Last month Anne journeyed across this country in order to install LA Dan in what I believe will soon become his natural habitat. On Tuesday, Dave began his analogous journey. Late Tuesday night he landed in Saint Louis. This first step on his journey will be followed next week by another to Washington DC. There he will take up the mantle of DC Dave. Then we will have two coastal sons.  All the while, Anne and I will be left in the middle, here in Saint Louis.

I lifted the following picture off of Dan’s Facebook page.  On Tuesday, a fire fighting helicopter, the skyhook type, was sucking up water from one of the water hazards at the neighboring golf course.  The picture shows the helicopter and the wildfire’s smoke plume in the background.  In California, this year’s fire season seems to be rather benign compared to seasons in the recent past.  The first time that he tried to visit CalArts, he couldn’t get there.  The fires of September had cut it off.  His friend Cat who had valiantly driven him down the state and then back up again was cutoff from her place at the end of her trip.

The final picture with this post shows some new bike parts that just showed up on Wednesday.  These parts are slated for Anne’s bike.  The new flat resistant tubes are intended to replace worn parts, but the rest of this spread is part of a transformation.  Last year in Quebec, I rode a road bike that had a mountain bike rear derailleur and cassette.  I liked it and after last weekend’s rather hilly Tour de Wildwood I suggest the same to Anne.  She agreed to try it and see if she liked it or not.  So, after this year’s MS-150 bike ride, which is coming up quick, I’ll install these parts on her bike.  They should make it much easer to do hill climbing than with a standard road bike’s setup.  If she doesn’t like it then I’ll just use the new parts on my bike and restore her bike to the way it was.

Anne has allowed me to tell this story from her work.  The class was studying a mnemonic.  The intent of the lesson was to teach the class the mnemonic so that they would then be ready to actually use it for some subsequently required memorization.  The class was given an exercise to test their comprehension.  Student A completed this exercise very quickly.  Student B asked how did you finish it so quickly.  Student A responded, I studied.  To which, Student B exclaimed, that’s cheating.