the trick. And human slavery in the plantations and production lines is so far-fetched from his rugged natural habitat. Is the elk even a "he"? Tell me what you think...

Do I sound naive when I ask- is this picture truth or fiction? Was it drawn from a photograph? It was done from a photo that is obvious to me- but did this actually happen, or was it 2 photos - one of an elk, one of a child - that were merged in the painting to create what had previously only existed in the artist's elaborate imagination. Tell me. I'm dying to know...

Death Kit :: Susan Sontag

And right you are Ginevra- Listen up all of you reading this blog... this blog... this blog ((((echo))))
Look forward to some hot hot writing from the multi-talented queen of art and science, Ginevra.
And from me- thoughts, like trash blowing in the wind, of a random nature.

I am writing at this moment to disprove my perception. The whole reverberation of Susan Sontag's book "Death Kit". Reality is below ground in this book. I have an old copy with an awesome font that inspiresme to create my own font already. I haven't read any of Sontag's books about images, like "On Photography" but I have been wanting to for a while and this book might just be the final push that I needed.

The story is of a man who has lived a life of indecision- he got a degree in medicine, and was always interested in literature. He is a rising star (if you can call a high-end salesman a star) in his company which sells microscopes ((image cognition abounds throughout, down to the cheesy symbolism of the blind girlfriend, a symbolism which I believe Sontag is skewering- or is she a player in the blind symbolism game? will I ever know?)).

His llife is ordinary>> despite his success in business he is depressed, and lonely too. Tries to kill himself. It seems like a typical plodding modern novel about a detached modern man.

Until he gets on the train that stops in a tunnel, the lights go out, he goes out and kills a workman who is tearing down a wall- or so he thinks. He's not sure. He confesses to a (blind) woman who he was secretly lusting after before the tunnel. To his surprise she says that he was sitting across from her and couldn't have possibly done it, plus to his surprise she wants him so bad that she drags him into the bathroom caveman style and they do have sex.

OK, so it still has that moderny-seeming trend- like hitchcock- not to use the pigeonhole technique. but there's this nice surrealism going on that feels Derenesque. The blind symbolism is kind of nice because it speaks to how people who don't use their eyes can't judge and organize objects based on visuals (not good or bad).

Many other things happen between reality and under reality, including the story of Wolf Boy and droll office pitter patter (en vogue in commercials nowadays), nice walks in the sunset and blood & guts. Feels like a POSTmodern rennovation of Dostoevsky's "Crime and Punishment" replete with Freudian fenestration- on how we perceive life, the inner and outer realities coinciding- and how visuals (real and imagined) impact our perception. Perception sometimes meaning how you organize things like past events, self, love, and it's all mumbled up.

And does Sontag leave it jumbled/ organized because that's real to her- or am I just too lazy to really go in and figure it out. I'll never really know because it just so happens that I am too lazy to find out. And reading is my hobby, not my serious doctorate. Why don't I just read romance novels and whatnot then, since I'm not willing to truly find out what I'm reading. I think romance novels are harder to decipher than art intellectual novels. CIA code-crackers get to work on that every day on the romance genre as do stereotypical women who enjoy that.

And by the way- Sontag has some beautiful ways of writing and these ways make her writing a must-reads.

Why Ginevra is writing this blog

I wanted to write a blog to improve my perception. If I am writing something that someone else might actually read, I’ll want to do a good job, so I’ll think about it. As a result, I’ll take a closer look at life in search of something insightful. Of course, that is purely selfish, but in these matters one should first consider one’s own needs, then those of others. Like the stewardess said, you are supposed to put on your oxygen mask before assisting small children. Maybe my insight will help someone else find insight, and good will beget good.

So, why write a blog with my sister Regina? She caught me on the phone at a good time and I said yes. Since she’ll read it, maybe she’ll get insight from what I say and start seeing things my way (ha!). If you are into watching girl-fights, you should follow this blog. We are doing this experiment to see if we can communicate effectively this way. If so, maybe we’ll get somewhere interesting. Communication is the transmission facts and ideas (my def). The only reason to really bother with it is to alter the way in which one views the world: either by becoming aware of new facts, altering ones view of known facts, or by simply being surprised that someone else could see things so differently. Regina usually surprises me, but every once in awhile I am inspired.

All I can tell you is what I plan on blogging about and how I plan on doing it. Maybe Regina will do the same thing. Since I am a chemist and Regina and artist, we’ll probably write about art and science. It’s likely that I will write about how I became a chemist; maybe Regina will write about how she became an artist. I will write about growing up in a family of artists. I will write about my experiments and my plans to make a family of chemists. The blog may evolve, fizzle, or go up in flames. Only one way to find out.

why we are writing a blog

THis is a blog about 2 sisters, a chemist and an artist. Both are hard-headed, yet peace-filled. ...THIS IS THEIR STORY