We couldn’t have asked for better weather, better friends, or a more perfect day.
Tag: Life Page 1 of 3
Enough about me, what do you think about what I just said?
With it hot as a genital reference in the city today, my lady friend and I decided to head to the ocean. What better way to cool down than show a southern belle a former confederate prison in the middle of Boston harbor? I am a genius.
She forgave my cultural faux pas, and pretended to be impressed by my Indiana Jones-style cavern finding. However, this faded when I asked a man on a golf cart how to get to where I wanted to go. This was after she paced out the distance from one wall to the relevant air shaft. Apparently asking for directions isn’t always the right thing to do if one wants to impress a lady.
Spent the week at a robotics conference in San Diego, which was less the beach romp than I thought and more slow suffocation by Powerpoint. I saw right inside the belly of the military-industrial complex, and while I was pleased that the starred generals there had “saving lives” as their ultimate goal, it was clear that they are only counting American lives. One large company (name redacted) played a video of its vision for the future, which included having robots autonomously determine the threat posed by a man in a turban driving a truck toward a checkpoint, and asking Marines to let it fire on him. Of course they accepted, and disaster was averted. Another life saved by the intelligence of military robots! Of course, the robot I work on is designed to save casualties and will not be armed, but we’ve already had discussions of having it run “point man” operations, where it is the first guy through the door. Scary stuff, and I’m not sure I’ll happy to be working on it if we go that way. Might have to run back to the warm welcoming arms of academia. Going to bed now to catch up on sleep, maybe everything will be right with the world in the morning…
I guess I’m officially an adult now; working for the man every night and day. But I’ve still been able to get out and enjoy the summer. We celebrated Klara’s last week in town with a trip to the Harbor Islands. This was the first visit in my memory, although Janet informs me that I was taken there as a little tyke. I probably had as much fun this time exploring the fort and watching the re-enactors fire their cannon as I did when I was four. Standing in a pitch black room, lit only by a single shaft of light from above, we practiced our maniacal laughter. Had a picnic lunch overlooking the harbor, and then took the interisland ferry to a smaller island where Hana and I napped on the beach while the others explored the abandoned WWII battlements.
Four years, 218 credits, and nearly $200,000 later, I’ve got a diploma. Sweet.