light shining on a medium-sized black bear ambling
past our bedroom door. He seemed aware of us, but
totally disinterested for which I was happy.
On Saturday we went to Chautauqua Auditorium for the
2nd Annual "Catastrophe or Opportunity," a panel
discussion and "Climate and Energy call to action.
It was run by Richard Brenne whose major claim to
fame seems his ability to stage these events.
Bill McKibbon of the New Yorker Magazine was there
joined by Al Bartlett who with Erlich has been calling
for zero population growth since the early 60s, Kevin
Trembeth whom I knew at NCAR and who was one of the
recent recipients of the Nobel prize for their work
on Global Climate Change. Ben Toon whose work I am
not familiar and Diane McKnight an engineering Prof
at the University of Colorado and Bob Hansen a
spokesperson from NCAR. It was interesting and it
was clear they were "singing to the Choir." I
did hear about an international organization called
350.org that is working with people all over the
global to diminish carbon dioxide entering the
atmosphere. It's an interesting site and I plan
to follow it now I've heard of it.
On Sunday we went to Gerard and Alice Och's 50th
wedding anniversary party. It was held at a ranch
in north Boulder. A charming venue for a picnic
party. The site was backed by a pond on one side
and the front range foothills on another. The
weather prediction was not good so there were
tents over the food stations and over the eating
areas which was very nice. However, the rain did
hold off until just before 4 PM which was supposed
to be the end of the party and which I would
guess ended it quite abruptly. At least we ran
for our car and left.
It was a very nice party and huge, more than 75 people.
Robert and I would be hard put to have that many
invitees to a party at this stage of our lives. We
keep losing friends. In any case there were several
generations represented from wee small and very
young ones to some very old ones.
Last Wednesday we listened to President Obama's speech
to Congress. He has so much on his plate, but seems
overly submissive when it comes to taking on the
opposition. He also is listening to the Military
with regard to Afghanistan. It's hard to be patient.
The bank bail out was bad enough, but worse is the
lack of action on writing new legislation to prohibit
some of the behavior that caused the huge collapse!
We had book club at Allison's after the speech and
discussed it some. He is popular, but concern
continues about his limited approach to health care
reform. He seems to be backing down over and over
again.
On Thursday Robert had his driving day and I have
no idea what I did for the day...except I did read
a bit.
One of Bob Gray's employees and the programmer for
the software Robert uses to communicate between
the batteries in the hut and his computer in the
office came for a tour. His father-in-law was
visiting from Sandia Labs and Nick was sure he'd
be interested. Nick's wife also came along. They
were duly impressed as just about everyone is. It's
quite a hobby and the technology very interesting.
