Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Wanderers 2005.7.19

Yesterday's Wanderers was one of the best ever, and yet was unplanned, for the most part, a "do whatever we feel like" kind of event. The result was a kind of round robin, although moving at variable speed, with lots of back and forth between turn-taking.

Big news was more about Lew and his Educational Leave of Absence to dive into the Urban Studies department at PSU -- one of the best in the nation (Carl Abbott is a Friend).

Dick Pugh revealed more mysteries of the meteorites. Brian indulged us with more Condor-talk. Don offered to assist everybody (at the last meeting, Don introduced himself as "Terry's Igor," which brought the house down).

I wedged in a complete OSCON presentation off the laptop (no projector), complete with "Fog of War" battlemap (drawn in green felt on the spot). Jim talked more about the watershed and his plan to view next year's eclipse from a Libyan standpoint, insha Allah.

David left before the round robin got to him (and before I drew my battlemap), but I enjoyed re-explaining Quadrays to him (one slide in my OSCON presentation) -- David being an applied mathematician, with an emphasis on spectral analysis.