A friend at Epinions got them to add the Dana, so I just posted my review. Off to Economics!

I’m very quickly discovering how much work I’ve signed myself up for… I dropped Portuguese in favor of a second planning course (The Ecology of the City), so now I have two graduate-level courses in planning, both of which are going to be very demanding. Lots of reading, lots of discussion, lots of writing, lots of work. This is going to take some getting used to.

A bit warmer here, and some snow today.

Megan and I had a couple of beers last night at a local bar — I can’t remember the name, but it’s a good regular joint… Reminded me of my last night in San Francisco, at the Peaks. I asked the bartender (Tommy, I think) for a Wild Turkey, and he recognized me and apologized for not having a bottle behind the bar, but offered to make it up by ordering three and stocking them for my future enjoyment. I couldn’t refuse his generous offer, but I leave it up to my friend Marc Gardner to make good on my end of it in my absence.

Megan arrived lateish Friday night, having driven the Nissan out from New Hampshire with her Dad. Breakfast Saturday at the Milk Bar was disappointing: a plateful of glue cakes. They ran off to get some shopping done for Megan’s apartment, and I did some Econ homework. Homework, now that’s funny. An “inferior good” is something the demand for which decreases as income increases — that is, things you tend to stop buying as you make more money. Like auto parts.

Saturday afternoon, we drove up to Fond du Lac to try to catch some of the ice boat regatta… by the time we got up there and had lunch at Schmitty’s Oar House, and got out onto the ice, the races were over and the boats were being packed up, but we did see a few DN’s zipping back and forth, and got a good look at Deuce, one of the big stern-steerers out there — very impressive looking boats.

Saturday evening we had dinner at Harvest, which some say is “the best” restaurant in Madison. I’m not so sure about that, but the black tie crowd from the annual Frosty Ball made their way in, and we did have some exceptionally good wine (a 2000 Olivier Leflaive Pommard). Today we had a much better breakfast at Bluephie’s (although I remain loyal to Just For You), and drove around looking at houses and such until it was time to take Megan’s dad to the airport for his flight home…

I have pretty much decided to drop Portuguese in favor of a second planning course, basically so I can get on with what I came here do to. I also felt that my slightly aging brain can only absorb a limited number of widely differing subjects simultaneously at this point… Also, we’re planning to go to Mexico for spring break, and Portuguese would probably only confuse me further — I should be able to find someplace to practice my Spanish once or twice a week… The second planning course is Ecology of the City. Now I’m off to read and write a bit.

The end of my first week at grad school… Everything is going well, and I’ve started to grasp the fact that I’m going to have a lot of reading to do. Writing as well, I suppose. Not sure if I’m going stick with the Portuguese… it’s fun, but already I’m starting to feel like it might not be the best use of my time. There’s another planning course that I had signed up for as a backup, and I may end up doing that instead, and looking for some Spanish conversation practice a couple of times a week…

I’ve been give this gizmo a trial run here… It looks like a very compact laptop computer, and it has a full-size keyboard, and a screen that’s about 8 inches wide and 3.5 inches high. Beyond that, it’s more like a Palm device: Palm OS, low-res monochrome screen, no hard drive. The idea is that you don’t need a full-blown laptop computer for mobile writing, a device with plenty of memory, but no hard drive weighs much less and uses much less battery power than a laptop — this thing powers on and off instantly and lasts for weeks on a battery charge. At first I was thinking that I might not really end up using it, but after trying it out in class, it feels perfectly natural, and because it has no moving parts, it’s silent and unobtrusive. More on this thing in my epinions review.

Where are all the photos, you ask? Or, why don’t I just host them on my own site instead of using ofoto? Well, it’s because photos use hard drive space — I have a limited amount on dwelle.org, and ofoto doesn’t seem to have any limits on how much space you use. So, if you want to see photos, and I haven’t already sent you an invitation via ofoto, try this.

I just went down to the bi-weekly meeting of The Four Lakes Ice Yacht Club here in Madison — 3 mile each way in my bicycle, and the thermometer says it’s 1, count’em, one degree out. These guys get up to 60mph easy, and I was told that the “Skeeters,” whatever they are, get up to 100mph — although I have to believe that was the locals pulling my leg. Although if you think about it, 65sq ft of sail pushing three little runners and maybe 400lbs of boat, including the pilot, on black ice, and hey presto, you just might hit a hundred.

I’ll head down to the lake weekend and try to bum a ride… By the way, I got extra points for my Red Wings, purchased at the now-famous Shoe Box in Black Earth, 10 miles east of Madison…