From Eritrea

I'm in Asmara and doing well. I will be able to get email now and then.

The Internet is just f'in great

This afternoon, as I'm in the final stages of packing for Eritrea, I decide to get out my old camera from my childhood (I'm such a luddite) to bring with me. When I bought film it occured to me that I'd need a new battery, too. I brought in the old one to Walgreen's, but they don't sell them anymore. I went to the camera specialty shop in North Beach, and the battery the gentleman assured me was the current replacement didn't work. With a quick online search, I discovered that my camera originally took a 1.35V "625" battery, but that these were banned because of mercury content. (Apparently, batteries in that style today are 1.55V - probably what the guy at the camera store tried.) One web site recommended getting a 1.4V "675" hearing aid battery at the drug store, and making it fit in the camera with an O-ring around it and a piece of aluminum foil as a shim. I easily got the ingredients in the neighborhood and, with a bit of trial and error, it works! Woohoo!

Off to Eritrea

Okay, so I'm in my last-minute panic about getting things done before I fly off to Eritrea, via Atlanta and Amsterdam, early Wednesday morning. Not much to say except that, and that I'll be back in the later evening of July 14. Now back to panicking! :)

Getting Here from There

A couple nights ago, I opened the main drawer of my desk a little too vigorously, pulling it out of the desk entirely and spilling the contents all over the floor. In an instant, I created for myself what became a major task yesterday because, not only did I have to put it all back in, but I had to examine and organize every bit of it in the process.

One item was an address book which I had kept over many years in grad school. I was then required to go through and google everyone about whose present situation I was remotely curious. Many people did not show up at all, but many others did, as professors at Michigan, Columbia, Bennington, Oberlin. (There was one museum curator, too.) The Bennington prof had first-authored a paper with second author "R. Penrose".

All this brought up my former academic ambitions, and I felt rather inadequate. But reflecting further on it this morning, I confirmed that I'd probably not be happy being a professor. For reasons both personal and mysterious even to me, I think I'd feel like I wasn't really accomplishing anything being a professional intellectual. For some reason, it feels much more satisfying traveling to Eritrea, setting up met data stations, trying to get wind farms built. Someday I could see doing something more think-tanky, but for now, more praxis.