I went into this event feeling stupid about Linus Pauling, like exactly when did he live. Fortunately, Terry showed up with some brief documentaries, which we projected on Friday night. 1901 to 1994, with a Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1954, and for peace in 1962.Allen Taylor and I talked about the power of some preachers to really stand and deliver. He's had more experience listening to preachers than I, given my background with unprogrammed Friends. Billy Graham came up as a man of integrity, and friend of Kim Il-Sung, Jong-Il's dad.
Allen has just finished another "for dummies" book on SQL. His son Rob just won a best actor award for his protrayal of Neil Stryker in Evil Cult.
I talked about Quakers finding resonance with this Islamic concept of Jihad, using truth to undermine tyranny -- a kind of psychological warfare (Quaker bumper sticker: Outward Weapons are for Losers).
Last night the girls and I drove over to Irvington to learn about Claire's sojourn in rural Mexico, staying with a host family for six weeks and planning lots of summer school activities with her friend Ashley.
This Amigos program also aims to broaden horizons intra Latin America as well i.e. not all the guests are necessarily based in North America.
Claire's excellent presentation reminded me that we hope Terry's daughter Caitlin will make a presentation to Wanderers one day, about her own world travels, including in rural India.
Larry finally got his new Vista box connected to the Internet (router problem). Good seeing Andy and Barb again, both fluent in Spanish and familiar with many parts of Central and South America. Chris stopped by the Pauling House straight from Meeting to share a memorials-related file.
I got Tinkerbell out for my first real ride of the season this morning: a 17 mile loop mostly on Springwater Corridor, including over the new bike bridge in Sellwood. Other Wanderers, including Barbara, a veteran outdoorsman, used the morning hours to hike up to Mt. Tabor, our little urban volcano.
Some young geeks showed up, down from Seattle on a pilgrimmage to Pauling-related sites they'd scrounged up via the Internet. They'd just come from his gravesite in Lake Oswego. We gave 'em a quick tour of the house, filled in some of the surrounding history.
Towards mid-afternoon, David Feinstein swung by and joined Bill Sheppard and myself for lunch at K2, an excellent nearby restaurant featuring Indian-Pakistani food. We discussed a broad range of topics, from flow accelerated corrosion to the invasion of Grenada.
I missed seeing Dick Pugh this retreat, though he came by, our respective scenarios being only partially overlapping as Bucky'd've put it.
