:: cinco de mayo ::Glenn invited me to Tim's and Kym's for their weekly potluck, which was well attended. A lot of people had made the connection to Cinco de Mayo, so we had plenty of burritos, enchiladas, margaritas. I brought Mexican beer with some limes.
This was an upscale Beaverton crowd, very West Hills, very Intel (i.e. cosmopolitan, multi-lingual) if I may be permitted to stereotype (talking zip code demographics).
We were middle aged successful professionals, often with children (Tara had another engagement, but maybe she could come some other time -- lots of kids her age, with their own space).
What I found interesting about the chatter: seems like every guy my age is developing an application for the iPhone; we're really interested in energy, yak about the grid as if it were our shared backyard (which it is, sorta).
I heard very little about politics, either local or global (not that energy is apolitical, except it is, sorta).
Terry wants me to join the ISEPP board, given he's trying to promote his ISEPP salons, has lost Doug Strain among others. I'm to send him a short bio. The salons (per Nirel's nomenclature) will be themed and involve wiki-backed reading programs.
The salons are a way to disseminate multi-disciplinary information through both presentations and schmoozing, Q&A with the invited experts (architects, policy analysts... GIS professionals), something universities aren't so good at (inter-departmental cross-talk is a rarity).
Per our Wanderers marketing:
"Science would be ruined if it were to withdraw entirely into narrowly defined specialties. The rare scholars who are wanderers-by-choice are essential to the intellectual welfare of the settled disciplines."Given our overlapping interest in coffee shop subcultures, I see this as consistent enough with my heart's desires to be worth pursuing. Thx Terry, I'll get to work on that paragraph.
-- Benoit Mandelbrot
