Savannah Saturday

We got out of Savannah today and concentrated on outdoors activities. This picture is from the Savannah-Ogeechee Canal. It no longer functions as a canal, as you can see by the lack of water, but it offers nice walking. We also took a hike at the Skidaway Island State Park where we saw lots of marshy land. The end of our journey was a drive to Tybee Island where we looked briefly at the Atlantic Ocean before returning to the hotel. Tomorrow we head home - tired, but happy after a relaxing time. I will post pictures then, when I have a faster internet connection.

Savannah

A few things about Savannah. It's got a very, very busy port. How busy? We're not exactly sure, but we know it's ranked right up there. Various people of the PRF group here took different taxis to the hotel, and each cab driver recounted a different statistic. Apparently cab drivers must tell their customers something of this port. So, either it's the second busiest port on the eastern seaboard, or the fourth, or the fifth in the U.S. or someone even said the busiest. Wikipedia wasn't much help, so I guess I should just keep looking on the internet.

Our hotel is right on the river, and when we are in the conference rooms, we can watch the container ships right outside the window.

Hal was free all afternoon, so we took a long stroll through downtown and saw the famous fountain, Flannery O'Connor's house, Juliet Low's house (she founded the Girl Scouts), some churches, lots of squares, the cemetery, various architecture and Starbucks. Tonight we go with the group to the Olde Pink House for dinner.

Pictures and more are forthcoming.

Red-Eye

I think I got around 3 hours of sleep last night between the two flights. Travel was smooth all the way around, though, and this afternoon Hal and I took a little walk through part of downtown Savannah. After a good night's sleep tonight, I will be up for more strolling tomorrow.

Georgia-Bound

This morning I dropped Hal off at the Metrolink station. He's on his way to a PRF meeting in Savannah, Georgia. I will take the red-eye tonight and meet him there tomorrow morning!

News from Claire

I had a nice email from Claire telling me about her first day in Arezzo, Italy. What a change from London! Here she is outside a town of 91,000 people, living in a villa built in the 1300s. In London she cooked for herself, and here she eats with everyone where someone else cooks and does dishes. These pictures are from the web, but I'm sure she'll have her own pictures up soon.

A Book and A Movie

Streaming from Netflix, Man on Wire is my ultimate horror film - watching someone walk between the twin towers in NYC. Actually, this documentary was riveting, especially near the end.


My book club will be discussing Gilead next month, but I finished it last night. I had been told that I would really like this book, and although the prose was beautiful, I think I needed more than that to seal the deal. Perhaps I will go through it again just before our discussion, and maybe I will learn why it's so good from the other people in the group.

Claire in Italy

Claire skyped me from her dorm room in Arezzo, Italy today. After taking 5 different buses and one airplane, she made it from London to Tuscany in one piece with her luggage!

The Ubiquitous Font

Hal was off at an umpiring clinic all day, the weather is threatening, so it's been a great day to cozy up inside. Hal's computer was hooked up to the tv, so I took advantage of it to stream a movie from Netflix that I don't think Hal wanted to watch. Helvetica is a documentary about the font of that name. Sound like a bore? Not really. As with many subjects, if examined, it can be interesting. Although this movie could have been edited a little more, I still very much enjoyed learning about design principles and how this font has become so ubiquitous, and what it says about our global visual culture.

New Family Member

My cousin Phil and his wife Zandra have added a new member to their family. This is baby Tatiana Luz being adored by her big sister Catia. Little Tatiana is Liesl and Claire's 30th second cousin on my side of the family!

On Poetry

A man was having electrical problems at his house. He would flip the
switch in the living room, and the kitchen light would come on. He
flipped the switch in the linen closet, and the bathroom fan came on.
He found a switch in the Garage that controlled the vanity in the
Master Bathroom, and a switch in the laundry room that turned on the
Garbage Disposal. Things were a mess.

He decided to hire someone to fix it. He listed the job on Craig's
List, and he waited.

The next day, two pieces of paper walked up to his door. Neatly
written on each was a bit of metered verse.

He answered the door. "Who are you?" he asked.

"We're poems. We saw your ad, and we're here to fix your wiring."

The man was excited. Soon his house would be back to normal! He had
some business in town, so he left the poems to their work and would
return later that night.

When the man returned, immediately he was concerned. When he pressed
the garage door opener, though the garage did open, the porch light
also came on. Warily, he unlocked the door and entered.

When he turned on the light switch, things went horribly wrong. The
light did not come on. The stereo did, however, as did the
floodlights on the lawn. The switch also triggered the lawn
sprinklers, which sprayed water full-force through the still-open
door.

Soaked, the man sat down on his couch and held his head in his hands.
When his wife got home and asked what was the matter, he explained the
situation.

"Poems?" she asked. "Well there's your problem."

He looked up.

"You should've hired prose!"