As Far As I Can Tell

Saturday, I went with Meredith to a couple events that were part of the Poetry Hop. It was set up as a panel discussion, not just of the various individual’s work, but on broader themes that are prevalent throughout poetry and life. In each session there were at least two people that I really enjoyed listening to. Smart, observant, and funny.

One of the more interesting questions that came from the audience was on the idea of the thesaurus degrading language more than anything else. The thesaurus, it was argued, makes us believe that a grouping of words all mean the same thing and are interchangeable. This overlooking of the subtlety of word meanings is definitely aided by the thesaurus, though I think it has positive idea generation purposes as well. I find it useful when I know I don’t have the right word, but I can’t put my finger on what I’m looking for.

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On Sunday I had breakfast with Evil Bill before heading off to Sturgis again to visit my parents and grandparents. While I was there I helped haul some furniture that my Mom bought at the Centerville Antique Fair and my Dad helped me build the moped hitching post I’ve had plans to build for almost a year. This high security homemade device consists of:

• Two 5 gallon buckets stacked into each other. The top one has the bottom cut out.
• Four U-Locks locked through holes drilled in the bucket.
• Cement poured in the bucket all the way to the top.

I now have a 100 pound movable moped security device. I needed to build it because I don’t have a good place to lock up at my new apartment and already I’ve had 4 kids ask to either “buy”, “ride”, or “have” my moped. I might have to hire a full-time security guard.

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Sunday night I went on the Moped Army weekly ride where we ran a relay race on the new WMU BTR Park road. It’s like it was designed for moped racing.

That night Jake rode home with me to Chicago so he could fly out to Japan on Monday.