…just got back from two weeks in San Francisco, getting ready now to start a course that I’ll be taking this summer entitled Environmental Management and American Democracy: Friends or Foes?… I spent the first week with my friends Rich and Pam Ault, and their new daughter Abby. Rich and Pam are super cool and their daughter is healthy and happy, although she sure does poop alot. Speaking of new kids, Brett Gardner and his wife Lindsay Stevens just had a son, Owen August Gardner — I’ll have to get out to Milwaukee to see them soon. Kids kids kids…

San Francisco… Zeitgeist, the Palace Steakhouse, Golden Boy Pizza, Ocean Beach, hiking on Mt Tam, the bay in the moonlight, climbing at Mission Cliffs, the Peaks, driving across the Golden Gate bridge in the fog, skateboarding… I do miss it, and I expect that once I’m done with school here in Madison, I’ll be back there as soon as possible.

That said, I returned Saturday to sunny skies, 75 degrees, and lots of green here in the Midwest, and spent all day Sunday sailing on the lake. Not bad, not bad at all.