When avoiding the Internets

[ljplicease]

I have been interneting less of late and thus not posting here for a while. I'm not dead yet. As they say. The they looking for the grail of course.

For Labor Day weekend, (I believe I mentioned), (that was 3-5 September), we went to Connecticut. Connecticut is an odd duck in my emotional sphere. I don't have any friends, or even acquaintances who live there, (and it is no New Mexico), but it was the first place that we lived in America, waaaay back in 1980. I have a very positive vibe about New Haven, and especially the The Peabody Natural History Museum, because my dad used to take me there when I was little, and I still love Dinosaurs as a result. Last year when my dad came to visit I got to take HIM to the the Peabody for a change. Almost immediately after we got back I read that Ralph Nader had opened The American Museum of Tort Law. So on this years return trip it was our first stop on Sunday. Lena was very skeptical, but told me she thought it was inspiring. It wasn't a very big museum, but what it did cover was very interesting. I think people don't really understand tort law, and in fact are dreadfully misinformed about a lot of important cases. Big companies take advantage of this ignorance by trying to gut tort law in the name of “reform”. The museum was inside an old bank in a small town in the northwest corner of the state. Next stop was the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford. Coincidentally, Lena and I had watched recently the episode of Star Trek where they go back in time and meet Mark Twain, and I have always hated that episode because it puts words in his mouth that certainly didn't ever belong there. I was reading that after his death, his surviving daughter worked hard to “manage” his legacy. I think she sort of put words in his mouth that perhaps didn't belong as well. On the other had, she had a much closer relationship with the man, so it is hard to not be sympathetic. On Monday we went to the Connecticut Trolley Museum. We got to ride a couple of their trolleys and look at some more. They also have a nice collection of old fire trucks. It was time to return to New Jersey.

Mum was giving a talk at Rutgers, so we were able to have dinner with her and Lena's folks Monday evening. Tuesday is Lena's day off, and I was able to work remotely, so we were in New Jersey for Tuesday as well, and drove back home Tuesday night. This allowed us to stay an extra night with Lena's family, and to avoid the Labor Day traffic! Good call.

Last weekend we picked up Lena's new car. She got a Subaru Impreza. So we now have an AWD for the winter. The only hiccup was that there was a dent in the hood, so they promised to replace it and give us some freebies for the trouble. Anyway, that minor issue notwithstanding, it is a very nice car. Actually when I got my Civic earlier in the year the Impreza was the only other car I seriously considered, of the many that I test drove. Mum and Don also just bought a 2016 Civic, and Lena's Impreza is a 2016. I pointed this out at dinner with my mum the weekend before and she was like “oh they are all going to break at the same time!” I hope not! After getting the car we went to a Gene Wilder double feature: Willy Wonka and Blazing Saddles. It was good fun.

This weekend I tidied up the house. Actually I have been slowly working on this for the past few weeks. Everything was in place today to finish the spare room and the downstairs, which I did. Mum and Don are coming out next weekend, and they are bringing our neighbors from Australia... a close family friend. So the cleanup was just in the nick of time.

The only other thing that we did this weekend was go to our group dance class. Only we were the only couple that showed up so it was basically a private lesson for the group rate.

I also got a new film scanner and photo printer. So I expect to play around some with that over the coming days. I was quite pleased with the test scans and prints that I did. The printer is huge. I suppose I should have expected since it can print up to 19x13". Mostly I like to print 8x10, but I can see how it will be fun to be able to go even bigger sometimes.

Comments

[arwen-of-lorien.livejournal.com]

I would never imagine there was such a thing as tort law museum, but I'd definitely check it out, given the opportunity. I can only imagine what interesting things one may read there.

[plicease]

It was fun. And inspiring. But short. But short is sometimes good. Also there was a nice pizza place 'round the corner. Good stop in small town CT.