Nice to sit in one’s own living room and write. Really nice. It’s been a long summer, and it’s good to be back.
A clarification
Saturday’s post linked to a quotation from Doc Searls, editor of Linux Magazine, about “blogging naked over a fat pipe.” It has been pointed out to me that this statement might be misinterpreted. For the record, when I or just about any other computer geek says the word “fat pipe,” we mean a high bandwidth network connection. Unfortunately for everyone’s mental health, Doc was probably writing his weblog (“blogging”) in the altogether, as he posted that comment from a hotel that was wireless enabled during a conference.
Final travel update
After everything, here’s the last update on my travel back from Seattle. When the plane got in, I met Lisa, grabbed my bags, and we drove back to the North End. We were pulling into the parking garage when my phone rang. The woman at the other end asked me to check my bags–apparently they had mine and couldn’t find hers. In my haste, I had grabbed the wrong bag. We had to turn around and go back to the airport (mercifully the traffic was light) and swap the bags. It’s the first time in four years of owning this particular bag that I’ve seen another like it…
The long hand of history
Lisa and I met up with our friends Niall (a classmate of mine) and Dubhfeasa (his girlfriend) yesterday afternoon. We took in the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum. It’s an eccentric place–built to resemble a Venetian villa, it’s chock full of art both famous (Titian’s Europa, a Raphael, a Rembrandt self portrait, Sargent’s Jaleo) and obscure. Many of the paintings are unlabeled. Some sit in rooms open to the outside air. Apparently Gardner’s will specified that no permanent changes could be made to the museum, the collection, or the manner in which the art was displayed. It’s a gorgeous building and some gorgeous art. Some of the displays are a bit interactive–glass cases containing letters and books are protected from the light by heavy velvet cloth, which the visitor can peel back to examine, for instance, letters to Gardner from T. S. Eliot and other luminaries.
Afterwards we sat down over curries from the excellent Thai place down the road from Niall and Dubhfeasa and caught up. It’s good to be home.