In DC

I'm in Washington, DC, for few days for a conference of the Census State Data Center Network. We're meeting at the Census Bureau's new headquarters in Suitland, but staying at a hotel in northern Virginia, just across Key Bridge (left) from the District.

We took buses from the hotel to Suitland this morning. We were dropped at the main entrance where we all had to make our slow way through security. That took a while and the conference started late. Ultimately, we managed to make up the time and by lunch we were back on schedule.

In the afternoon we had break-out sessions. I was in a conference room trying to understand the higher (for me) math needed to make sense of the Public Use Microdata Sample (PUMS) when the fire alarm went off and we had to join hundreds of Census workers in an orderly evacuation and a less orderly milling-around outside for about half an hour.

I don't think it was a drill, but I never heard what caused the alarm. I wouldn't be surprised if it was my brain short-circuiting when I tried to understand PUMS data.

We got back to the hotel around six this evening. I had time to wander across Key Bridge and take a short photo-walk along the Canal.


Tomorrow, we'll be back out in Suitland. I'll try to keep my brains from shorting-out again.

Memories From a Lighthouse-Keeper

The News Journal has located one of the men who once served on Fourteen Foot Bank Lighthouse in the Delaware Bay. Matthew Lomot was part of a Coast Guard crew that kept that light in working order in the late 1960s. He seems saddened to learn that the Lighthouse has been sold, but willing to offer advice to the new owner.

I can't help my continuing fascination with this story. The idea of a house perched out in the middle of the Bay is just so cool.

According to this latest story, Lighthouse-collector Michael Gabriel is thinking about buying a third east-coast lighthouse. I suppose his being a wealthy lawyer means the things he collects can be large and rusting and fascinatingly concrete. My more modest collector's urge is towards images of odd things.

Hot. Humid. October?

This is what Dover looked like at the start of this week. Blue, clear skies with a selection of fluffy clouds. This is what we expect from Fall; low humidity and comfortable temperatures.

So, what has gone wrong? The rest of the week has been too warm and too humid. Sure it led to a few fog-delays to delight my school-age kids. But I've been running the AC in the Prius again, just to cut the mugginess.

Of course, a cool-inside car cutting through a fog-bound landscape is going to gather condensation, obscuring the view of a dank, gray, misty commute. So I run the wipers. Which just makes it worse.

This isn't the October we ordered.

Hartly's Happy Hippie has a post up this week lauding the arrival of fall. She's a young fashion-plate and looks forward to being able to "layer" this season. I think she's being a bit optimistic. I'm still trying to find some sort of justification for wearing shorts and sandals to work at the Office of Management and Budget.

Meanwhile, the forecast for tomorrow is for temps in the mid-80s. There's talk among my girls of going to the beach tomorrow. The beach?!? This is October, we should be haunting the Punkin' Patch, looking for carvable and chunkable gourds.

Oh well. This too will pass. The temps will fall and the humidity will lift. Maybe this day-long sinus-ache will leave me as well.

Here's (Hopefully) Good (State) News

Delaware.Net President John McKown has a post up on his Building Better Web Sites blog announcing that his company has won a contract to re-do the web site of the Delaware State News.

It's about time. I'm not a huge fan of the News Journal's site (too busy, too blinky, and with too flashy-move-y thingies, though it is getting better). But the Journal's site is head and shoulders above the current State News site. At least the News Journal posts its stories by day and by section and provides archives and some sense of order.

The current State News "News" section for Central Delaware, for example, includes a headline and teaser that suggests that Milford has a CompPlan meeting "tonight."

City looks at comp plan
MILFORD — City planners will meet in special session at 7 tonight to begin revising Milford’s comprehensive plan.

It's only when you click through that you realize that that headline has been up there since September 12. That meeting is already over.

That's just one of several gripes. But what's important to note is that the State News is not a terrible newspaper. They have some decent reporters and do a respectable job covering Downstate Delaware.

I'm hoping that Mr. McKown and his team can bring some on-line order to the News.

Time to Turn the Page

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman makes a good point today: 9/11 is over.

9/11 has made us stupid. I honor, and weep for, all those murdered on that day. But our reaction to 9/11 — mine included — has knocked America completely out of balance, and it is time to get things right again.

I think he's right. We cannot forget, but we mustn't endlessly dwell on 9/11. It's starting to change who we are, and not for the good.

Banned Books Week

Gulliver's Travels by Jonathon Swift
Originally uploaded by hatcher.library

The week of September 29 through October 6 is Banned Books Week. This is a week when those of us who read should remember those books that folks, for a wide variety of reasons, have tried to take out of our hands.

The list is long and diverse. Would-be censors right, left and center have all challenged books. The urge to stifle thought that we don't agree with is universal; we all have a duty to combat that urge within ourselves.

It is interesting to note that more than "banned" books, we now speak of "challenged" books. These are books that someone is trying to keep us from reading, either by banning or by raising an un-holy stink about them.

The American Library Association's Office for Intellectual Freedom points to this quote from Ray Bradbury (author of Fahrenheit 451):

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

Thus we see campaigns that complain loudly about certain books. They may or may not call for book-banning, but they all can lead librarians, teachers, parents and readers to shy away from certain books. And that is not good.

Rainy-Day Tourism

I'm amazed to find myself at Thursday evening with no blog posts since the start of the week. The NSGIC Conference can be a brutal week, with days filled completely with meetings and information. I've had little time or energy left to post.

It is important to break away if possible and get a stretch. A small group of us took a few hours Tuesday afternoon to visit the Olbrich Botanical Gardens here in Madison.

It was raining fairly steadily, but we took the umbrellas provided by the Botanical Society and wandered around the gardens until the rain grew too heavy. The gardens boast a variety of landscaping styles. There is a sunken garden, a rose garden, and a formal garden. There are pathways and trellises.

In one corner, a close-packed collection of small plants rests on a pedestal. Two kaleidoscopes focus-in on the plants.

Toward the back, across a bridge, a traditional Thai Pavilion sits serenely among reflecting pools.

It was very pretty. But after a short visit we gamely headed back to the Conference hotel and into more discussions of geospatial data and IT coordination.

Now it is Friday evening and we have just completed our final meeting: the first gathering of a new Board of Directors. Tomorrow morning I have an early flight through Chicago and back to Baltimore. I should be able to get back to Delaware in plenty of time for Sussex Tech's football game against Cape Henlopen High. I'll get to sit with Karen in the stands and watch our daughter play bass with the Tech marching band.

In Wisconsin

I'm in Madison, Wisconsin, this week for the 2007 Annual Conference of the National States Geographic Information Council (NSGIC). I'll be here for a week of day-long, and evening deep, meetings. These people are crazy.

I arrived about mid-day Saturday and had time to walk around and look at things. Our conference hotel is just a block from the Wisconsin State Capitol. It is a lovely building. The State has recently refurbished it and it glows in the center of this pretty little city.

I had meant to circle the Capitol and walk out a ways. But I noticed folks walking into the building. I followed them and was astounded to find a gorgeous palatial interior, fully open to the public and apparently quite popular.

So I got stuck in there, wandering around ogling the architecture and taking loads of photos. I really love this building. There is color and grandeur. There is rich wood and polished stone. There is gilt and marble. There is plenty of light.

Large areas of the building are open to the public, and the staff are pleasant and helpful; proud of their building and eager to share information about it.

I worked my way up several sets of stairs until I came to the inside of the great dome. There's a metal spiral staircase the leads to a walkway around the outside of the dome. Up there are views all around the center of the city and over the two lakes that frame the Capitol. There are also close-up views of a number of heroic statues.

I probably spent an hour and a half wandering around. I was in pig-heaven. I hope to get back there at some point this week.

By the way, in case you were wondering: there are plenty of badgers in there as well.

Luckily, There are Sunsets

Life can be hard. Work doesn't always go well. School can be a challenge.

There are tooth-aches. And head-aches.

Some days are diamonds and some days bring the sort of almost geologic pressure that scientists tell us creates diamonds.

We're not always going to be happy.

On the other hand, if you keep your eyes open, there's often something very pretty to see.

We Have Met the Enemy and He is Those People

Tuesday evening I spent at a meeting of the Homeowners Association of my neighborhood. We are a subdivision that is within, but literally on the edge of, the City of Lewes.

For many years, we looked out on farm fields on two sides. Some of those fields have lately been developed. On the last remaining there's a proposal for another large subdivision.

This is only to be expected, we live in a fast-growing area. And, if you look at the thing dispassionately, it makes more sense for these developments to be placed in or next to an established City, where services exist, rather than out in the rural area, where scattered subdivisions only weaken the agricultural economy and force extra expense upon the statewide tax base.

I was disappointed to learn that the Homeowners Association Board has proudly planted a "natural fence" at the end of the cul-de-sac that faces one of the new developments. There was never any suggestion that there be a vehicular connection between the neighboring subdivision and ours, but the homeowners say they want to block pedestrian and bicycle connections.

So they have started a hedgerow.

I asked why we should want to cut ourselves off from our new neighbors.

"If we let people start walking here, they will come to expect it and the next thing you know they will take over our roads."

That's a paraphrase of what one gentleman told me but it is essentially true to what he said. And he was not alone; rather a few others were horrified that I should suggest any form of connection between us and them. (Not all, of course)

I have two problems with this.

First, the roads of our subdivision are not "our roads." They are City of Lewes public roads and as such are open to all who wish to use them. Further, the right-of-way at the cul-de-sac end extends to the border between the two neighborhoods. It is designed to facilitate interconnection.

Second, creating subdivisions that are not connected to one another enforces a self-ghettoization in which we carefully screen ourselves from "others." This is not good for us; it threatens our soul. It is bad Karma. It is stupid.

Humans live in societies. Societies are, by their nature, social. We are meant to meet and interact with one another. When we fail to do that we diminish our lives and shrink our hearts.

The only justification for walling-off our neighbors is self-preservation. At some points in human history, and in some places today, we have had a need to separate from enemies. But within Delaware, within Lewes, that should not be necessary.

That we have a desire to wall-off our neighbors suggests, and creates, an enmity between us.

That is just sad.