“It’s CHOWDA!”
Rodd and I have finally left the Midwestern plains for the twee quaintness of New England. Well, at least that’s what we thought we were doing. Instead we arrived in Boston to the marvelous sight of the “Big Dig” and the insanity of Beantown drivers. We’re having a good time though. We’re staying with my college roommate Eileen, who I haven’t seen in four years. Yesterday she took us up to the beach in Gloucester (which is apparently where The Perfect Storm was set). It’s like 90 degrees here and sunny, so it was a perfect day. Today the Snook and I are walking the Freedom Trail and checking out all the Revolutionary War sites. We’ve been through the State Building and we even saw Paul Revere’s grave. It’s hilarious because Rodd knows very little about the War of Independence, so he keeps asking me questions and demonstrating that I know very little about my own country’s history. But we’re learning now, right?

And hey, you Brits. The Snook and I will be landing in London this Thursday morning and we want to meet up with as many folks as possible. We’re thinking of having a little Netdeciders reunion Friday night either at the Suffolk Punch or at the Anchor down on the Thames. Let me know if you’ve got any other ideas or if you can’t make it. And please tell all the other ND folks that I’ve fallen out of contact with. Hope to see you soon!

Literature
I was pleasantly surprised to score 11/13 on this Famous First Lines Quiz. I had to take a couple educated guesses.

I’ve been doing a fair bit of reading on the trip so far. I managed to finish Speaker for the Dead, the Orson Scott Card sequel to Ender’s Game. It cleared up a lot of the issues I had with the first book (especially the bit about the computer game that seemed a little too sentient). My edition came with a nice introduction from Card that explained why the whole “Speaker for the Dead” thing at the end of Ender’s Game felt so tacked on. Basically, he wanted to write the second book but he needed to set up who Ender was and what humanity’s attitude would be towards the piggies. Now I almost wish he had spent more time on it. I’m enjoying the series so much that if I don’t get the next book soon, I’ll probably go back and reread the first two!

Sunburn. I forgot how bright it gets here during the summer. My forehead kills.