Tuesday, 19 October 2004

Well, that day I took off a while back did the trick, in the sense of getting me back to being productive at work. I've been getting things done pretty well again. But between working hard and the change of seasons, I've neither been writing nor exercising.

This past Saturday I drove to Crawfordsville, Indiana, where my brother was attending a conference. He and I and several of his friends and colleagues (also attending the conference) went to the nearby Pine Hills Nature Preserve and hiked for a bit. It was very pretty, although a bit cloudy for great autumn color pictures. Every now and then the sun would come out long enough for us to see a spectacular landscape, only to vanish behind a cloud before I could get a picture taken. We got to see the view, though, even if we didn't get to document it properly.

We had a good hike, then headed back to Steven's hotel room, where we drank beer and talked about politics. (We talked about other stuff on the way to and from the hike, including about tardigrades--neat little creatures which are very common but not very much studied, so not a whole lot is known about them.)

I'm reading Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. It's one of those books that everyone is talking about, so I figured I had to read it just to be current in the field. Fortunately, it's a delight to read.

Aside from that, it's pretty much just working, eating, and sleeping.